Page 27 of Covert Vengeance

Kiyomi groaned softly when she settled her head on the pillow. “What were you doing in Syria? How did you find us?”

“I was coming for Hannah. What about you?”

“Same.”

Amber’s attention sharpened. “To rescue her?”

“No.” Kiyomi sighed, looking and sounding exhausted. “To kill her.”

Whoa. “Why?”

Her face tightened. “Because she had to die.”

The response sent a chill up Amber’s spine. But before she could ask what that meant, Kiyomi continued.

“I’d infiltrated Rahman’s organization, but something or someone must have tipped them off about me because just when I was close to being able to get to her, they attacked.” She paused a moment. “There were too many of them. I killed two, but then…” She pushed out a painful breath. “Everything went sideways.”

Amber covered her surprise and ran a hand over Kiyomi’s hair. “You’re safe now. No one’s going to hurt you again. They’re all dead.”

“Not Rahman.” Her tone was savage, suggesting she’d tangled with the notorious criminal personally.

Amber curled her hand around Kiyomi’s and squeezed softly. Kiyomi deserved justice for what had happened to her. She deserved vengeance. Though it wouldn’t change anything. “He’ll pay for what he did to you.”I promise.

Kiyomi studied her for a long moment, then returned the pressure of her grip and closed her single functioning eyelid.

“Get some sleep,” Amber murmured, then covered her with a blanket and quietly shut the cabin door.

Cordova glanced up at her when she came back, setting the tablet he’d been reading in his lap. And her heart beat a little faster at the sight of him. “How is she?”

“Might have some fractured ribs, and her lacerations are definitely infected. As far as internal injuries… Her pulse is steady and she didn’t mention any other bleeding.” But she’d almost certainly been raped as well as tortured. God, that made Amber want to kill those bastards all over again, and Rahman.

“She tell you how she came to be their prisoner?”

She nodded. “She was going after Hannah too.”

His calm expression never changed. “She had a contract on her?”

“Not sure if it was a contract, or a personal score to settle.” Amber was betting on the latter. “She was captured before she could carry it out.”

He shifted in his seat, his features tightening ever so slightly as he settled back again. “I hear you had a personal score with Hannah as well.”

It was discomfiting to say the least to have him privy to that private intel. Blood rushed to her cheeks. “Yes. At least, I thought I did. At first, anyway.” But if Kiyomi had been hunting Hannah too, then maybe Amber had been right about the other operative all along. That eased some of the guilt pressing on her chest.

“I was told someone was manipulating you. That someone involved with the Valkyrie Program trying to cover their tracks fed you intel to make other female operatives look dirty, assuming you’d target them.”

Hearing it aloud sent shame crawling through her. She inclined her head and reached for a bottle of water between them, mainly to have something to keep her hands busy with. “Sure looks that way, yeah. I’m still looking into it.”

As far as she could tell, someone within the program had tried to play her. They might have planted files in the ones Amber had hacked, containing false information about Hannah’s involvement in betraying her. To cover their ass by creating more confusion, then turning Amber and the other Valkyries against each other.

Amber’s job now was to sift the truth from the lies and find out exactly what had happened. And when she found out who was responsible, they would get what was coming to them.

She slanted him a sidelong glance. “How much did they brief you about my situation?”

He lifted a broad shoulder. “Your background. The situation with your sister and how they captured you in Vienna. That you’d gone after the former teammates who set you up and left you to deal with the fallout during an op in Rome. You sold classified intel on them to their worst enemies, and let those enemies take care of the rest. But with Hannah, you might have made a mistake. And that’s why you came to Syria.” His tone was matter-of-fact, his expression devoid of judgment, but then he was a hired gun too. His hands weren’t exactly clean either.

“Pretty much, yeah.” God, she felt exposed. He knew so much about her and she knew next to nothing about him. She didn’t like being at such a tactical disadvantage.

“And I also know that you’re now part of the effort to find the others and bring them in until the source of the corruption is located.”

---