Page 36 of Wired Courage

Malee would give her a listening ear, a comforting hug as she always did. Maybe they’d get their nails done or go shopping in Bangkok. There were no secrets between sisters. Well, except for Pim Wat’s entire life . . .

Pin Wat couldn’t help smiling, enjoying the thought of Malee’s ignorance. Malee believed Pim Wat to be an idle socialite, dabbling in watercolors and yoga retreats while spending her time on useless vacations and charity projects, interspersed with depression episodes that were a result of her delicate constitution. It would be so entertaining to tell Malee the truth someday, to list her kills and means of execution. She could just imagine the expression of shock and horror on her sister’s bland face. Malee was a simple, loving, unimaginative woman.

Pim Wat’s unseeing eyes tracked over the jungle mountains, rivers, and rice paddies below as she mulled over the conversation with the Master from the night before.

It was clear that she had been pulled off of the situation with her daughter. She knew better than to defy the Master; he might love her, but she had experienced his punishments before. He was an expert in the use of pain, but that had never been as effective on Pim Wat as the mere withdrawal of his presence, of his favor.

She suffered without him—it was that simple. “Curse it,” she muttered, unable to even hear her voice through all the helicopter’s racket. “I hate loving him.”

Loving the Master made her weak like nothing else ever had. But she couldn’t seem to turn off her emotions or harness them. Just the sound of his voice made her insides melt, made her turn herself inside out to please him.

Maybe someday she’d find a way to “wrap him around her finger” as Frank used to say, but until then, she would just take these trips when she needed to—to demonstrate her independence, to remind herself of the reasons she lived the way she did.

Frank.What a farce that marriage had been. Pim Wat had been so depressed by childbirth and her life with that big, loud American with his endless career demands, that she’d taken to her bed to escape it—which turned out to be a handy cover as the years went by—and then, she met the Master. He recruited her, and gifted her with the role of a lifetime, her true calling as an assassin for the cause.

Too bad Sophie had turned out to be such a disappointment—but Pim Wat really couldn’t blame her daughter’s rebellion, after the marriage Pim Wat had arranged to Assan Ang had turned out to be such a disaster.

And then Sophie gave birth to a daughter.

Beautiful little thing, too, with a gentle disposition. Pim Wat had a good reason to steal the baby, and then when the child wasn’t a match to the crown prince, she had seen a second chance to be a mother properly. She would have been, too, if that evil bitch Armita hadn’t stolen her granddaughter . . .

“Thirty minutes to landing,” the pilot said, and his voice vibrated obnoxiously through her earplugs. Pim Wat squinted irritably at him.

She would call her sister as soon as she landed.Wouldn’t Malee be surprised and pleased to see her!

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Day Twenty-Seven

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot.” Armita’s voice trembled, but the shotgun aimed at Sophie’s midsection looked rock steady.

Sophie dropped her lockpicks and raised her hands. “Armita! It’s Sophie!”

“Show me your face.”

Sophie was the one with the trembling hand now, as she fumbled with the detachable face veil. The transparent black panel fell away, and Sophie pushed the headscarf back.

Armita’s resolute face broke into a smile. She lowered the shotgun. “We were beginning to worry that something had happened to you. Your aunt and your child are in the other room, waiting for you.”

“I can hear that.” Momi’s crying had ratcheted up a notch to a screech that brought all of Sophie’s nerves rearing up. “I want to know everything that’s happened, but first I must see my baby.” She bent to embrace Armita’s petite form, feeling the woman’s wiry strength and slender bones. “There will never be enough thanks in the world for what you’ve done.”

Armita cleared her throat. “Go quiet your child before she wakes the neighborhood.”

Sophie hurried past her nanny to face her aunt in the living room. Malee’s face, much like Pim Wat’s but rounder and softer, was wreathed in smiles as she joggled the howling infant. “At last, you got here! We were beginning to wonder.”

Sophie put her arms around Malee, sandwiching the baby between the two of them as she greeted her aunt with a heartfelt hug. “I am so happy to see you.”

Momi’s shrieking stilled as she was pressed between the two women in their loving embrace. Her scrunched-up eyes opened, and she gave a little squirm and wriggle, snuffling around, clearly hungry.

Sophie backed away and held out her arms. “May I?”

“Of course! She is yours.” Malee pressed the wrapped bundle into Sophie’s arms with alacrity.

The world narrowed to the tiny face pressed against her breast, to golden brown eyes fastened on hers.

Curly black halo of hair.

Stitchery of tiny brows, more a placeholder than an actual feature.

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