Vendetta Read Free

asked worriedly. “Were you caught in a fire? Is J.T. all right?” J.T. Forbes had protected Vincent for the ten years that he had remained in hiding from Muirfield, the secret government organization that had turned him into a beast. Now that Vincent was a fugitive again, J.T. was also at risk.
    “J.T. is fine,” he assured her. “And I wasn’t
caught
in a fire. I ran into one. A little girl was trapped in a tenement and it would have taken the firefighters too long to get to her.” He shrugged. “So I went in.”
    Although he was standing directly in front of her, a frisson of anxiety skittered up Cat’s backbone. Fire could claim Vincent’s life. When her father had turned Vincent into an apex predator, Vincent had lost his ability to heal himself. To stave off her growing panic, she reminded herself that she had seen no burn marks on his naked body, and he seemed fine. Still, she couldn’t shake her instinctive reaction. If anything happened to Vincent, it would be worse than if it had happened to her.
    “Was she all right?” she asked as she threw on fresh work clothes. “The little girl?”
    “She was a little shaken up. Smart kid, lay on the floor below the smoke. I heard her telling the fire captain that an angel saved her.” His grin was lopsided. “Good thing he didn’t look up. He would have seen that angel dangling from the side of the building after the floor gave way. Without any wings.”
    “That was risky,” she said, and he shrugged. They locked gazes and laced their hands together. She knew they were both thinking the same thing: there were things in this world worth risking everything for—their relationship, his freedom, even their own safety—and a human life was one of them. For all the suspicion and fear cast Vincent’s way, and all his protests that he wasn’t Batman, he was definitely a hero.
    “You should leave a change of clothes here. ” She cupped his cheek, taking time to appreciate just how wonderful he was. “For all the other daring rescues you’re sure to undertake.”
    He laid his hand over hers. “So far we’ve been able to convince everyone that you had nothing to do with my escape from custody. If you suddenly stockpiled men’s clothes in your apartment, that’d look pretty suspicious.”
    “I could say I’m collecting things for a charity drive,” she argued. “With a few on hand that aren’t your size, my excuse would be more plausible.”
    She could tell he was thinking it over, and allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. Even though she’d become a cop instead of a lawyer, which had been her original career goal, she could still argue the finer points of any position she took. She loved that Vincent could hold his own against her, and did when it mattered to him. They were two opinionated, driven people, taking life head on, ready to fight for what was important, but learning to back off when harmony between them was more important.
    A siren blared down Bleecker, which was on the south side of her building. She shifted back into work mode, zipping up her jeans, putting on her coat, and slipping on her black gloves and a charcoal-gray knitted cap. It was bitterly cold out tonight. Hopefully that would keep less-motivated would-be looters from venturing onto the streets.
    “Anyway, think it over,” she asked him. She rose on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye, wondering how long it would be before she saw him again. This part was always so difficult. Too difficult, and tonight it was veering on painful when she considered that he would have sacrificed his life willingly today to save that little girl.
    “I have to go,” she said unnecessarily. What she meant was,
I never want to let you go.
The soft expression on his face assured her that his heart heard her unspoken words, and that he felt the same way.
    “I’ll patrol, see if I can keep NYPDs crime stats down,” he said. “Help out a few folks.”
    “Thanks. But
please
be careful. It’s dark,