by Vanessa Kier
Reuniting with his sister Jenna, his only surviving family member, after proving his innocence, then being forced to leave Jenna in order to chase after Susana. And now Rafe was missing…
“Dammit Rafe, you better be alive,” he muttered. Although knowing what Nevsky’s program entailed, Rafe would be better off dead than a victim of Kaufmann’s experiments.
Kai shivered. The horrors he’d seen while undercover at Nevsky’s lab still gave him nightmares. Men so insane, so focused on the kill order given by their handlers, that they attacked their teammates with teeth and nails and fists, fighting like animals to the death. And then biting and mauling their opponent’s corpse until the ground gleamed red.
Kai shook his head, but it was too late. The memories segued into coroner’s photos showing his mother lying in a pool of blood. Showing his fourteen-year-old sister, Isabel, with her throat gaping open from a knife wound, her hand reaching toward her twin.
Kai clenched his fists and jerked his mind away from those pictures. He would not think about their deaths. Not here in the jungle, where his control was so thin. Where the sights, sounds and scents threatened to throw him back to the moment in an Indonesian jungle where he’d taken the life of the fifth of the six assassins who’d killed his family.
Trying to block out the memories, Kai closed his eyes. But instead of the relief of darkness, he saw blood dripping off his hands onto the jungle floor while the body of the assassin twitched out its final seconds of life.
Even though he was standing on the deck of a boat months after the kill, Kai felt an echo of the hot, primitive satisfaction that had surged through him as he’d stared down at the body. He remembered throwing his head back and letting loose an inhuman cry of triumph that scared birds into flight and scattered a colony of monkeys.
His heart pounded in remembered exhilaration.
Shit, shit, shit.
Kai opened his eyes and shook his head. The act of vengeance had stripped him down to his very core. Revealed that underneath his civilized, intellectual veneer lay the primitive urge to protect and avenge his loved ones, even if it meant killing in a manner that horrified his cerebral, law-abiding side.
Yet if anyone hurt his loved ones again, Kai wouldn’t hesitate to kill.
Unbidden, another image of Susana Dias flashed into his mind, bringing a surge of sympathy for the woman whose life he was about to disrupt. For all he knew, she didn’t even know Nevsky was her father or that she carried the microchip.
He sighed. In the end, it didn’t matter. He’d do whatever necessary to get her to the SSU so the chip could be surgically removed. At that point, though, Kai’s mission became personal. He intended to destroy the chip, no matter what his boss Ryker might say about the data having potentially beneficial applications.
He stared at the sunlight shimmering on the water, imagining the heat of the sunlight burning all unwanted thoughts from his mind. For a peaceful moment he found the still, quiet place inside himself he’d once been able to access so easily. His muscles slowly relaxed.
Yeah, he could do this.
He inhaled deeply, but the putrid odor of decaying flesh from a dead animal on the riverbank sent him into a coughing fit.
Ah, hell. Just like that, chaos tumbled back into his mind.
No! He gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to give in. He could do this.
Think only of the mission. Find Susana Dias. Destroy the microchip. Finally end the cycle of pain and death.
Piece of cake. Right?
Kai squeezed the wooden railing until his knuckles turned white. Of course right. He was strong. So what if the jungle roused the savage part of him he didn’t even want to acknowledge? He could control himself. Complete his mission. Become the man he used to be.
Couldn’t he?
Betrayal, Book 2 in the SSU Trilogy, is available now.
About the Author
Vanessa Kier has been creating stories in her head since childhood. Now she writes romantic thrillers, using her worst-case scenario thinking to put her characters through the emotional wringer. When she’s not writing or listening to music, she works as an accounting manager, writes the occasional Tech Talk column for her local RWA chapter's newsletter, and takes long hikes in the nearby hills.
For more about Vanessa, please visit her website www.vanessakier.com.
Acknowledgments
Once again I’d like to thank my critique partner Virna DePaul, my editor Valerie Susan Hayward and my proofreader Angela Pike. Thanks also to Frauke Spanuth of Croco Designs for creating another awesome cover.
Most of all, a huge thank-you to all the readers who have made this series a success!
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, brands, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Retribution Copyright © 2013 by Vanessa Kier
Excerpt from Vengeance Copyright © 2013 by Vanessa Kier
Excerpt from Betrayal Copyright © 2013 by Vanessa Kier
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express permission of Vanessa Kier.
License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Excerpt from Vengeance
Excerpt from Betrayal
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright