No Fair Lady

She’s still this vibrant whirlpool of energy who attracts everything around her like a magnet.

Men.

Money.

Trouble.

And she’s about to get herself in deep trouble now, if she’s not careful.

Well, shit.

If I’m going to rise from the dead, I guess there’s no better reason to do it than to pull the woman now known only as Fuchsia Delaney back from the brink.

Again.

Because that promise she made years ago was dead right—nobody forgets Fuchsia.

After all these years, I damn well haven’t.

I just wasn’t expecting to pull into Bellingham to see her right there, stepping into full view in the middle of a day full of pouring rain as silver as her incisive eyes.

She’s come to town as fashionable as ever in a high-necked black velour coat, a high-belted black dress with a tight pencil skirt, and sleek black stockings paired with gleaming black pumps.

I’m not surprised she didn’t notice me tailing her across town, even if she glanced back over her shoulder a few times.

That sixth sense we have for each other lives on despite no contact for well over a decade.

It’s hard to hold on to when she thinks I’m dead, and I’ve let her think that.

Hell, I’ve let everyone think that, because it was what Galentron wanted. Me out of the way.

So I went to ground after they failed to ice me out, striking back when I could, foiling their schemes and blunting their crawl into darker directions. Always waiting for my knockout blow and a chance to make amends.

I just hadn’t expected her to get there faster, much less catalyze the company’s downfall with the shitshow that happened in small-town Heart’s Edge.

But it’s turning into a pattern.

I don’t know how she found out the truth about Leland Durham.

My intel came from a few off-record contacts in underground intelligence communities. Fuchsia’s got a few too many arrest warrants out for her sweet ass right now for anyone smart to risk talking to her. Not willingly.

She’s been making bold moves these last few years.

Maybe too bold.

I don’t think she’s even trying to hide herself as she slews her rental car to a halt outside the Bellingham airfield and steps out, hefting a bulky hardshell luggage bag from her trunk, then stalking through the chain-link gate and right past two security guards in rain slickers, ignoring their annoyed shouts.

She’s going in hot with big enough lady-balls to knock down a house.

Shame she doesn’t know what I do.

That the rain just delayed Durham’s flight to Fiji, and while he’s grounded, he decided to expand his crew manifest rather than wait for them to join him on a later illicit flight.

He’s called in the cavalry.

A full personal guard, not just the skeleton crew scheduled to fly with him today.

He’s not taking any chances.

And dear, bright, bold, fearless Fuchsia Delaney is about to plant her pretty designer heels in the muck.

About to make the biggest fucking mistake of her life.

About to die if I don’t do something to save her.

6

The Sweetest Thing (Fuchsia)

I think what I’m afraid of most?

That my daughter could turn out just like me.

That when I find her, I’ll actually recognize the girl who was stolen away from me…and not like any mother ever should.

She’ll be a cold, empty husk, drained of all humanity, transformed into this thoughtless, obedient creature who can never have any hope of being an ordinary, happy girl.

Taken from a normal life and put into one of those abominable training programs Galentron fosters, or worse. If I’m lucky, they didn’t use her as a fucking test case for the more exotic, horrifying biological schemes they were planning to the bitter end.

The foster homes and secret dorms are bad enough.

They paint it as philanthropy.

Funneling unadoptable male orphans like Lion-boy Leo into programs that will give them an education, a home, a future with one of the most elite military programs in the world. States and private orphanages practically jump at the chance to sign the NDA and hand over the kids.

Guiding vulnerable young women with no home, no living guardians, into career paths that will teach them valuable corporate skills and the diplomacy necessary to function in the world of high-powered politics. I’ll let you guess who they pushed along that path.

It’s not a lie, not wholly.

Except the part about having a future.

Or any shred of normal civilian freedom.

There’s no life worth living in becoming an obedient, brainwashed machine deployed as a tool for unspeakable espionage and murder.

I can’t even name the number of international laws I’ve violated.

All for the sake of lining Durham’s pockets.

And the idea that Durham took my daughter away so he could raise her into a carbon copy of me, so he could ruin her the way Galentron ruined me?

If sheer rage could power anything, this entire airfield would be launched into the air in a rubble-strewn mess of tarmac and shredded planes.