The Redemption Saga Box Set

by Kristen Banet

  “Have you heard from him?” Vincent asked.

  “Once. Orders passed. Follow the plan. I didn’t want to think he…”

  “So you didn’t follow the plan or go through with it. You just waited and realized he’s really expecting you to end it.” Sawyer sat back down. “Yeah.”

  “Kill him,” she snarled. “Show him what it means to betray me. To leave me to hang for him. I was loyal, and I loved him, and he…”

  The anger was back. Sawyer knew it so well. She’d loved him and he’d brutalized her. He had killed the few things that had mattered to her at that time in her life.

  Sawyer needed Missy angry. Angry meant she would want her piece of the man and would give up anything. She couldn’t let Missy fall to the broken heart.

  For once, seeing the anger and the crazy in Missy’s eyes was a blessing. Sure, the woman had tried to beat herself to death on a wall, but the nurses and guards stopped her. Now they needed to keep her alive while that rage continued to temper and grow, until she gave them everything.

  “So we need to get our hands on Felix…” Sawyer frowned. She didn’t remember what Felix managed for Axel.

  “He’ll probably be the last you get to. Axel started keeping him very close once we got rid of you. We might have thought you were dead, meaning you weren’t a threat, but Axel lost his best killer when he lost you. He grew a little paranoid. That only got worse when we discovered you were alive. Felix does everything for Axel, with Axel. There’s no separation between the two now.” Missy began to giggle. “Felix is in love with him. It’ll never happen.”

  “Apparently it’ll never happen for anyone,” Sawyer mumbled. That made Missy sober up too. How many fell for the charismatic man, only for him to lead them to their destruction? Sawyer and Missy. Felix was next. How many did she not know about? Henry’s mother, the prostitute who Sawyer never knew? Was she even a prostitute, or had she been someone who played the game and lost, and that was just the story he gave?

  “So, Axel made Felix so loyal to him that when he could have gotten out, he dove right back in. Brought you back to life, got Axel out, and continued on with business…” Vincent stood up now and began to pace.

  “Of course. Have you met your brother?” Missy’s comment was snide, but they all knew Vincent’s question was rhetorical. They all knew Axel was good at getting people to draw close to him by dazzling them, giving them things and attention.

  Then he was good at slowly taking it all away until the person was so dependent on him that they had nothing else, no one else. Nowhere to turn for help. Nowhere to hide.

  That’s the reason everyone died when they tried to get away from him. Sawyer had been lucky. She had fought hard to survive that night when she realized her plans had all gone to hell, even after the doppelganger had put two bullets in her. After they had tortured her. After they had dumped her in the ocean.

  The hazy and awful memories came back like the tide. Choking on water and blood. Pain consuming her body, she swam for the shore, desperate. She called on her magic, even though it could have killed her too, which helped close the distance. She dragged herself out, coughing and weak. She stole car after car. She could get to New York, certainly. Someone there would help her. Someone had to stop him. She couldn’t die until someone avenged Henry and Midnight.

  “Sawyer?” Vincent was suddenly in front of her. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, stepping back as she pushed the memories back down. “Got lost for a minute.”

  “I never understood what broke you and him,” Missy commented.

  “He killed my animal bond and then his own son,” she answered. “After years of him beating and blackmailing me, he killed the only things that could keep me in line.”

  “I didn’t know he even had one until recently. Felix told me after he revived me that Axel had failed once in getting someone revived by him and that Felix would never fail him again. Which is why he saved me.”

  Sawyer’s throat threatened to close up.

  “He tried to bring back a boy?” Vincent asked, incredulous and upset.

  “Necromancy isn’t some dark art. It’s just difficult and rare and needs to be done within hours after the death, where the damage to the body isn’t so bad that it can’t be repaired. Axel didn’t get whoever it was to Felix in time.”

  “That would explain why Felix is now always with Axel,” Vincent said, nodding. Sawyer curled her arms around herself as he stared at her. She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think or even consider the possibility that Henry could have still been in the world with them. If he was, maybe she would still be Axel’s monster. Or maybe she would have had the courage to run for it with him.

  The ‘what ifs’ would kill her if she followed them too far, so she stopped thinking about them.

  “Start giving us names and addresses, Missy. All of them you know.” It was a command and one that didn’t allow for disobedience. If the doppelganger wanted to betray her former master, then she needed to prove it.

  Right on cue, the rest of the team walked in, looking between Sawyer, Missy, and Vincent. Jasper was at her side immediately, wrapping an arm around her waist. Zander glued himself to her other side. Elijah and Quinn went to Vincent, flanking him. It was as if the team knew their leaders would need the physical comfort. That they would be raw from dealing with Missy alone for this long.

  They were right. She was feeling raw. She was also feeling ready. She was so ready for this.

  13

  Sawyer

  Sawyer stood in the front of the room, in front of a projection of their targets’ profiles. Missy gave them so much, Sawyer had nearly felt lost at where to start. One team to take out eight of Axel’s inner circle? It was impossible.

  Then Vincent had mentioned something about having every available resource, they could pull it off. And he’d been right. She felt the annoyance of having to trust other teams, but it was something she could deal with.

  Which is what had led to this. Only a day after Missy had broken wide open for them, pissed off at Axel, and Sawyer now had two extra teams to help in the case.

  “Are you sure I can trust them, Thompson?” she asked softly, not taking her eyes off the profiles in front of her.

  “I’m positive. They’re strong teams and will take orders.” The Director stepped around her and blocked her view. “Is this it? Three raids in a single night.”

  “The first night, yes. Then one team is going to take a break while two teams do a raid. Then we all go back in for the last round. Three rounds. I want it done in less than a week.”

  “That’s…”

  “We can do it,” she promised. “It’s why I have you keeping any local IMPO agents on standby, to clean up our messes so we can move quickly to the next. Our only objective right now is fast strikes and clean captures. The rest, you can sort through.”

  “Was this part Vincent’s plan or yours?”

  “His. I just agree with it. If we move fast enough, we’ll knock Axel off balance. We’ll ruin his side of the board and he’ll be left scrambling. It’s our best bet.” She knew Thompson was concerned about the pace. If someone was injured, they were out until it was over and then teams would be working a man or more down. If one escaped, the others would be alerted too quickly for the IMPO to continue the raids.

  Which is why she didn’t mention anything about knowing where the safehouses were. Missy had given those up too, but unless they were needed, she wasn’t going to send people to them. They were the perfect corner to back her enemies into. If that leaked, then it was over. She was back to square one without anyone to give up anything. Only her team knew those addresses and hideaways, and it was going to stay that way.

  “They’re all ready to come in,” Vincent called. She looked over her shoulder and nodded. He pulled the door open. Zander pulled his feet off the center table. Jasper took his leg off the table and began to put it back on, Elijah helping, sinc
e they had been checking the enchantments on it, to make sure they were strong. Quinn left his wolves with a bone in the corner, which made Sawyer look down at Sombra.

  Through the bond, Sawyer pushed the idea of partnership and family. Together, she and Sombra were going to go hunting. It was time for her to let the jaguar off her leash. They had to trust each other, work together. Sombra, the massive jaguar, wasn’t Midnight, the vulnerable housecat. This time, Sawyer wasn’t the target, which meant Sombra wasn’t one.

  No, this time, they were the predators and they had the first play.

  The only thing Sawyer got back was the solid acceptance and eagerness for the hunt. It was exactly what she needed to feel from her feline.

  The two supplementary teams entered the room, taking places in the back. They were all professional. No comments were made. The COs positioned themselves at the front, much like she knew Vincent would have done if it was their team.

  “You all know why you’re here?” she asked loudly, letting it carry over the room. She knew they hadn’t been told, but they might have heard a whisper. She had to make sure they hadn’t heard too much or there was a bigger leak she would need to worry about.

  “Special Agent Castello and Director Thompson only said we were needed. So we came. What’s the case?” One of the COs decided to take a seat as he spoke. The other followed suit. Sawyer continued to eye the other teams. She was the only woman in the room. These teams were all just a bit older than her guys, probably in their thirties. They were broad-shouldered men, intimidating and ready for action.

  They would work.

  “Vincent and I, along with our team, are running a case that isn’t public. Not officially.”

  “My brother escaped from prison. We’ve been tasked to track him down.” Vincent met her gaze from across the room. They didn’t add that the team, specifically her, was supposed to execute him when they found him. That wasn’t the priority. Not yet.

  A few of the IMPO agents covered up gasps with coughs. A couple others didn’t bother, just lighting up the room with a string of curse words that she was nearly impressed by.

  “How?” one demanded.

  “A member of his organization is a doppelganger. She switched places with him when he made an extended trip to the medical wing after he got jumped by other inmates. That’s what we know. The problem is, we learned that nearly a month after the incident.” She shoved her hands in her coat pockets. New York was so cold that even the meeting room inside the IMPO headquarters was freezing. “We all got brought into the Triad and Councilman Suarez’s mess, which meant Axel went unnoticed for a long time. We’re behind.”

  “What changed? Do you need manpower?” One of the other agents was practically tilting his head like a curious dog.

  “We’ve gotten the doppelganger to flip, when she realized Axel wasn’t going to break her out, no matter how close she was to the top of his organization, or him. She’s been giving us information about how and where to find his inner circle.” Vincent walked up next to Sawyer. “These are the people we’re after. We needed more hands to help grab them. Director Thompson recommended your teams.”

  “Yeah, we can help with this. I didn’t know Steel was a Ghost. Would explain how fast he climbed up and took over South America’s drug world. We’ve been hunting him for a year.”

  “We know where he lives, where he sleeps. His other properties. You’re going to get him.” Sawyer smiled as the other agent did as well. She liked these guys a lot more than other agents she had met.

  “And when we get him?” the other CO asked, leaning back in his seat.

  “We’re going to get all of them. Night one, we’re going to execute three different raids on them, taking who we can. From there, we’re going to hit another two.”

  “They’ll figure it out and dig in deeper,” one complained.

  “Yeah, they might.” Sawyer looked back up to the faces in the projection. “The problem with Axel’s men and women is that they don’t back each other up. They’re all self-serving. If one of their colleagues was caught, they have no reason to believe they will be. That person failed. That area of Axel’s organization will need to be rearranged and new management will need to be found. That’s why he runs this the way he does. They don’t all sit around him, all the time. They are off handling business, with nothing on them that could lead back to their boss…or each other.”

  “Which means they have no reason to think they’ll be at risk if we take out two or three.” The CO was nodding now, accepting the logic.

  “I figure, we’ll get round one off cleanly. Round two might be a little more difficult. We’re planning on hitting all of these in a week. By the third, there’s a chance they’ve finally ducked for cover. A chance. And this isn’t everyone. These are just the main members. Axel has others.”

  “And when he gets worried, he’ll call all of them to him, to protect himself,” Vincent continued. She’d never felt more in sync with him than in that moment.

  “It’s like fox hunting,” one of the new agents snorted. “We’re flushing them out of their tunnels, making them go to ground, and we’re the hounds.”

  “Exactly.”

  She wanted Axel to be alone. She needed it. If he still had places to hide, people to duck behind and distract her, she would never get him. This was too perfect to pass up, and it made sure none of his current most loyal people would come back to break him out or take his place.

  The anger she had felt since his escape was now side by side with a violent happiness.

  “We’ll readjourn in an hour. I think my team is hungry and you all need time to think about whether you want in on this.” Vincent waved a hand, dismissing everyone casually. Sawyer tapped Zander’s shoulder to get him to follow the team when he didn’t move like the rest of them.

  They walked out the back of the IMPO building on the ground floor, Vincent lighting a cigarette the moment he had the chance.

  “They’ll say yes,” he said, before anyone else could even consider starting up a conversation. “Sawyer?”

  “They look like they can handle it. I didn’t feel like any were out to get me either. Not a single one of them threw me a side-eye or snide comment. That could change, but it would be nice for it not to happen ever again. We have enough to worry about without drama concerning me.”

  “Agreed.” Elijah nodded her way. “They don’t seem all that bad. When do we want to start strikes? You and Sawyer hadn’t decided yet by breakfast, and I would like to know before you two go in there and tell them.”

  “Tomorrow night.” Vincent answered. “Everyone okay with that?” Nods all around. “Perfect. Missy is secured, and we increased protection on Talyn as well. It shames me to say, but Missy has given us everything she can. Now we need to not fail in protecting her.”

  “Yup.” Sawyer hated the woman, that hadn’t changed, but they’d made her a promise. They would keep her alive, let her live a decent life away from crime for the information. Not a free life, but better than just being in a prison cell. Now they just needed to succeed in the task, which meant it couldn’t get back to Axel until it was too late for him to do anything about it. “We can do this, Vincent.”

  “What do you want to do if one of the other teams captures Axel, on the off chance it happens, or he happens to be there?” Vincent was watching her carefully now.

  She didn’t have an answer, not a good one.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it,” Elijah instead spoke up. “If they can secure Axel, perfect. We win. If they have to kill him, even better. It was still our case, our break, that led to it. She goes free.”

  “We can’t give him back to the WMC alive. They’ve proven they can’t be trusted to keep him,” she whispered. “I’ll execute him if any of the teams capture him. I promised the WMC I would deliver that blow. They’ll see his body in the end, no matter how it comes.”

  Vincent was watching her carefully and she looked away, unable to
handle the stare. She wanted it. She wanted to kill Axel, bleed him out. She wanted to watch the life fade from his eyes and drop to the ground. For everyone. It was better she did it. She could kill and her guys would never have to. She could take out this evil in their lives so they didn’t get hurt. She wanted to take it from them, so they didn’t have to worry about it.

  “Okay.” Jasper stepped next to her, kissing her cheek. “We’ll be there with you for it.”

  She nodded, closing her eyes. They weren’t going to turn away from her when she did it. That was important. She had worried. She still did. She knew if she had to cross another line, betray a trust to do this, to make them all safe, she would.

  She hoped they wouldn’t turn away from her when she did that. She had run from Axel before, thinking she would always fail. Been a coward. Not this time.

  She reminded herself she wasn’t going to lose another one. Not like she had lost Henry or Midnight. She and Sombra were going to avenge them and protect their new family.

  “We can do this. Just another case. If you have to kill, then that’s how it goes,” Quinn said patiently. “Sometimes, it’s the only way to stop evil. And it’s the best way to protect the world around us. Kill the thing ruining the ecosystem.”

  “Always with the nature metaphors,” Zander teased. “Is there a nature metaphor for threesomes?”

  Elijah snorted. Sawyer rolled her eyes. Jasper began to chuckle. And suddenly, the world felt less heavy. She playfully glared at Zander, trying to ignore the small amount of embarrassment she felt. She wasn’t going to hide anything she did with the guys, but she couldn’t stop the small, very small, blush threatening to expose her.

  He just grinned in response and she knew he’d said something to make everyone laugh a little. He’d grown up so much.

  “Is there a nature metaphor for jealous?” Elijah asked, wiggling his eyebrows. “If you ask nicely, maybe Quinn and I will play with you too.”

  Quinn growled, and it was one of those growls she only ever heard in the bedroom. There was even a teasing touch to it.