Page 51 of Covert Vengeance

“Hey, who took the last chocolate?” Trinity complained, setting down the empty silver dish on the coffee table. She was an “intimate assassin”, the same as Kiyomi. They were the rarest kind, and perhaps the deadliest too, trained to seduce their targets to extract intelligence—and kill them up close and personal.

“I did.” Amber leaned back into the tufted velvet sofa she shared with Megan as she chewed the bit of chocolate. “You snooze, you lose.”

Trinity narrowed her eyes playfully at Amber. “I’ll remember that.”

It was surreal to be with Amber again after so many years. Kiyomi had missed her when she’d been sent from the training facility to start working ops, and had wondered what had become of her friend.

She was also curious about Trinity. About her background, and the diamond ring on her finger. Due to the nature of their job, their kind had a notoriously short life expectancy. A few years older than Kiyomi, Trinity had survived against all odds and apparently found love, impossible as that seemed. Kiyomi hoped they got the chance to spend time together when she was feeling better.

Everyone here had been so nice to her. Though she’d just arrived and wasn’t able to contribute much, the women had immediately considered her one of them and included her in their plans. For the past hour they’d been going over intel and formulating an initial op plan to pass onto Alex Rycroft for approval while the guys were out touring the property with Marcus. Amber’s coveted laptop took pride of place in the center of the coffee table, along with three other computer monitors she had set up for this gathering.

One showed a detailed satellite image of central London. The second displayed the intricate and complex network of CCTVs in that part of the city, along with the power grid and various security locations in the area. On the third, everything they had on Stanislav.

Trinity and Georgia were in lounge chairs on the other side of the table, and Kiyomi was resting on a nest of pillows they’d put on the floor for her next to them. Not only was all the chocolate gone, so were both bottles of red wine they’d picked up in town. Unfortunately due to her meds, Kiyomi hadn’t been able to have any.

“So we’re all in agreement, then?” Trinity said to everyone. “This is where we set up the meet with Stanislav?” She tapped the screen in an industrial area on the banks of the Thames displayed on the satellite image. The others had decided to push him more by dictating the time and place of the meeting. Since he was desperate, odds were good he’d agree to it.

“It’s our best shot at doing this without any outside interference,” Amber said. “The trick’s setting this up so Stanislav can’t call the shots. But the window’s going to be narrow, so we’ll have to be fast. Get in, get him, get out.”

“Getting in and out fast’s my specialty,” Megan said with a grin.

Amber shot her sister a smile so full of pride it made Kiyomi smile a little too. Being up and out of bed was awesome in its own right, but there was something to be said for girl bonding time as a group. She’d come so close to death, every little pleasure was something to be savored now.

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep over there,” Megan said to Kiyomi.

She shifted gingerly into a semi-reclining position, wearing the raspberry-knit sweater and a pair of black tights Amber and Megan had picked up for her. She’d tried to pay Megan back, but her fellow Valkyrie had refused the money.

“Want me to help you back upstairs?” Amber offered.

“No, I’m enjoying the company too much.” Kiyomi’s mouth pulled tight as she shifted and sat up higher, and fixed her gaze on Amber. “So does all this mean you’re in the clear as far as the government and legalities are concerned?”

“Not exactly. I’ve uh…done a lot of things that weren’t exactly above board, and the money I funneled away has made me even more of a target by the government.” She shrugged. “Basically, Rycroft and I worked out a deal we could both live with. Trinity’s acting as my handler during this ‘probation’ period.”

“And she loves it,” Trinity added with a grin.

“I can live with it because you treat me with respect, plus you covered for me when Megan helped me escape from London that night.”

“That sounds like quite the story,” Kiyomi said, intrigued. If she wasn’t in so damn much pain, she would be enjoying the hell out of this. She hadn’t felt like she belonged anywhere except with Julia, and… And it still sent a red-hot knife through her heart to think about her best friend.

Amber let out a low laugh, pulling Kiyomi from her thoughts. “Well, before that, I turned over the files I had on the Valkyrie Program, along with evidence I have on various persons of interest, and agreed to show Rycroft where I’ve buried all the money once Stanislav is taken care of.” A little smirk curved her mouth. “Well,almostall of it.”

“Including the money from the joint op you were screwed on?” Megan asked.

Kiyomi’s gaze jerked back to Amber, her insides stilling.

Amber’s face froze, the smirk fading. “Yes, and the three mil we just got from Stanislav. It’s all being pooled to go toward our WITSEC program.”

“You’re just giving up all that money you’ve put away?” Georgia asked in surprise.

“It’s the right thing to do, and that’s the deal. It was never mine in the first place, and now it can do us all some good for a change.”

“How much have we got?” Megan asked, setting down her wineglass.

“About ninety mil. Give or take.”

Kiyomi and the others gaped at her in astonishment, eyes wide.Ninety million…

She lifted a shoulder. “I put some in savings along the way, and the rest I invested here and there. I lost on some of them, but most of the time I did pretty well.”

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