Beautiful Vengeance

by Kaylea Cross

  I’m not defeated. Fuck you all, I will never be defeated.

  “Yep,” Amber agreed. “I’ve got the blueprints for your facility, a roster of your minions, intelligence officials complicit with your activities, a list of private donors, and —oh, what was that other thing?” she asked, turning to glance at Trinity, still at the back of the room.

  Trinity smirked, holding Janelle’s gaze. “All your money. Every last fucking penny. It’s gone.” She raised her eyebrows in an insolent expression. “Poof.”

  They’re lying.

  But against her will, her heart constricted. There was no way. No way they could have found everything. She’d been too careful.

  Without her money, she couldn’t finish her facility. Couldn’t fund the private lab she’d gone to such lengths to secure, or conduct the experiments necessary for her plan.

  “It’s over,” Amber said in a flat voice. “You failed. And now you’re going to pay for everything you did.”

  Janelle didn’t answer, but she couldn’t stop the reflexive raising of her chin. Despite what they might think to the contrary, she’d never hated her nieces. They’d merely been a convenient means to an end.

  But now she did. She loathed them with every fiber of her being. Wished she could break her chains, dive across this table and smash their too-familiar faces in.

  Relax. Don’t let them get to you. You haven’t lost. There’s still time.

  Megan’s jaw flexed as she stared at Janelle with utter revulsion. All these years later, the initial recruiting reports had been right. She was far more emotional than her sister and had a harder time controlling it. She wouldn’t have made it past the initial screening phase in Janelle’s new program.

  “Anything to say for yourself, Auntie?” Megan taunted.

  Janelle refused to give them the satisfaction of a single word in reply. They were nothing to her.

  Megan snorted. “Great talk. And since you’re not going to give us jack, this interview’s over. You’re being transferred to a max-security MI6 facility where you’ll be held until your extradition to the U.S. They’ll hold you there in some dark pit in solitary confinement while you await trial, and then you’ll stay there until the day you get the needle.”

  “Yep,” Amber agreed, leaning forward to prop her arms on the table as she faced Janelle. “And when they eventually strap you to that table and stick that needle in your vein? I’m going to be there watching. Smiling. Maybe I’ll even do the honors myself. Enjoying every second of sending you to hell where you belong.”

  Megan stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the concrete floor. Amber didn’t move. She sat there holding Janelle’s gaze for several minutes.

  Neither one of them blinked, both refusing to be the one to give in. Janelle almost chuckled at the childishness of it. Pity Amber hadn’t been as beautiful as Kiyomi. Amber had a steely core Janelle could admire. This entire effort would have been so much easier if she could just have used her own niece instead.

  Finally, Amber pushed back from the table. “We’re done. Next time you see me, it’ll be when you die.” She followed Megan to the door.

  Trinity started after them, then stopped and faced Janelle. “Oh, and Kiyomi? Is gone. Flown out this afternoon to some place you could never find her—even if you hadn’t been chained up like the psychotic animal you are.” She walked past Amber and Megan to open the door. Two guards in body armor came in, both holding shock wands.

  Amber paused in the doorway to face her one more time. “I’m glad our parents died in that accident. At least our mother never had to find out what a monster she was related to.”

  Janelle gritted her teeth against a cry of pain as the assholes lifting her from her chair jerked her sideways, jarring her shoulder as Amber’s words reverberated through her skull. They thought they’d won?

  Hardly. As soon as she got out of here and captured Kiyomi, she could create the perfect breed of female assassin on her own in a fraction of the time it would have taken to get through all the government sanctions and other bullshit. She could do it her way, following her own rules.

  But that old demon of resentment rose up once again. The need to prove everyone wrong and always have the upper hand.

  Lifting her chin, she gave her nieces a taunting smirk and a parting shot. “What makes you think it was an accident?”

  ****

  Marcus leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he watched Kiyomi, waiting for a response after he finished speaking. After helping her shower and tucking her into his bed at Laidlaw Hall, he’d just told her everything about what Amber and Megan’s aunt Jane had intended.

  Every evil, twisted and disgusting detail he’d learned from Amber and Trinity throughout the last sixteen hours. Things that kept him from sleeping far more than the pain in his hip and shoulder. “Say something, love.”

  She stared pensively into the fire, gently stroking Karas’s head with her right hand. The dog wasn’t allowed up on the bed, but Marcus had made an exception because Karas wouldn’t leave Kiyomi’s side, and Kiyomi seemed to draw comfort from her presence. “I hate her,” she finally said, so softly he had to strain to hear her.

  He settled beside her in the bed, fully clothed, and took her right hand. Her left arm was still bound to her chest, her fingers swollen and discolored. She had to be hurting all over, but she’d refused all but one dose of pain meds prior to the drive back here earlier. “I hate her too.”

  Kiyomi turned her liquid dark gaze on him. She looked almost ethereal in the firelight, the flames dancing across her face, in her eyes. There was anger there, and pain. More than from her injury. A soul-deep wound that he prayed time would heal. “I want her to suffer.”

  He inclined his head. “She’ll get the death penalty for what she did.”

  Her gaze hardened. “That’s not suffering. It’s the easy way out.”

  Marcus rubbed his thumb over the backs of her knuckles. “Aye. But if you want her brought to justice, then she needs to be brought to trial, where all the sordid details will come out. For someone like that, humiliation is a form of suffering.”

  “I want to stab her in the neck like I did Rahman. I want her to be rendered helpless and know what’s coming before she dies.”

  It probably said a lot about the state of his blackened soul, but that made him smile. “Then I’m glad you’re not in operational condition right now.”

  One side of her mouth pulled up, her eyes warming a little. “But the others are, except for Trin.”

  “The others are busy doing other things, and some of them are downstairs acting as our private security force right now.” Megan and Chloe. God help him, Itch and Twitch on the loose in his house while Ty and Heath did a patrol of the grounds.

  Her gaze turned thoughtful. “Maybe Chloe could blow her up. But not enough to kill her. Only a small blast, so she’s dismembered. Then Heath could stabilize her and stop her from bleeding out. While she’s lying there in agony Eden could drug her to slow her heart rate and give her truth serum, and then Amber could get all her passwords and everything else she needs to uncover every dirty secret she has.”

  The woman he loved was diabolical, and he couldn’t have loved her more. “Then what?” he asked in amusement.

  She frowned, considering it. “Megan could steal something important to her, taunt her with it. Trinity would help me decide on the weapon and stand watch while I get to kill the bitch.”

  “Thoughtful of you to include everyone.”

  Her lips twitched, then she turned serious. “I want to see her.”

  He tensed, hating even the thought of it. “You’re just out of the hospital. Are you sure you—”

  “I’m sure.” The look in her eyes told him it wasn’t up for discussion or debate. “When are they transferring her?”

  “I haven’t heard yet.” Not officially, anyway.

  Moving carefully, he shifted her so that she could lay her head on his chest. They lay there watching
the fire for a few minutes before he spoke again. There were so many things he needed to say. He’d been trying to wait until she had a few days to recover, but he couldn’t hold them in any longer. “Are you happy here?”

  She looked up at him. “You know I am. I love it here. This is more of a home than I’ve ever had.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Because this is almost over. Once Jane is put away, and all her funds seized—”

  “Stolen by Amber,” she corrected.

  He smiled again. “Appropriated by Amber,” he allowed, “and her entire operation dismantled, you and the others will be as safe as you’re ever likely to get. You’ll be free.”

  Her lips curved, a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes. “Free,” she murmured, staring again into the flames. “I don’t even know what I would do with myself.”

  “Stay here and make a life with me.” It was out before he could stop himself, and he was glad. He was done holding this inside.

  Her eyes lifted to his, and a beautiful, soft smile transformed her face. “What kind of a life do you imagine we’d have?”

  “A happy, peaceful one, for starters,” he said.

  She laughed softly. “I don’t even know what that would look like.”

  He opened his mouth to say more, but his mobile rang. Picking it up from the bedside table, he frowned. “It’s Megan,” he said, then answered. “Ey up.”

  “Hey. How’s Kiyomi?”

  “She’s a trooper.”

  “Yes, she is. So… I have news.”

  “What sort?”

  “Put me on speaker.”

  “Hang on.” He hit the button so Kiyomi could hear. “Go on then.”

  “Amber hasn’t slept in two days, she’s been digging up all kinds of incriminating evidence on Jane. She just called to say she’s cracked all the finances. Almost two-hundred million US dollars funneled away into offshore accounts that’s now mostly ours.

  “And her bodyguards aren’t nearly as badass or loyal as she’d like to think,” she continued, “because both of the survivors agreed to a plea deal. Rycroft’s got a list of people associated with her latest venture, including people within the CIA and NSA, and a few private citizens who donated money. They’re all going down. Her network’s totally exposed. It’s going to hit the media tomorrow afternoon.”

  “So…it’s over?” he said, hope swelling in his chest. He wanted this whole shite situation over and done with so Kiyomi and the others could move on with their lives. Lives of their own choosing, where they no longer had to look over their shoulders everywhere they went. And selfishly, he wanted a future with Kiyomi at his side.

  “Not quite. The bitch still won’t talk. They’re transferring her in the morning, just to be on the safe side because there are rumors about random members of her cell still out there with ideas on springing her.”

  “What time in the morning?” Kiyomi asked.

  “Oh-four-hundred.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Marcus had to bite back the argument that sprang onto his tongue. She’d been through enough. Closure or not, Kiyomi confronting Jane made all his protective instincts flare to sudden life. He ended the call with Megan and settled Kiyomi into the curve of his body again. “Well?”

  She tilted her head to search his eyes. “I need to look her in the eye and show her we’ve won. It’s the only way I can ever move past this. Will you take me?”

  He didn’t want to. The last thing he wanted was to put her anywhere near that bitch again, especially when she was recovering from a bullet wound he still couldn’t stop feeling guilty about. But how could he deny her this after all she’d been through at that woman’s hands?

  He sighed. “Aye, all right. I’ll take you there, and as soon as she leaves, we come straight back here.” Where he wanted her to stay with him for the rest of their lives, though he wouldn’t push her any more about it tonight.

  The tension in her shoulders eased visibly. “Thank you.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I love you.” And that was the only reason he had agreed to this. “Now get some sleep. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “You sure about this?”

  Kiyomi gave Marcus a reassuring smile, put a hand on his uninjured shoulder and went up on tiptoe to give him a kiss. Her own arm was killing her, her entire left hand and wrist swollen so much that the skin was shiny over the purple and blue bruising. “Yes. But thank you for being here.”

  He didn’t like this, was still in a lot of pain even if he’d never admit it, and yet he’d gotten up long before dawn to drive her here himself so she could face her nemesis. He hated that she wanted him to wait outside for her, but he was doing that too, because she’d asked.

  Marcus grunted. “I’ll wait outside in the car.”

  She nodded, more in love with him than ever, but she needed to do this before she could ever feel free of the past, and he couldn’t be present—for his own good.

  Unbeknownst to him, she’d had a secret phone meeting with the others shortly before leaving Laidlaw Hall. “See you in a bit.”

  Rather than let her go, he wrapped his arms around her hips and carefully brought her close. His dark-chocolate eyes were stormy. He was a tightly controlled man, but there was such love and devotion inside him, and both were evident in his gaze as he stared down at her.

  “I just want you safe.” His deep voice rolled over her, then he took her chin in his fingers and planted a hard, claiming kiss on her mouth.

  Her heart squeezed. She kissed him back, telling him without words that she was his. And when he walked out of the building to let her do what she’d come here to do, the weight in her chest didn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.

  Trinity, Amber and Megan were waiting for her outside a secure room. They all looked exhausted, and Trin’s restricted movements told Kiyomi she was in a lot of pain. Hopefully after today, they could all get on with the healing that needed to happen for them to reclaim their stolen lives.

  “The others here too?” she asked.

  “Waiting in the vehicle. All of us,” Trinity said. “You ready for this?”

  “Yes. You’re sure about everything? She’s of no further use to us?”

  “Positive,” Amber answered, a hard gleam in her eyes. “We’re never getting anything from her that we don’t have already.”

  Kiyomi nodded. “All right. Where’s my escort?”

  Trinity reached over and pressed a button on the wall. “They’ll be here in about thirty seconds. We’ll meet you outside after.”

  Sure enough, two heavily armed guards appeared through a secure door at the end of the hallway. They searched Kiyomi for weapons, checking her bandages thoroughly for any contraband, and put her through a metal detector before allowing her inside.

  The heavy steel door locked shut with a clang as they escorted her down the hall, giving her strict instructions. She wouldn’t be allowed in the cell. No physical contact with the prisoner. She had ninety seconds max.

  Kiyomi tuned them out, focused only on what was about to happen. In spite of herself, her pulse beat faster as they stepped out of a secure elevator onto a different floor. This was just like any other op, she reminded herself.

  Just get it done, and soon it’ll all be over.

  The corridor was lined on one side with more heavy steel doors. There were no bars in them, their small slots locked shut. Finally the guards stopped in front of one halfway down the hall. They eyed Kiyomi, then one unlocked the slot, jerked it open, and stepped back to wait.

  Steeling herself, Kiyomi approached the opening.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how she’d imagined this would play out, but it wasn’t this slender, middle-aged woman staring back at her through the hole in the door.

  Jane Allen remained seated on her bunk attached to the far wall, wearing an orange jumpsuit, white socks, and open-toed sandals. She looked exactly as Kiyomi imagined Amber would in her fifties, the
face shape, features and eye color the same. But the emptiness in them made the difference between her and her niece clear.

  This woman was dead inside. Amber was full of life, love and devotion.

  For a long moment they simply stared at each other. Jane’s expression remained blank, but slowly her eyes gave her away. They held a greedy, almost desperate gleam, as though she’d been starving for the sight of her.

  “I wanted to see you before they transferred you,” Kiyomi began, filled with revulsion.

  This evil, twisted woman had lied, manipulated, killed, and ultimately destroyed countless lives in her quest for personal glory. She was responsible for the suffering of dozens of orphaned young girls. She’d used them for her own gain, ignored their pain and added so much more to their suffering. She was responsible for countless deaths, including some of Kiyomi’s friends.

  Jane didn’t move, but didn’t look away, so Kiyomi continued. “Why me?”

  The woman was silent so long Kiyomi didn’t think she would respond. But then she spoke. “Do you remember me?”

  “No. Only that I saw you.”

  “Because I wanted you to.”

  Whatever. “So? Why?”

  Jane sat up taller, that eerie green stare fixed on her in a way that sent a tremor up her spine. “Because you’re everything a Valkyrie should be.”

  Kiyomi held the stare and waited. Jane wanted to talk. Wanted Kiyomi to know. All she needed to do, was wait.

  “Everything,” Jane repeated. “I knew it from the first moment I saw your initial test scores. Your IQ was impressively high, along with the scores on your psych and physical tests. You showed the best aptitude for languages and reading people of anyone in your test group. And as I watched you throughout your training, I knew.” Her smug smile made Kiyomi long to slice it from her face.

  “Knew what?” she said in a flat tone.

  “That you would be the most successful of the entire Program. And I was right.” She paused a second, an almost fond expression forming on her face. “Congratulations, Kiyomi. You’re the deadliest operative of us all. Most confirmed kills, and a ninety-seven-percent success rate on your missions. You’re exactly what I needed to initiate the next phase.”