The Huntress

by Dorothy McFalls

  “What do you need me to do?” she asked.

  “Do you consider yourself still employed here?” he asked, still using that dangerously calm tone.

  Vega gave a quick nod.

  “Good. I need you to find Tyree Robinson. Have that assignment wrapped up with a nice bow by the time I get back tomorrow.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How is asking for a ransom going to get our hands on her sister?” Matt asked. “This one looks much sweeter than money.” He lunged forward and managed to poke Fiona in the side with his finger before Grayson pulled him back.

  Still holding onto Matt’s collar, Grayson led Matt into the other room. There were some things he wanted Fiona to hear, like the phone call to Jack setting the terms for the trade. There were other things he didn’t want her to know, such as what he really had planned.

  “I’m not going to kidnap Vega. After what happens today, that bounty hunter will be all over Atlanta asking more questions than a curious four-year-old.”

  “Never liked kids,” Matt grumbled. “I don’t recommend you kidnap any. Too much trouble, kids.”

  “Try to focus, Matt. My plan doesn’t involve kidnapping anyone right now. I just want to play with Vega’s mind.”

  Matt grinned at that. “Torture is a kind of mind game.”

  “Matt, not now. I need your help with this. You have to hold it together for the next couple of hours—that’s an order.”

  * * * *

  Vega left Jack’s office and went straight to the arsenal room, a small locked closet at the end of the hall where Jack kept an assortment of handguns and Jack’s new toys, a pair of advanced air gun Tasers, a new kind of stun gun guaranteed to disable a man from a distance of fifteen feet.

  She rarely ventured into the arsenal room, preferring to purchase her own equipment. But she’d been unwilling to buy a new pistol, not when she planned on getting her father’s Glock back. She weighed a light Beretta M9 in her hand. The balance felt adequate. It would do.

  She signed out the Beretta and took it back to her office to take apart, clean, and load. Though chasing after a stock broker on the run without packing any heat hadn’t bothered her, she sure as hell wouldn’t step foot into a drug pusher’s domain without some fire power behind her as a backup. Martial arts could only get her so far.

  A trigger-happy dope dealer, even a gangly teen, which was who Candice had said Tyree had hooked up with, armed with an automatic weapon or the kind of submachine gun so popular now with the street gangs would blast several holes through her before she could hope to get close enough to disarm him. And though she hoped she’d be smart enough to avoid getting into that kind of Mexican standoff in the first place, she certainly wasn’t in the mood to be blindsided by anything—not with her mind all knotted up with worrying about Fiona.

  Jack was right, of course. She shouldn’t go to Atlanta if going would put Fiona’s life at greater risk. And she should keep herself occupied with the Tyree Robinson assignment. Searching for Tyree and her drug pusher boyfriend, Byron—according to Candice—went a long way to help calm her flaring nerves.

  After seeing Jack to the airport, she drove straight to the corner of Lafayette and Griswold to wait for Bryon to arrive as Candice had said he would. Shortly after three, a man who fit Candice’s general description—slightly gangly in his long height without an ounce of fat and very little muscle—parked illegally on the road and dashed inside a diner. He didn’t stay long. With a bag in each hand, he hopped back in his huge SUV and roared off.

  Vega followed a few car lengths behind into a neighborhood called ‘Little Paris’. At one time, the city’s tycoons had built their mansions in this part of the city, bringing with them a decidedly European flare with their grand architecture. Many of the homes sat abandoned, literally crumbling on their foundations. This was a haven for the homeless and prime developments for crack houses. A few urban pioneers had moved into the area, gutting and renovating, but “Little Paris” still had a long way to go to return to its original splendor.

  Bryon parked his mammoth of a car in front of one of the smaller homes. It looked as if it had benefited from some recent repairs. Although the home screamed for a new paint job, the windows were all intact and the roof had been patched. A pirated electrical line slipped into the house through a small hole near the front door.

  Vega parked a few houses down and waited for him to disappear inside before venturing nearer. The street appeared as abandoned as the three-story hull of a showpiece sinking into the frozen ground across from where she’d parked her jeep. But she knew how deceiving looks often were in a neighborhood where eyes seldom had faces, and arms nearly always held weapons.

  With the Beretta securely in her hand and her hand in her coat pocket, she approached the house by going through the side yard of the two-story home next to it and cut through the back yard. Icy snow crunched under her boots and cars rumbled in the distance on busier streets. Her senses alert, she kept to the yard’s long shadows and crept up to the house’s back window.

  She waited several moments, making sure she hadn’t alerted anyone’s suspicions, and then rose slowly from her crouched position just below a corner of the window to peer inside. The lights in the room flickered, a common problem with pirated electrical lines.

  The room was sparse with a wooden double bed pushed up against the wall and a lamp sitting on the floor. She spotted Tyree right away. Dressed in jeans and a MIT sweatshirt, she sat cross-legged on the bed reading Pride and Prejudice. The Miss Motor City tiara sparkled on top of her head.

  There was no sign of Byron.

  She kept the Beretta in her pocket and circled around to the front of the house. She wiggled the doorknob and found it unlocked.

  “Tyree, come get the damn food I bought you!” Byron’s loud voice blew through the front door.

  “I don’t want another hotdog,” she whined. “That’s all you bring, day after day. Hotdogs. I’m sick of it. Can’t we order a pizza? They’ll put sausages on them, you know.”

  Trouble in paradise, Vega thought. Good. Breaking up the happy couple just got ten times easier. She pushed the door open a crack. The foyer was dark, empty. Not a lick of furniture to be found. She stepped inside, pushed the door closed behind her, and turned the lock. She didn’t need any unannounced guests barging in on their private party.

  “Tyree if you keep griping, I’m going to smack you.”

  Vega heard a scuffle. Playing it safe, she peered into the living room. A threadbare sofa sat across from a high-tech flat-screen television. Not a surprising combination for someone like Byron. The whole interior of the house smelled smoky sweet, like a tightly packed marijuana joint. Poison. How people could pollute their bodies that way, Vega just couldn’t understand.

  Second-hand inhalation wasn’t a new experience for her though. She pressed on to the next room, the kitchen. The cracked linoleum actually shined. The drab olive appliances gleamed. Someone had taken the time to care for them. Vega guessed Tyree.

  Two hotdogs, fixed all the way, sat unwrapped on the table.

  Vega stood in the middle of the kitchen, listening to the soft grunts and giggles from the adjacent room. The door between the rooms remained open. Tyree looked to be the kind of girl who would have insisted Byron close the door if anyone else was with them inside the house. The poor lovers were in for a rude surprise.

  Some bounty hunters stormed rooms while shouting threats and scaring the prey witless. She expected Bryon to be packing some firepower. Most likely an automatic. Scaring men with guns never seemed like a good idea. Vega preferred a subtler approach, like calmly announcing her presence and playing it by ear from there.

  She drew the Beretta from her pocket and inched over to the door. The unhappy couple still had their clothes on, Vega was glad to see. Bryon’s hips gyrated on top of Tyree’s while their lips wrestled. The wooden bed creaked.

  And for a fantastic moment, an image of Fiona flashed through her m
ind.

  “Get off her, you bastard!” She aimed the Beretta at Byron’s back and charged headlong into the bedroom, putting herself into the middle of a potentially deadly situation. The door she dashed through was the only entrance to the room. A person couldn’t wiggle through the bedroom’s tiny windows, much less dive out one of them to escape a barrage of bullets.

  “What the…?” Byron managed to utter before Vega knocked him in the back of the head with the butt of her gun. The Beretta didn’t hurt Bryon nearly as much as she’d hoped.

  He grunted and rolled off the bed.

  “Damn woman!” he shouted. “Who the hell are you?”

  He popped up to his feet, a compact MAC submachine gun, not much larger than a pistol, held tight in his hands.

  Instinct took over. She swung a flying kick, aiming for the gun’s barrel. A few bullets sprayed to the ceiling before the weapon dropped to the floor.

  Byron wasn’t so ready to give up. He threw his arm out with a wild upper cut. The move would’ve made Fiona proud. Not one to be sucker punched the same way twice, she easily ducked the blow and followed up with a quick jab to his solar plexus.

  “Don’t worry,” Vega said over her shoulder to Tyree, who was crowding against the wall. She ducked another gangly punch and hit Byron again. This time a little lower in the gut. “I won’t hurt you, Tyree. I’m here to bring you back home.”

  Tyree inched to the edge of the bed. “Home?” She sounded hopeful. Days of living in hell could do that to a girl. “Who are you?”

  “Vega.” She jumped onto the bed to barely miss being kicked in the shin. “Vega Brookes.”

  “Knock her upside the head with your book, damn it!”

  Tyree picked up her book and raised it. Vega shot the girl a dangerous look. Tyree dropped the book back on the bed.

  Byron grunted his frustration and swung haphazardly with both fists. He could hurt Tyree, acting carelessly like that.

  Vega tackled him, taking him to the floor with her.

  “You look familiar.” Tyree squinted and leaned toward the edge of the bed. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Vega.” She really didn’t have time for this. She struggled to roll Byron over and slap her handcuffs on one wrist.

  “Vega?” Tyree’s pretty brows wrinkled. “I remember now. You were crowned Miss Motor City in—”

  “That really isn’t important right now.” She managed to get the cuff over Bryon’s other hand.

  “But you understand.” Tyree slid off the bed, having to step over Byron in the process. She took a moment to straighten her tiara. “You understand the importance of this crown. You understand why I can’t go back.”

  Vega gave Tyree a blank look. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.” She pushed off the floor and placed her foot on Byron’s squirming back to keep him safely contained. “Explain it to me.”

  Tyree shook her head. The sparkling crown bounced. “I was the best. It felt good, really good being the best. I don’t want anyone to take that away from me.”

  “Whether or not you have that crown on your head, you’re still the same person.” Vega grabbed Tyree’s arms and pushed back the sleeves to the girl’s bulky MIT sweatshirt. “No track marks...and I bet I won’t find any on the backs of your legs, either. You’ve never even tried heroin, have you, Tyree?”

  Tyree struggled to pull free, tears sprung to her eyes. “I’ve smoked a joint once, but smoking does such terrible things to your skin...and your voice.”

  Vega believed her. She gave Byron, who’d become a heap on the floor, a nudge with her toe. “Rat out your boy here to the police. He’s not worth your future.”

  Tyree tried to jerk away. “He said they’d still blame me.”

  “He’s lying.” Vega tightened her grip on Tyree’s arms and locked her eyes with the girl. “I can help you talk to the police. They’ll listen. You hand them a scum like Byron and they’ll be panting at your feet.”

  “And my crown?” Tyree was beginning to come around.

  “I can’t make any guarantees.” She wouldn’t lie to the kid, not when Tyree needed to trust her.

  “I don’t know…”

  Two loud crashes rocked the rickety house, as if the front door had been kicked in. Vega shoved Tyree back onto the bed and pressed her finger to her lips. Tyree had smarts enough to understand. She nodded and stayed put while Vega grabbed the fallen Beretta from the floor.

  Vega eyed the MAC submachine gun lying next to it, but decided against taking the larger gun into the other room with her. They were messy shits. That was probably why they were so popular with the drug dealers lately.

  “Byron! Where the hell are you? You said you’d leave the door unlocked!” The incensed voice filled even the dark corners of the house. “Damn stupid bastard!”

  Vega cocked her head and listened. She picked out two, perhaps three, distinct footfalls. That would mean three guns heading her way.

  Byron opened his mouth to shout a warning. Vega pressed her Beretta to his temple and a finger to her lips. Smart boy. He sealed his lips real tight and played dead on the floor.

  She just needed to figure out how to keep herself alive and Tyree safe. Rules one…a new one in Vega’s book…avoid gunplay. Smart, beautiful, and pretty damned skilled to boot, the gun really was unnecessary. She tucked the Beretta back into her holster and stepped out into the kitchen. She closed the bedroom door behind her and unzipped her coat to display how tightly a too-small tee shirt could fit over a pair of healthy breasts.

  A dark-haired, neatly manicured man dressed in a black suit that looked vastly more expensive than the house they were standing in, strolled into the kitchen from the front of the house. Two sloppily clad, greasy strong-arms, each with MAC submachine guns of their own, crowded the doorway behind him.

  “This her?” the suit asked.

  Monroe stepped out from behind one of the strong-arms; one with so many piercing in his face it was hard to take a close look at him.

  “What’s this about?” she asked, directing the question to Monroe. His wide eyes were glassy. His expression looked sated, like he’d been given the chance to pump his veins full of drugs. God, she hated seeing him like that. “What have you done?”

  He was killing himself. And these new friends were helping.

  The second armed goon, a tall man with an eagle tattoo covering a deep scar slicing through the left half of his face, stepped forward. He looked ready to growl or bite her or both. She must have shifted her position in a threatening manner, or perhaps he’d recognized the deadly anger smoldering in her eyes. Guys like them, the ones who fed on the weak, didn’t get the benefit of the doubt with her. They didn’t deserve it.

  “Sorry Vega,” Monroe said. His glassy gaze slid over her body as he lifted his shoulders with a half-hearted shrug. “I warned you to stay out of his way.”

  “You must be Finn Kayne, then,” she said, her voice flat, cold. “Can’t say I’m overly impressed.”

  “Where’s Byron?”

  “He’s not available right now.” She let the menace build in her voice. Seeing Monroe jerk-dancing to some silent music only he could hear while Kayne’s goons leered at her like a pair of hungry mongrels made her only too anxious for a fight. One where she got to hurt people. “Neither is his girlfriend.”

  Kayne must not have liked the way she quipped that last part as if he was nothing to fear. He ripped out a heavy .45 caliber and pressed it to her forehead.

  “Is the bastard dead?” he asked. His pair of hired muscle followed his lead, aiming their MACs like well-trained hounds.

  Monroe continued to dance.

  “I can’t tell you how much I hate staring down the barrel of a gun...much less three,” Vega warned.

  “Then answer my question, damn it. Did you kill Byron?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” Kayne smiled. A row of gleaming white teeth assaulted her. He lowered the pistol, so she wasn’t too worried about getting another
hole blasted through her from that gun. But the twin submachine guns were still pointed at her, and their owners didn’t look smart enough to know when not to pull the trigger.

  “Have your dogs taken lessons on how to use those?”

  Kayne barked a laugh. “They’d shoot their own asses off before figuring out how to kill you.”

  His goons didn’t join in on the joke. Both their expressions hardened.

  Vega recognized the look. They craved blood.

  She backed up a step. “Still, could you call them off? If you haven’t noticed, you’ve got me cornered.”

  Kayne waved his hand, and his hired muscle lowered their weapons.

  “So, you’re the infamous Vega Brookes, the thorn in my side that just won’t go away?” He stepped forward and peered into her face. “I expected someone larger, with considerably less sex appeal.”

  He wasn’t the only one impressed with the view. Both of his men were grinning again—a menacing sneer like they were wondering what it would be like to tear flesh with their teeth—and their gazes remained considerably lower than her face.

  Fine. The distraction might prove useful.

  “My looks don’t change anything,” she said. “I’m a bounty hunter and I’m just doing a job. It’s nothing personal.” With her track record for bringing in the tough criminals, there were several big guns on the street who would happily shoot her just for her being who she was. She leaned against the refrigerator and watched him. If he planned to kill her, he’d have done the deed already.

  “If you promise to forget about Grayson Walker, I have no problem with you taking Byron’s girl. Byron wasn’t supposed to keep her anyhow. She’s underage, and that just brings trouble.”

  With Fiona’s life in jeopardy thanks to that bastard, Grayson, there was no force in the world that could keep Vega from doing everything possible to put him back into a cage.

  “I haven’t been assigned to hunt Walker ever since he shot me,” she said, not exactly lying.