The Redemption Saga Box Set

by Kristen Banet

  “You make it sound easy.” Sawyer snorted. “Just keep trucking like I didn’t just drop a bomb on y’all’s heads.”

  “Yeah, you did do that.” Elijah huffed. Then he grinned at her. “You can finally relieve my endless suffering. That would pass the time.”

  “Pervert!” She laughed, grabbing a pillow and swinging it at him. “Goddamn. I told you that I’m the assassin that helped Axel rise to the power he had, and you still want to strip off all your clothes and fuck.”

  “Yes,” Elijah growled playfully, grabbing the pillow from her and throwing it to the side. He tried to grab her, but she sublimated to the other side of her bed, grinning. When their eyes met again, he winked. “Plus, it got you to laugh.”

  Sawyer stopped and went a little wide-eyed. It had.

  “Sawyer, you will have moments of pain and regret. It seems you always have and always will. But just because we know, doesn’t mean you can’t still smile for a moment. You went through hell, and you came out on the other side. You… I refuse to believe or look at you as a bad person. You did what you needed to do, and you survived.” Elijah sighed, still smiling as he stood up.

  “Come watch a movie with me,” he continued. “Have a drink. Settle. Tomorrow, you and Jasper can bitch at each other about your criminal history. The day after that, you and Zander can kick the shit out of each other. I’ll watch, that’s hot.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “You and Vincent can be fucking weird over whatever sordid family history you seem to share. That’s the one I’m not willing to witness.”

  “And Quinn?” She asked, following him to the door.

  “Quinn doesn’t really care about what you did.” Elijah laughed. “He never has. You’ll be hard-pressed to convince him that killing another person is really all that bad. Survival of the fittest and everything. Stealing to him is nearly a foreign concept. It took us a long time to convince him that taking someone else’s property wasn’t acceptable, even if you could win the fight over it.”

  “He is so fucking weird,” Sawyer mumbled, following Elijah down the narrow stairs.

  “He’s Quinn. Yes, to us he’s strange. Sooner or later, he’ll start telling you more about himself. You’ll start to put the pieces together. It just takes time.” Elijah stopped them before leaving the small staircase. “All good things—knowing Quinn to having your freedom—take time. You just need to be willing to put the time in.”

  “I can do that,” she replied, and he smiled at her. She reached around him to open the door and let them out, impatient with being stopped in the dark, little staircase. He didn’t help her, standing so she had to press against him to reach the handle. She looked up for a moment and realized something.

  Nothing, not her past, not what happened in Atlanta a week before, could stop Elijah from wanting to slake his thirst. He raised at an eyebrow at her, and she narrowed her eyes on him.

  “You going to open the door?” he asked in a husky whisper, and she felt a shiver run down her spine. Apparently, nothing could stop her from finding him sexy as sin, either.

  “Are you going to stop trying to get in my pants?”

  “No,” he growled softly, “because what fine pants they are. I think I might look good in them, honestly.”

  She rolled her eyes, turned the handle, and shoved him out the door with enough force to make him stumble. He was laughing as she followed him down to the ground floor. She didn’t see anyone roaming around, so she assumed it was just her and Elijah for the evening.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked. “Other than the meetings the last few days, I haven’t seen you. Are you eating?”

  Sawyer frowned and thought about that. Then her stomach gave the most painful growl she had ever experienced.

  “I guess I haven’t been.” She groaned, bending over in response to a weird pain. Elijah laughed at her, pulling open the fridge.

  “I picked up a ton of Chinese for lunch,” he informed her, pulling out the takeout containers. “What are you feeling?”

  “Fried rice, preferably pork or chicken.” She moved closer. He handed her a box, and they started warming up food.

  They sat at the dining room table, and Sawyer began asking questions.

  “What do I need to learn? While everyone heals, I might as well set myself to a task.” She took another bite of her pork fried rice with a smile. She was eating the fried rice with a spoon since she and chopsticks had never gotten along.

  “Remember how we talked about making you a consultant? All of that, plus more. Everything from proper uniform, physical fitness requirements, our handbook. You’ll hate that one. The damn thing reads like a fucking dictionary. Only Jasper and Vincent know even half of what’s in it.” Elijah groaned. “Seriously, it blows. I’m positive Zander has never even opened it. I know Vincent helped me through half of the exams in training. You’ll need to take all of those as well.”

  “And I have to do all of this by…?” she trailed off, frowning at Elijah.

  “Whenever.” Elijah chuckled with a shrug. “Most likely, you’ll learn nearly everything on the job. The WMC is mad at us. We found you, caught you, and fought for your freedom. They will put us to work sooner rather than later.”

  “How mad?” Sawyer asked carefully. She didn’t like the sound of that. She didn’t like that the WMC was mad at them, and in turn, her.

  “We threatened to take you and go rogue from the IMPO if they tried to back out of the deal you had originally made with them,” Elijah mumbled. Sawyer dropped her spoon.

  “You did what?” she hissed. “Are you fucking crazy? Are all of you crazy?”

  “They were considering executing you in the hospital,” Elijah whispered, sounding pained, and looking away from her. “None of us were okay with that.”

  Sawyer swallowed a painful lump in her throat. Well, that was something. They had saved her life while she was asleep more than she had figured. First Zander had healed her, then they fought the IMPO to keep her.

  “Fuck.” She sighed, leaning back. “I might not have needed to know that.”

  “You did,” Vincent’s voice cut in. She looked over to the door and saw him. Hours earlier, she had been sitting at his desk, and he had asked an important question.

  She’d given him the only answer she could think of.

  “Good evening,” she mumbled, looking back to her food.

  “Good evening,” he replied, sitting down and taking some of the fried rice from the dish in the center of the table. “I take it Elijah has been letting you in on some things?”

  “Yeah, training and the time you guys are going to take off.” Sawyer didn’t look back up at him. In the days since the hospital, she and Vincent had spoken very little. They gave each other wide berths and definitely didn’t eat together.

  “Good,” Vincent said, sounding like nothing had changed. She couldn’t get a read on his emotions and frowned. He was completely closed-off, by the sound of his voice. She looked up and continued to frown. His face showed nothing either.

  Jasper had always tried to bury his feelings and failed. Sawyer thought her old friend should take a page from Vincent. The Italian was a master at it.

  “Anything you want to add?” she asked, her frown deepening.

  “Not really.” He took a bite of rice, using chopsticks. Of course, he could. “Anything you would like to ask or say?”

  “Not really,” she mumbled, looking back down at her food.

  “Fuck me,” Elijah muttered.

  They ate in silence after that. Sawyer didn’t appreciate the calculating look Vincent was giving her—like he was trying to figure out a puzzle the entire time they ate. As Elijah went to throw away empty containers, she dropped her spoon on the table and glared at Vincent.

  “What?” she hissed.

  “I…” He didn’t finish, shaking his head.

  “Say something,” she growled out, “or stop staring.”

  “I’m just thinking about something.” He sighed. “N
othing important. Forgive me.”

  By the small, haunted look that entered his eyes, she had a guess as to what he was thinking about. She took a chance.

  “I know Axel was your brother… and Henry was your nephew. You can ask about him,” she said gently, switching to Italian to keep the entire statement private. “I have pictures if you want them.”

  That made Vincent pale, and he shot up from the table. He left the room without a word, and Sawyer winced at a door slamming.

  “What did you say?” Elijah inquired, reentering the dining room. “He’s not the storm-off kind of guy… most of the time.”

  “That he can ask me about Henry,” Sawyer said softly. “That I can give him some photos.”

  “Nice of you to offer.” Elijah sighed. “But… Vincent will need to come to terms with a nephew he didn’t know he had on his own schedule. He’ll ask for more when he’s ready.”

  “I just wanted to let him know I can help.” Sawyer stared at the chair where Vincent had been sitting. She meant well, she really did. She could give Vincent some peace with it, something happy. He just needed to let her. But watching him run, she could only feel the guilt of failing Henry and the pain of knowing Vincent would never meet his nephew.

  “And eventually, he’ll let you. Come on.” Elijah groaned, patting her shoulder. “Let’s go watch a movie. I’ll call Quinn in.”

  She walked down to the entertainment room by herself while Elijah went to find Quinn. A movie, something normal. Something before secrets and bombs. Before Special Agent Jon Aguirre killed himself because he’d failed so spectacularly against Axel.

  It felt like she’d stepped into an alternate reality, but at the same time, this was her life now.

  Assassin turned IMPO agent. Assassin who was on the chopping block if she fucked up.

  Yeah, something normal like a movie sounded nice. She could handle a movie. It was a hard thing to fuck up, honestly.

  Thank the heavens for that.

  2

  Vincent

  Vincent got into his car, ignoring the pounding pressure in his head. He turned on his music, some Giuseppe Verdi, and just let Rigoletto flow over him.

  He let the entire song play and switch to the next one before he started the engine and pulled out of the garage.

  The house had become suffocating in the last few days. It choked the life out of him, and her constant lurking around made him jumpy. He wasn’t scared of her, not for being an assassin. He was terrified of what knowledge she might have.

  He’d once told her that no one knew Axel better than he did. He’d never realized how wrong he could be. He’d never realized how depraved and awful his brother truly was. How cruel. He’d known Axel was a dangerous, sick man but never that sick. Vincent couldn’t wrap his head around how someone could survive a hell like hers and keep going.

  One foot in front of the other.

  He wished he could channel whatever inner strength she had because he was falling apart. He could hold it together, just barely. Just enough to keep on with what he was supposed to be doing. He needed to be okay because if he fell apart, the team did.

  He needed to get the cat and the boy off his mind. He needed to get Jon out of his head, the brain matter all over the wall, the sound of the gunshot, and his guilt over causing that. He needed to get her scars and her body out of his thoughts. He needed to stop thinking about her playing with a boy he didn’t know.

  Nothing would get that boy off Vincent’s mind.

  A boy named Henry. A nephew he would never meet or even visit in his grave. A charge she had taken care of and Axel had used against her. A son his brother had murdered in a fit of anger. Vincent, that first night back at the house after Atlanta, had locked his door and broken down. He’d been crushed. He still was. For Henry, the bonded animal, and the woman who connected all of them together. Without her, Vincent would have never known any of it. And that was Vincent’s fault.

  “Antonio,” Vincent whispered, as regret festered in his heart, “if I had known in the warehouse, I would have killed you then.”

  His brother was over one thousand miles away, locked in a dark cell by himself, awaiting sentencing from the WMC. He would get the death penalty, that much was certain. The only thing that wasn’t certain was when. It was entirely possible that he would be kept alive until all his operations around the world were completely shut down. Until he sold his allies down the river, and as long as he had something to tell them, he could keep himself alive.

  Vincent drove to a local bar in town as Giacomo Puccini’s works washed over him. Vincent’s particular favorites were Pavarotti singing to the great classics, especially Puccini’s works. He absorbed it for a little while longer before cutting the engine and getting out.

  He had one idea for tonight. Get hammered and pretend, for just one evening, that none of this had happened. He could do that for just one night. He could pretend he hadn’t driven a man to suicide. He could pretend that everything wasn’t his fault.

  He stepped into the bar, Harry’s, and gave a small smile at the raucous country music. He saw Jasper and Zander in a booth, already nearly done with their—Vincent counted the empty glasses–third, maybe fourth round.

  “Hey, guys,” Vincent greeted them in a mumble, sitting down. “You only left an hour before me.”

  “Yeah, well,” Zander scoffed. “Fuck it. I said I was getting drunk, so I am.”

  “Amen,” Jasper groaned out, holding up a half-finished whiskey. Vincent nodded slowly as a waitress came over with Vincent’s regular drink, a cheap scotch. He sipped it as Jasper downed the whiskey. Holy shit, Jasper was going to kill himself at that rate, the lightweight.

  “Who’s watching her?” Jasper asked, his speech a little slurred.

  “Elijah… probably has Quinn with him now, too.” Vincent sighed, giving up on sipping. He downed his entire drink in two swallows. “She was eating fucking fried rice last time I saw her.”

  “Jesus,” Jasper grumbled. “I can’t fucking handle this, Vincent.”

  “We don’t have a choice. At least it’s just her for you,” Vincent muttered, feeling a bit pissy himself. “I have a…” Dead nephew.

  He didn’t say the words out loud—had yet to say them out loud since he had found out. But the guys knew exactly what he was referencing.

  Vincent was particularly bitter over the fact that he could have been trying to catch Axel at that time, but the IMPO had told Vincent he was too young. He’d been untrustworthy. He could be used by Axel against the Organization.

  “How’s everything with you?” Zander’s mental voice entered his mind, drunk in his head, just like Zander was slurring in reality. They rarely spoke using telepathy. Vincent and Zander could both do it. So if they wanted a private conversation, they could have one. They rarely needed to. “Have you… talked to her about all that stuff? Have you talked to anyone about what you saw in the hospital? With Jon?”

  “I can’t right now, Zander,” Vincent replied, sending the words back to Zander. “I’m barely holding it together. And furthermore, I would like to ignore that entire topic. We were notably not given invitations to those funerals.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Vin. Jon and his team, the decisions he made… they weren’t your fault.”

  “I know.”

  He did know that. He’d taken what Quinn had said to heart, and the team reminded him every time they got the chance. And Vincent kind of understood why Jon did it. If Vincent had failed his team so spectacularly, broken the code, tried to set other agents up, and gotten people killed like that… Vincent would have strongly considered ending it the same way.

  They sat in silence for a moment. Vincent knew Zander was just trying to do his duty as friend and healer, but the hothead was the last person Vincent wanted to talk about Sawyer with. Or Jon. Or any of it.

  “This sucks,” Zander mumbled, getting the silent message loud and clear. “Let’s just get drunk.”

  “Tomorro
w we go back to normal,” Jasper reminded them. “She’s on the team now. We got to… I don’t know, be fucking teammates.”

  “You are just losing your mind, aren’t you?” Vincent huffed looking at Jasper. Here he was, their Golden Boy, the one with a rigid sense of morality. And he was madly in love with a woman who was guilty of crimes including, but not limited to, assault, theft, and murder. He nearly felt bad for Jasper. Vincent didn’t, though, because he felt Jasper needed that kick in the head to remember the world wasn’t black and white. It took him a year to get over being on Vincent’s team, thanks to his Castello background. Hopefully, even though Sawyer’s background was worse, they wouldn’t have such a hard time of it this go around.

  “Fuck, yeah I am,” Jasper moaned, putting his head on the table. “Being drunk helps, though.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Vincent mumbled. His second drink came and then a third. They lived way down in southern Georgia, where the towns were tiny and the communities were close. While the team didn’t engage with the locals frequently, the town remembered them. They would hit the bar after a rough case, and what they drank was remembered and kept flowing.

  This had definitely been a rough, strange, weaving case. It technically wasn’t over, since Sawyer was an extension of everything that had happened. And Axel wasn’t sentenced, yet. They were on vacation until that moment, until the WMC handed down Axel’s verdict.

  “We agreed to this,” Vincent sighed. “We agreed to it before we even knew…”

  “You know,” Zander started with a huff, “I’d do it again. I just wish that she had just been what she was. It would almost be easier if she was just—"

  Just an assassin.

  Vincent knew what Zander was trying to say. It would have been easier if she had just been an assassin. Not a victim of an awful game, a horrifying relationship, or his brother’s plaything. That was weighing on them all—a cloak of darkness that had blanketed the team since she had decided to tell them everything.