by Kaylea Cross
EXPLOSIVE VENGEANCE
Vengeance Series
Kaylea Cross
EXPOSIVE VENGEANCE
Copyright © 2019 Kaylea Cross
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Cover Art: Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs
Developmental edits: Deborah Nemeth
Line Edits: Joan Nichols
Digital Formatting: LK Campbell
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.
ISBN: 978-1-928044-35-2
ABOUT THE BOOK
Two opposites in uncharted territory.
The government made Chloe Wilson an explosives expert, trained to take out a target with a precise, controlled hit. But there’s nothing controlled about her current situation—or the danger coming after her. When a good-looking stranger is sent to watch her back, she’s not impressed. This mission is personal, and it’s liable to get her killed. The former Valkyrie can’t afford any mistakes or attachments, but this time she has no choice, and soon her new partner proves his worth.
One explosive situation.
When former Pararescueman Heath Barrett gets a call from his best friend asking him to keep tabs on a woman in danger, he has no idea what he’s getting himself into. Far from a helpless civilian, Chloe holds him at knifepoint the first time they meet. She’s a deadly operative being hunted by lethal enemies and by the time he realizes the extent of the danger, it’s too late to walk away. Now they’re both targets, and he and Chloe must face the threat head on—and if they want to survive, they’ll have to do it together.
DEDICATION
To all my readers who love strong heroines! Thank you for following along on my Valkyries’ adventures with me.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Here we are at Chloe’s story! She was maybe the most fun heroine of mine ever to write, and I hope you’ll fall in love with her in this book. Never a dull moment with her around.
Happy reading,
Kaylea
Table Of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Excerpt: Toxic Vengeance
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMPLETE BOOKLIST
Chapter One
Chloe Wilson tugged at the hem of her pearl gray suit jacket and checked to make sure her hair was still securely wound into a tidy bun at the back of her head before turning the corner and entering security camera coverage of the target building. Pausing on the sidewalk outside the entrance in the cool October night air, she adjusted her black-framed fake glasses, her stage makeup disguising her true appearance.
Let’s do this.
To ensure this meeting happened in total privacy, it was after hours. Situated in the center of Paris’s business district, the building was all but deserted now, only a single security guard stationed at the front desk in the lobby.
She used her security pass to scan herself in. The guard glanced up from his work to study her for a second, then went back to looking at whatever he was reading as she passed by on the way to the elevator.
The meeting room was on the nineteenth floor, the floor-to-ceiling windows framing an incredible view of the lights of Paris. Her target was already waiting for her in the private conference room next to his office. Like everything else Dominic Dubois owned, this place was sleek, expensive, and paid for with dirty money made from the criminal empire he and his brother ran.
“Ah, Gabrielle. Right on time.” A fit, attractive man in his early thirties, Dominic rose in his custom-made suit and walked to the antique sideboard to help himself to a drink. “Brandy?”
“No, thank you.” She set her briefcase on the table and sat. This was their third meeting, so she knew the layout of this entire floor—including all security measures, entry and exit points—by heart. There were no cameras in here. Because Dominic Dubois carried out his most private business transactions here. Things he didn’t want a record of or anyone else to know about. Which was perfect for her.
He didn’t realize the biggest threat to him and his empire was in the room with him right now.
Chloe held his stare, a sense of triumph rising inside her. The Valkyrie Program might not exist anymore but she was still running ops on her own because they needed to be done and she had enough money put away to live on for the time being. This was her time now. She’d chosen to spend it delivering the kind of karma to evil people that the universe wouldn’t, spreading out her targets with time and distance to mitigate the chance of being identified and captured.
Sipping his brandy, Dubois leaned back against the sideboard and crossed his ankles, completely oblivious to what was about to happen. “You’ve got the documents ready?”
The fake contract authorizing the sale of twelve women he had smuggled into France several days ago, mostly from French northern Africa. Chloe didn’t know where they were and she needed to find out if she was going to have a chance at saving them.
“Yes.” A rush of power surged through her as she watched him coolly, maintaining the ice queen businesswoman persona she’d used to infiltrate his organization to get to this point. She’d only attended a handful of meetings in person because she hated them and preferred to work anonymously, but also because it minimized the risk of her cover being blown. It added to her mystique, and Dubois ate it up.
He stared at her for a long moment, expression unreadable, then pushed up from the sideboard and crossed to the door behind her. The sound of the lock turning put her on instant alert as he turned to face her.
His dark brown gaze was shrewd. Cold as he measured her. “Remind me, Gabrielle. How long have you been working for Monsieur Roche?” Her fake boss who supposedly loved buying women sold into slavery, and then dispersing them across the globe to brothels and clients who paid top dollar.
She kept her expression passive, all the while reviewing her contingency plans for the best exfil option if this went sideways. Dominic was clearly suspicious. What did he know? “Three months.” Her cover had been set up with the help of a female friend united in their cause to rid the world of scum like the man before her—men who got rich off the suffering of the women they sold like farm animals into a fate worse than death.
“Three months,” he mused. “And yet, in all that time, my people haven’t been able to find out much at all about you. Until now.” His stare hardened. “Chloe.”
It took everything she had not to show her reaction to hearing her real name. Inside, cold spread through her gut. How did he kn
ow her name? How? She frowned at him in confusion, maintaining her cool. “My name is Gabrielle.”
His mouth twisted. “Liar.” He whipped a hand into his jacket and came up with a pistol.
Chloe exploded out of the chair and hurled it at his head. He barely had time to raise his arms to protect himself before it slammed into him, knocking him sideways. Chloe was on him the moment he hit the floor, wrenching his wrist up and back. He let out a yelp of shock and pain as the weapon tumbled to the carpet.
His gaze shot to hers in astonishment but she was already jamming a needle into the side of his neck. His eyes widened. “You—”
He never finished that sentence. The dosage in the syringe was powerful, already making him slump over. He wouldn’t lose consciousness, would remain aware of his surroundings, but unable to move.
“You’ve been a very bad boy,” she murmured, straightening to slip the syringe back into her interior jacket pocket. “But guess what? The party’s over now.”
Dominic Dubois was a waste of oxygen and needed to be disposed of. Despite the things he’d done—including keeping a personal sex slave from each new shipment of women he arranged, before selling her once the initial thrill was gone for him—corruption within the law enforcement and legal systems ensured he evaded justice at every turn.
No more. Tonight, Dominic would pay the ultimate price for all the evil and suffering he’d caused.
She dragged him from the room to the elevator reserved for his private use. The one without security cameras so no one else knew who he came and went with—or who he was smuggling in and out of the building. This freaking idiot might think he knew who she was, but he clearly didn’t, or he never would have met with her alone.
She pressed his limp palm to the biometric scanner next to the door, shoved his face into the screen for the retinal scan, then hauled him inside and rode down to the private parking area beneath the ground level. He made a garbled sound, lying in a crumpled heap at her feet.
Chloe drove him home in his own vehicle, leaving a voice text for her contact on the way. “Compromised. Picking up precious cargo at target house. Meet me at the place in one hour.”
The luxury townhome Dominic kept was in the Arrondissement de Passy, one of the wealthiest areas in all of Paris. This was his private domain, where even his security was not permitted access. She parked in the garage, entered the code she’d memorized into the security system, and dragged him into the spacious, spotless kitchen before getting to work.
By the time the drug wore off he was bound and pinned spread eagle to the wall, and she was back in her usual wardrobe of tight black cargo pants and long-sleeve shirt, her hair pulled into a long ponytail at the nape of her neck. The charges were in place, and she’d pulled the precious human cargo from the upstairs bedroom that served as the woman’s prison for the past several weeks.
“Can you talk yet?” she asked him in a bored tone.
Though she was anything but bored. She was pumped, and more than ready to end this evil, privileged asshole’s reign of terror for good.
Dubois blinked several times, agitation clear on his face as he tugged at the nylon ropes keeping him immobilized. A worm, wriggling on a hook. “What the fuck do you want?” A tremor of fear shook his voice.
“I’m so glad you asked.” She stepped up to him, stopping close enough to smell his expensive cologne, and put her face inches from his. “I want to destroy you, Dominic. I’m going to take everything from you. Starting with the money you’ve made off selling women.”
He bared his teeth, looked like he might spit at her, so she slapped him across the face, cracking his head to the side. “Fuck you,” he spat, his eyes promising murder. “I’ll fucking kill you for this.”
She laughed in his face. “I’m not the one dying tonight. Now. How do you know my name?”
“I know everything,” he spat.
Nope. He couldn’t. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to interrogate him about that further. The clock was ticking. She needed to get this done and be out of here within the next twelve minutes if she was going to make it to the RV point in time with the captive she’d just freed.
Turning her back on him, she strode to the island where she’d left her tablet, then spun back around to face him. “I’ve got your secret stash account information right here. You’re going to give me your password, so I can transfer the money in it to me.”
He gave a derisive laugh. “I’m not telling you shit, bitch.”
“No?” She drew her silenced pistol, aimed at his thigh, and fired.
He screamed as the bullet ripped into his leg, writhed in his bonds and snarled more threats at her.
She gave him a cool stare, unmoved by his pain. He deserved to suffer. “I’ve got a full mag here, Dom. I’m fully prepared to use every shot and then some to get this done if necessary. It’s up to you. How many holes do you want punched in your oily hide?”
“Fuck you,” he gasped out. “Fuck you, you—”
Chloe drew her knife from the scabbard on her thigh and hurled it at him.
A high-pitched scream rent the air as the knife buried to the hilt in the wall an inch beneath his spread groin. His eyes were so wide the whites showed around his irises, full of terror and shock as he stared first down at it, then back up at her. “You’re fucking crazy,” he choked out.
He wasn’t the first to say so, and he wouldn’t be the last. He also wasn’t wrong. “Yeah, I am. So, we doing this? Or shall I keep going?”
His chest was heaving now, his face sweaty and pale, looking like he was going to be sick as blood dripped down his pants and onto the spotless marble floor. “You won’t get to keep the money long enough to use it,” he snarled, his eyes glazed with fury and pain. “You’ll be dead before you can spend a single Euro.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She’d heard threats like that before. She raised an eyebrow, then her pistol, taking aim at his other thigh. “Password.”
He gave it, then snarled a stream of obscenities and threats. Chloe tuned them all out as she made the transfer, satisfied only when the thirteen million landed in the account she’d set up specifically for this transaction.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” She tucked the tablet into a pocket on her thigh and looked over her shoulder at the woman huddled in the far corner of the kitchen. “Kaya, you can open your eyes now. It’s done.”
She waited until those wide, dark eyes focused on her, the terror in them twisting her heart. But Chloe wanted Dubois to see this next bit. Wanted him to see this woman he’d kept as a slave walk free while he was powerless to stop it. “I need you to go pack one small bag, quickly, and come right back down. Do you understand?” she said to Kaya.
That frightened gaze remained locked on Chloe. But she nodded. “Oui.” She pushed to her feet, shaking, then shot a panicked look at Dubois and fled upstairs.
“You can’t take her,” he rasped out, still bleeding all over his pretty floor. “She’s mine.”
The man was delusional. Beyond any chance of redemption, in this life or the next—if there was such a thing. He was about to die, and that’s what he was worried about? “She was never yours, you fucking psychopath. And she’ll never be yours again. Her or any other woman. Because you’re about to die for what you’ve done.” She stalked over to yank the knife out of the wall, paused with the blade against his groin and enjoyed the flash of stark terror in his eyes.
Kaya reappeared a minute later, a tiny bag in hand, her gaze darting between Chloe and Dubois. Chloe gave her a reassuring smile. “Time to go.” Kaya had been terrorized far too much already. She didn’t need to see the rest of this.
But before she left Dubois to his fate, she couldn’t resist one last parting shot. She took a moment to rake her gaze over the length of him, helpless and bleeding on the wall. “No one’s going to protect you this time. You’ve been playing with fire for way too long, and now you’re finally going to get burned. See you in hell, asshole.”
His threats and shouts of rage followed them into the garage. Chloe put Kaya in the front passenger seat of his Audi, then reversed out into the street and shut the remote garage door. “Close your eyes,” she told Kaya as they drove away. “You’re safe now.”
When the woman did, Chloe slipped the small detonator out of her hip pocket and pressed the button.
The resounding thud of the explosion reverberated in her chest. She glanced up at the rearview mirror to check her work.
The windows on the main floor were aglow with flames, smoke already pouring through the shattered windows. On either side of the townhouse, the only damage to the neighboring buildings was some broken glass.
Perfect, she’d calculated it just right. No one else would be hurt. The fire crews would arrive shortly to prevent the fire from spreading to the other buildings, but the heat of the incendiary material she’d used would ensure Dominic Dubois was little more than ash by then.
Kaya wrenched around in her seat to look out the back window, then stared at Chloe. “You…killed him,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“Yes.” And she wasn’t sorry. “You’re safe now. I’m taking you to a friend who will look after you. She runs an organization that takes care of women escaping from this kind of situation.”
Kaya sniffed and wiped at her eyes, her voice rough. “You did this for me?”
Chloe gripped the steering wheel tighter, wanting to kill Dubois all over again for what he’d done to all the women like Kaya. “For you and all the others he hurt.” She was doing the world a service by ridding it of cockroaches like him.
“Why?”
“Because someone has to.” She’d seen a lot of trafficking during her sanctioned ops over the years—drugs, weapons and people—and most of the assholes responsible for buying and selling other human beings had gone unpunished or overlooked because they didn’t warrant a spot on the government’s list of priority targets. Chloe was doing her small part to balance the scales.