“I’m so sorry, Lily. I didn’t even realize . . .”
I lean up and plant a kiss on his lips. Finally, he puts his arms around my midsection. My arms tighten around him and he sighs, pressing his forehead against mine. His warmth envelopes me allowing a clarity that’s been lacking to settle over me. It’s time to move this show on the road, kill some motherfuckers, and get our life back because frankly, I’m sick and tired of waiting.
†††
Everyone’s in the living room waiting for Hyde’s impromptu meeting to start. Apparently, Interpol is making some changes to our arrangement.
This ought to be good.
“James and Carmen will be leaving today, with my wife and me, to head for another safe house, along with Dr. Kinderson. This one’s getting too crowded. We’ll also be looking for an alternative for the rest of you since this one has been compromised. Until then, you’re confined inside. Only agents go out and you go in pairs. No one alone. Understood?”
“Sir,” Vlad says, standing. “Sammi’s found information about the shooters that were here. We’d like to share and get your permission to initiate a side mission to deal with the threat.”
“Give me the information and then we’ll discuss.”
Vlad nods to Sammi and she gets to her feet.
“Using satellite imagery, I’ve found three camps in the woods about two miles from the house. Each camp has roughly seven people in it.”
“Who are they?” I’m trying my best to control my anger, but it isn’t easy.
“A Nigerian mercenary group called the Umbazi. They contract out to criminal organizations all the time. There’s a man at the center camp that I’m certain is Taurus.”
She hands me a printout. He’s built, blonde-haired, and the edges of something blue are on his neck. Definitely a Taurus hitman.
“Hyde, twenty-one men is a cakewalk. If we can use Sammi to get the jump on them, we can take them out easily,” I say handing her the picture back.
Hyde’s face tightens.
“We’re leaving in an hour. Do it tonight. And if one bloody person is injured, I swear to god, after this, I’ll put every one of you on a desk job.”
Slow smiles creep across every team member’s face. This is something we can do, and we can take as long as we’d like. All this time, I’ve been trying to get revenge for what the Taurus did to me, but now, it’s for my fallen friends. The saying is, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’, but tonight, hell hath no fury like a crazy bitch with a hunting knife.
20
~Lily~
Three men, bound and bleeding, kneel in the backyard. Taking the camps were easy, but Vlad argued when I’d demanded the leaders and Taurus member be brought back alive. Obviously, I won the disagreement. Now, vengeance is in order.
“Lily, civilians should go inside before you do this,” Vlad says, brushing my hair off my shoulder.
“They’ll still hear it, Rattlesnake, what’s the point?”
Humanity is nothing but a shimmer in the back of my mind. The rational part of me is overtaken by images of Samuel and Jameson, staring at me with unseeing eyes. Images of the gruesome possibilities of what might’ve happened to Blake and Sorina had the house been weak in any way.
The monster inside me, that kills without mercy or remorse, the one Blake tries to banish every moment he’s with me, has resurfaced with a fucking vengeance. It’s time she got what she wants— blood and answers.
Walking around the men, my eyes never leaving them, Blake’s energy surrounds me. He’s going to touch me, and if he does, the rage will disappear, and I can’t afford that right now.
“Don’t, Blake,” I growl.
“How’d you even know I was close to you?” He’s close enough for his breath to move my hair.
“I can feel you. Always have. Even if I’m not with you.”
He sighs, but his energy retreats, leaving me bathed in my own anger. Tunnel vision sets in; registering only the three assholes and me, and I’m going to make them wish they were dead. The hunting knife is heavy in my hand, the moonlight catching the steel at just the right angle.
Glaring at the men who cost me two team members, my psyche snaps. Everything I’ve been before tonight falls away. Interpol agent, friend, lover, mother, fiancée— it’s gone. Replaced by the two things Jax tried to bring forth in me, the two aspects of me that scare the shit out of everyone . . . even Dresden. He’s seen it once when I was twenty-five, and I’ve been careful since then not to give in to it since.