Vengeance (SSU Trilogy Book 1)

by Kier, Vanessa

  He was going in.

  #

  Jenna stood up as the door to the room opened. Madalena squeezed her hand, and together the women faced the monster that walked forward.

  Alvarez raised his eyebrows at their show of strength.

  With a quick flick of his wrist, men poured into the room. They flung Madalena against the wall and shoved Jenna to her knees in front of Alvarez.

  “Señorita Paterson, how good to see you again. I always like to settle my debts in person.” He gestured to his face, where three bloody lines marked each cheek. “And I owe you for scratching me back in Ixtapa.”

  Jenna didn’t know what possessed her, but she spat at his feet.

  Alvarez stared at the mucous on his shoe for a long moment, until the tension in the room equalled the weight of an anvil. Then he stepped back and motioned for one of his men to wipe the shoe clean with a handkerchief.

  The instant the man was finished, Alvarez’s foot shot out. If Jenna hadn’t been watching him so closely, she never would have managed to turn aside and raise her arm, so that his kick hit her triceps instead of the tender underbelly of her jaw.

  Still, the force of the blow knocked her to the floor.

  Hands grabbed her and forced her to stand. Two men held her upper arms and stepped on her feet so she couldn’t run. A third man held her left arm out as an offering to Alvarez.

  “While I cut you,” Alvarez said conversationally, “You will tell me where Percone lives.”

  The knife bit into her skin. Jenna clamped down on her teeth to keep from crying out.

  Alvarez pressed harder, drawing more blood as he moved the knife slowly down her arm.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  The knife reached her wrist and Alvarez dug the tip in deep before pulling it away. “I think you lie.”

  He went to work on her other arm.

  “I…don’t…know…” she gasped. The world swam and she gulped air, struggling to breathe through the pain.

  Alvarez finished slicing her other arm and stood back. His eyes admired the cuts like a glass blower viewing a particularly successful vase. “Beautiful work, yes?”

  He beckoned with his fingers and two men dragged Madalena forward. Alvarez pushed his knife up under the woman’s throat. “I will ask you one more time.” He flicked the knife so that Madalena bled. “What is Percone’s address?”

  Madalena nodded slightly.

  Through clenched teeth, Jenna gave Alvarez the address.

  #

  Five-hundred-dollar loafers in hand, Mark Tonelli cursed Dr. Nevsky with every painful step he took down the beach, the god-awful, filthy sand squishing between his bare toes. Even though Mark hated the beach, he’d decided to approach Percone’s house from the unlit back side, rather than from the road with its occasional streetlights. But that meant slogging through the thick sand, getting his feet dirty, and picking up who knew what types of bacteria.

  The waves crashing against the shore made such a racket, he wanted to scream at someone to turn them off before the sound drove him crazy. To top it all off, the dog bites on his legs throbbed. If he wasn’t careful the wounds would reopen, leaving a trail of blood any idiot could follow.

  It was a good thing Dr. Nevsky was dead, because Mark was ready to commit murder. Why couldn’t the scientist have put the microchip in a safe deposit box? Then Mark wouldn’t be here on this miserable island, chasing after Niko Andros.

  Mark stepped in something wet and slimy and barely bit back a curse. He rubbed his foot quickly over a spot of dry sand, not wanting to even speculate about what had touched his skin. Not caring that a beach held different organisms than a filthy Moscow alley. In his mind, it was all the same. If you were dirty, you lacked power. He would never be powerless again.

  Where the hell was Percone’s bungalow?

  Mark glanced back the way he’d come and counted the widely-spaced houses. Three…four…five. There, the next house. Just past that little piece of jungle.

  To his surprise, the house was dark. Was it possible that Andros had already come and gone? His heart sped up. Or maybe his luck was changing and Andros hadn’t arrived yet.

  Mark set his shoes down on a rock by the bungalow’s back gate, pulled out his gun, and slipped quietly up the walk.

  #

  Sandwiched between two huge bodyguards, Jenna stared woozily across the guard to her right and out the window of Alvarez’s limousine. Dawn was a faint smudge on the horizon, not yet bright enough to chase away the darkness.

  She shivered. Blood loss and lack of food had made her light-headed and cold. Alvarez hadn’t allowed the cuts on her arms to be bandaged and they still bled sluggishly. She probably needed stitches, but despite the throbbing pain, she thought she could use her arms if necessary.

  God, she was scared.

  Alvarez sat opposite her as the limo traveled through the deserted early-morning streets toward Percone’s house. Another guard protected his left side. Madalena huddled on his right, her eyes fixed on the crotch of the guard next to Jenna. Out of the corner of her eye, Jenna saw Madalena lick her lips, then shoot the man a heated glance between her luscious eyelashes.

  She suspected Niko’s aunt was angling for a partner in their escape. The man shifted uncomfortably, struggling to hide his arousal from Alvarez.

  He shouldn’t have bothered. Alvarez was too busy communicating with his men, ordering them to surround the house and capture Niko and Percone.

  Alvarez’s voice held a mad excitement. Mad, because he hadn’t just sent a few carloads of men to the house. He’d sent truckloads.

  A convoy of army transports had passed them two blocks back, leaving the limo rocking in its dusty wake. As Jenna watched them race by, she’d realized that Alvarez was expecting Niko to have another military team backing him up like the one in Ixtapa. She’d tried telling him it was just Niko out there, but Alvarez ignored her.

  The light from a streetlamp threw devilish shadows across Alvarez’s face. His normally soulless eyes shone bright with fanatical hatred and his lips curled into a thin, anticipatory smile.

  Jenna wanted to shrink away from him, but refused to show any sign of weakness. Instead, she encouraged her fear, using it to drive back the fog in her brain. She needed to be sharp if she had any chance of surviving the night.

  Please, keep Niko safe.

  Jenna surreptitiously pulled her wrists apart, testing the strength and fit of the satin cord binding her hands in front of her. Alvarez had been livid when his men couldn’t find flexicuffs for her and Madalena. Apparently, with all the prisoner activity lately, the men had used up all their restraints. So Alvarez had sliced off pieces of cord from the thickly braided satin ties holding back the drapes. He’d used the cord to tie the women’s hands in front of them. Unfortunately, he’d secured the cords tightly enough to slow the blood flow to Jenna’s hands. She wiggled her fingers, hoping to keep them functional.

  Her only weapons were her mind and her body.

  Niko had insisted she carry both a pistol and a knife on the trip to the airport, but those weapons were long gone. Alvarez had even remembered the knife she’d used in her attempt to kill Kai, and had removed her belt.

  But she had two advantages. Her training, which included ways of fighting even when bound, and Alvarez’s chauvinism. He knew she had the desire to kill, but except for securing her hands, he’d left her unrestrained. If there hadn’t been three bodyguards surrounding him, she would have tried to kill Alvarez right now. But she wasn’t going to risk her life in a doomed attempt.

  She’d just have to wait for the right opportunity to make her move. Because if she was going to die, she intended to take Alvarez with her.

  #

  Niko could not get Percone to wake up. He’d tried everything. Shaking him. Slapping him. Dousing him with cold water. The man had indeed collapsed just inside his front door, as Niko had suspected, but he must have hit his head on something on the way down, knocking
himself unconscious.

  Niko stood up and glanced out the window. The street remained deserted, but the hairs on the back of his neck said the situation was about to change. He needed to get Percone out of here. Now.

  It didn’t take Niko long to walk through the small house, searching for an exit that wouldn’t expose them to watchers from the sea or the street. A wild tangle of palms, vines and flowering plants at the right side of the house, under the bedroom window, offered the only exterior cover.

  Niko tried one more time to wake Percone up. When the man still didn’t stir, Niko hoisted him in a fireman’s lift and limped to the bedroom. He lowered Percone out the window, then dropped down beside him, wincing as the landing jarred his wounds.

  From down the street, he heard the rumble of trucks.

  Shit. No more time. He’d wanted to get Percone across the street and into the safety of the jungle, but that would expose them to the headlights of the approaching vehicles.

  Just as he lifted Percone back onto his shoulder, his instincts told him he wasn’t alone. He drew his weapon, let Percone slide to the ground, and had the intruder pressed up against the side of the house before the other man could close in.

  “Relax, Andros,” a vaguely familiar voice whispered. “It’s Mark Tonelli.”

  Niko didn’t release the pressure on the man’s neck. “What the hell are you doing here?” Tonelli always seemed to show up at critical moments. The coincidental timing roused Niko’s suspicious nature.

  “I ran into your brother at the airport. He sent me as backup.”

  Not fucking likely. Rafe didn’t trust Tonelli any more than Niko did. Still, Ryker had trusted Tonelli enough to send Jenna to Moscow with the man, so Niko backed off, noting with some satisfaction that the other man took several deep, shuddering breaths as the pressure on his windpipe eased.

  From out front, Niko heard the squeal of tires as the trucks slid to a stop. “I’ve got to get this guy into the next house,” Niko told Tonelli. “Check and make sure no one’s home.”

  Niko hadn’t seen any activity at the neighbor’s place and Rafe had reported the same before he left for the airport. But there’d been a gap of an hour between the time Niko pulled Rafe away from Percone’s house and the time Niko arrived.

  Niko hoped the neighbor’s house really was deserted, because otherwise, the inhabitants were about to get a rude wake-up call.

  Tonelli hesitated a moment, then nodded and pushed his way through the tangled bushes.

  Niko picked up Percone and followed, hoping the noise Tonelli made wasn’t loud enough to carry over the sound of the ocean and the rattle of chains as the heavy tailgates of the trucks lowered.

  Niko squeezed in between two tightly-placed palms, then froze as he heard the unmistakable thud of booted feet hitting the ground.

  Shit. It sounded like a damned army was disembarking. Niko increased his speed. There was only one person who would send such force.

  Alvarez.

  Niko reached the side of the neighbor’s house. “Tonelli,” he whispered.

  “Inside. The place is deserted. There’s an open window to your left.”

  Niko lifted Percone to Tonelli, then pulled himself through the window. A moment after Niko closed the window, a team of twenty soldiers surrounded Percone’s house.

  “Wha—?”

  Now the man woke up. Niko clamped his hand over Percone’s mouth and bent down so he could speak into the man’s ear. “Eduard Percone?”

  Percone nodded, his eyes wide with fear above Niko’s hand.

  “You know who Jaime Alvarez is?”

  Again Percone nodded.

  “We’re in your neighbor’s house because Alvarez’s men have surrounded your place. If you want me to keep you alive, you’ll tell me the location of Dr. Nevsky’s microchip.” Niko knew this wasn’t the best place to question the man, but in case Percone didn’t make it out alive, Niko needed the directions to the chip.

  Niko lifted hand enough so that Percone could talk. “Whisper,” Niko ordered.

  “I—” Percone’s frightened eyes moved from Niko to Tonelli and back again.

  “We’re with the U.S. government,” Niko reassured him. “You need to give us the location before Alvarez tortures it out of you.”

  For a minute, Niko thought he’d gone too far and Percone was going to faint from fear. But the man swallowed heavily and stammered, “He gave it to his daughter, Susana. I overheard a telephone conversation he had with a surgeon. Nevsky wanted reassurance that the chip had been implanted in the woman during some routine operation she was having done. She—”

  The staccato sound of automatic weapon fire tearing through the house next door cut Percone off.

  Shit. It wouldn’t take them long to realize Percone’s house was empty and start searching the surrounding houses. Niko had to get the man out of here.

  He turned around. Tonelli crouched over Percone. His hand swung out and Niko dove out of the way as a silenced bullet sliced the air inches from his head.

  What the—?

  Niko returned fire but Tonelli was already halfway out the window.

  And Percone was undeniably dead. Killed at close range by a bullet through the heart.

  Chapter 34

  Alvarez’s limousine pulled to a stop across from Percone’s house. Streetlights illuminated soldiers lined up in the road, spraying the house with bullets.

  Alvarez leapt from the vehicle before it came to a complete halt. Two of his bodyguards followed, the third, the one sitting across from Madalena, stayed behind on Alvarez’s order.

  “Why are you shooting?” Alvarez screamed at the commander. “I need Andros alive!”

  Jenna met Madalena’s bleak eyes.

  No. She would not accept that Niko was dead. Not before—

  She shook her head.

  Madalena gave her a sad smile and inclined her head slightly toward the door. Then she reached up to her blouse with her bound hands, and began to undo the buttons as she crooned in Spanish to the guard.

  The guard stared glassily as the tops of Madalena’s breasts were revealed. He licked his lips. Madalena held out her wrists, and as if in a hypnotic trance, the man untied her.

  Once she was free, Madalena laughed, then grabbed the man and pulled him into her for a kiss. Behind the man’s back, her hands indicated for Jenna to run.

  But Jenna’s stomach turned over, remembering the feel of the Russian’s body pressing her against the hallway in Moscow. She couldn’t leave Madalena in the arms of the guard. She just couldn’t.

  The man was so focused on devouring Madalena he didn’t notice when Jenna grabbed his pistol off his belt. Madalena tightened her embrace, holding the guard immobile while Jenna slammed the pistol butt into the back of his head. He grunted, then slumped against Madalena. Just to make sure he didn’t wake up soon, Jenna hit him on the temple as well.

  Madalena pushed the man to the floor and wiped her mouth. “Why didn’t you leave?” she snapped. Her eyes darted to the window, but Alvarez and his men were still focused on Percone’s house.

  Jenna held out her hands for Madalena to untie. “I know what it’s like to have a man you despise touch you intimately.” Her voice trembled. “We’re not in such danger that you need to make such a sacrifice.”

  Madalena’s expression warmed into sympathy. “It is okay. For me, sex is nothing but a tool. There is no feeling, bad or good.” She flicked her eyes behind her.

  “The driver got out to watch the excitement,” Jenna told her. “We’re alone.” She knelt beside the guard and quickly searched him. His pistol, knife and a flashlight went into her pockets. With Madalena’s help, she used the cord that had bound the women to tie his hands and feet. She stuffed his handkerchief in his mouth, then reached for the door handle. “Let’s go.”

  Because the military trucks were parked in the middle of the street, the limo driver had been forced to park on the right side, at the edge of the jungle. The door swung
open, revealing a patch of sandy pavement maybe two yards wide between them and the safety of the jungle.

  “Imbecile!” Alvarez shouted. Jenna heard a shot, then an angry murmur from the soldiers that was quickly cut off by a scathing reprimand from Alvarez.

  “You!” Jenna heard Alvarez order. “Take some men and search the house. Bring me anyone found alive.”

  “When you hit the ground, roll into the vegetation,” Jenna said, peeking over the tops of the front seats to make sure no one was looking in their direction. “Then get as deep into the jungle as you can.”

  Madalena nodded.

  Jenna gave Niko’s aunt a little push. When Madalena’s foot disappeared into the thick tangle of vegetation, Jenna hit the switch to activate the door locks, then slid onto the ground and gently shut the door. She tested to make sure the door couldn’t be opened, then followed Madalena into the jungle.

  Although dawn lightened the horizon, under the trees it was still pitch dark. “Madalena?” Jenna whispered.

  “Here.”

  Jenna wriggled forward until her hand met Madalena’s arm. Then she pulled the guard’s flashlight out of her pocket.

  “What now?” Madalena asked. “We cannot just run away.”

  “No. We have to make sure Niko is all right.”

  “And Alvarez has to die,” Madalena vowed.

  Jenna nodded and their eyes met in a moment of understanding. Then she turned off the light, trying to orient herself. When she was sure she knew which direction to head in to stay parallel to the road, she turned the light back on.

  “This way,” she said, crawling on her belly. “I have a plan.”

  #

  Mark Tonelli slipped out of the neighbor’s house. He had the information he needed. Percone was dead and with him the danger of anyone else learning of Nevsky’s daughter.

  Bad enough that Andros knew. If he couldn’t find a way to stop the man, the CIA would end up racing the SSU to find the daughter.

  He should have known that even at close range Andros wouldn’t be easy to kill. He didn’t even think he’d wounded the man, dammit. Andros’s shots had forced him into retreat, but he wasn’t done yet.