Page 75 of Toxic Vengeance

Amber nodded. “I told you I’ve been keeping tabs on him. He’s hard to track, but every now and again I get a lock on him. And I’ve been able to record bits of calls over the past few weeks.”

The other Valkyries moved closer. Almost like they were closing ranks around her to protect her.

Pushing aside her visceral reaction to Rahman, Kiyomi focused on the words on screen. Transcribed phone conversations between him and others. A few emails.

“Is there anything you can think of, anything at all that will help me figure out what his connection to the others might be?” Amber asked.

Kiyomi started to shake her head, then froze as her eyes caught on a particular line of an email. A title.

The Architect.

“What? Do you recognize something?” Amber asked.

Kiyomi sensed Marcus watching her from across the room as the others waited for her to answer.

She took a steadying breath, struggled to sift through her hazy memories. The pain and drugs had dulled her mind, but she was sure what she’d heard. “That name. The Architect. I heard him talking to someone about it once. I…”

A chilling laugh. Black eyes filled with hatred and lust as he stood over her, bullwhip in hand.

Then that evil, cold voice saying something that hadn’t made sense until right this minute.

Ice speared her gut, the blood draining from her face.

“Kiyomi? Hey.” Eden was beside her. Her hand was on Kiyomi’s shoulder, the touch pulling her out of the dark memory.

“No, I’m fine.”

But who was the Architect?

Instinctively she sought Marcus’s gaze across the room. He maintained eye contact with her, concern written in every line of his scarred face. And in that moment, more than anything she wished she could feel those strong arms around her. To feel, just for a moment, that she was safe. Even though she knew it was an illusion.

“The Architect,” she said, her voice slightly unsteady.

“What about it?” Amber asked.

“I think I might be able draw him out.”

The room went deathly silent, and her insides twisted as she thought of what might have to happen for this to end. She was convinced that Rahman knew who the Architect was, had intended to sell Kiyomi to him. That made her the perfect bait, the only person who could make the Architect materialize—through Rahman.

“What?” Trinity said. “How?”

“The Architect might be the key to all of this. Rahman knows who it is.” She explained what she’d heard, what Rahman had told her moments before unleashing the bullwhip on her bare back. “He’s obsessed with me, so much that he’s got a three-million-dollar bounty for my capture. If we can’t find the Architect on our own, we can find him from Rahman. He’d do anything to get me back—”

“No.”

Startled by the deep voice across the room, she and the others looked over at Marcus. He’d shot to his feet, his expression dark as a thundercloud as he glared at them all. “That’s not happening.” His gaze bored into Kiyomi’s, almost daring her to argue.

“Kiyomi, how do you know this?” Trinity pressed, bringing her attention back to the others.

She licked her lips. “He told me he had a buyer lined up. A top-end buyer he was saving me for. And he said… He said ‘I know what you are. I’m going to send you back to your maker.’” She paused, glancing at the others. “All this time I thought it meant he was going to kill me, send me to face my maker. But now I think he meant something else entirely.”

Resounding silence greeted her words as everyone connected the dots.

Her skin crawled at the memory of being that helpless. Unable to defend herself or go on the offensive. Caged like an animal, beaten and starved, too weak to move. “Their deal was, he had to keep me alive and unharmed until the sale happened. But he lost control and broke his end of the bargain. And he was afraid he would die because of it. Afraid of the buyer. My creator.”

The Architect.That had to be it. It was the only thing that made sense, even if she didn’t understand why he wanted her specifically.

She met Amber’s gaze, fighting to ignore the way her insides twisted at the thought of putting herself at that animal’s mercy again. “What if the Architect is the one behind all of this?”

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