Terminal Vendetta (A Diana Weick Thriller Book 3)

by Cate Clarke

  Maybe, he could get to it first.

  Laird leaned forward, bringing his knees up into a crouch as Snowman made his way toward the closet, reaching for the handle.

  And just as his fingers wrapped around the handle, Diana Weick came flying into the room, tackling Snowman so hard that they both went flying into the wall, both bodies landing with a heavy crunch against the plaster.

  Laird threw open the closet.

  “Go, Ma!” he yelled. “Go now!”

  Nodding frantically, she made her way to her feet, struggling and limping across the bedroom but going as fast as she could. The gun fired off into the ceiling as she got to the door. Snowman and Weick struggled against each other, rolling in a challenge of strength and evasiveness. Snowman trying to grab at her and Weick ducking out of the way and trying to pin him into positions where she had the advantage.

  Laird hadn’t seen Weick fight in a long time, and he’d forgotten how good she was.

  The wrestling in front of him made it hard to keep his eye on the barrel of the gun, looking for his opportunity to strike like he was waiting for the right time to hop into a jump rope. The gun went off again, Snowman managing to get his finger on the trigger.

  A string of bullets swept from the floor to the corner of the ceiling, three of them hitting Laird.

  “Laird!” Weick screamed.

  At first, he didn’t feel anything at all, the shock numbing the pain. But then it hit him in three waves, pain and fire searing through his whole body, radiating from his calf, his thigh and his ribs. Thump. Thump. Thump. The waves coming again and again with each beat of his heart. Hot and fucking excruciating. It had been a while since Laird had been shot.

  There were more footsteps down the hall, tripping against the scattered pieces of wood and glass, squeaking along the ancient wood. It could have been his mom coming back, and he would curse her out if she did. Laird pulled his body, every part of him screaming as he tried to get closer to the wall and away from the gun.

  Asher appeared in the doorway.

  “No,” Laird groaned.

  His wide frightened eyes flashed to Laird crunched against the wall, bleeding out onto the carpet and then over to Weick and Snowman, tussling on the other side of the bed. And as soon as Snowman smelled Asher’s fear, his adrenaline seemed to double. He threw Weick across the room, slamming her back against the windowsill and her head whapping against the glass. Snowman hopped up from the other side of the bed, the sweat flying off his body and onto the bedspread.

  Crazed brown eyes latched onto Asher, and a wide white almost-crooked grin came across the bottom of his face.

  “No!” Laird cried.

  Snowman didn’t even flinch. He pressed a thick finger down onto the trigger and hit Asher with everything he had. He seemed to be shooting forever, like the bullets would never stop coming out of the barrel, stuck on an endless loop of hellfire and Snowman’s petty revenge until the end of time. The force of it all sent Asher backward. Trying to catch himself on the doorframe, his body filled with holes and blood, skin floating off of him like a tattered curtain.

  There was a thud as Asher fell to his knees, Snowman finally taking his finger off the trigger, smoke rising from the tip.

  Laird dragged himself to the other side of the room, staying low and leaning himself against the bed to try and see. Regretting it instantly—the sight of Asher’s meek body like that—Laird averted his eyes, pushing the side of his face into the cool mattress, the sweat on his cheek and the blood from his stomach, sticking him to the already-stained sheets.

  He blinked hard. Counted backwards from ten. But none of it eased the pain in his body or the new image ingrained in his head. Cameron had replaced his father with Asher—the image that would haunt him and that he would see when he eventually made his peace with God.

  Chapter 33

  Diana Weick

  Nowhere, Texas

  Everything was fuzzy. The heat, the house, the sound of shots, the smell of weed, her back cracking against the wall—it all caused her head to spin. But mostly, the source of it was the anger, the driving force behind her need to end this, once and for all.

  After Cameron had laid waste to Asher across the room, he stood there, breathing heavy, the gun smoking in his hands, his chest rising rapidly. He turned the gun to her.

  “Get on your feet,” Cameron demanded.

  Diana put her hands to her ears, slowly standing. Her body was sore from wrestling against the twenty-five-year-old. It wasn’t like fighting an old villain like Zabójca or Voss. Cameron was young, spry and trained—driven entirely by emotion and whatever point he was trying to prove.

  Lifting her hands by her ears, Diana walked with Cameron, the gun at her back as he led her across the bullet-filled house. They passed Laird, leaning against the bed, staring up at them with his hand clutched across his side and his breathing labored.

  “I’ll come back for you,” Diana said firmly.

  Cameron bashed her in the back of the head with the butt of the gun. More spinning. In addition to the jet lag, Diana was not in peak fighting condition. If she had been, maybe she could have saved Asher. Not that that was high on her list of priorities, she’d come here to protect Laird and his home. It was just nature—the need to protect the last remaining member of her SEAL team. But he was bleeding out on the floor behind them, and they were running out of time.

  Cameron walked her down the hall and carefully descended the stairs. They managed their way around broken banisters and glass. They avoided slipping on scattered metal casings from the dozens of shots splayed out across the house. As Cameron took her out to the back of the house, Diana took a quick glance toward the driveway, her car parked behind Cameron’s—empty and waiting.

  Outside, the warmth clung to her skin, sucking at the sweat on her body and coating her with a dry heat. Laird’s backyard opened up into a field that was mostly desert, the occasional bush and rolling hill in the distance but mostly just wide, gold and flat for miles. There were two old wooden buildings—one completely tilted, like it could be brought down by the slightest gust of wind. The other building was an old garage with a lock on a massive wooden door.

  “On your knees, Weick,” Cameron said.

  One at a time, Diana brought her knees down to the hard, parched dirt. Cameron rounded her, standing in front of her with the SMG hanging by his side, looking at the back of the house that he had destroyed.

  “This wasn’t how I expected things to go,” he said. “But I’ll take it.”

  Diana had to buy them and herself some time. Her eyes flashed around, searching her environment for something she could use. Almost nothing except for a small spider crawling across the dirt, scrambling away from the house. She watched it skitter on to Cameron’s shoe but moved her eyes back up to his so his attention wouldn’t be drawn to it.

  “You did all you needed to do here,” Diana said. “You can walk away from this now. Start over.”

  “That is what I’m doing,” Cameron said. “Just got a few loose ends to tie up first.”

  “You got the money.”

  “Not what I was promised.”

  “I wasn’t the one who betrayed you,” Diana snapped.

  “Sure you were.” Cameron grinned—his father’s smile. “Of course, you were. Everyone betrayed me. It wasn’t just Zabójca and Asher taking the money. You and Laird and all these other soldiers that think this shit isn’t affecting them right now and into their future. Your ignorance betrays me every time you open your goddamn mouth.”

  “Your dad,” Diana started, “wouldn’t have wanted this for you, Cameron.”

  “How would I know, Diana?” Cameron yelled, his voice falling flat against the back of the house and the desert around them. A tumbleweed, bobbling in the wind, caught on the edge of the garage. “How would I know what my father wanted? He died when I was fifteen. He was gone for almost my whole childhood. I didn’t know him because the military took him away from me. Rat
anake took him from me. You took him from me!”

  “Kushkin took him from you, Cameron,” Diana said. “Not us.”

  “And then you partnered with Kushkin,” Cameron continued. “You showed your allegiances, Weick. They certainly don’t lie with anyone but yourself. You’re selfish. Just like every other fucking soldier out there, so worried about the way they’re perceived or their families. Too afraid to stand up for what’s right.”

  “People can change,” Diana said. “Taras changed. You can change, Cameron.”

  “I already did change!”

  “Cameron—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Cameron pointed the barrel at her head. “I will paint the back of Laird’s house with your brains, Diana.”

  She pressed her lips together, glaring up at him. He took a step closer; the spider crawled up his boot and onto his bare ankle.

  It bit him, its tiny pincers latching on to his skin.

  He barely noticed, shaking off his pants like he’d been scratched by a cat and not just bitten by a Brown Recluse spider. Diana recognized it from spending some time at the Louisiana base for basic training where they’d put up posters of the small orange-brown spiders to remind them of the dangers of its bite and to shake out their cot blankets before bed. It would take a few hours for him to feel that bite—if he survived that long.

  The cool barrel of the gun pressed against her forehead, and Diana closed her eyes, really hoping that Cameron was done talking and if he was going to do it, he should just do it already. It wasn’t the way she wanted or planned to die, but it was one she was okay with.

  Her family was safe. The Readers were virtually eradicated aside from the one in front of her. The Kushkins were all dead.

  Death would be less comfortable than the retirement she had planned, but Diana had made her peace. She was no longer just the first woman SEAL or the one that had taken down the Kushkin organization. Now, she was an independent, working to protect her family and those close to her, making the choice of who to work with without orders and hand-holding. Whether those choices were right or wrong didn’t matter. The consequences of those decisions would come down on her, and she was prepared for that. She would not be Ratanake’s star pupil, heeding his every order, killing every bad guy he put in front of her. She would not be Amita Voss’s personal revenge puppet, set out by forced motivations and unstable relationships. Diana would live in her repercussions as a mother with no other need than to protect her family.

  “Hey!” the familiar Texan accent called from above.

  Both Diana and Cameron turned their heads. Laird was sticking his head out the window from the upstairs bedroom, rifle in his hands, pointing it right at Cameron’s forehead. His face was pale and his lips were gray and chapped, a burning joint hanging between them, as a drop of blood dripped from his mouth, staining the paper.

  Laird cocked the gun and said, “I got dibs on the Ferrari.”

  There was the shuffle of several boots, the whir of helicopter blades lowering down toward them. Marianna Axtell led a group of soldiers from around the side of the farmhouse. Amber and his group closed in from the other side. Lieutenant Branscomb dropped down from a ladder hanging from a helicopter, a fresh SEAL team behind him.

  All of them pointing their guns at Cameron Snowman.

  “Your backup,” Cameron muttered to Diana and shook his head, still holding the barrel against her. Diana supposed he was considering if it was worth dying in order to kill her. He said, “I thought you were working alone now.”

  “These are just old friends,” Diana replied.

  Before Cameron could consider Diana’s life any longer, Branscomb had taken him down from behind. His huge arms, trained and controlled, slammed Cameron into the dirt, facedown, sputtering against the desert ground.

  She considered not telling him. That way, if he didn’t kill himself in his cell, the spider bite could kill him over the next day or so. Cameron was a violent and passionate kid with a one-track-mind, and a man of conviction like his father was. And she felt that same pity as she had with Taras—she didn’t want him to die.

  “Better get some ice on that ankle,” Diana whispered to him as he lay on the ground, Branscomb cuffing his wrists together. “That Recluse bite is going to really sting in a couple of hours.”

  Cameron let out a frustrated and confused growl against the dirt as Diana rolled away, getting to her feet and stumbling between the groups of soldiers that were closing in. She and Axtell shared a glance, Diana stepping forward to shake her hand, other soldiers splitting out of her way like she was way more important than she actually was.

  “Thanks for coming,” Diana said.

  “Good to see you.”

  “Just on time.”

  “Just as you said,” Axtell replied.

  Diana grinned and said, “Called it.”

  “You inspired me, Weick,” Axtell said, as if she’d been holding in the words for hours.

  “In what way?”

  “I’m re-enlisting and signing up for the SEALs,” Axtell said. “Stepping out of those office positions and getting back out there.”

  Diana raised her eyebrows and said, “Well, glad to hear it. Good luck. The training isn’t easy but you can handle it. The SEALs could use a soldier like you… now more than ever.”

  “If you did it,” Axtell replied flatly, “I certainly can.”

  Diana laughed. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

  “Maybe you’ll come back to be a trainer?” Axtell asked, pretending like it was an innocent question, but there were quite a few ears listening in on the conversation. Taking a glance around the wide young eyes of the soldiers around her, staring at her, gauging her reaction, Diana gave a sheepish smile, the heat of embarrassment joining the dry desert heat.

  “Maybe I will,” Diana said, not wanting to give much more of a guarantee than that. She was still dealing with the fact that she and her family were alive after accepting all of their deaths at one time or another.

  Axtell nodded, saluted and smiled. Diana did the same to the chorus of Cameron Snowman’s wailing about his cause behind them.

  At the front of the house, Laird was sitting on the front step, his sniper rifle by his side. Two medics were attending to him; the joint was still hanging from his lips as they hit him with antiseptic and wrapped bandages around his wounds.

  Amber was there too, laughing and clamping a heavy hand on Diana’s personal backup that she’d brought along—Rex.

  She took a moment, standing at the end of Laird’s driveway in front of the destroyed farmhouse, staring at the three men and the medics on the front step, wondering what had happened over the years that had led her here. Of course, she knew what had happened in the past. But reflecting on it, it was all a blur, none of it important except for what was laid out in front of her right now.

  Amber noticed her first, his dark stare catching on to her and a grin spreading across his face as he waved her over.

  “All right?” he asked.

  Diana nodded, approaching them.

  “Your mom?” Diana questioned, turning to Laird.

  Laird winced as the medics moved to the bullet wound on his side and with a hiss between his teeth, he said, “Yup. She’s fine. She’s hiding inside from all the strangers… another medic looking at her.”

  “Yeah.” Diana looked around at the throes of military personnel, working their way around the house, checking for any remaining threats though all of them on the front step knew—the Readers were finished.

  “She’s got the right idea,” Rex said.

  The medics gave Laird a final push, bandage and a stream of painkillers as they went back to their van to grab a stretcher for him. He was already complaining and protesting, saying that he could walk but when he tried to get to his feet, he grimaced and immediately sat back down, muttering that he needed another smoke.

  Branscomb and his team brought Cameron Snowman around to the front of the house. His hands we
re in cuffs. They were pushing on his shoulders as he ranted on and on about all of the things he was going to accomplish from prison and how none of them were going to have jobs by the time he broke out. His eyes flashed over to all of them on the step as they dragged him past.

  His mouth snapped shut. His gaze moved intensely between all of them, resting for a long time on Amber and then on Diana. He held that stare even as they shoved him into the back of the black van. Though Diana couldn’t see him, she was sure he was still holding it even beyond the armored sides of the vehicle. His intensity, his passion and his indignation making its way to her, boring through the steel, across the hot desert and prepared to follow her for the rest of her life.

  Chapter 34

  Diana Weick

  Seattle, Washington

  “Turn the camera around.”

  “Like this?”

  “No, not like that.”

  “Oh, this way?”

  “No, I’m looking at a toaster.”

  “Now?”

  “There you go.”

  Through the iPad screen, Amber grinned at her as Diana placed her elbows on the kitchen counter. It had taken her more than a moment and more than a little help from Wesley to set up the video calling with Amber, but now that she had it almost all the way figured out, they could talk often. It wasn’t a relationship. That certainly wasn’t what they were calling it. It had always been more of a partnership between them, working well together on the field and sometimes off of it too.

  Maybe, one day they could call it a “relationship,” but they needed to let the dust of Korea, of the Yukon and Alaska and of Laird’s Texas settle first.

  “How are the vice-chief things going?” Diana asked, standing up straight and rounding the kitchen island.

  “Going all right,” Amber replied. “They’ve finally put some plywood up on the window you broke, so that’s nice.”

  “Oh, I broke it, did I?”

  “Single-handedly,” Amber said.

  They both laughed a little.