Page 51 of Beautiful Vengeance

His eyes snapped open and he jerked his head around to stare at her. “What?”

“A tubal ligation wouldn’t take care of the messy business of monthly biology, and trying to regulate my cycle out in the field was a hassle, so they went for the more convenient option.” She sighed, didn’t protest as he rolled her to her side to look at her abdomen. “There’s no scar. They did it internally. Wanted to take care of the problem without damaging the goods, you know?”

He forced his gaze back up to her face, reeling and unsure what the hell to say. “Love, I’m so sorry.”

She lowered her gaze. “Thanks. It’s okay. I accepted it a long time ago. And it’s not like I ever expected to want kids someday.” A frown wrinkled her brow. “We were so vulnerable when they put us into the system. And then into the Program. No one did anything to stop them from exploiting us. That’s the part I hate the most. I want to stop it from happening to other vulnerable girls.”

He didn’t dare ask more, not wanting to upset her. But dammit, it infuriated him to know what they’d done to her. Those bastards had taken away her childhood, then her adult life, and they’d taken away her choice to have children one day as well.

Rolling her back into him once more, he wrapped her up in his arms and held her close, her cheek resting over his heart. “You all right?” A lot had happened in the past few hours. It would be hitting her hard now.

“Yes.” She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I thought I’d feel different. I know he’s dead, but it still doesn’t seem real.”

He made a low sound and squeezed her tighter. “He’s gone, and can never touch you again.”

She nodded. She was so still in the minutes that followed, he thought she’d fallen asleep. But a few moments later her breathing hitched slightly, then her shoulders jerked.

He knew before he felt the wetness on his chest that she was crying, and his heart twisted. He drew her even closer, one hand on the back of her head and the other banded tight around her back. She needed to let this out.

“I’ve got you, love,” he murmured, and held her through a different kind of release than the one he’d given her before.

Gradually her little shudders and gasps subsided. She melted into him with a sigh and her breathing grew deep and even as she slid into sleep. He dozed off too, awakened sometime later by the ringtone of his mobile in the bathroom.

“Stay here,” he whispered when Kiyomi stirred, and got up to see who was calling.

Megan. He dialed her back. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes. How’s Kiyomi?”

“Better.”

“Good. Tell her we’re finished interrogating the prisoner. Didn’t get much, other than some messages on his phone. We dumped him at a certain location and left him for the local security forces to deal with. Briar and Georgia are en route to the target house in Atlanta now. Rahman recorded the conversation with the Architect. Amber is analyzing it now, then she’s going to tackle the recovered laptop. Trin’s working on getting us a flight back to the UK before first light.”

Good. “I’ll tell her.”

Kiyomi was sitting up on the bed watching him when he came back into the room to tell her. “Amber’s analyzing data now,” he told her. “We’re flying out in a few hours.”

A leap of excitement flashed in her eyes, then her expression hardened. “Good. I can’t wait to hunt this bitch down.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Rahman’s dead.”

Janelle laid down her pencil on her drafting table and sat up straight, burner phone to her ear. “When?” she asked the young woman on the other end. One of her most trusted members of her personal guard.

“Last night. Murdered in his bedroom at the compound.”

“How?”

“Stabbed through the neck while sitting in a chair. Killer used another blade to pin his hand to the armrest.”

Interesting. The team sent on her orders to intercept Kiyomi had all been killed. “What kind of blades?”

“I don’t know yet. There’s no security footage. I only found out from a source in the medical examiner’s office.” A pause. “Did you order it?”

She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Though she’d been tempted more than a few times. If Rahman hadn’t been so committed to finding Kiyomi, he would have been a liability. With all his military and security connections, under different circumstances she might have regarded him as a threat.

“Was it one of us?”

---