Page 5 of Toxic Vengeance

It made her think of the woman she’d been in contact with a few times several months ago regarding a shipment of women being transported from North Africa by Syrian crime boss Fayez Rahman. Eden was almost certain the woman had been another Valkyrie.

Could it have been Kiyomi? She’d wondered about that all this time, and had been tempted to ask. They hadn’t been roommates when they were in the Valkyrie Program, but they had been trained in several areas together. Had spent countless hours studying and sparring together. But Kiyomi had been the femme fatale of the Valkyrie world, and chances were good she’d died long ago.

Picking up her phone, Eden accessed some old emails she’d saved in a protected account, and reread the ones from the suspected Valkyrie. Eden didn’t have proof to back up her theory, it was more of a gut feeling. And right now, it was her best chance of getting help, because she needed to drop off the grid immediately.

After debating it for another few minutes, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to reach out and see if the woman was even still active on that email account. If she was and things felt right, Eden might consider asking for assistance.

She had no idea if she’d get any, but now more than ever she was desperate to find and connect with the sisters she’d lost so long ago. They were the only ones who would understand her. The only ones she could trust to help, rather than hunt her down.

The time had come. If she wanted to stay alive, she couldn’t operate alone anymore.

****

Sunlight gleamed on the surface of the water above her, beckoning to her with its warmth.

Kiyomi pushed hard off the bottom of the pool and propelled herself toward the surface, giving her tired arms and legs a break. She’d been doing laps several mornings a week for more than a month now, to help rebuild the muscle tone she’d lost during her recovery.

Swimming was far more enjoyable than running, and she liked the peace and quiet of being beneath the water, of shutting out the world for a little while. Her body had healed since her rescue in Syria. The twice-weekly remote therapy sessions and meditation were slowly helping the rest of her heal too.

Breaking the surface for a breath, she swept the water out of her eyes with one hand and turned onto her side to swim for the stairs, only to stop when she saw the man standing motionless at the edge of the pool. Marcus Laidlaw, master of this beautiful estate.

He wore swim trunks and a T-shirt he’d been in the act of pulling off, but quickly yanked it back down to cover his chest. “Sorry. Didn’t know you were here,” he said quietly. She loved his Yorkshire accent. He sounded just like Sean Bean, only deeper. Darker.

Damn. She’d come here early specifically to be gone before he showed up so as not to interrupt his morning swim, but he must have changed up his routine for some reason. She frowned at him, not liking that he felt the need to cover up in front of her. As if he was embarrassed by his scars, or maybe afraid of disgusting her.

“Don’t do that,” she admonished, treading water.

He frowned a bit. “Do what?”

“You know what.” She nodded at his shirt, now covering the burn scars he’d suffered from an explosion while on a combat mission in Syria a couple years ago during a mission gone awry with the SAS. They marked the left side of his chest, shoulder, neck and face, and around his left eye. His short, dark beard covered most of the damage on his face, except for the spots where hair no longer grew on his cheek and jaw.

But those marks weren’t even close to the worst things he’d survived.

His features were tense, his expression broadcasting his discomfort. “Habit,” he muttered, and broke eye contact.

“They don’t bother me. And you’ve already seen mine.”

That deep brown gaze swung back to hers. Held. And in that moment, she knew they were both thinking about the day she’d arrived here months ago, after fellow Valkyrie Amber and her boyfriend Jesse had pulled Kiyomi out of that prison in Damascus.

Without them, Kiyomi would have been subjected to a living hell, and she bore the marks on her back to prove it. Lash marks that had cut deep into her flesh between her shoulder blades. Marcus had seen them as Amber and her sister Megan had tended to her wounds when she’d first arrived at Laidlaw Hall.

Kiyomi had a lot in common with her Valkyrie sisters, but she and Marcus shared a connection that none of the others did. Against all odds, they had both survived a brutal captivity. So no, he had nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about with her.

She cocked a challenging eyebrow at him. “You coming in?”

Marcus held her stare for a long moment, unmoving. It was strange that she still couldn’t read him.

Even after living under his roof for this long, even though she was an expert at reading people, he remained a mystery to her. A quiet, intensely private man, he was close with Megan, who had pulled him from a certain slow, agonizing death at his captors’ hands. He didn’t say much and rarely socialized with any of them except Megan, but there was something about him that drew Kiyomi with a strength she couldn’t deny.

He was watchful, almost standing guard on the periphery to ensure she and the others were safe here at his home. After the things she’d done in the name of duty and all she’d endured, feeling safe was foreign and unthinkable. But somehow Marcus gave her that sense of security.

“Well? Are you?” she prompted, a little unnerved by her train of thought.

He cleared his throat. “I was going to sit in the Jacuzzi awhile,” he said, nodding to the raised hot tub at the corner of the pool area. “Leg’s stiff today.”

His left one. Megan had told her his hip and thigh had been shattered when the vehicle he was riding in hit an IED embedded in the road. His captors had subsequently crushed what was left of the joint. After he and Megan were finally extracted, surgeons had done what they could to repair the hip joint and femur, but he would walk with a pronounced limp the rest of his life.

Kiyomi felt a keen empathy for what he’d been through. And she was glad the men responsible for his torture had been sent to hell where they belonged. Most of the people responsible for her suffering had been killed, except the man who still haunted her nightmares. But he would die for what he’d done someday, and by her hand. She’d vowed it to herself.

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