Page 10 of Covert Vengeance

Unnerved, she held her aim at his chest as she committed his face to memory, then backed away into the shadows, ready to shoot if he made any threatening moves.

He retreated back into the shadows and disappeared from view around the corner. Letting her…go?

Confused, she whirled and fled in the opposite direction, on guard the entire time she wound her way back to her bike. When she reached it, she half-expected him to pop out with his weapon aimed at her head, but he was nowhere to be seen.

She jumped on and took a winding route back to her apartment just to be safe, that low-grade buzzing clear in the pit of her belly.

The apartment wasn’t safe anymore. She needed to find a new place to hide where she could use the radio to find who and where the men in the convoy were.

Then again, it seemed there was no safe place for her in this city.

****

Now Jesse had one less factor to worry about in this equation.

Rami Bahar. One of the best hitters in the industry and reported to have tight connections with both the Syrian government and various terrorist groups operating here, was now dead. Jesse had wondered if Bahar had been one of the people offered the contract via the forum.

Now he was just glad those shots had missed Amber, and that he’d been right there to intervene before Bahar could kill her.

Damn, she was impressive. He’d watched her slip in and out of the palace with ease. He was pretty sure she would have killed Bahar if he hadn’t stepped in, but Jesse hadn’t wanted to risk it and he’d also wanted her to see him.

His gut had been right about the contract on her. The moment he’d told Bautista Amber’s name, he’d known from his acquaintance’s reaction that this was big. Jesse just hadn’t realizedhowbig until later.

The contract on Amber was out of either revenge or fear—or both—and he wanted no part of it. So now he had a new employer, a legitimate one with a far-reaching network of contacts currently trying to identify the person behind the contract. It felt good to be working in black and white for a change instead of shades of gray.

Jesse checked around him as he crossed the street. By now Amber was long gone, and he had work to do.

After disposing of Bahar’s body so it couldn’t be linked back to him, Jesse waited until he was safely back in his rental unit in the center of the city before texting his new contact. A woman named Trinity who knew Amber and was close friends with Bautista’s wife.

And holy shit, the things Jesse had learned over the past thirty-two hours. He hadn’t realized Bautista—an old buddy he’d met during his second deployment overseas—was back in the States, let alone married to a female assassin. Or that there was an entire network of these women, trained by a secret program by the U.S. government.

Valkyries.

The whole thing was badass, and he’d only been read into everything because of his security clearance and connections to both Bautista and now Amber. He’d met a few female hitters over the years, a couple Israelis and a Russian, but no Americans. All the American women he’d met during jobs had all been spies, not assassins. Before yesterday he’d never heard of the Valkyrie Program. Now he was even more fascinated about his current target.

Made initial contact. Asset safe, he texted Trinity.Exact location unknown. One player off the roster.

He set the burner phone on the nightstand and opened his laptop to review the top-secret file they’d given him on Amber Brown. She had an incredible story.

Orphaned at age six, then put into foster care along with her younger sister. They’d been separated and placed into what on the surface looked like boarding schools on either side of the country, but in reality they were pipelines for the Valkyrie Program. Handlers at the schools monitored and identified orphan girls who showed the right aptitude for certain skills, and funneled them into the program to become operatives.

Officially, Amber was classified as an “electronics expert” among the Valkyries. In actuality, she was a hacker every bit as lethal with a computer as with a firearm or blade. One of the best out there, according to Trinity. When the Valkyrie Program had been revealed in the media storm following the trial of CIA officer Will Balducci, the government had scrambled to shut it down and cover its ass.

But they hadn’t been quick enough. After her trainer had left her intel about her past and then killed himself, Amber had used her skills to hack into the classified government database and retrieve all the remaining files about the program.

Trinity hadn’t shared the details, but there’d been some sort of op gone wrong that had resulted in Amber being left behind. In what looked like retaliation, she’d used the Valkyrie files to target some fellow operatives involved. As in, she’d sold information on several of them to their enemies to get them killed. Hard core.

Except she’d fucked up and sold out someone who might be innocent. That’s why she was here. On a rescue mission to save Hannah Miller.

Seeing Amber in action tonight had been something else. He hadn’t anticipated the intense reaction he’d experienced when she’d looked at him tonight. In those few seconds when their gazes had locked, he’d felt an undeniable connection deep in his gut.

The burner phone’s screen lit up with an incoming text.Understood. No new intel at this time.

As far as he knew, the contract on Amber was now down to him and one other hitter. Both of them pros, both former military. Hence the hefty bounty offered.

She was good, Jesse mused as he studied her picture again. She wasverygood, but he was one of the best for a reason.

He’d managed to plant a tracker on her bike before following her to the palace. According to the app on his phone, it was currently parked eleven blocks away in a run-down residential area. Right now it was his best hope of being able to find her again.

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