Page 41 of Beautiful Vengeance

He might not be able to kill Kiyomi when he captured her, but there were plenty of other ways to make her suffer for the pain she’d caused him.

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A few hours after everyone arrived at the safehouse outside of Damascus, Kiyomi found Marcus stretching on the floor in his room upstairs. They’d all flown to Turkey early that morning on a private jet, then individually crossed the Syrian border using fake IDs Amber had cooked up for them.

“Here,” she said, offering him a small bottle of water. Though it was November, the weather was unusually hot and dry here in Syria.

“Cheers.” He chugged it then set it down beside him, wrapped his arms around his upraised left knee and pulled it toward his chest, his features tightening.

“Can I help?”

The ghost of a smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. “I wish.”

She smiled back, thinking of last night. She’d crept out of his room before dawn and gone back to hers so that no one would know they’d spent the night together.

Not because she was ashamed or embarrassed. But because this was her first consensual relationship and she wanted to keep it all to herself. Marcus was a private man. She hadn’t wanted to make him the topic of any gossip or questions. They’d both maintained a careful distance on the trip here as well, for the same reasons. “I stand ready to assist you in any way I can, Mr. Laidlaw.”

“That right?” He lowered his leg to the floor and held a hand out to her. When she placed hers in it, he tugged her forward.

Kiyomi went to her knees in front of him, her heart turning over as she gazed into those chocolate-brown eyes. This man had dropped everything, left his quiet, peaceful life behind at a moment’s notice and returned to the very place that haunted him most —for her.

“I don’t think I’ve said it yet, but thank you for being here. It means a lot to me.”

He curved a hand around the back of her neck and drew her in for a kiss. “I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

Though he was a man whose actions spoke more loudly than any words he ever could have said, he continually surprised her with just how romantic he was, deep down. She kissed him, humming in enjoyment as his lips molded to hers, those powerful arms wrapped around her.

The truth was, being here again spooked her too and rattled the cage she’d locked some of her demons inside. But the prospect of capturing and then killing Rahman once they extracted the necessary intel from him made facing her past all worthwhile.

Marcus’s cell phone went off. He pulled it out, frowned, then answered, watching her. After a moment he put his hand over the bottom of it and spoke to her. “Can you get Amber?”

She jumped up and rushed to get their resident tech wizard. “Marcus wants you.”

Amber looked up from her laptop. “What for?”

“Someone just called him. Must be important.”

They stepped into the room and shut the door just as Marcus was lowering his phone. “What’s up?” Amber asked.

“That was a former teammate. Rory McFadden, the team leader from last night’s raid on the camp. He had a tip from an intel source here in Damascus. They got a signal intercept on a recent phone call that appears to match Rahman’s voice. Apparently he used the term ‘architect’ during the call, and the way he said it referenced a special significance to the person he was talking to.”

Kiyomi’s heart leapt. Was this it? Did Rahman have a direct lead to the Architect?

Marcus held out the phone so Amber could see the screen. “This is the number that received the call. Rory didn’t have a location for me.”

“I’ll run it now.” Amber took his phone and hurried from the room.

Kiyomi stepped in front of Marcus. “Thankyou,” she whispered, then lifted on tiptoe to kiss him.

He gripped her shoulders, his expression stopping her cold. “He knows you’re here.”

Rahman. “Does he know where?” The team had decided that she should purposely not wear a disguise while crossing the Syrian border, counting on facial recognition alerting Rahman to her presence—along with anyone else hunting them, like the Architect.

They’d been hoping to learn he’d been tipped off, and then try to track his location that way. But this scenario was beyond anything they’d hoped for, a way to kill the proverbial two birds with a single stone.

“Not yet. And that’s the way it stays.” A frown creased his forehead. “There’s more than a bounty on you. Whoever the caller was offered five million U.S. if Rahman turned you over.”

She smiled, the first real hope of nailing Rahman’s oily ass to the wall starting to bloom in her gut. “He won’t get the chance.”

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