Portsea, Australia
As soon as the police took over at the beach, Tilly stumbled home and straight to the cabinet where the hard liquor was stored. It wasn’t even noon, but after what she’d seen, she needed a stiff drink. And a hot shower.
Honey followed her around from room to room, whining.
Tilly scratched the dog’s head. “I know, girl. It’s a terrible thing. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
After she downed her third drink, Tilly’s hand had stopped shaking madly. Stepping into the bathroom, she turned on the shower to near scalding.
When she was done, she threw on her bathrobe without drying off and padded barefoot into the bedroom, leaving sloshy footprints behind her. She grabbed the phone and tried Tom’s line again. He wasn’t home yet and hadn’t answered his phone. All she wanted to do was collapse in his arms. Instead, she flopped on her bed. Honey lay down at the foot of it.
When the phone rang, she snatched it up without looking. “Tom!”
“Sorry. It’s Damon.”
“Oh, Damon!”
It was her best friend’s son. The boy was like a son to her even though he had grown up in America. He’d spent months vacationing with them over the years.
But he was having a hard time. A really hard time.
His mother had suggested he come stay with Tilly and Tom for a while.
They had readily agreed. It was always a treat to have visitors. They loved each other’s company but also loved to host friends and family at the big stone house.
“I’ve got my flight now, and my mom told me to ring you right away.”
“Oh thanks, Darling,” Tilly said, sitting up in bed. “We are thrilled to have you come stay with us. I can’t wait. I’ve been planning what to cook for the past week. Tom and I both have.”
Damon laughed on the other end of the phone.
“Dear Tilly. You don’t need to do anything special. In fact, I should be the one cooking for you, earning my keep, you know? It’s what I do for my part-time job.”
“Really? Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Tilly teased.
“Well, I better go. I have to go to work, but I wanted to give you my flight information right away.”
“Oh, Damon,” Tilly said with a big grin. “We can’t wait.”
“Me either,” he said, softly and hung up.
Tilly frowned. He really was having a rough time. It broke her heart. But getting away from Florida and staying at the stone house was sure to help. He could surf every day and lie in the sun and eat good food at night. It was the perfect recipe for healing. It had worked on Tom when he’d been Damon’s age. Tom had come to stay with some distant relatives of his who owned a house down the road. Ostensibly to get over some problems he’d been having at home. He’d only been fifteen. Tilly had been fourteen.
And then Tilly and Tom had fallen in love and Tom never left. They waited until they were eighteen to marry. By then, the car crash that had taken her parent’s life was a year in the past.
It was young to be married, but it had now lasted for thirty-six years, so it must have been the right decision.
As Tilly was lost in her memories, she nearly forgot about the arm.
Until Tom rushed in.
“I came straight home when I heard.”
“Oh, Tom,” Tilly said and fell into his arms. “It’s just awful!”
“I know,” he said.
“Do you think it’s the missing girl?”
He nodded grimly.
The news had been full of reports about a preacher’s daughter who had gone missing while walking to a friend’s house to study. The girl was only sixteen.
Her name was Maddie May Johnson. She had a little brother and two loving parents who looked like they’d been hit by a truck by her disappearance. At least from what Tilly and Tom could tell after seeing their faces on the telly.
A few people in town had said they were holding out hope that the girl was just rebelling against a religious upbringing and sowing her wild oats and would return home abashed. But now that seemed unlikely.
And from all accounts, Maddie May had been a really good kid, always going out of her way to be a friend and help other students. At least that’s what the teachers and business owners had told the news. It was a sad sort of world where a girl can’t even walk over to a friend’s house to study.
Tilly was near tears as they talked about this.
“Tom,” Tilly said, blinking and swiping at her wet race. “There’s something I just remembered. I think I need to call Inspector Harris and tell him. I don’t know why I’d forgotten until now.”
“What is it, Tilly?” he said.
“The arm. I remember something about it,” she said with a sob.
“What is it?” he asked again in as calm a voice as he could imagine.
“The hands. They had sparkling blue polish on them.”
“Dear God.”
It was a small detail that they’d read about in the paper. Maddie May had spent the day before her disappearance polishing her nails and for fun and had done her little brother’s nails too. With sparkling blue polish.
Tom took her into his arms and held her tight.
The world was not fair.
5
Present Day
A small Indonesian island near Sumatra
Six months after she’d left Amsterdam, Rose never thought about Liam again.
When he wasn’t there in front of her, his memory couldn’t compete with thoughts of Timothy.
Besides, Rose also was too busy trying to find the Sultan. It was all she thought about.
Vendetta.
A word she’d learned growing up with Gia.
Rose wasn’t Italian, but she’d been raised by two strong Italian women.
She wouldn’t rest until she’d avenged Timothy’s murder.
But it was tougher than she’d thought. She’d followed several promising leads and ended up finding nothing. They were always dead ends.
The Sultan was a mysterious figure—a shadowy presence with a strange, otherworldly presence Rose had never encountered before.
Even though her early years were spent in Mexico where it was normal to believe the dead came to visit on Day of the Dead, this was something else. This was some sort of dark arts that involved a spiritual realm that frightened Rose to even think about.
But that was all nebulous. If Rose was going to find him, she needed to concentrate on the cold, hard facts—what she knew for sure.
What Rose knew for sure about the Sultan was slim. She knew that he collected young girls and made them his foot soldiers. He brainwashed them somehow into doing his dirty work. He also sacrificed them periodically.
He never rested in his endeavor to recruit new victims. Which was how she was going to find him. She would look for him wherever there were clusters of young girls missing.
She’d tracked down missing girls from Peru to Taiwan and each time learned that the disappearances were not as ominous as they’d seemed. Only in one incident was there even anything sinister: a girl who had gone missing in Norway had been kidnapped by a man running a sex-trafficking ring. The police had rescued her in time.
Rose had limited hacking skills that she learned during her stint at Eva’s assassin boot camp, but she still had managed to break into several international crime databases where she constantly monitored alerts for missing girls between six and eighteen.
The Sultan collected girls this age.
The first time Rose had met the Sultan, he appeared before her as an indistinct shape—a hulking man in a black robe, hood, and mask in the darkness of his candlelit mansion. As he got closer, she made out gleaming dark orbs. This alone made her legs shake in fear. But it was his scent that had nearly floored her.
He smelled of something rotten that has been dragged from the bowels of the earth.
His presence alone had struck a deep terror at Rose’s core, but shortly aft
er, when she saw the power he held over the girls surrounding him, she knew she’d never faced a darker evil.
Seconds after meeting him, she’d called him a monster and then held her breath, waiting for his reaction.
She wanted to see just how far he’d go. Would he hit her? Cut her with his saber? Kill her? Ignore her? Rose searched his face for any reaction, but the shadows continued to obscure it.
Then he made the slightest gesture.
The girl beside Rose reached onto the table and picked up a small blade. Rose turned her head toward the girl and flinched, wondering if the order was for a small cut or a fatal blow. Rose prepared, her body tensing and her fists clenching at her side. She would defend herself against the attack either way. To Rose’s surprise, when the girl lifted the dagger, instead of thrusting it toward Rose, she drew the blade swiftly across her own throat. Rose looked on in horror as the blood bubbled out of the slash in the girl’s neck and she fell forward onto the floor. Rose cried out and crouched down onto the marble, but the girl was motionless.
Rose stood, feeling sick and frantic and met the eyes of the other girls lined up against the wall. Not a single one of them reacted. They stared back at her blankly.
It was mind-numbing. The only possible explanation was that all those girls dressed in white robes had been brainwashed.
He’d done something unspeakable to them.
Rose had been a girl then. A girl trained to kill at Eva’s Italian boot camp, but still a girl.
After a violent childhood of seeing people she loved slaughtered before her, Rose had begged to go train to be an assassin, pleading that she’d never be able to live a normal life and needed to know how to protect herself. Her father, Nico, and Gia, had finally agreed and sent her to live with Eva for a year.
Even though she was eleven years old, she quickly became Eva’s best soldier. A natural assassin. She was ready for her new life.
Her first assignment ended up leading her to the Sultan’s palace off the coast of Thailand.
It had changed her forever.
After Rose escaped the Sultan’s mansion, she’d decided to leave the life of an assassin behind.
Settling in Barcelona with Nico and Gia, Rose had lived a normal teenage girl’s life—going to the beach with school friends and hanging out in café’s while drinking coffee and studying late into the night. It felt great to start fresh in a new country where people didn’t know her father as a powerful cartel leader.
Her new friends, especially her best friend, Timothy, made her life rich and full.
Despite her tragic childhood, she was unbelievably happy and well-adjusted.
But that seemingly blessed life had only lasted until the day she turned eighteen.
That’s when the Sultan had finally found her and punished her by taking Timothy’s life.
In a heartbeat, she returned to the life of an assassin, leaving any hopes and dreams of living a normal life behind.
Now Rose’s life was devoted to the Sultan’s demise.
And missing girls would lead her to him. He could never have enough. His depravity was too strong.
Her latest lead had led her to Sumatra.
But when she arrived, she found the missing girl, Joan, holed up with some other homeless kids in a house in the red-light district.
Poor Joan had her life and mind destroyed by another piece of shit human—a man named X from a nearby island.
Rose decided while she researched her next lead, she’d take care of X.
She’d wait until she had a lead on the Sultan and then, right before she left the island, she’d take out X in a blaze of glory.
Then Gia showed up.
6
Present Day
A small Indonesian island near Sumatra
Rose immediately froze.
She was in her beach hut sitting on her futon and reading a book when she heard a sound that made her pause.
The salty ocean breeze filtered in through the open door, lifting a strand of her hair. Dylan, attuned to her every mood, stopped nibbling on his paws and lifted his head, staring at her as his ears raised, listening to what she had heard:
The distant sound of a car’s engine.
A car rumbling down the dirt road behind the huts was an instant cause for alarm.
A car that came to a stop instead of just passing through was cause for Rose to set down the book she was reading and stand.
She crept to the window, senses on high alert.
Dylan, sensing her unease, stood, his hair on end. A low growl erupting from his throat.
Standing in the shadows, her face back from the window itself, Rose watched the car.
It had stopped at the other end of the low row of huts, shortly after it turned off the main road that led to the small island’s village.
Someone was getting out of the back seat of the car—a woman with dark hair wearing dark glasses and a motorcycle jacket despite the tropical heat.
The pounding of Rose’s heartbeat throbbed in her ears.
It was Gia.
Gia looked around. As her head swiveled toward the row of huts lining the island road, Rose shrunk deeper into the shadows.
She was filled with a mixture of anxiety and excitement.
For so long, Rose had been avoiding Gia’s calls and texts.
But now, seeing Gia in person made Rose want to run and hug her. But Rose knew that she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. She had to remain strong. She had to stay tough until she found and killed the Sultan. Any weakness on her part would lead to failure in her mission.
And loving Gia was a weakness. Maybe Rose’s only one.
Her eyes flickered down to Dylan. No. The dog. He was her other Achilles heel. She would die before she’d let anything happen to him. He was her best friend and constant companion.
He had saved her.
When she had submerged deep inside herself, caught in the darkness of her own mind after Timothy’s murder, his little puppy playfulness and joy had helped her swim to the surface where the light was.
Gia disappeared down toward the beach. It wouldn’t take long for her to find Rose’s hut.
Although Rose had asked the other surfers to beware of strangers asking about her, Gia could be very convincing.
Her first instinct was to run and hide.
She turned away from the window, glancing wildly around the small hut.
It only contained a few personal items—a few books, her cell phone, a laptop.
The laptop was hidden beneath a loose board underneath her futon.
Rose walked toward the futon, eyeing the other items she would grab before she fled.
Her flight instinct had kicked in. She had to get the hell out of there and fast.
But there were other emotions there as well—confusing ones.
Deep inside, she also knew that seeing Gia would reduce her to a crumbling, pathetic mess. She could already feel tears forming. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The thought of sinking into Gia’s arms was tempting, but that would also be a huge mistake. She’d been strong for so long. She’d been alone with her pain for an eternity. Gia was the only one in the world who could truly understand her loss.
She was torn.
Maybe it would be okay to talk to Gia? Maybe just for a few minutes. Just to let Gia know she was safe. She owed Gia that much. She drew back her shoulders. Yes. She would go greet her. And tell her that as much as she loved her, Gia had to leave. She had to let Rose live her own life.
Dylan let out a low, dangerous growl as a shadow darkened her doorway.
The decision had been made for her.
She would face Gia. She whirled and began to smile, but her smile faded. A large man with a ski mask over his face and a knife in his hand stood there, his bulk taking up the entire small doorway.
Dylan let loose a terrifying snarl, barking ferociously with his teeth bared.
Rose instinctively assumed a fighting stance, her legs bent
at the knees, her left leg in front of her right, her arms out before her. When he got a little bit closer, she would be able to knock the knife away from him. She was rehearsing this in her mind when the man lifted his arm and flung the knife across the room.
Rose went to duck but immediately realized she wasn’t the target.
Dylan was in the air, flying across the room in mid-attack when the knife struck him.
Rose howled in fury and terror and raced toward the man. But he was crouched over Dylan now, who lay whimpering on the ground. The man had pulled the knife out of Dylan, but held it close to Dylan’s face. The dog’s eyes were closed, and he was breathing hard. Rose thought he must be dying.
“Come with us without a fight, and I’ll let him live.”
Us?
Rose turned and saw another masked man standing in the doorway. He had a gun pointed towards her. He jutted his chin toward the outside.
“I need to help him,” Rose said frantically. “He’s going to bleed out.”
“Go. Now.”
Every inch of Rose wanted to kill this man with her bare hands, but she stood, her eyes laser focused on her dog. He was struggling to breathe. Angry tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
She would kill these men. She would destroy them.
“Now!” the gunman shouted.
“I’m not going until you stop that bleeding,” she said. “You can go ahead and shoot me right here.”
Her voice was pure steel. She meant it. They could kill her. She would not leave her dog to die.
The two men exchanged a look, the whites of their eyes flickering. The gunman nodded, and she watched with relief as the man with the knife grabbed a pair of her leggings and wrapped it tightly around Dylan’s abdomen.
The gunman shoved the gun into her small of her back.
“If you don’t turn around and walk out right now, I will kill you both.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. He was a dead man. Dead.
The man with the knife held the blade against Dylan’s throat.
“Do as he says.”
She gave Dylan one last glance and walked out toward a waiting car.
As the gunman steered Rose toward a vehicle, she realized it was the same car that Gia had gotten out of. But now it was in front of her own hut next to a motorcycle.
Blood & Fire (Vigilante Crime Series Book 2) Page 3
