Page 15 of Beautiful Vengeance

As soon as she realized what she’d done, she berated herself. She was in the middle of the freaking Cotswolds, not Syria, and she could damn well walk around this countryside market town like a normal person without seeing a threat in every shadow.

It was only a few minutes’ walk along the hill up Sheep Street to reach the heart of Stow-on-the-Wold, the highest village in all the Cotswolds. Once a bustling wool market town, it remained a collection of narrow, winding streets filled with charming, old, honey-gold stone buildings housing vacation rentals, shops, tea rooms and restaurants.

A light carpet of orange and gold leaves dotted the sidewalks and grassy areas. Brilliant splashes of scarlet Virginia Creeper clambered up the front of an antique shop, while glossy green ivy and colorful lemon and plum-colored mums spilled out of window boxes along the buildings lining the street.

Her senses remained on high alert, but it gave her the chance to sharpen her awareness after months of being isolated from the outside world. The sun was out, and Stow’s main square was packed with cars and busloads of tourists. A lot of them were Asian, so at least she didn’t feel like she stood out too much, or that anyone was staring at her as she walked past the old stone shops and businesses.

Kiyomi counted the number of people she saw. Assessed them for threat level, watching for any sign of a weapon, or heightened interest in her.

Just off the main square she spotted the fabled Huffkins bakery and teahouse she’d heard so much about from the others, and popped in to order treats for everyone. With fifteen minutes to kill before her order was ready, she decided to satisfy her curiosity and take a look around the rest of the town.

Walking around here in broad daylight was a self-imposed test she needed to pass in order to feel hopeful about any sort of a future after their mission was over. Since her arrival at Laidlaw Hall she’d kept strictly to the manor and its ground. She’d wanted to come alone on her first visit to town, so she could get her bearings on her own and prove to herself she wasn’t so damaged that she couldn’t be out in a public place anymore without having a panic attack.

Crowds would always bother her now. Rahman had taken her captive at a party with more than a hundred people watching. None of them had lifted a finger to help her. Given her training and experience, she’d thought she was invincible. That she was the one controlling the situation. He’d shown her just how wrong she’d been, and a lesson like that was never forgotten.

The ring of nearby church bells pulled her from her thoughts, the magical sound beckoning her closer. She walked up the sidewalk and took a sharp turn into a narrow alley that led toward the churchyard. St. Edward’s Church stood proud in the center of it, a famous Norman church dating back to the eleventh Century, built of the same honey-toned Cotswold limestone as the rest of the town.

She paused on the leaf-strewn pathway to stop where a group of Mandarin-speaking tourists were posing for pictures. On either side of the arched, wooden door, ancient yew trees flanked the north entrance. She continued on the path that led around the west side of the church, pausing to read the gravestones. Near the end of the path, she stopped in front of a headstone when her eye caught on the names.

William Laidlaw and his wife, Elizabeth. Born in the early 1700s, and buried here before the turn of the century. Two of Marcus’s ancestors. And there was also a stone memorial to the final battle of the English Civil War fought at Stow.

Venturing off the path, she examined some of the other headstones. There were quite a few Laidlaws buried here, but many more stones were illegible, the names and dates chiseled into the slabs long since worn away by the elements over the centuries.

How incredible, for him to own Laidlaw Hall and live where his ancestors had for hundreds of years before him. She’d never had roots of any kind, never been able to stay in one place long enough to form a connection. But here…she felt a bone-deep connection somehow. To this place, and especially Laidlaw Hall and its enigmatic owner.

It was the nearest thing to a home she’d ever known. Knowing she had to leave soon dimmed her mood considerably.

When it was time to pick up her order at Huffkins she chose a quieter path out of the churchyard and back along the alley toward the square. The smell of the baked goods reached her from the sidewalk.

She’d never been one to eat sweets, since they were all fat and sugar and she’d always been calorie conscious to maintain a certain look with her figure because her body was her lure as well as her weapon.

But now that she was trying to move forward, she could eat whatever she damn well pleased. Since arriving at Laidlaw Hall she’d put on a good ten pounds, and for the first time ever, she wasn’t stressing about her weight or body.

The counseling and conversations with Trinity were a godsend. Over the past few months she’d come a long way in terms of body image and self-worth, but it hadn’t been easy and she still had a long way to go because Rahman had robbed her of something she was determined to reclaim.

She was more than her face and body. She had value as a person, outside of her looks and skillset.

Getting to know the real Kiyomi Tanaka was both exciting and terrifying. Every day she discovered something new about herself, and it made her even more resolved never to give her hard-won autonomy up.

The nightmares kept coming, however, all borne from the terrible sense of helplessness she’d experienced as a captive. She fantasized about killing Rahman, about the look on his face when he realized he was about to die. It was cathartic.

At this point he was still their best link to finding out the Architect’s identity. As soon as Amber had a solid lock on his location, they could plan an op to capture him.

Although capturing him wasn’t enough for Kiyomi. He had to die, and she had to be the one to kill him.

Raised voices caught her attention as she stepped out of Huffkins and faced the main square. She stopped when she spotted Marcus standing in front of his Land Rover a stone’s throw away…being confronted by two men.

An instant surge of protectiveness shot through her. She set her bags down and moved slowly toward them, watching the men’s hands. One of them held a cricket bat.

“I didnotattack your sons last night,” she heard Marcus say in a low voice. He was calm, but standing his ground.

“It had to be you,” the shorter man with the bat said. “It was right off your property, and everyone knows you’re a nutter, holing up in your mansion with your PTSD or whatever the fuck is wrong with you.”

Kiyomi wanted to garrote the bastard for speaking to Marcus that way but she held herself back, staying far enough away not to distract Marcus but close enough to intervene if necessary. People were watching in the square now, having figured out something was wrong.

Marcus’s jaw flexed, his eyes boring a hole into the shorter man’s face. “I never touched your sons. I could never have done what they claim I did.” He shifted the base of his handcrafted wooden cane on the ground, driving his point home.

“If it wasn’t you, then you had someone do it for you,” the taller one snapped.

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