Vigilante

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Yeah, definitely don't need any space," she said, snuggling in closer, sounding somehow both giddy and dreamy at the same time.

  Thank fuck for that.

  I didn't realize how much I needed to hear that until she said it. With certainty. And maybe with a little sex still in her voice.

  "Glad to hear it," I said, giving her a squeeze, then rolling her off me, so I could stand.

  "How are you walking right now?" she asked, making me turn back with a huge grin, my pride enjoying that little ego boost.

  "Doll, I've been on the road all fucking day. I think you were putting food out when I got here."

  "I see," she said, folding upward, and reaching for her clothes, smile wicked. "Fuck you and feed you. That's all you want from me, huh?"

  "Not even fucking close," I said, giving her a hard look that made her eyes go a little dreamy before I grabbed my clothes and headed out to the bathroom.

  "Where's Barrett?" Ev asked a minute later, meeting me in the hall, fully dressed except I could tell she forewent the bra. And, hey, anything that gave me easier access to her body was something I was all for. "And Diego?"

  We moved out toward the dining room, finding Barrett's plate empty, but with a note sitting beside it.

  For once, it was neither in Polish nor code.

  Diego is positively traumatized by your 'reunion.'

  We're at the office.

  - B & D

  "He keeps kidnapping my bird," she said, shaking her head as she went about loading up plates for the both of us.

  "I think it's time to accept that Diego isn't yours anymore. You now share custody with Barrett."

  "I would be annoyed, but he somehow taught him to only do his business on the tree stand. And that is a damn miracle. So he can steal him all he wants."

  She moved to sit down next to me, reaching for her fork.

  My hand caught hers, noticing she had finally taken off the chipped polish. My thumb ran over the bed of her nail, the lines still there from the mid-point and down, but the fresh growth was clear. "The rash was gone too," I added, meaning on her chest.

  "I feel better too," she admitted, giving my hand a squeeze. "I don't think I even realized how poorly I was feeling until it stopped. I have you to thank for that," she said, eyes going soft. Then she did the damnedest fucking thing. She leaned over and rested against my arm, her head on my shoulder. "I have you to thank for a lot of things," she added.

  "Ev..." I said, trying to shrug it off, trying to shake the weird discomfort I felt inside at receiving her gratitude.

  "If it weren't for you, I'd still be following a serial rapist across the world. I wouldn't know he wasn't my father. I wouldn't have found my mother. I wouldn't know I was being poisoned."

  "You would have figured that out eventually, Evan."

  "What? When I had kidney failure or cancer? Geez, take a compliment."

  I smiled at that, leaning the side of my head down on the top of hers.

  "Alright, I'll take it," I agreed, feeling awkward.

  "You know what?" she asked after a long silence.

  "No, what?"

  "I think I'll take you."

  EPILOGUE

  Evan - 10 days

  Oh, good lord, the movies.

  Okay. I mean, alright, movies were great and all.

  But Luce was extremely adamant about fixing my deplorable 'cinematic education.'

  Every conversation seemed to lead to another movie that I would simply have to see.

  I had a feeling, and I felt it with a sinking sensation in my stomach, that maybe Luce liked movies so much because he could live through them in a way his real life wouldn't allow him to.

  He lived his life in cages. At his father's beck and call, in the woods watching pot grow, locked up in some dealer compound in the city. Then, as he grew and moved on with his life, mostly in a house on a hill all by himself. He barely maintained acquaintances, let alone friends. He didn't have romances. He didn't explore. He didn't have adventures.

  So he watched all of that in film.

  He could see the world, fight wars, fall in love, have road trips with buddies, go to outer space.

  It wasn't that I didn't get it; I did.

  It was somewhat how I felt about a good book, how I liked getting lost in the worlds. Though, I admit, I was nowhere near as devoted to novels as he was to movies.

  And I had to say, when he lit up talking about some amazing action scene or unexpected plot point and how I had to see it, I was charmed. I also felt like, in seeing the movies he was so passionate about, I got to see different parts of him as well.

  That being said, I was not used to spending every night of my life curled up on a couch. Granted, being curled up there with Luce was maybe one of the best feelings in the world. Because we never just watched movies. His arm was always around my shoulders, and sometime in the middle of a movie, his fingers often found their way into my hair, sifting through the strands gently. Many times, my legs would wind up over his lap, and his free hand would stroke up and down them, driving me to distraction until the credits rolled, and I could straddle him and get relief from the need coursing through me.

  So, after ten straight nights on my couch or in my bed with some gem of a movie - and a couple ones that had me raising a brow at him - I decided I had had enough.

  I was fine with following his preferred interests, knowing that my own interests were, well, making poisons and traveling, neither of which I could do in Navesink Bank, but he was going to have to give in a little too.

  "Fuck, doll," he hissed when I walked out of the bedroom. Since we had been hanging out in the house for over a week, I had maybe gotten a bit lazy with the dressing thing. In fact, if I managed to slip into panties and one of his tees, that was a lot. We ended up naked most of the time anyway.

  So his reaction to my tight black dress and heels wasn't overly surprising. I had put some time and care into my hair and makeup as well.

  I figured getting him out of his comfort zone might take a little persuasion of the sexy nature. Which was something I was completely fine with.

  "What's this?" he asked when I handed him an envelope.

  "Open it," I demanded as I moved to stand in front of him.

  He looked up, brows furrowed slightly. "Movie tickets?"

  "I like sharing your movie interest with you, Luce, but I am about to go out of my mind being locked in this house. Normally, I would want to drag you to some salsa club or play or something. So let's call this a fair compromise, yeah?"

  He watched me for a long minute, head ducked to the side. "Yeah," he agreed, giving me a nod.

  It didn't seem like a big deal to most, but getting Luce out of the house to do anything other than hit the coffeeshop, Barrett's, or the grocery store was a real feat.

  This was a small victory for us, and, I thought, a step in the right direction.

  Luce - 5 weeks

  I knew this day would come eventually.

  We knew it would come eventually.

  Because, no matter how strong my feelings were becoming for Evan, I was still me. I still needed to do the things I did. I still had a mission in life that didn't involve movie marathons, late night drives with meaningful conversations, and enough sex to make me actually need to remember to hydrate it was so intense.

  All those things were fucking amazing.

  They were way more than I deserved.

  But they weren't, and couldn't, be everything.

  For either of us.

  This meant that Evan was doing some looking around in Navesink Bank for possible job opportunities, or even educational opportunities. She was keeping an open mind, and trying to find something to do with her life that gave it meaning, that made her happy.

  I already had that.

  And that was why this day had to happen sooner or later.

  I had been ignoring my pager for weeks.

  It was time for me to get back to work.

  We b
oth knew the day would come, that I wasn't somehow a 'reformed man,' that my missions had to go on.

  Could I say that Evan was exactly thrilled about it? No. Of course not. Not because she would see me any differently, not because she had an issue with my killing scumbags. No.

  When we talked about it, she told me her only worry was my getting caught.

  And there it was again, that tight, swelling, warm feeling in my chest. It was getting stronger as the time went on, insistent and distinct enough for me to no longer be able to do anything but call it what it was.

  Love.

  I fucking loved her.

  I loved her in a way I didn't know was possible, with a depth I didn't think I possessed, with a heart I was sure had shriveled and died in my chest when I had a face buried in a pillow at seven years old.

  I was sure any goodness, anything even capable of feeling something as selfless as love was gone.

  Apparently, I was wrong.

  Evan brought that out of me.

  I was pretty sure that nothing I could do, not if I tried for decades, could ever show her exactly how much that meant to me. It was humbling to realize how wrong you were about yourself, that someone else could see things in you that you didn't know existed.

  And she loved me back.

  Which was an even bigger miracle.

  She loved me back, despite my past, despite my darkness, despite what I did for a living.

  But this was the first time where I would have to, in essence, test that theory. We had been living in a comfortable little insulated bubble. Sure, she was certainly dragging me out with her more and more, taking me to see movies, music, going out to dinner.

  I had been out on the town more in the past five weeks than I had in the past fucking five years.

  And I liked it.

  But we couldn't live forever in her house.

  I had to go back to work.

  I ignored a bunch of lesser offenders that had been sent my way over the past month, no one being a big enough scumbag to drag me away from what I had only just found with Evan.

  But then I got a page with a 111.

  And a 111 was shit that needed to be looked into.

  A 111 was a human trafficker. Of children. Into the sex trade.

  It didn't matter how much I loved spending time watching movies and bullshitting with Evan about her travels and plans for the future. I couldn't just sit there and pretend I didn't know that information, that I wasn't the only one who could take care of it.

  "Three days," I told her as she came out of the bedroom.

  Three days was too fucking long, but it was what I needed. I would only be a few minutes away from her technically, but I might as well have been a world away.

  "Okay," she said, nodding, sounding completely unaffected. Then she held up something in her hands, some leather satchel with a belt to wear it around the waist.

  There was a strange tightening in my gut that I couldn't place. "Doll, what's that?" I asked, hearing the uncertainty in my own voice.

  Then she flipped the flap open, and produced a small piece of what seemed like pointed wood, stuck inside some protective plastic cover.

  "You said a child sex trafficker, right?" she asked, holding the little arrow thing up to the light, and squinting at it, then replacing it, picking up another.

  "Yes," I agreed, glad to be able to talk openly. This was thanks to Barrett dropping by every other or third day to pick up or drop off Diego, depending on his schedule, always doing a sweep when he did. The careful fuck.

  "Okay, this one then," she said, holding out the second needle/arrow thing.

  "Ev, what is this?" I asked, having a feeling, which was why my lips were tipped up, but wanting confirmation.

  "Something that will kill him. Quickly," she added, shrugging. "But painfully."

  Did I mention I fucking loved her?

  Because I fucking loved her.

  And as I tucked the item in my pocket, and pulled her in for a kiss, I knew it. I knew it down to my marrow.

  We were going to be just fine.

  Evan - 3 months

  Three months.

  That was how long it took Luce's buddy Barney to make the necessary documents for my mother. Barney was eighty-years-old if he was a day, living in a building that was practically falling down, but with an apartment that had freaking gold fixtures.

  The best forger on the east coast, as the rumors went.

  Which was why it took so long.

  Not because he had too many clients, but because he was an absolute perfectionist. Which was good. When it came to forged government documents, you wanted them as close to the real thing as possible.

  But the papers were shipped to my mother the week before.

  And the plane had landed five minutes ago.

  Me?

  I was a nervous wreck.

  Why?

  I wasn't entirely sure.

  This had always been the plan. I wanted her in the States where we could truly reconnect, where we could tell stories, build bonds.

  Sure, there was a part of me that had my stomach in knots because, as I had told Luce in bed the night before, I was terrified to share my stories.

  All of them involved Alejandro.

  I finally stopped thinking of him in familial terms: father, dad, papi.

  He was Alejandro.

  He was the man who took me around the world, showed me things I would never have seen without him, sure, but he wasn't my father.

  In fact, my actual father was some nobody farmer from Brazil who died in a freak bus accident just two months before I was due to arrive.

  This was why Gabriela had made the decision to come try to move to the States- for me, for our future. She knew that if she stayed there with me, I would likely end up married young, working as a cleaning lady or on a farm, have a bunch of kids, and continue a cycle of poverty that her own family had been in for generations.

  It was enough to send her on a two-year-long mission across Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally... Mexico.

  All I could think as she told me this over the phone one night was, how cruel was it for her to travel safely with a baby through eight countries, getting nary a scratch, only to be brutalized as soon as she finally, finally reached her destination.

  "She knows exactly who you traveled with, Ev," Luce had said, shrugging it off. "She has had months to wrap her head around the situation. She might hate him, she might never forgive him - and she fucking shouldn't - but she isn't going to expect you to alter your stories to make them more palatable for her."

  I was trying to put my faith to rest in that.

  Time would tell.

  "Stop wringing your hands," Luce said, grabbing one of them, curling his fingers in, and giving them a squeeze. "There's nothing to be nervous about. She loves you. You love her. When that happens, everything shakes out how it is supposed to."

  I knew he was right.

  But my stomach didn't unknot until she walked up, got into the back of the car, and hugged me from behind, letting off a string of Portuguese so fast that none of it made sense.

  "That's all you brought?" Luce asked as he pulled away from the curb, and pointed us in the direction of Navesink Bank.

  My mother's luggage was all of one large rolling suitcase. Aside from her purse, that was it. Granted, she lived in a small home, and couldn't have had many possessions to begin with, but still.

  "I want a fresh start," she said, shrugging it off. "I have one box shipping in with house wears. That's all I need. I will buy new once I start work."

  She allowed Luce and me to get her an apartment, only conceding when we informed her that the money wasn't from our pockets (or Alejandro's stash), but from the dickhead child sex trafficker who had almost thirty-thousand in his Bitcoin wallet. It was more than enough to pay for her apartment for a whole year, as well as do a few alterations like painting the walls, updating the appliances,
and getting her a bedroom and living room set.

  It was humbling to me to be able to give my mother the head start in America that she had wanted for me as well as herself. Twenty-four years late, sure, and after much heartbreak as well, but it happened.

  We were together.

  We were building our lives.

  And all of that, literally every last bit of that, was thanks entirely to Luce.

  If he hadn't been looking for - and found - Alejandro, if he hadn't made him disappear, if he didn't make it clear online that he had, I never would have sought him out. Had that not happened, I wouldn't have learned the truth of who Alejandro truly was; I wouldn't have known about (or found) my mother. And, you know, I likely would have been really sick from arsenic poisoning.

  The crazy thing to me was that Luce never seemed to grasp the enormity of his presence on the earth. He had spent so much time angry, shameful, vengeful, that he wasn't able to see that through his actions, he changed countless lives. Maybe the men he had killed had hurt their wives or children who would then be free of his torture. All the children who might have been molestation victims never had to have their childhoods taken away from them. Women who had been stalked, raped, beaten, could sleep easier knowing their abusers were long dead.

  Sure, he was a vigilante.

  He killed people.

  But that wasn't all he was or all he did.

  It was my mission in life to get him to see the length of his reach, the depth of meaning in his actions.

  Maybe I shouldn't have been okay with having a killer for a boyfriend. Maybe that wasn't normal. Maybe it wasn't even sane.

  But that being said, I had grown up with someone who took lives for a living; I had seen the aftermath of actions men like the ones Luce killed left in the world. I understood the need for lives to be cut short.

  I didn't mind his job.

  In fact, some nights while he researched, I was right beside him, reading over his shoulder all the horrible things people have done, and suggesting which poisons might be the best bet for taking them out.