Revenge

by Meredith Wild

“Damn. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Her father is involved now. He’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

  He nods thoughtfully. “Helps to have family in high places.”

  “Doesn’t help me much.”

  He chuckles. “Let me guess. Her dad’s not a big fan of the company she’s been keeping.”

  “Understatement of the year.” I unzip my bag, pull out two bricks of cash, and place them on the coffee table between us. “Thanks, by the way. For Aguilera.”

  His eyebrows lift when he sees the money. “My pleasure.”

  “Did she decide to go public about the affair?”

  He shakes his head. “She was talking about going back to Florida but found out there were some shady characters hanging around her apartment. Whoever wants to take her out doesn’t seem to be backing down.”

  I curse inwardly. Of all the balls Simon has in the air, I didn’t think Aguilera would still be a priority. But if she is…

  “Who’s the senator?”

  “The one who knocked her up? Keegan, I think.”

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  He shrugs. “Not really, other than she seems convinced he’s not behind this. She really wanted to make contact, but I managed to talk her out of it until the coast is clear.”

  Back when I accepted the assignment to kill Devon Aguilera under the pretense of luring Jay into a meeting, I figured it was just another random hit. I didn’t know what I know now. That every hit had a purpose. That the Company’s number-one objective has been to support the plan around the Felix launch and all its offshoot ventures. Chances are high that Aguilera’s surprise pregnancy threatened some piece of that plan.

  I pull up a search for Senator Keegan on my phone. I get a few news articles and a photo of his perfect family, the one he probably doesn’t want to give up for his mistress. Then I navigate to the legislative initiatives he’s involved in. Scrolling through dozens of acts on issues across the board, I stop on one that snags my attention over the others.

  “Unbelievable,” I mutter.

  “What is it?”

  I read on, ignoring Makanga. Every sentence is worse than the last, but somehow none of it is a jaw-dropping surprise.

  “Looks like he’s sponsoring a bill that will allocate billions in federal grants to rehabilitation centers. A graduated plan over the next five years.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Everything.” I toss the phone aside, my thoughts whirring through the possibilities now that I have this nugget of information. “He’s working for the same people who’ve been after Isabel and me. Or maybe Simon just has him in his pocket for this one piece. One way or the other, he’s part of pushing their plan forward.”

  Makanga tugs at one of the dreads spiking from his head. “Who’s Simon?”

  “Someone who needs to go away.”

  He purses his lips and nods. “Sounds like your department.”

  “We need to draw him out.” I lock my gaze with his. “Do you think Aguilera will work with us?”

  “Maybe. I think she’s still in love with this guy, though. She’s not going to do anything if it means putting him in danger.”

  “I don’t want to kill him. I want him to lure Simon out for me. If Keegan knew about the hit on her life, though, that’s going to be a little trickier.”

  “Pretty sure you can get him to set up a meeting with Simon whether he wants to or not,” Makanga says with a sly grin. “And if he’s going to be a problem, I can keep him quiet for a few days until you do what you need to do.”

  “Is that too much heat for you?” I challenge. His reluctance to help us after Brienne was shot hasn’t been forgotten. I don’t blame him for not wanting to get involved in my mess, but he’s either in or he’s out. There’s no middle ground anymore.

  “You keep the heat off my doorstep, Red, and we’re good. I wouldn’t mind a few more stacks of those either.” He nods to the cash on the table.

  “That can be arranged. First I’ll need a few things if we’re going to do this right.”

  “Make a list. I’ll get it done.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Isabel

  It’s been twenty minutes, and we’re still congregated around Parish’s modest cubicle. Every once in a while, my father’s shouting reaches us.

  “Is he going to be all right?” Parish shoots a concerned look toward my father’s office.

  Rivero swirls a stirrer around a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. “That’s the kind of news a thirty-year career in intelligence prepares you for.”

  “I highly doubt it,” I mutter.

  “You have no idea the kinds of things we see.”

  He’s right, but I don’t especially care. I’m pretty sure my parents’ marriage is ending right now. Unfortunately, telling my father the truth about Mariana is only the beginning. Once the dust settles, I’ll have to share more of the ugly truth if I’m going to convince Rivero that his accusations, or most of them, are misplaced. I’ve been his target since Martine’s death. They have to know about Chalys and their plan if we have any hope of putting a stop to it.

  My father’s door swings open. His skin is ruddy and his hair is mussed. “Isabel, get in here. All of you,” he barks.

  Just like that, I’m a little girl who’s scared to death of stirring her father’s ire. I walk briskly to the office. Rivero and Parish follow me, and we take our seats around the desk again. My father drops into his chair loudly.

  “All right, Isabel. What the hell is going on? According to your mother, I’m not the only one who’s been kept in the dark.”

  “It’s a long story,” I say.

  There’s too much blood and discovery and deceit. I hardly know where to begin.

  “Start wherever you want. Let’s hear it,” Rivero says.

  I take a deep breath and start at the beginning for Rivero’s sake. My grandfather’s troubles with Chalys. My mother’s war on the Boswell family. The hit on my life that would have been a distraction from something a lot bigger than a twenty-year-old grudge, though I keep Tristan out of it.

  I tell them about Felix and all the moving pieces we’ve uncovered from Simon’s plan. The ports. The drugs. Simon’s business plan with the rehabilitation centers. I point to the laptop, where they’re likely to find even more to substantiate everything I’ve told them.

  “I know it probably seems like I’ve been at the wrong places at the wrong times, but this is why. I’ve been chasing down the truth so I could protect myself. I never realized I’d find something this…overwhelming.”

  When I get to a stopping point, Rivero drops his head into his hands. “Holy fuck.”

  I exhale a sigh of relief. My father’s rage seems to have simmered, because his expression is tense, like he’s trying to work out a very important, complicated problem.

  “Why didn’t you come to me about this? We could have had people on this already. Who knows how far along this plan is already.”

  Because you hurt me. You took Tristan from me. Because I didn’t want to watch your heart break over Mariana all over again.

  I can’t tell him any of that with Rivero in the audience. One day I’ll tell him. One day we’ll make peace.

  “As soon as I started to figure out the scope and scale of this, I planned to tell you. Why do you think I’m here?”

  My father softens a little at that. No other reason would have brought me to DC so soon.

  Rivero still looks like he’s in shock. His hands are steepled over his mouth. “I knew this was big. I don’t know how. I just knew it.”

  Parish speaks up from his post beside my father. “This is an enormous operation they’re trying to pull off. One that I’m guessing they’ve protected pretty strongly. How did you find all this out?”

  His question is the one I’ve been hoping no one would ask. Who are my sources? The answers open the door to another world of trouble that I’m not willing to bring into the
light yet—or possibly ever.

  “When my mother faked my death, I had to go underground. In the process, I met a lot of people who’ve been able to point me in the right direction.”

  “What kind of people?” Rivero asks.

  I’m not about to start naming names, even though I’m sure he would love it if I did.

  “I found some friends along the way. Some of them were defectors. Simon has a team on the ground who does his dirty work. They’re paid to take care of people who get in the way of his plans.”

  “People like you,” he adds.

  “People like me. Because he couldn’t get to me, it set off a chain reaction inside the organization. For one reason or another, a lot of key players left. They weren’t necessarily on my side, but they weren’t on Simon’s anymore. And if you’re not on his side, you’re as good as dead, so getting people to help wasn’t always so hard because we all want the same thing.”

  “What’s that?” Parish asks.

  “To stop Simon. I won’t get my life back until he’s stopped. I’ll never be safe. And no one else who’s ever crossed him will be either.”

  My father rises from his seat and starts pacing behind his desk. “We can get the DEA on this. That’s not the problem.”

  “My team would have a field day looking into this guy’s ties,” Rivero says.

  Parish raises his hand. “I volunteer to scour the laptop.”

  Rivero scowls. “That’s FBI evidence.”

  “Stop.” My father halts his pacing and stares down at all of us like we’re his pupils.

  No one speaks until he does.

  “We’re not turning this into a bureaucratic shitshow. We’ll waste time we don’t have working around all the fucking red tape between your agency and mine. We’re not doing that.”

  Rivero stares at him. “What do you propose we do? I mean, we have to get people on this. Start tapping our resources.”

  “We will. But we’re going to do it our way.”

  Rivero stands up and starts pacing his own circle. “We can’t do this without telling anyone. I’m not losing my job over this so you can chase a grudge.”

  My father brackets his hands on his desk. “You’re worried about losing your job over keeping this quiet?”

  Rivero widens his eyes. “Uh, yeah.”

  “We’re dealing with bribes at all levels of government. We’re dealing with Big Pharma. Banks. Criminals. All of it steered by some of the most powerful people in the country. You think people aren’t going to start losing their jobs—hell, their lives—as soon as they find out we’re sniffing around their operation? If we were stupid enough to publicly launch a full-scale investigation, they’d be throwing everything they could at us to stop it. You’d be the first to go. If you’re not squeaky clean, they’ll use whatever they can find to ruin you, first chance they get. And because Isabel’s right in the middle of this, they’re not going to let me anywhere near it.” He pauses and straightens. “And that’s just not going to work for me.”

  Rivero shakes his head, more in disbelief than disagreement, I think. “How are we supposed to put a stop to this without an investigation?”

  “We get the right people to launch their own investigations in their own jurisdictions. Get them a nice little care package of what leads they’ll need to follow. Then there will be fifty investigations to try to shut down. Good luck burying all of them.”

  “And what about Simon Pelletier?”

  My father doesn’t answer right away. I’m curious too. How do you begin to take someone like that down? Protected by endless money and the best legal teams, he’s likely to get away with everything, and then we’re not any closer to giving me my life back.

  “Let me worry about him,” my father says.

  Rivero laughs roughly. “You took an oath, you know. Don’t throw away your career over this.”

  My father circles the desk slowly, stopping when he’s right in front of Rivero. Face-to-face, my father’s dominance is clear. Rivero might be younger and stronger, but my father has height and something you can’t see but can sense—experience, confidence, and determination like I’ve never seen before.

  “I solemnly swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Are you going to stand there and tell me these people aren’t an enemy to our society?”

  Rivero taps his foot on the carpet nervously. “No. I’m just… I’m just trying to be the voice of reason here. You’re obviously emotionally involved in all this.”

  “So are you. You’ve been trying to hunt Isabel down for weeks with a degree of commitment I honestly wish I saw more of out of my own team. Maybe you don’t want to see justice as much as I do now, but you still want it.”

  “I haven’t slept for a week,” he says with a hint of resignation.

  “Then let’s be the good guys and shut this shit down. Together.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alexandria, Virginia

  I catch the scent of my mother’s perfume, a weakening trace of her presence. My father shutters himself in his office, leaving me to face the palpable void alone.

  The otherwise empty house creates space for a swirl of emotions I’m not ready for. The prospect of facing my mother after revealing the truth about how my sister died has been eating at me for hours. I don’t know how I’ll sleep after today, even though I feel the exhaustion deep in my bones. My mother will see this as a betrayal, this sudden breaking open of the secret she’s held on to for twenty years—a terrible, heartbreaking secret that was born from someone else’s sins. I hope my father can see that. Maybe not today, but one day when his anger has cooled. She was only trying to protect his heart.

  My stomach rumbles loudly, marking a sudden hunger after this harrowing day. I go to the kitchen, switch on the light, and make myself a sandwich. Everything is the same. The condiments in the refrigerator door. The breadbox on the counter. The kettle on the stove that only my mother ever uses.

  The familiarity should give me some comfort, but when it comes to the things that really matter, everything is out of place. My family is fractured. My future with Tristan is uncertain. My freedom is in question. My entire life has become a sea of broken glass. I’m just praying any of the pieces can keep me above the water.

  I resist the urge to cry. All my tears today couldn’t bring Tristan back to me. They couldn’t heal my father’s hurt. I’m certain they can’t touch mine. So I deny their existence. I go to the kettle, fill it with water from the tap, and light the burner underneath, all the while holding on to the feeble hope that somehow tomorrow will be better.

  After a few minutes, I pull out my phone and stare at the blank screen. Calling Tristan again is pointless. Every time sends me immediately to a generic voicemail recording. Knowing the authorities are trying to track him down, he likely trashed his phone the first chance he got, severing the line between us too.

  It burns me that he left without me, but I know he didn’t have another choice. I had my father there to protect me. Tristan couldn’t count on mercy from the man who sent him to the front lines to begin with. He saw an opening and took it.

  And he’ll find me. I have to trust that. What we have is too strong to walk away from. We’ve endured the threat of death and dangers beyond anything I could have ever imagined. We weren’t expecting the FBI to track me down, but that’s not enough to keep us apart. Agent Rivero bending to my father’s insistence that we keep all of this under the radar gives me hope. I won’t abandon my father’s mission, but once he gets what he needs, I have every intention of disappearing again. I’ll figure out a way to find Tristan if I have to walk to the ends of the earth to do it.

  I can barely hear my father’s voice on the other side of the house, but he’s talking to someone. Maybe my mother. If he’s on the phone, I take it as a sign that he’s past wanting solitude. The kettle whistles, and I make two mugs of tea.

  He’s sitting behind his desk
beyond the French doors of his office when I arrive. He sees my hands full and jumps up to open the door.

  “Can I come in?”

  I brace myself for him to turn me away. He has every right to want space after everything that’s happened today. Even if his mood is grim, having his company would be a welcome change. Being alone right now is too painful.

  Sadness swims in his eyes as our gazes lock, full of quiet understanding.

  “Of course,” he says, stepping back so I can enter.

  “I made some tea for us.” I set his down and hold mine in my lap.

  He takes his chair again, eyeing the steaming mug wearily. “I’m a coffee guy. You know that.”

  “It’s too late for coffee. Besides, Mom always says tea makes everything better.” I shouldn’t be bringing her up when everything is so raw. He doesn’t want to talk about this, or maybe even think of her, but I can’t keep from trying to mend things however I can. “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “No, I don’t.” He traces his fingers along the ridge of his desk. “I know it’s hard not to worry, but try not to. We’re not missing any suitcases. Her toothbrush is still in the cup. I already checked.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “She probably just needs some time. Same as me.”

  “And here I am interrupting it. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m happy you’re here. I want to be alone with my thoughts about as much as you do, I’m guessing.” He studies me like he can see the past two months written on my skin. “You’ve been through hell, haven’t you?”

  My throat tightens painfully. I can barely manage a swallow to hold back the emotion chugging through me, threatening to take over my whole body. I can’t answer him. I can’t begin to explain all that’s happened. I take a sip of my tea and let it scald my tongue. The heat feels good on its journey through my chest.

  One day I might be far enough away from the horror of it all that I can heal. I’ll never forget, but I’ll need to find a way to move on. It’s hard to make peace with it on my own. Having Tristan with me has been a grounding force. Without him I’d be reeling. And I’d probably be dead.