Rebirth of the Broken Luna A Second Chance at Luna's Heart novel Chapter 220

Chapter 220

BULLET

But as the second boy approached our truck, his excited voice calling out about wanting ice cream, I felt a chill of recognition that had nothing to do with the truck’s freezers.

*Ice cream! Ice cream man!” the boy shouted, his green eyes bright with childish excitement as he waved his money trying to catch up to us. “Wait up!”

tree?

This had to be Ollie, the target I was supposed to eliminate. But if this was Ollie, then who was the suspicious-looking kid under the

The one who hadn’t moved, who was still watching our truck with the kind of wariness that suggested he’d learned not to trust

strangers or he was very suspicious of people that he didn’t know very well.

The boy who looked exactly like the child I’d watched Sophia throw off a cliff.

“What flavor do you want?” the excited boy called back toward the tree, obviously addressing his twin, looking back at him as he continued speaking.

“What’s your favorite?”

The response that came back made my hands tighten on the steering wheel until my knuckles went white.

‘Just get whatever you’re getting,” the boy under the tree called back, his voice carrying a note of caution that sounded far too mature

for his age.

I knew that voice. I’d heard it before, pleading and crying as Sophia had hurt him, whimpering in pain as shed forced him to endure

her ‘lessons, the same kid that accepted his fate when Sophia finally pushed him off the clitt.”

It was Riley Kingston, the boy who was supposed to be dead, sitting under that tree like a ghost come back to haunt me.

“Two scoops of vanilla, please,” the boy at my window said politely, holding up his money. One for me and one for my brother.”

I stared at him, this child I was supposed to kill, and felt my composure beginning to crack. This was Ollie Blackwood, my primary

target, standing right in front of me and asking for ice cream like this was any normal day.

“Two… two vanilla,” I managed to say, my hands shaking as I reached for the ice cream scoop.

How was Riley alive? How had he survived that fall? And what was he doing here, in Alpha Zade’s territory, living like he belonged to

this family?

15:06 Wed, Jan 28 M…

Chapter 220

I served up the ice cream like a robot, my mind still spinning around with a lot of implications and questions that I knew better not

to ask.

The boy at my window chatted cheerfully about the hot weather and how good the ice cream would taste, completely oblivious to the danger he was in.

‘Riley!” he called back toward the tree. “Come get your ice cream!”

But Riley because I was certain now that’s who the cautious boy under the tree was

–

didn’t move immediately.

He was studying our truck with the kind of suspicious attention that suggested he’d learned to be wary of strangers. Smart kid. Too smart for his own good.

When Riley finally stood and began walking toward us, my panic reached a high level as I tried to will myself to remain calm. He couldn’t see me. If he recognized me, if he remembered my face from that day at the cliff, everything would fall apart. Our cover would be blown, and we’d be trapped in hostile werewolf territory with no easy escape route.

I shoved the ice cream cones at Ollie without taking his money and hit the gas pedal, desperate to get away before Riley could get

close enough to get a good look at me.

“Hey!” Ollie called after us, still holding his money. “You didn’t take my money! Hey, ice cream man!”

In my rearview mirror, I watched Riley approach his twin, saw him take the offered ice cream cone but continue staring after our truck with obvious suspicion. He didn’t eat the ice cream, didn’t smile or laugh like his brother was doing. He just stood there, watching us disappear around the curve with the kind of intense focus that made my skin crawl.

“What the hell just happened?” Jake demanded from the back of the truck. “Why’d we run off like that? And why didn’t you take the

kid’s money?”

‘Change of plans,” I said grimly, my mind already working on how to salvage this situation. “We need to get Riley first. He’s the real

threat here.”

‘Riley?’ another one of my crew members asked, pushing his face forward to get in view of the rear mirror as he asked. “I thought Riley was dead. Sophia said she took care of that problem.”

“Well, Sophia was wrong, I snapped, taking a sharp turn that led away from Alpha Zade’s property, glancing back to make sure that we weren’t being chased by his guards, if they have noticed us. “That kid under the tree was Riley Kingston, and he’s very much alive.”

The implications were staggering and even impossible to absorb. If Riley was alive and living with the Blackwood family, it meant Sophia’s entire plan had been compromised from the beginning. It meant we were walking into a situation that was far more complex and dangerous than we’d been led to believe.

“Tommy,” I called to the crew member with the satellite phone, ‘call Sophia. We need to know what the hell is going on here.”

Tommy dialed the number we’d been given for emergencies, his face growing more concerned as the seconds ticked by.

15:06 Wed, Jan 28 M….

Chapter 220

“It’s not going through, boss,” he reported. “Goes straight to some kind of automated message saying the number is no longer in service.”

Dead phone. No contact with our employer. And Riley Kingston, the boy who was supposed to be dead, living comfortably in enemy territory while we stumbled around blind.

This job had just become infinitely more complicated.

“We’re going back,” I decided, already planning our return route. “Tonight, when there’s less activity. We get Riley isolated somehow, demand some answers about how he survived and what he knows. Then we finish what should have been finished at that cliff.

“And the original targets?” Jake asked.

“Still on the list,” I replied coldly. “But Riley is the priority now. He’s seen too much, knows too much. Maybe his survival the first time was luck or a miracle, but I’m not leaving anything to chance this time.”

I thought about the way Riley had watched our truck, the suspicious intelligence in his young eyes. That kid had learned to be careful, had developed the kind of survival instincts that came from living in danger.

But survival instincts wouldn’t save him from a professional killer who knew he was coming.

This time, I would make absolutely certain that Riley Kingston’s heartbeat stopped permanently.

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15:06 Wed, Jan 28 M..

Reborn From Regret A Second Chance at Luna’s Heart