Vengeance (SSU Trilogy Book 1) Page 3

  Kai’s face, and his laughter, had starred in her nightmares ever since.

  And now, to achieve her vengeance, she’d have to give up Monroe. Her best friend.

  She swallowed heavily. No. She wouldn’t cry. This was about her parents and the twins. Not her. What she felt didn’t matter. Monroe would be happy with Mary.

  So she had to stop this feeling of loss. Right. Now.

  Giving up the idea of working with the birds of prey tonight, she untied Monroe’s leash and led him toward the woods. “C’mon, boy. I changed my mind. Let’s go chase squirrels.”

  He barked happily and surged ahead, nearly yanking her off her feet. She ran to keep up with him, remembering the time when the doctors thought she’d never run again. How bleak those days had been.

  The morning she’d wheeled herself underneath the rehabilitation center’s wooden arch had been the pivotal moment of her recovery. The birds of prey quickly became her spiritual guides. They’d shown her the way out of the confusing tangle of rage, grief and fear left by the attack. She fit in with them in a way she no longer could with humans. The birds didn’t look at her with pity. They didn’t look at her scars with revulsion or morbid fascination.

  The birds existed in a black and white world. Kill or be killed. If you weren’t the hunter, you were the prey. She’d never again be prey. She was the hunter now.

  And Kai was the prey.

  Chapter 2

  Thursday, Early Morning

  Pasadena, California

  Niko Andros stared down at the newly-turned grave, tears clogging his throat. He hadn’t consciously decided to aim his morning run toward the cemetery, but now that he was here, he was glad to have a chance to say good-bye to Pop away from the curious eyes of his family.

  And even though he’d seen the open casket on display at the funeral home, there was a small part of Niko that still expected Pop to roll his wheelchair up to the grave and shout, “Just kidding!” He took a deep breath of early morning air and finally accepted the truth. This wasn’t one of his father’s infamous practical jokes. Pop really was gone.

  He still couldn’t believe his father had died of pneumonia, for Christ’s sake. He’d always thought Pop would die on the job. Go down under a bullet or a knife.

  Not be killed by a bacteria too tiny to see and too strong to fight.

  He bowed his head and was surprised to find a Greek prayer for the dead rolling off his tongue. Moisture blurred his vision, but today’s sky was clear, so he couldn’t blame it on rain.

  Finally, he raised his eyes and confronted the grave head-on.

  “You were a hell of a guy, Pop,” Niko said in Greek. “The DEA was lucky to have you as an agent and I’m damn proud to be your son. Wherever you are, I hope you understand that. I hope you’re having a hell of a party. I’m sorry I didn’t make it back in time to say good-bye.”

  Niko had been feverish, recovering from a bullet wound to the thigh while waiting for transport out of a remote Afghani village when Rafe, his younger brother and fellow SSU agent, had shown up and given him the news that Pop was critically ill. Rafe hadn’t found Niko in time, though. Pop had died before their plane reached the States.

  “I love you, Pop,” he said softly.

  Jesus, it was a good thing he was alone. His fellow SSU agents would bust a gut laughing if they caught him talking to a grave. Yet oddly, as the sun broke through the high-flying clouds and warmed his hair, he felt a degree of peace creep into him.

  “Thanks, Pop.” Niko gave a two-finger salute to the sky, then wiped the last of his tears away and turned to go.

  He’d only gone a few steps when a black stretch limo with tinted windows pulled alongside him. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled and his hand went automatically to the pistol under his left arm.

  His sixth sense knew who was in the car even before the window rolled down to reveal Jaime Alvarez’s broad, gloating face. A familiar mix of shame, helplessness, and frustration surged through Niko. But then his brain kicked in, reminding him that he wasn’t undercover any more. He’d never again have to stomp down his conscience as he followed Alvarez’s orders.

  “So, Niko, finally your father is dead,” the crime lord said in Spanish. The corner of Alvarez’s mouth deepened in a satisfied smile, but his eyes spoke of retribution. He’d ordered Leander Andros killed when Niko was thirteen, but the shooter’s aim had been off and his dad had ended up paralyzed instead.

  “Now who will protect your mother?” Alvarez said silkily.

  Niko’s skin flashed hot with fury. “Step out of the limo and we’ll find out, pendejo.”

  Alvarez shook his head. “Ah, hijo, how you wound me with your disrespect.”

  “I’m not your fucking son.” He wanted to reach through the window and wipe the smug smile off Alvarez’s face. His father had been a strong, honorable man who’d never stopped loving Niko, even when his son had been little better than the brutal, ruthless men he worked to bring down.

  The crime lord’s eyes glittered with malice. “I loved you like a son. You should have been my successor. My ultimate revenge against your family. Instead, you betrayed me.” His nostrils flared and a vein ticked under his eye. “You, who spent time in prison, who knows what it is like to be locked in a cage like an animal—”

  For the first time since he’d known Alvarez, Niko let all his hatred for the man show. He sent the man a cold smile. “It’s precisely knowing where you were headed that kept me going all those years. Did you really think I’d come to respect you? To enjoy the life you led?”

  “I gave you power. Money. Trust. In return, you dared—” Alvarez’s voice cracked. “You dared to turn me in to the authorities. For those ten years I spent behind bars, you will watch your family die.”

  Alvarez paused.

  “You should have killed me when you had the chance.” Alvarez’s lips turned up in a chilling mockery of a smile. “I will enjoy watching you suffer. You remember how skilled I am at making death come slowly and with great pain, don’t you, hijo?”

  Niko kept his face impassive, though his instincts urged him to attack. Alvarez didn’t make idle threats. Niko had hired guards for his family after the crime lord’s release from prison, but he still felt a twist of fear in his gut at the implied danger.

  Yet he knew better than to betray his fear by so much as a twitch of his eye. Instead, Niko crossed his arms over his chest and assumed a bored expression. “Yeah, well, your power is highly overrated, old man. You’re not top dog any more. Go back to Mexico and dream of the good old days.”

  Alvarez reached up and briefly fingered the jagged remains of his left earlobe, a sign he wasn’t feeling as confident as he appeared. Yet his next words gave none of his insecurity away.

  “You won’t be so disrespectful once you watch this DVD.” Alvarez threw a slim box onto the grass at Niko’s feet. “Sleep well, tonight, hijo…I will.” The window slid up with a hiss and the limo moved away.

  Niko let out the first full breath he’d taken since the limo pulled up. He’d been lying about Alvarez’s decreased status. Since his imprisonment ten years ago, Alvarez had slowly regained much of his power even from within one of the United States’ most secure prisons.

  Until finally he’d been strong enough to blackmail a judge into reversing his sentence of life without parole. The judge had been arrested and the state attorney general was working on getting the sentence reinstated so they could put Alvarez back behind bars, but the damage was done.

  Niko bent to retrieve the DVD, dread burning in his gut like three-day-old coffee. For Alvarez to gloat like he did, the contents were going to be bad.

  Niko shoved the DVD in the pocket of his windbreaker. As he ran back toward his mother’s house, the partially healed wound in his leg throbbed. But he was used to ignoring physical pain. What he needed to do now was pick up a double helping of Greek pastries to keep his mother and sister distracted. Because much as he hated jumping at Alvarez’s co
mmand, instinct told him to view the DVD. Now.

  Before the crime lord’s latest evil got any worse.

  #

  Forty-five minutes later Niko was safely locked inside his room while his sister Maria fussed in the kitchen preparing a breakfast tray for their mother. He pulled out his laptop and set it on the battered walnut desk he’d used as a kid. While he waited for it to boot up, he traced a set of grooves he’d carved into the wood to relieve the boredom of studying for his eighth grade biology midterm.

  He shook his head. He’d never been a big fan of school, preferring movement over sitting still. These walls used to be covered with action photos. Sports stars. Rock stars. Cops.

  As he hunted through his laptop case for his headphones, he wondered what his mother had done with the posters. Their absence was the only significant change since he’d left home. The walnut dresser, desk and bed frame were the same. Navy blue curtains still matched the quilted bedspread.

  Out in the hallway, his mother’s slow footsteps headed toward the kitchen. Niko’s heart clenched, thinking about her lying alone in bed this morning, missing her husband and knowing that her sons would soon return to the dangerous work they thrived on.

  He wished he could be different. Be the type of man who could do the domestic thing and be content to hang around the house, mowing the lawn and taking out the trash.

  But a week of that would drive him crazy.

  Right. Like dealing with Alvarez is any better?

  Yeah, in some sick way it was. At least fighting Alvarez made him feel alive.

  The headphones had fallen down to the bottom of his laptop case. He fished them out, plugged them in, and popped the DVD into the laptop’s drive.

  A woman’s naked torso filled the screen. Open cuts made grotesque roadways across skin purpled with fresh bruises. Even before the camera panned out, Niko sucked in a breath, choking on denial. His finger pushed the pause button.

  Aunt Madalena.

  The woman his family thought was dead.

  How the fuck had Alvarez gotten to her? Niko had set her up in a cozy little cottage in the south of Spain, guarded by a team of highly competent men.

  Shit.

  Niko tunneled his fingers through his short hair, turned away from the screen, and paced across the room. He’d promised Aunt Madalena she’d be safe, God dammit. She’d made one innocent mistake more than a decade ago and ended up trapped as Alvarez’s mistress.

  After Alvarez had been sent to prison, she’d been too ashamed to return home, considering herself a tainted, ruined woman, no matter what Niko said to the contrary. She didn’t want her family’s pity. Or their censure. When she’d begged Niko to tell everyone she’d died, he’d reluctantly agreed and helped her establish a new life.

  Her guards had better be fucking dead, or they’d wish they were when he got done with them.

  He spun around and resumed watching the video.

  On the monitor, Alvarez stepped into view holding a whip. “You remember what I used to do to the lovely Madalena when you misbehaved, Nikolos?”

  The bitter taste of bile hit the back of Niko’s throat.

  Hell yeah, he remembered. Beatings. Sexual torture. Alvarez had used threat of punishment to Madalena as one of the ways to keep Niko in line, and vice versa.

  Niko rubbed the scar on his right biceps. He’d tried several times to help his aunt escape, with no success until the raid that sent Alvarez to jail. And now he’d failed her again.

  He forced back a stinging wave of guilt and returned his attention to the screen.

  Alvarez lowered his arm. The whip cut deeply into the skin of his aunt’s back. At her cry of pain, Niko took an involuntary step toward the laptop, shaking with the need to protect her.

  “I have an offer for you, Nikolos.” The crime lord’s voice was thick with sexual pleasure.

  “Yeah, I just bet you do,” Niko muttered.

  “My men have searched for almost two years, without success, for Kai Paterson. If you locate him before they do, and bring me both him and the microchip he stole from Dr. Nevsky’s lab, then I will release your aunt.”

  Shit. His sources had been right. Alvarez was after the chip again.

  The chip containing Nevsky’s notes on his work toward creating extraordinary spies and soldiers.

  Niko didn’t know all the details of Nevsky’s work; much of it was scientific mumbo-jumbo. But what he did know was bad enough. Nevsky’s drugs, including new variations of steroids, supposedly increased muscle mass and endurance, reduced the need for sleep, and made the subject impervious to pain. Other rumored effects included increased speed, agility, and an enhanced ability for the subject’s mind to process data.

  Hypnosis combined with other drugs gave the scientists control over their subjects’ thoughts and actions, creating mindless killing machines who obeyed their handlers’ every command.

  A perfect complement to Alvarez’s own drug experiments. For decades, the crime lord had unsuccessfully looked for a formula that would give his men an advantage in his fight to take over the underworld of Latin America. With Nevsky’s data, his dream would come true.

  While undercover at the lab for the SSU, Paterson had been approached by Alvarez to steal the microchip containing the backup of the data. Shortly after, the lab burned down with Nevsky inside. Paterson had been caught on tape fleeing the scene and had disappeared. Everyone assumed Paterson had the chip, so he’d been hunted ever since.

  Shit.

  If Niko couldn’t find another way to free Aunt Madalena, he’d have to go along with Alvarez’s deal. Bring him Paterson and the chip.

  But the minute Aunt Madalena was safe, he’d go back and kill the bastard. And turn the chip over to the SSU.

  An ache in his fingers made Niko glance down. His fingers were clenched in a circle, as if he already had Alvarez’s neck between his hands.

  On the screen, Alvarez stroked the whip across Madalena’s breasts. “Every day that you fail to deliver Paterson and the chip is another day that I get to enjoy my lovely Madalena. The dreams I had in prison lacked a certain…satisfaction,” he purred. “I have ten years without her to make up for.” He rubbed the tip of the whip into one of the cuts on Madalena’s belly and Niko growled.

  “You know how well-protected are my houses. You know that my contacts extend deep within law enforcement. If you try to rescue her, she will be tortured to death. If one of my other men succeed before you, her death will be agonizing. I trust you will not fail me, hijo.”

  The camera zoomed in on the pain-filled eyes of his aunt. But even after what she’d endured, her pride and strength shone through. And her anger. Her eyes seemed to send Niko a message, but before he could decide what it was, the screen went black.

  Niko spun around, fury dyeing the edge of his vision red. The need to destroy something was so powerful, his entire body shook. But any loud noise would cause his mother to come running. Instead, he dropped to the floor and did rapid push-ups until he was dripping with sweat.

  Only then did his anger slip away, replaced by cold determination. This time he wasn’t going to fail his aunt. This time he was going to get her away from Alvarez.

  No matter what it took.

  Niko jumped to his feet and hit the shower. When he was done, he picked up his cell phone.

  “Niko, I’m glad you called,” Ryker said. “How’s your family holding up?”

  “Fine, sir.” Although the SSU was severely overstretched, Ryker hadn’t hesitated to give both Niko and Rafe as much time off as they needed for their father’s funeral. “I’ve confirmed that Alvarez is obsessed with finding the chip…and Paterson,” Niko said. “What’s the status on our search?”

  “Paterson was spotted in Moscow yesterday morning.”

  Niko sucked in a breath. This was too fucking perfect.

  “The CIA’s Russian expert, Mark Tonelli, just happened to be in my office when the fax with Paterson’s picture came through. Because we don�
�t have an agent with his contacts and fluency in Russian, I’m letting him head the hunt for Paterson.” Ryker paused. “I’m sending Jenna Paterson, Kai’s sister, along as bait. She’s been here at the compound since the attack.” He cleared his throat. “And she’s almost finished the training course. In fact, you worked with her on that hostage rescue training exercise. She’s the one codenamed Zen.”

  Niko remembered the girl with the spiky white hair and the amber eyes who’d grabbed his attention. Even now he felt an echoing punch of desire. Then he shook his head. Typical Ryker, letting an information bomb drop—one of the Patersons had survived the fatal attack—without elaborating or allowing room for comment.

  “I know you’re in mourning, but I’d like you to follow them. Intercept communications when Tonelli reaches out to the CIA.” Ryker paused. “We can’t let the CIA or any of the dozens of other interested governmental and criminal organizations get the chip.”

  Yeah, he remembered what a mess there’d been right after Paterson disappeared. Even en route to Afghanistan Niko had heard how the SSU had been tripping over competing interests.

  “I want the chip,” Ryker said. “But…”

  The uncharacteristic hesitation surprised Niko.

  Even through the phone, Niko could hear the rapid tempo of Ryker’s fingers drumming against his desk. “Jenna’s like a daughter to me,” Ryker finally admitted. “I hate using her as bait. We need Kai and the chip secure, but not at the expense of her life. I don’t know Kai’s role in the attack on her family, but I have to consider the possibility that he’s a threat to her. Keep her safe, Niko.”

  Niko’s mind churned. Until he found out exactly where Alvarez had Aunt Madalena, he’d go to Moscow. Search for the chip and Paterson. He didn’t mind using the man. After all, Paterson was wanted for murder. But to use his sister?