A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite)

by Natalie Damschroder

  It took him some effort to get her out of the tight space. She wasn’t sure how the hell she’d gotten in there. They both struggled, Skav with his meaty fist buried around her windbreaker and trying to yank her out, Reese trying to get him to let go while her legs were still tangled and wedged. Eventually, he won out and hauled her to her feet.

  “Don’t!” she cried out as soon as she was upright. She used her disorientation to stumble a few feet either way. Skav mirrored her movements. The other man didn’t move, simply stood implacably while he watched the two of them play out a Keystone Kops routine. His stare bored holes in her back, but she didn’t look at him. She concentrated on Skav, the man she knew, the man her character would be loyal to and afraid of.

  “I came to warn you.” She dusted her sleeves off and tried to look at him with concern instead of panic, flicking a deliberately mistrustful glance at Suit Guy. “The FBI raided the house right after you left. Dob and Bark got arrested, but the other actor and I got away. I don’t know how the feds knew. Maybe they had someone on the inside.” She darted another scowl. “Anyway, you can’t go back there.”

  There were so many holes in that story the boat should be sinking. But it had the desired effect.

  Skav’s eyes widened and he let go of her arm. “What?”

  Suit Guy apparently wasn’t concerned, at least for now, about why she’d been in the cabinet. “Why did you not tell me this when you first arrived?” he demanded smoothly of Skav, who frowned, looked around, and hauled Reese down into the salon. She inhaled and coughed. It was hot down there, and it stank of stale cigarettes. It surprised her this refined-appearing man would allow smoking.

  He followed them down and closed the door. He wore an ivory silk suit this time, with ruby cufflinks and a matching ivory hat with a black band, much fancier than the first time she’d seen him. He looked a little like Prince before he changed his name to a symbol. As he circled them, his eyes were dark and gave her an impression of hollowness, but she didn’t think he missed a thing.

  Then she realized she’d been foolish to concentrate so hard on Skav. Suit Guy had a gun. With a silencer.

  She was so fucked.

  “I didn’t know about it!” Skav rushed to explain. “No one called me. You heard her, she said it happened after I left.”

  “And who is she, that she knew where to find you?” He managed to put so much disdain into the inflection of “she” that Reese half expected her skin to fall off, flayed in strips.

  Skav didn’t seem to know what to do. He held her arm in a death grip, but backed them across the room. “Armen—”

  Armen—Suit Guy—raised one eyebrow, and Skav corrected himself.

  “I mean, Mr. Missirian, sir, she was one of the—”

  Armen raised the arm with the silencer-equipped gun, and before Skav could finish his scream, he shot him in the chest.

  Everything in Reese told her to run, but she knew he’d just shoot her in the back. Time slowed down as the gun swung around to her. She thought about leaping forward to knock the gun out of his hand, but she was too far away. She’d never make it. The power she’d drawn from the cell phone vibrated in her arm, but the battery had been low, what she’d collected too little to do much damage, and she was hesitant to draw from the boat. She wasn’t sure what the power supply was or how to access it, and had no time to figure it out.

  So she laughed. Pretended she knew Skav had turned, watering the seed she’d sewn by mentioning “someone on the inside.” Hoped like hell Missirian didn’t notice her pulse pounding in her neck, or how dilated her eyes probably were. And tried not to let her eyes dart around the room, frantic as she was to get out.

  She had to either convince Armen she wasn’t a threat, or confuse him so he hesitated to treat her like one.

  “I guess that takes care of the FBI, huh?” She moved forward and shuffled a little to the right, as though she didn’t want to be near the body. Armen didn’t move. “He didn’t know I knew he was a snitch, but your setup in The Charms was pretty sweet. That guy who wanted to do me, though, wasn’t too thrilled. Guess he didn’t get his money’s worth.”

  It worked. Kind of.

  Armen lowered the gun a couple of inches and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what game you are playing, or what you hope to gain, but I am not amused.”

  “I’m sure.” She struggled to think of something more to say while she felt for the boat’s electricity. There was faint current running through the wires, but not much. Setting aside her nervousness, she grabbed and tried to draw, but it resisted, as if it came from storage, not something that forced it into the building. Boat. Whatever.

  Her need to find Big K had been superseded by her need to stay alive, and she fought to concentrate, to keep Armen engaged so he didn’t just suddenly hate something she said and pop her, like he did with Skav. He would anyway, eventually, but seemed reluctant to do it now. Thank God.

  “I mean, this whole scene isn’t very amusing,” she added. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who likes strangers showing up and whatnot.”

  She traced the faint current to its source, which felt like a super-charged battery. Calm, slow, controlled. She drew on the power, hoping to keep it slow enough it didn’t dim the lights. She tilted her head. Almost there, but she wanted to be closer to him. He wasn’t within arm’s reach.

  “But I need to get paid,” she insisted. Yes, money was the kind of goal that would drive someone like the character she was playing. “If the FBI is shutting you down, I want my money now.” She moved forward and snapped her fingers in his face.

  He didn’t like that and tried to back away, raising the gun as he did. She angled left, forcing him to move to her right, and that put Skav’s body right where she’d been aiming—under Armen’s feet. He stumbled. She pushed all of the electricity into her hands and slammed them against his chest.

  His body jolted as it fell, his hat flying off, the gun falling from limp fingers. Somehow, she grabbed it by the barrel. She’d seen too many TV scenes where a falling gun went off when it hit the floor.

  Armen oofed when he landed, then lay there twitching. Maybe she’d electrocuted him. She hesitated, wanting to run but having more reason to stay. The right thing to do was call the cops, but how the hell would she explain all this? Even if they didn’t think she had something to do with Skav’s murder, the plane crash would come up again. If her fears were right and Big K hadn’t acted against her since the crash because she hadn’t been an immediate threat, she bet being involved in Armen’s arrest would trigger whatever Big K had in reserve.

  Which brought her full circle to her original plan—determine who Big K was and put a stop to his activities in any way possible. She could tie up Armen while she searched the boat. But it was always possible someone had been close enough to hear the gunshot, even silenced, which could make getting away harder. And now—

  She looked at the gun in her hand. Now her prints were all over the murder weapon as well as the boat. She found a stack of bar towels behind the wet bar, wet one, and rubbed the barrel hard, then again with the dry end. But then what? She stood, holding the gun with the towel and trying to decide where to put it. She hated leaving it behind for Armen to retrieve when he woke up, but she didn’t like guns and didn’t want to take it with her—besides the fact that it was evidence in a murder.

  If the police found out about Skav and investigated, she wanted them to be able to find the weapon. So after wrapping Armen’s hand around it a few different ways, she carried it back to the couch and shoved it under the cushion. Maybe Armen would leave too quickly to search for it. Rubbing down everything she’d touched in the room didn’t take long, then she took the towel outside to do the same on the wood of the cabinet and the rail where she’d climbed on board.

  The marina was quiet, just the lapping of tiny waves against hulls. No footsteps or voices. No sirens. Maybe she had time to search the vessel. But her gut told her there’d be nothing—not
if they’d already sold the boat. There was only one source of information here.

  She went back to the salon and found Armen on his hands and knees. Head hanging, limbs shuddering as they tried to support him, but on the move.

  She stood in the doorway and waited. He supported himself on a bolted-down table, then the wall, panting. When he spotted her he tried to wipe the drool off his lips. She fought the urge to exploit the hard bite of satisfaction the sight gave her. She wouldn’t become like them, no matter how much they deserved punishment.

  “Who is Big K?” she asked, holding her hand behind her back. He was dazed, hadn’t looked around for his gun yet, so hopefully he’d think she still had it.

  “You think I would tell you?” He tried for derision but missed the mark. She watched him scan the salon and prepared for him to make a move. There were no weapons in sight and he was still too weak to fight her. This time, she knew she could take him. But she wasn’t going to press her luck.

  “I want to know who and where your boss is. I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

  He laughed at that, straightening and letting go of the wall. His eyes were a little clearer, too. She was losing the edge.

  “Sorry, little eel. You’d have to do more than shock me with a Taser to get anything out of me.”

  Banked fury, fed for all the days since the plane crash, flared bright within her. Hatred burst into a seething, roiling cauldron of darkness that trimmed the edges of her vision. Armen smirked, and Reese lost it.

  She lunged forward and closed her fists around the lapels of his fine suit. Her still-sore left thumb protested, but she didn’t loosen her grip. Couldn’t show him any weakness. If he wouldn’t give her answers, she’d force them.

  “Look, you asshole,” she ground out. “Your boss tried to kill me and my husband, and I won’t rest until I get revenge.” A tiny, cooler part of her mind told her she was being stupid, but she couldn’t stop. She shook him. His legs wobbled and his weight sagged. She knew he was doing it on purpose, trying to get her to let go, but she yanked him up into her face. “Tell me.”

  “Or what?” he sneered, somehow regaining his haughtiness despite her upper hand. “You’ll kill me? People like you are no threat because you can’t follow through. You want to be as hard and cold as we are, but you’re soft and weak, and you can’t do anything that will make me say a word.”

  Soft and weak. Soft and weak. The words echoed around in her head. Blood pounded in her ears. Her breathing rasped, harsh in the quiet room. And Armen just hung in her grip, smirking.

  She wanted to hurt him, to do something so horrendous he’d never be able to smirk again.

  But he was right. She couldn’t.

  Her hands loosened and he sank, catching himself before his knees hit the floor. She shifted her grip and yanked him up, and something hard in his pocket knocked against her knuckles. Excitement skittered under her skin. She shook him again, baring her teeth, and his smirk deepened, as if he saw through her posturing. When she let go of his lapels she tugged him off balance, so he stumbled. As he righted himself, he didn’t notice her left hand dip into his jacket. He reached for the gun he’d dropped earlier, came up empty, and tried to cover the uncertainty flickering across his face by snapping his jacket into place and shooting his cuffs.

  He never even glanced at Skav’s body on the floor at their feet.

  She concentrated on appearing desperate and frustrated, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets and hunching her shoulders. She didn’t tell Armen he was right about her—no way would she feed his smug superiority, even as misdirection. But she did force herself to turn her back on him, a foolish move someone like her might make at this moment. He didn’t try to stop her as she climbed up the companionway, crossed the deck, and walked down the gangplank, but she felt his eyes on her all the way up the dock, until she turned the corner around the big yacht.

  Hold it together. Her knees quivered and her gut roiled. Get to the car. Don’t let anyone see you anywhere near a murder scene.

  There were a few people around the marina office, so she straightened and walked normally as she circled the building and crossed the street to the apartment building. A large, heavy sedan rolled past her into the lot and parked two spots away from her car. The old man, slow as he was, managed to ease out of the vehicle before she got into hers.

  “Evening.” He smiled at her.

  “Hello.” Dammit. Please let him have memory issues.

  “New to the building, are you?”

  She shook her head and dug her keys out of her jeans pocket. “Just visiting a friend.”

  “Ah. Well, nice night, isn’t it?” He wobbled to the back of his car and opened the trunk, which was full of grocery bags. Dammit again. He didn’t look up at her as he gathered his bags, but his hands trembled as he lifted two of them and tried to close the trunk. How could she walk away and leave him with all of that?

  She couldn’t risk anyone remembering her being here, even if he was unlikely to recall her after ten minutes, never mind connect her to the murder at the marina—all assuming Armen didn’t cover it up completely. She unlocked her car door, squeezed her eyes shut in resignation, and half turned back toward the old man.

  “Is there someone to help you with those?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head and began a shuffling, off-balance gait toward the building. “But the exercise is good for me.”

  What kind of monster had she become if she didn’t help him? But she had to protect herself, too. He’d obviously done this before, and whistled as he found his stride and moved surprisingly quickly toward the building. Forget the guilt. She forced herself to slide into the car.

  She pulled out of the lot and passed two cop cars less than half a mile down the road.

  It could be coincidence—chances were slim that anyone could have heard or recognized the silenced gunshot over the other sounds of the marina, and she doubted Armen would call the police himself. But her adrenaline spiked enough to get her halfway home before she fell apart.

  It started with the shakes. A bit of shock in the wake of the adrenaline and the near-death experience. As her body reacted, her control slipped, and the electricity she’d stored added its own vibrations. Tears spilled over and, afraid she’d disable the car, she pulled off the road into an emergency stopping area. A sob broke, but she heard it with detachment. She was cold and hard inside, not frantic and wild, though there was a jagged edge she couldn’t smooth over with even breathing. Rain spattered the windshield. She watched it collect and pour down the glass, willing her physical reactions to subside or her emotions to catch up.

  She’d witnessed a murder. Why wasn’t she more appalled? Was it because she believed Skav had done horrendous things? Was his death deserved? It wasn’t her job to decide that, or to accept it. Okay, the death hadn’t come at her hand, and Armen had probably always intended to kill him, putting the blame on him for the raid. But she hadn’t done anything to stop it, hadn’t reacted with the shock and horror most people would. So where was her guilt over that?

  She tightened her hands around the steering wheel, an unfamiliar quaver of uncertainty joining her physical shaking. What was this quest doing to her—the real her, deep inside? After the crash, she’d had non-stop goals: Physical therapy. Control. Cover. Revenge. Those had given her the bakery and the townspeople of Crestview, but even if she managed to keep those precious things after this was all over, would they be enough? For a year she’d been battling for recovery, battling her abilities, battling to find and deal with Brian’s old partner. How would she fare with no battle to fight? Would she ever be able to find peace?

  Her shudders slowed, and she wiped the tears off her face. Those answers would come in time…but not if she never reached the end. After the heat of those early days, when she’d recovered physically and wound up in limbo with Brian, she could have stopped. She could have released all her anger and bitterness and lived a normal life. The fear that Bria
n’s crimes could someday rebound on her was ephemeral and, as far as she could tell, currently unsupported—the authorities might no longer be investigating those crimes. If they were, continuing her quest could draw her back under suspicion.

  She drew a deep breath and stared through the silvered water on the windshield into the vast darkness beyond, a deeper, more fundamental truth settling over her. She wasn’t all about the muffins, justice, or retribution. Only a little about the guilt, and most definitely not the money.

  She was all about purpose.

  And she’d chosen the wrong one.

  The admission should have freed her. In books and movies, such a revelation was a breakthrough, allowing the hero to choose a new path.

  But she still had that damned phone in her pocket, weighing her down.

  She slowly let go of the steering wheel, flexing and extending her fingers to loosen the cramp in them. Armen’s BlackBerry was the newest model, lightweight and high-tech, but when she slid it from her pocket, much the way she’d slid it from his as he’d taunted her on her lack of follow-through, it sat in her hand like a heavy brick.

  She knew it was here. Somewhere. Big K’s name. Where to find him. Maybe even evidence of his crimes.

  But she didn’t turn it on. If she did, she’d relinquish the choice she faced, and she wasn’t ready to do that. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow, after she saw Brian. If he showed signs of recovering, it gave her even more reason to pursue this course, to fulfill the goal she’d always said she had, telling him she’d gotten justice for what happened to them.

  But if she remained on that path, it could cost her any chance she had with Griff.

  The choice was too momentous. She couldn’t do this now. So she set the phone aside without turning it on.

  And it felt better than anything she’d done in a very long time.