Page 62 of Beautiful Vengeance

The café was in view now. Megan studied the sidewalk again as they approached, searching for someone who resembled her hazy memories of Aunt Jane. She should be here by now.

“Oh, shit,” Amber breathed. She stopped, staring at her phone.

“Oh, shit what?” Megan demanded, drawing up short beside her. They were almost at the doors now. She cut a glance around them and then across the street, searching for possible threats. Nothing jumped out at her.

Then she met Amber’s gaze, and Megan’s stomach dropped as she watched the blood drain from her sister’s face. “The profile’s a match,” she said, her gaze fixed on the glass front door of the café as she scanned the interior.

Ice slid down Megan’s spine. “A match to what?”

“The Architect. Linguistic forensics identified her education level, where she went to school. It all matches what we thought Aunt Jane’s should be.”

Megan’s pulse thudded. “You sure?”

“The worduntenable. It’s not common. Using it in everyday language would stand out.”

Megan’s heart thudded faster. “The Architect used it in the conversation with Rahman.”

“Yes.” Amber’s eyes were full of a terrifying mix of anger and fear. “And Lady Ada just found it in the court documents. Jane used it to explain why she couldn’t take care of us. ‘The situation is untenable,’ she said in her original statement.”

Megan stared at her, unease tying her insides into knots. “Oh, shit. You mean…”

Amber nodded, her green eyes stricken. “Lady Ada projects it’s a 95% probability that Aunt Jane’s the Architect.”

Shock reverberated through her.Megan whipped around to scan the people around them with new eyes. Her gaze halted on two new guys across the street with faint bulges beneath the arms of their jackets.Shiiiiit.“It’s a trap.”

“Get behind cover,” Ty said urgently in her ear, having heard everything.

Before either of them could move, the café door opened and an employee came out. The young girl looked around, spotted them, and started toward them. “A gentleman just asked me to deliver this to you,” she said with a smile, handing over a folded piece of paper.

Megan grabbed it and read the note typed inside it, delaying her innate instinct to run.

Sorry I couldn’t make it, but tell my sister I said hello when you see her.

The horrifying words played through Megan’s mind, too terrible to comprehend. Their aunt was the Architect, and she’d been planning this all along—planning the moment she could isolate and kill them so she could go after Kiyomi.

She started to crush the paper in her hand. A red laser dot appeared on the back of it.

“Get down!” She grabbed Amber, wrenching her off her feet and reached for the closest table, overturning it. They dove behind it a heartbeat before a bullet punched through it, spraying slivers of wood.

People gasped and screamed, overturning chairs as they bolted. In the confusion she and Amber scrambled behind a large concrete planter and drew their weapons. “Contact, your one o’clock,” she said.

“Megan! What’s going on?” Ty demanded.

“Under fire. Two shooters,” she answered, ducking as more shots struck inches above their heads, this time spraying bits of concrete and dirt.

“Hang tight,” Ty said curtly. “We’re coming.”

“How far away are you?”

“Two minutes.”

In two minutes they could be dead if there were more shooters coming. “They gotta be moving toward us,” she said to Amber over the chaos and noise around them. “We can’t sit here.”

Amber nodded, face set. “Head south. I’ll cover you.”

“You mean you’ll be right behind me.”

“Yeah.”

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