Athena Force 9: Payback

by Harper Allen

  He nodded, his grip secure on hers. “That’s a promise. But for now all you need to know is my sister was a strong woman who always tried to do what was right.” He released her and stepped away. “In many ways, you’re a lot like her,” he said quietly.

  Dawn actually felt tears well up in her eyes. “I’m glad,” she said. She turned toward Tom King and Lynn and Faith, and a tear crept down her cheek.

  “Hey sis, no waterworks today. I think there’s been enough of that for all of us,” Lynn said and pushed a friendly fist lightly into Dawn’s shoulder.

  “We’ve got a lot of getting to know each other to do still,” Faith added. “I foresee a lot of flying in everyone’s future.” Faith’s extra-sensory abilities didn’t really include foretelling the future, and they all laughed. Tom wrapped an arm each around Lynn and Faith and the three of them moved aside, gesturing for Dawn to join them when she could.

  Justin turned away and slipped into the press of people, but not before stopping to embrace a red-haired woman Dawn realized was another Cassandra, FBI forensic scientist Alexandra Forsythe. Alex and Justin exchanged a few intimate words, and then Alex walked toward Dawn along with Kayla Ryan and Sam St. John. Alex flicked a sideways glance at Asher and then raised an eyebrow at Dawn. “Saving the world is nice, but it’s even better when you get the guy as well, huh?”

  “Damn straight,” Dawn said promptly. She grinned and then sobered. “It was a group effort. The Cassandras and their allies did good, didn’t we, ladies? Working together turned us into a force to be reckoned with. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a gorgeous and stubborn hunk of man to get stitched up again.”

  She moved to Asher’s side. Kayla looked at Sam and Alex, her expression quizzical. “A force to be reckoned with,” she said slowly. “Athena Force. You like?”

  Dawn nodded. Sam spoke for all of them. “I like. Athena Force. Kinda kicks ass, doesn’t it?” She smiled. “Just like its members.”

  And as Dawn bullied her way through the crowd, a wryly smiling Asher following close behind her, she just made out Kayla’s words. “You got that right, girlfriend,” Kayla said. Dawn could feel the women’s gazes on her back. “Just like its members.”

  Epilogue

  “You may now kiss the bride.” The white-cassocked Church of England priest beamed indulgently as the handsome groom, Captain Destin Asher, formerly of the SAS, kissed his beautiful new wife, Mrs. Dawn Asher, née O’Shaughnessy.

  “Darling, everyone’s watching.” Pulling away from the prolonged kiss, the bride blushed and gave her husband’s hand a squeeze. For a moment it seemed as if her groom was wincing, but his expression turned into a smile as he faced the small gathering assembled in the room.

  “Since there won’t be a reception and Dawnie—” there was a slight rustle near the hem of the bride’s exquisite lace wedding gown and Asher seemed to wince again before he went on “—Dawn and I will be leaving Venice immediately for our honeymoon in the Azores, a few words of appreciation are in order. First I’d like to thank Sir Giles Anthony, Britain’s man in Venice and a close friend of my uncle’s, who unfortunately couldn’t be here today, for offering us the use of his beautiful palazzo in which to celebrate our special day and the fleet of gondolas that brought us and our guests here in style. Sir Giles, my adorable wife and I will never be able to thank you enough for—”

  “Unfriendly at three o’clock, Ash! Get the freakin’ padre out of the line of fire!”

  Destin Asher’s adorable bride reached under the masses of tulle and lace billowing around her. Her hand came back into sight holding a wicked-looking knife. As the guests’ shocked gasps turned to screams, she threw it at the tuxedo-clad man by the door who was raising his automatic rifle to his shoulder.

  His aim jerked up, and a deadly line of bullets thudded into the delicately hued painting on the salon’s ceiling. Wrenching the blade from his arm with a cry of pain, the man began to raise his weapon again.

  “Everybody down!” Dawn jerked her attention Asher’s way at his shouted warning. Clad in a dove-gray morning suit, he reached behind the lectern the priest had been standing at before he’d been knocked aside and leveled the Sig Sauer he’d retrieved over the heads of the guests. “Lady, get down, dammit!” He fired off a round and the gunman at the door suddenly clutched his elbow and dropped his rifle. A few pink feathers drifted onto the upturned face of a woman wearing a towering pink hat who’d fainted dead away.

  “Crap, Ash, he’s escaping!” Dawn began to race toward the door, but halfway there she tripped on the train of her gown, sliding a few feet on her face before scrambling to her feet again. “Help me off with this freakin’ thing,” she said as her groom ran to her side.

  Seed pearls scattering wildly in all directions, Asher ripped her bodice open, revealing a virginal white corset with push-up cups. Impatiently grabbing a handful of tulle, Dawn tore the dress down over her hips and stepped out of it.

  “Take a picture, it’ll last longer, buddy,” she snapped at a gaping male guest. “Come on, Asher, the bastard’s getting away!”

  “He’ll have transportation waiting down by the canal,” he replied as they left their wedding guests huddled on the floor and sped out into a hallway. “No, love, take the stairs to the roof garden.”

  “What, are you crazy?” Despite her protest, Dawn complied, shouldering past Asher and reaching the landing a step ahead of him. “We should be following the mother, not going in the opposite direction.”

  “That’s exactly my point.” Tearing off his suit jacket as he ran, he headed up a second flight of stairs. “From the roof garden we can see which way his waiting vaporetto heads when it takes off. By the way, couldn’t you find those in white?”

  He pushed open the door at the top of the stairs as he spoke, his glance dropping briefly to her feet. She made a face. “The combat boots? Okay, I know they don’t go with the merry widow and the frilly blue garters, but I figured they wouldn’t show under that ridiculous meringue of a dress. Besides, I knew if your plan worked out there was a chance we’d be involved in a situation where combat boots would be more appropriate than satin pumps. Over by those tubs of flowers—that must overlook the front of the building, Ash.”

  She sped to the ornamental railing and looked down the three stories—technically four, Dawn thought, since they were on the roof—of the ancient palazzo. The beauty of Venice was spread out all around them, but her eyes were focused on the line of gondolas and motorized vaporettos bobbing in the canal just feet from the front door of the palazzo.

  “After six months of always finding ourselves one step behind those bastards who bought your uncle’s research from Peters, this fake wedding was a stroke of genius,” she said, her attention fixed on the scene below. “Like you guessed it might, it drew one of them out of the woodwork hoping to take us both down when we didn’t have our guard up. Where’d you get the actor who played the priest, Ash? He was so convincing that if I didn’t know better I’d swear he was the real thing.”

  “Do I still get to take those frilly blue garters off later tonight?” Asher said musingly, leaning over the railing and not looking at her. “Keep the boots on, too, love. It’s a kinky look, but it suits you.”

  His tone was too smooth. Dawn frowned, momentarily taking her gaze from the canal. “He didn’t even have to refer to the book of services for the words to the marriage ceremony, I noticed. He was pretty freakin’ good, Ash. Where’d you find him?”

  “There’s our man!”

  Ignoring her question, Asher pointed to a figure stumbling onto the cobblestoned walkway that lined the canal. Another figure leaped from one of the moored motorboats, grabbed the first man by the arm and hustled him onboard. A moment later she heard the sound of not one but two powerful engines coughing to life.

  “Now for the fun part,” Asher said briskly as he threw one leg over the railing and then the other. He stood on the small ledge and gave her a tight grin. “That second vaporetto�
�s our chase vehicle, love. You up for a quick dip?”

  “Are you freakin’…oh, why not. It’s faster than running down all those stairs again.” Dawn hoisted herself over the rail and looked at the man standing beside her. “He was a fake priest, right?”

  “Bloody hell, O’Shaughnessy—just jump!” Asher grinned, grabbing her hand and leaping with her off the ledge.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Harper Allen

  Hey—the girl can’t help it. If Harper Allen seems to feel more at home writing about life on the wild side, it’s only because she’s following that old literary maxim: Write what you know. Growing up in a blue-collar motor city, and with comments such as “Does not play well with others” on her grade-school report cards, it was pretty much a given that she would end up creating loner heroes, tough heroines, and gritty settings. Harper’s characters have always been real people with real flaws, desperately struggling to find the love that will redeem them.

  But there’s a kinder, gentler side to Harper. Underneath the motorcycle leathers (I was going how fast, officer?) and the rose tattoo (don’t ask—there was a bet, she won, that’s all you need to know) beats the heart of a true romantic. The day she met the man who eventually became her husband, she told her sister, “Get out of the way, that one’s mine.”

  Okay, okay. Really she said, “I’ve just met the man I’m going to marry. How long do you think it’ll take him to figure it out?”

  She’s a sucker for stray dogs (they’ve got four), abandoned kittens (six, and they’re pretty darn big cats now), and not-so-cute little kids who aren’t the first ones picked for the volleyball team. Her idea of a great date with her husband is going to a baseball game. Her idea of a great baseball game is any one in which the Red Sox win (a hopeless romantic, did we say?).

  While her work as a reporter in the criminal court system gives her books a darker edge, and her Irish ancestry lends them a touch of Celtic mysticism, first and foremost each one is a story about a man and a woman falling in love and holding on to that love—and for that Harper need look no further for inspiration than her own life.

  So what happens to bad girls when they grow up? Just ask Harper—if they’re lucky, they get to write about it and the story has a happy ending. Because the best romances always do.