“You’re afraid you what?” I ask.
Nico clears his throat, but doesn’t meet my eyes. “I drove there to stop whatever was about to happen.”
“And did you? Is Gael alive?”
Both Nico and Zane look at me with practically identical looks of confusion on their faces. They’re probably wondering the same thing, namely, why I even care whether Gael is alive.
“The mom, Nancy, came to pick up her daughter just as I got there, so there was no need for me to intervene.”
Nico clears his throat again and this time looks at me point blank. “But I would have intervened. And I’d probably have killed him. I can’t just sit at the computer watching a little girl get molested, Bianca. I can’t.”
I asked him not to call me by my real name, and him doing right now feels like a bolt of lightning hitting my chest.
“We now have confirmation that he’s still at it,” Nico continues. “We have the power to stop him. If the courts and the church get involved, who knows what will happen. He could walk. Be assigned to another church somewhere else to continue doing what he’s been doing.”
“He’s speaking sense, Bianca,” Zane adds. “You know he is.”
Great, now they’re both using my real name. And Zane is completely disregarding the fact that I’m his Sarge. I take a few deep breaths to try and calm down before replying. It’s not working.
“So, you both think we should just kill him?”
“Why not?” Zane asks.
“Like I said, I can’t watch him fondle a little girl. I can’t,” Nico adds.
“He’ll do worse than just fondle her,” I say automatically, in a voice that’s as monotone and dead as Zane’s used to always be.
“Exactly,” Nico says, while Zane looks at me expectantly.
But how can I just throw away all my convictions, my morality and do this thing? What does that make me? A vigilante, that’s what. And I’d be doing it for my own gain. To settle my own score. That’s not how we do things.
“Rogue told me to let you know that you should do what you gotta do,” Zane says. “He was very clear on that when he told me where you were.”
Our president Rogue told me much the same thing before I left. He basically said that the MC is behind me taking justice into my own hands on this mission and killing the priest if that’s what I need to do. Not in so many words, but close enough.
Nico gets up and comes over, sitting down beside me and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. I lean against him automatically, some more of the tightness in my chest dissipating.
“I’ll support you whatever you decide,” he says. “But?—”
“But what? I better decide to kill him?”
The tightness is back in my chest and I straighten up, but don’t shrug his arm off my shoulders. I like it there. It gives me the strength I need and can’t supply for myself.
Nico shrugs, but says, “Whatever you decide.”
“I need to sleep on it,” I say. “Alone. You two can continue drinking in Nico’s room.”
I doubt I’ll actually sleep. But being alone will give me the chance to review the footage Nico saw. And make my decision on my own.
They leave, but even once I’m alone, I just sit there, so many conflicting thoughts running through my mind I can’t seem to begin to try and unravel them.
But I must. Little Kate’s life depends on it. And very likely my own future too.
26
Nico
Zane wasn’t in much of a mood for talking once we got to my room. He proceeded to drink until he passed out on the bed, laying diagonally across it on top of the covers and snoring so loudly I couldn’t hear myself think.
