Page 3 of Lady Death

Words were easy to say, yet harder to believe. Maybe once she got her revenge the nightmares would stop, because time wasn’t healing all her wounds. The invisible ones were still embedded in her soul.

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After her video chat, she came down to the gym to find Darby teaching a class. When he saw her, he gave a small jerk of his head in acknowledgement. The big ex-Marine Raider had opened his boot camp workout gym when he retired, and when he had found her half dead in that alley, he’d brought her here to rebuild her sanity. If it hadn’t been for him pushing her to survive, she wasn’t sure she’d be there today.

She headed into the office and plopped down in Darby’s chair and kicked her feet up on the desk. The framed photo of Darby and his husband, smiling with happiness in their gazes, always saddened her. Two more victims of the Deathmen. Keres leaned her head back and stared up at the ceiling, finally allowing herself to think about the previous night. She’d taken great joy in ending two of the men who had raped and tortured her and Abigail, and if that damned her soul, so be it. Tonight offered one more opportunity to exorcise the demons hauntingevery moment of her life and she was determined to end another monster.

About twenty minutes later, Darby opened the door. When he saw her feet on his desk, he raised an eyebrow. She smiled cheekily and lowered them to the floor.

“How was therapy?” he asked, closing the door behind him.

She shrugged. “We talked about healthy coping mechanisms.”

“Did she have any suggestions?”

“Surprisingly, she didn’t mention slicing off dicks and stuffing them in mouths.”

“Go figure,” he said. “Get out of my chair, brat.”

She rose and moved to the small sofa pushed against one wall.

“Okay,” he said once he sat down. “We need to talk about tonight. Peterson is going to be tough. He doesn’t leave that damn nightclub alone. Maybe I should just snipe him.”

“No,” she said, immediately shaking her head. “A quick death is too good for him. He needs to suffer, like I suffered. Like Abigail suffered.”

“He’s dangerous.”

“Everyone is dangerous,” she retorted. “I’mdangerous. Maybe even more than the Deathmen because I have nothing to lose.”

“You know what happens if he catches you again.”

“Yes,” she said solemnly. “But Ineedthis, Darby. I need to see him suffer before I send his soul to hell.”

“Even if it means you could be hurt again?”

“I’m not that helpless girl anymore,” she reminded him. “Even if he happened to get the upper hand, he won’t keep me down for long. You’ve taught me well.”

He sighed. “I know. It would still break my heart.”

She smiled, and the warmth from his words thawed a bit of the ice that encapsulated her emotions. Darby looked at the photo on his desk. Sadness twisted into bitterness, causing the large, raised scar that bisected his cheek to turn a mottled red. It ran from just under his eye, through his lips to his chin. A souvenir from his own entanglement with the Deathmen. He had lost his husband that night, so when he had found her lying in that alley bleeding to death, he made a vow to help and protect her.

Then they had come up with a plan to eliminate them all. Starting with the three that had raped and stabbed her. Ending with the death of their leader, a man only known by the name, Davorin.

“They can’t hurt me,” she said softly. “I’m already dead.”

“Don’t say that.”

Keres decided to change the subject. “We need to come up with a game plan to isolate him. I don’t think hinting at a quick fuck behind the club is going to cut it.”

“No,” Darby agreed. “They’re on defense because of Seker and Compton.”

“So, we have to catch him in the club.”

He raised an eyebrow. “With a hundred or so witnesses?”

She thought for a moment. “What if he goes to the bathroom and we catch him in there?”

Darby rubbed his chin. “That’s possible. We can even give him something to immobilize him. He would see and feel but couldn’t fucking move.”

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