Vicious Revenge (Vicious City Book 4) Read online

  I park up at the edge of the city and wait. They’re going to know I’m gone by now. If they can track me, they will be here soon enough. No point putting any more of my plan into action if I’m going to get caught right out of the gate. It will hurt if he catches me now, but that’s a risk I am willing to take.

  He told me he’d lie to me. Fine. I am going to fuck with him right back. He’s going to discover that I’m not some fuck toy captive happy to be with him just because I love him.

  I feel strong and proud and… then it occurs to me I’m sitting in a piece of shit car wrapped up like a baked potato and maybe I shouldn’t be quite so smug about that.

  After waiting a few hours, I decide I’ve probably made as good of an escape as I’m going to. There’s no sign of Vicious. There are no spook cars pulling up to capture me. That means I can get started on the next phase of my plan.

  I turn my not so trusty vehicle out of state and head toward what will be my base of operations, the cheapest motel off the interstate in New Jersey.

  It’s not great. It’s as different from Vicious’ luxury apartment as I can get, but that’s the point. This shitty motel is a perfect place to stay. Nobody wants their presence noticed here. Everybody is shifty and they keep their eyes to themselves. I pay cash and I get my little room at the end of the row. It is filled with dubious furnishings and a bed I wouldn’t sleep in if I were being paid to.

  I’ve taken precautions, picked up a cheap sleeping bag. The polyester sticks to my skin, but at least it is clean, and I have a pillow too, again, not a great one, but it will work. I’m excited, in spite of the dinginess of my surroundings. This is the beginning of the greatest battle of my existence. Me versus Vicious.

  I’m sure nobody thinks I can win, but I’m not going to stop until I do. He’s going to pay for turning me into his toy, for thinking his lies are as good as the truth, for being so arrogant as to believe he owns me and is doing me a favor in possessing me. He is going to learn what it means to be bested by a woman, one who is eating cold pop tarts on a sleeping bag while giggling to herself at the sheer excitement of it it all.

  I fall asleep in crumbs, as free as any woman can be.

  TAP TAP TAP

  A knock at the door makes me jump out of my sleeping bag. For a second, I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing, but then the smell of untreated black mold in the bathroom brings me back. That’s right. I’m winning.

  It’s earlier than I expected, but I am expecting a visitor. I can’t do all of this on my own.

  “Hey Chad.”

  Chad smiles as he wheels himself through the door. He was born with a spinal defect which makes walking more than a few steps at a time practically impossible. He was one of my first illicit delivery clients, though he’s since gone somewhat straight since then, or at least, so he says.

  He’s a soft spoken guy, about my age with longish brown hair that needs cutting and spectacles that are never in style, smudged with repetitive fingerprints from the constant adjusting he does to them. I called him because he’s a fucking genius, and best of all, he’s not affiliated with Vicious in any way that I know of.

  “So I hear you turned into a walking talking spy drone?” He smirks at me.

  “Something like that. It’s top secret. Don’t tell anyone.”

  Chad laughs. “I don’t have anyone to tell who doesn’t already know.”

  “You better not double cross me. I know you’ve got connections now.”

  “I have connections like dogs have fleas,” Chad says. “They want something from me, but I don’t necessarily want them around. Except for you.”

  Maybe Chad has a little crush on me. Maybe it’s kind of a dick move to call on him now, but he’s a big boy, and he knows what he’s getting into. We met through my old, somewhat recently deceased boss and did some favors for each other. He does owe me one, but maybe not this much of a one.

  “Okay, so this is a modified internet capable TOR linked signal repeater,” he says, opening a briefcase he pulled from the back of his wheelchair and showing me a little black box. “Basically what it will do is bounce the signal of that chip inside you through a series of cell towers and then through a secure online proxy. You won’t be traceable anymore. You’ll still, er, function, but you won’t be a walking homing beacon. I can set it so you look like you’re in Madison Square Garden, or on the Great Wall of China. Just make sure you keep it on you. If you’re away from it, you’ll light up like a Christmas tree on the sensors of anyone looking for you.”

  “Wow, that’s really fucking cool. You’re a lifesaver!”

  He smiles. “So, where do you want the goose chase to start?”

  I could send Vicious all around the world looking for me. That would be hilarious. But I have another plan.

  “Can you, I don’t know, just dead end the signal? Or make it look like it’s coming from his apartment?”

  “I can do whatever we have to do,” Chad grins.

  4

  Vicious

  “She’s gone. We can’t find her. She’s completely off the radar. Could be anywhere.” There’s an edge of desperation to my man’s voice. I have everyone who works for me out looking for Kitty, and I know Slick has deployed everyone he can. We should have her by now. Hell, we should have had her right away.

  “She’s literally a walking lo-jack! How is it possible for her to disappear? We found her in the middle of the woods in Russia? We can’t pick her out of the NYC grid? Come on.”

  “She might have found a way to deactivate it. Or, worst case scenario, the chip has been recovered…”

  The chip can only be ‘recovered’ if it is cut out of her stomach. It’s not a survivable operation. But Kitty isn’t dead. She can’t be dead. There’s no way I’m accepting that she’s dead.

  “Keep looking. Let me know when you have something.”

  I hang up.

  I’ve been pacing this apartment for the past half hour. There is a path being worn across my very expensive rug. A… sparkling path? As I turn on my personal axis, I realize it looks like a unicorn has been trotting around the apartment. It’s at that moment that I realize someone has stuck glitter to the base of my shoes. A parting prank from Kitty, I take it.

  Jesus. I want that girl back so badly, and I want to beat her even more badly. She is pushing every button, getting on every nerve, and she’s not even here.

  I’m surprised she didn’t leave a note. She obviously wanted me to be irritated with her, and usually she likes to try to get the last word in. Maybe I’m missing the note. Maybe it’s hidden somewhere I’ll only discover when another one of her pranks is unearthed.

  I kick off my shoes and walk around in socked feet. Do I have a vacuum cleaner? Surely I must. I’m not in the mood to call for service. I’m not in the mood for anything. Kitty’s disobedience and disrespect is on full display in this moment, and it annoys me precisely as much as it is intended to.

  “Goddamnit,” I curse to myself. “You’re going to pay for this, girl.”

  A knock at the door interrupts my fury. I’ve never been so thoroughly pissed off at anyone. Kitty should know better than to run from me. She knows I can keep her safe. This running away bullshit is going to end in tears - hers.

  I open the door and find Blaze’s small, dark figure standing outside. Slick says she doesn’t know anything. I’m pretty damn sure she does, but I’m also equally as sure she’d never give Kitty up, not in a thousand years.

  “What do you want?”

  “Slick says Kitty is gone.” Blaze pretends not to know precisely what is happening.

  “Hm,” I murmur. I have less than no intention of discussing this with Blaze. It’s obvious that she will be relaying my every move and reaction to Kitty, who is doing this for attention and juvenile revenge and what she sees as rebellion against my misdeeds.

  “I told her not to go. So stupid.” She leans against the door and rests her head against the jamb. I look at her a little more
intently. There is something different about her. What is it? The shape of her face has ever so subtly changed, like she gained a bit of weight, but not enough for it to show anywhere else. Marriage must be agreeing with her.

  “What did you want, Blaze?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing.” She shakes her head. “I thought maybe you might have found her. If you had you’d probably be keeping her in a shipping container or something I guess. You must be mad as hell.”

  I am mad as hell, but again, not a conversation I’m going to have with Blaze. I’m really not sure why she’s here. The days of her dropping in every two seconds are long over. She’s settled with Slick - as far as I can tell anyway.

  I wait for her to leave, but she doesn’t. She just stands there in the doorway, taking up space, not quite looking at me.

  “Why are you here, Blaze?”

  “No reason,” she says, pushing off the door frame.

  She’s about to walk away when I reach out, take her by the shoulder and stop her. Something tells me I need to have this conversation, whatever it is.

  “Come in.”

  She does as she’s told. She steps inside the door and smirks slightly. “You’ve never asked me in before.”

  “I don’t believe you’ve ever knocked.”

  “True, probably haven’t.”

  “You want something to drink?”

  “Wow, you’re catering now?”

  “Mhm. This one time.”

  She’s definitely not her usual self. Maybe she knows something about Kitty. I don’t get the feeling it is about Kitty though. There’s something else. I’m good at sensing when I’m in the presence of something hidden and important. It’s one of the abilities which has kept me alive this long.

  I get Blaze a coffee. She sits down and doesn’t drink it. It steams its life away next to her as she sits and fidgets. I ease myself into my favorite arm chair, cross one leg over the other and wait for her to start filling the silence between us.

  “This is weird,” she says. “Us sitting here like this. I should go.”

  “Sit down,” I say as her butt leaves the chair.

  She sits down again.

  “Tell me why you came.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Is it to do with Kitty?”

  She shakes her head infinitesimally.

  “What is it?”

  “You don’t care. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”

  Her butt leaves the chair again.

  “Sit. Down.”

  I’m getting this out of her, not because I’m going to force it, but because she wants to tell me. Whatever it is, it’s burning out of her, hanging in the silence between us.

  “Do you think Kitty is okay?”

  “I know she is.”

  Her lips twist. “You know exactly where she is, don’t you. I told her there’s no getting away from you. She’s being stupid. Trying to get revenge for what even? So you lied to her. So what? There’s worse things a man can do to a woman.”

  “Such as?”

  She presses her lips together tightly. I know she’s been abused. I know she’s developed a hard outer layer to deal with the brutalities of the world. And I also know she now has the best protector any woman could have in Slick. But if he could help her with this, she would have taken it to him.

  Blaze picks up her coffee and puts it down again. “If I try to leave now, you’re going to stop me, right?”

  I say nothing. She wants me to stop her. She’s changed.

  And, it occurs to me, so have I.

  Three months ago, there’s no way I would have sat down with Blaze and tried to talk to her. I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. I’m not sure why I care now. Slick is no real friend of mine. He’s a CIA agent. We can never be true allies. We run on parallel lines for now and that’s it. Blaze is less than an acquaintance. She’s more an unfortunate side effect of having Kitty in my life.

  “Sit down,” I sigh as she makes another abortive attempt at standing up.

  “I have to tell someone,” she says, her voice soft and trembling. “You’re not the person to tell, but…”

  I stay silent. My words would only interrupt hers, even as she trails off.

  She takes a deep breath. “You might be the only person who can understand how fucked up my world is right now. I can’t tell Slick this.”

  “What can’t you tell him?”

  My instinct is that she has cheated. There’s a shiftiness to her gaze, a shame which suffuses her being. She looks miserable, and if she’s been unfaithful, I don’t blame her. Slick won’t take that well. He’s a traditional man. He won’t be angry, he’ll be hurt and disappointed and I know that’s worse for a girl like her.

  She wraps her arms around herself, protecting herself. But her gestures are different. Her palm splays across her lower stomach and I realize she’s holding more than herself. She’s holding something else. Someone else. Not cheating then, the other thing that can turn a woman’s life upside down.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  Blaze nods, just barely perceptibly. “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Usually people get giddy over this sort of thing. Rush out and buy small clothes, tell everyone who cares - and a significant number of people who don’t. There’s something yet to come. Something she hasn’t told me, but something she’s going to.

  “It’s not Slick’s.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Slick and I weren’t really dating before we got married. I had, you know, some male friends”

  Including one who beat the shit out of her and almost killed her. I’m familiar.

  “We did stuff when we were bored,” she continues.

  Stuff when they were bored. Sure. That’s as good a reason as any to bring life into this overpopulated cesspit of a world. Casual entertainment. Why fucking not. It takes all my self control not to let my judgement show on my face.

  “I see.”

  Her face crumples. “He married me. He didn’t marry this baby.”

  “I should hope not. Highly illegal.”

  She shoots a look at me. “Are you seriously going to make a joke right now?”

  I can tell Blaze is on the verge of tears. A surge of sympathy I don’t understand makes me attempt some kind of comfort.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “It’s not. When I tell Slick, he’s going to… I don’t even know, and it doesn’t matter, because I can’t tell him. I’m going to,” she draws in a breath. “Take care of it.”

  She’s using the same language I use when I’m going to permanently deal with a problem. Somehow, hearing it out of her mouth is perverse. Her body though, so her right.

  “It’s not okay now. But it’s going to be. One day.” I try being comforting again. I’m not terribly successful.

  Tears are coursing down her face, unleashed with the telling of her secret. They’re silent. They come without sobbing. They stream from her eyes and they coat her skin and I can feel the misery inside her like a physical thing.

  “What did you do to him?” She asks the question in watery tones.

  “The ex? The one who hurt you?”

  I am guessing from her question that he is also the one who fathered the life inside her. What a fucking mess.

  She nods.

  I get up and pour myself two fingers of whiskey, trying to work out how to phrase it in a way she’ll understand, and yet not incriminate myself. “Let’s just say, he is very much ex. I don’t see a reunion on this physical plane.”

  Blaze nods grimly. “That’s what I thought.”

  Blaze

  I shouldn’t have told Vicious any of this. I shouldn’t have told anyone. But I had to say the words, and my best friend is gone. I don’t know if she’s coming back. I don’t even know if she’s going to be able to come back. I don’t blame Vicious for being thoroughly pissed off at her. After all we’ve been through saving her from this a
nd that, she runs away?

  She gave me shit for not wanting to go with her, but I couldn’t. I’d already seen the positive result. I’d already made the connection with the little life inside me - and I’d already realized there was no way in hell I could have this baby, and keep my husband who knew nothing about it.

  Shit. This is all too much. A few months ago, my biggest problem was what takeaway I wanted. I drank, fucked around, chilled out, enjoyed my life. Now I don’t recognize myself, or my body, or the life inside it, or…

  I start to sob, right there on Vicious’ couch.

  I’m surprised he hasn’t kicked me out, and I’m really surprised he hasn’t given me a lot more shit. He’s not exactly the confidante type.

  Then he surprises me. He puts his drink down, sits beside me, puts an arm around my shoulders and lets me cry on his impossibly expensive suit. He doesn’t say a thing. He doesn’t try to make it better. He just sits there, letting me cry the way I’ve needed to cry for so long now.

  I’ve had to hold them in and try to pretend everything is okay. It hasn’t been working. Slick often asks me what’s wrong. I tell him it’s nothing. He doesn’t believe me, and I want to tell him, but I know a man like him would never understand something like this. It would be the end of our marriage. The end of everything.

  “You’re going to tell me I need to tell Slick, right?” I wipe my eyes and look at Vicious.

  “I’m not going to tell you a thing, Blaze. Except that you’re welcome to come here when you need to.”

  I stare at him for a long moment. That’s not what I expected from him.

  “When did you get nice?”

  “I didn’t,” he says bluntly.

  “Yeah, you did.”

  He shakes his head and gestures to my drink. “Do you want something stronger?”

  “No. It’s okay,” I say. “I guess I should go home…”

  “Blaze?”

  Vicious

  Ah hell. Slick just walked in. He never knocks. Apparently, he views my apartment as an extension of his own personal domain.