Page 78 of Covert Vengeance

Amber marched forward, lowering one hand from her weapon to reach for his broken wrist.

His left hand whipped out, yanking her blade from its holster on her calf.

She reared back just as it sliced upward toward her belly. Fury ripped through her. She found her footing and kicked at his hand.

The blow sent him falling back on his elbows, his eyes glittering up at her in the dimness. The blade was still in his grip.

And the look on his face told her exactly how this was going to end. That there was only one way thiscouldend.

He wanted to kill her. So badly that he was willing to die here and now for the chance to try and make it happen.

Do it. Go on, do it, she dared him silently. She was ready to finish this.

Holding that evil stare, Amber reached into her pocket for the cuffs, her weapon still trained on him. “When you get to hell, say hi to Zoya and the others for me,” she told him.

Yury bared his teeth and lunged upward, blade arcing up to strike.

Amber squeezed the trigger, firing point blank at his head.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The sun was just setting as Amber stepped out the back door of the manor house and into the garden. All around her the sweet scent of roses carried in the air, her boots crunching lightly over the pea gravel with each step she took toward the stables.

She’d needed to escape the house for a while. She needed time to process everything and think.

Exhaustion pulled at her. After killing Stanislav in that sewer—the most fitting place for a piece of shit like him to die—the rest of the day had passed by in a blur.

Whoever Trinity had called had located the hacker Stanislav had been using to rig the hatches. He’d been arrested and was currently being interrogated in the same secure facility Amber had escaped from a few weeks back.

Trinity had also called in a cleanup crew to deal with the aftermath while the entire team had packed up in a hurry and driven the hell out of London. They’d arrived back here to Laidlaw Hall just as the sun came up, and ever since they’d been split into groups for various meetings and debriefings, giving statements and all the messy paperwork that came with this kind of an op. Even an off-the-books op had some kind of paper trail.

She hadn’t seen Jesse since leaving London, and she missed him. They’d been separated soon after emerging from the tunnel, and undergone private debriefings and various meetings before being transported back here. He’d sustained a few shrapnel wounds from the frag grenade, but they hadn’t required surgery, and the slices on his arm and ribs had only needed a few steri-strips and a couple stitches.

As for her, she had numerous bruises and cuts, and the bullet hole in her vest was a pointed reminder of how close she’d come to dying in that tunnel. Yet she was still alive, and Stanislav was dead. Not the outcome Rycroft and the other higher-ups had wanted, but it was the best outcome in Amber’s opinion. He’d needed to die.

A golden rectangle of light spilled out of the stable’s open door, warm and welcoming. But it was the person inside it that beckoned to her most of all.

Megan looked up when Amber entered and paused brushing Rollo. “Hi,” she said with a smile that seemed a little forced.

“Figured I’d find you here. You been out here long?”

“An hour, maybe.” She swept the brush over Rollo’s sleek neck. The horse watched Amber with large, dark eyes, his ears pricked forward. “He wants you to come say hi.”

Amber stopped within arm’s reach and held her palm out. She couldn’t help but smile as the horse’s muzzle whispered across her skin, whiskers pricking, nostrils blowing warm breath as he smelled her. “Does this mean we’re friends now?”

“Pretty sure, yep.” She glanced at Amber, moving the brush down to the horse’s shoulder. “So, how you doing?”

“I’m good. You?”

“Great.”

They were both lying. Amber laughed softly. “God, we’re so messed up.”

A real grin tugged at Megan’s lips. “I know, right? But it helps knowing we’re in the same boat. And now we have each other.”

Yes. They did. But it had been close this morning. She’d almost died and had nearly gotten Megan killed when it should have been Amber taking the risk all along.

She rubbed the back of her neck. “About what happened earlier.”

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