Page 13 of Beautiful Vengeance

Wanting the cops out of his house and this entire situation done with so they could all move forward and he and his houseguests could go back to staying off the radar, Marcus turned his computer screen around for the constables and pulled up the video feed from last night.

He showed them the clip of the boys arriving during the bonfire, and one of them throwing the device at Karas. It still made his blood boil. “What time did the boys say they were attacked?” he asked when it finished.

“Just after twenty-three-hundred hours.”

Marcus fast-forwarded through the feed, stopping short of the mark before he played it for them. As expected, nothing showed up on video. No sign of the boys coming anywhere near the range of the cameras.

He fast-forwarded again, looking for any sign of them at all, but of course there was nothing right through oh-one-hundred-hours this morning. Amber’s edit was seamless. Not that he would expect anything less.

When the video feed in question was done, he eased back in his chair to regard the men and raised an eyebrow. “Satisfied?”

They both nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll keep looking into the matter,” the older one said.

“As for the matter concerning my dog,” Marcus added, “how long will it take for the lads to be charged and reported to the Crown Prosecution Service? I keep to myself and prefer to live a quiet life. I don’t want this matter dragged out or publicized in any way, and I don’t want my name showing up in the local paper. This is a small town. People will talk. I want to avoid that at all cost.”

The older cop regarded him for a moment, then nodded. “Understood. The process will likely take months.”

Kiyomi and the others would be long gone by then, perhaps not even in the UK anymore. The tension in his shoulders eased. “Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get my dog in to see the vet first thing.”

“Of course.”

He walked them out, anxious for them to leave. He waited on the front step until their car turned out of the gate at the end of the driveway, then shut the door and stood there a moment and expelled a long breath. Crisis averted.

Seconds later came the sound of voices as the others came in through the back door, no doubt alerted by Megan the moment the police had driven away from the house. She and Ty were absent, as were Jesse and Amber.

Marcus spun around and started down the hallway, heading for the breakfast room. All conversation ceased the moment he entered, everyone gathered around the table.

Five sets of eyes fastened on him, including Kiyomi’s, but his gaze paused on her only for a moment before cutting to Chloe. “Had an eventful night, did you?”

She blinked her big brown eyes at him, wearing a T-shirt that read:Explosives expert. If you see me running, try to catch up. “What do you mean?”

She wasn’t fooling anyone with the innocent routine. “Three teenage boys matching the same description as the ones who hurt Karas last night were found tied up just after midnight. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Across the table, Heath cut his girlfriend a wary look. “Chloe,” he said in a warning tone. “What did you do?”

Marcus glanced over his shoulder as someone came up behind him in the hallway. It was Trinity, holding a newspaper. “She in there?” she asked.

There was no doubt about who she meant, or that they’d come to the same conclusion. Nodding, he stepped aside to let her pass.

“Well, there you go, Chlo. You finally made the local paper.” She tossed the paper onto Chloe’s plate, front page up, and folded her arms.

“Me?” Chloe said, feigning offense.

The others craned their necks to see the paper as Chloe read the headline aloud. “Local teens terrorized on Bonfire Night.” She snorted. “Terrorized, my ass. They don’t have a clue what terrorized even looks like.”

Eden snatched the paper up to continue reading, a slight frown pulling at her forehead. “‘A bloody ninja jumped out of this tree and attacked us,’ one of the boys reported. ‘We didn’t get a good look at him, but the guy had stun grenades and everything.’ After a tip to police from a concerned local, the boys were found…” Her eyes widened as she trailed off to stare at Chloe. “Stripped to their underwear and tied to a tree in a field just off the A436.”

Trinity made a strangled sound and covered it with a cough, her blue eyes wide. Snickers broke out around the table, then laughter, and even Marcus couldn’t help but grin.

Heath wasn’t laughing. He was shaking his head at Chloe in alarm. “There’s something very wrong with you. You know that, right?”

When Chloe gave a careless shrug, Heath narrowed his eyes in accusation. “You said you were going downstairs to make hot chocolate because you couldn’t sleep.”

“I did, and I couldn’t,” she said with a defensive scowl. “Then I waited for those little bastards to come back, because I knew they would. And when they did, I taught them a lesson they won’t soon forget.”

When Heath just kept scowling at her, Chloe huffed out an annoyed breath and slathered a piece of toast with a sickening amount of Mrs. Biddington’s homemade raspberry jam. “Relax, they were only out there for half an hour before I called in the tip.”

Kiyomi smothered a laugh, and Eden and Zack were both smiling.

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