Vengeful

“Since you have a knack for finding people—”

“I have a knack for killing people,” corrected June. “Finding them is simply a prerequisite.”

“What did you mean,” he said through gritted teeth, “when you said her worth as an asset?”

Stell cleared his throat. “I’ve given her a mission. A chance to succeed where you have failed.”

Eli stilled. No. The open file. The unsolved case. Victor.

“The hunter is mine,” he growled.

“You’ve had two years,” said Stell. “Perhaps it’s time for fresh eyes.”

Eli didn’t realize he’d approached the fiberglass until he slammed his fist against it.

This time, the gesture wasn’t calculated. It was pure rage, a moment of violent emotion turned to violent action. Pain flashed through him, and the wall hummed in warning, but Eli’s hand was already falling away.

Stell’s mouth twitched, a grim smile. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

Eli watched the director go until the wall went white, and then he turned and slumped back against it, sliding to the floor.

All of his patience, his subtle pressures. The ground beneath him shuddered, threatened to break. One misstep, and it would crumble, and he would lose Victor and Marcella both, and with them, justice, closure, and any hope of freedom. It might already be too late.

He studied the back of his hand, where a single smear of blood marred the knuckles.

“How many will die for the sake of his pride?” mused Victor.

Eli looked up and saw the phantom standing over him again.

He shook his head. “Stell would rather let the city burn than admit that we are on the same side.”

Victor stared at the wall as if it were still a window. “He doesn’t know how patient you are,” he said. “Doesn’t know you like I do.”

Eli cleaned the blood from his hand.

“No,” he said softly. “No one ever has.”

Eli clenched his teeth. “There are three EOs working together in Merit, and you’re just going to ignore them?”

“I’m not ignoring anything,” countered Stell. “But we can’t afford another failed op. Marcella and her partners need to be handled cautiously. You have two weeks to devise that more tailored approach you spoke of.”

Eli drew up short. “Why two weeks?”

Stell hesitated at that. “Because,” he said slowly, “that is how long I’ve given her to prove her worth as an asset.”

Eli reeled. “You made a deal? With an EO?”

“The world is not black and white,” said Stell. “Sometimes there are other options.”

“Where were mine?” snapped Eli. “The lab or the cell—those are the only ones I was given.”

“You killed forty people.”

“And how many has she killed already? How many more lives will she destroy by the time you see fit to put her down?” Stell didn’t answer. “How could you be so stupid?”

“You will remember your place,” warned Stell.

“Why?” demanded Eli. “Tell me why you would make a deal with her.”

But Eli knew. Of course he knew. This was how far Stell was willing to go to keep him in this cage, contained, controlled.

Eli rolled the footage forward and watched her step through the hail of bullets onto the balcony. Watched as every single shot ricocheted. Watched as she raised her own gun in the general direction of the sniper.

There was something so brazen about the gesture . . .

EOs ran.

EOs hid.

Under pressure, an EO might fight back.

But they didn’t do this.

Didn’t perform.

Didn’t use their powers with such obvious relish.

EOs were broken by definition, made reckless by the absence, the emptiness, the knowledge that their lives were over. It drove them to steal, to ruin, to self-destruct.

Marcella wasn’t self-destructing.

She was preening. Baiting them. Daring them to try again, try harder.

She had taken out her husband—and that made sense, an act of revenge. Of closure. But then, she’d taken out his competition. That wasn’t the mark of someone with nothing to lose. No, that was the mark of someone with something to gain. That was ambition. And ambition plus power was a very dangerous combination.

What would she do, if left unchecked?

“Why make another enemy, when you could have an ally?”

“An ally,” echoed Stell. “What could you possibly offer me?”

A slow, crimson smile. “What do you want? Less violence? Safer streets? Organized crime really has gotten out of hand lately.”

Stell raised a brow. “You think you can change the course of the mob?”

Marcella’s smile shone. “Haven’t you heard? I am the mob now.” She rapped her nails on the linen tablecloth. “No, you want to deal in kind, don’t you? A more relevant currency? You want . . . EOs.”

“You would hand over your own?”

“My own what?” Marcella scoffed. “Who are they to me?”

“Joseph,” she said, wielding his first name like a weapon. “So glad you decided to come.”

Her voice was warm, tinged with smoke.

“Ms. Riggins,” said Stell, sinking into the chair opposite.

“Morgan,” she corrected as a glass of red wine was laid at her elbow. “Given all that’s happened, I no longer feel inclined to use my husband’s name. But please, call me Marcella.”

She spoke with an airy confidence, one gold nail toying with the rim of her glass, and Stell realized that it wasn’t Marcella’s beauty that had failed to translate in any of the photos he’d seen. It was something else.

Something he’d seen before.

In Victor Vale. In Eli Ever.

A rare kind of strength. A dangerous will.

Someone this powerful belongs in the ground.

Suddenly he understood Eli’s stance, the stubborn resolve behind his declaration. Stell’s hand drifted toward his holstered gun.

If you don’t kill her, you’ll wish you had.

His fingers brushed the safety.

But Marcella only laughed. “Come on, Joseph,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, weapons don’t really work on me.”

“That one’s stunning on you,” said Oliver at Marcella’s back. Her eyes slid past her own reflection just in time to see him draw a slim switchblade from his bag. Marcella didn’t flinch.

“Zip me up?” she said lightly.

“Of course.” Oliver started toward her, and Marcella waited until he was almost an arm’s length away before turning suddenly. He slashed, and she caught the knife in her hand, her palm already glowing red. Before the weapon could so much as scratch her skin, it had crumbled.

“What a pity,” she said, wrapping her other hand around Oliver’s throat. “You had such good taste.”

He managed the beginnings of a scream before the skin and muscle gave way to bone, and then ash, and then nothing.

“Christ,” said June, appearing in the doorway. She took in the scene. “Well, that’s what you get for having a personal shopper.” She nodded at Oliver’s remains. “Is there anyone who doesn’t want to kill you?”

“Occupational hazard, it seems,” said Marcella.

“Excuse me for being a bit wary at the moment,” said June. “But who the fuck is this?”

“This is Oliver,” said Marcella cheerfully. “My personal shopper.”

June burst into raucous laughter. “People are trying to kill you—kill us—and you’ve got time for a fucking wardrobe change?”

Oliver smirked. “Spoken like someone who doesn’t understand the power of appearance.”

“That so?” June hopped down from the back of the sofa. She moved toward Oliver, taking on and shedding a different appearance with every step. “Maybe you should explain it to me?”

Oliver went very still.

“And that,” said Marcella dryly, “would be June.”

His gaze shifted unsteadily back to her. “I, uh, heard . . . about Marcus. Hell, I heard about you. Lots of strange talk.”

“Whatever you’ve heard,” said June, “it’s probably true.”

SOME women spent years planning their wedding.

Marcella had spent the last decade planning a hostile takeover.

Of course, she’d always assumed Marcus would be the face of it, but this was far more satisfying.

“Keep your eyes on me,” she ordered Jonathan. And then she turned, set down her glass of whiskey, and took up her gun.

The shots continued, a hail of fire that turned the air blue and white as Jonathan’s forcefield reflected every shot. Marcella moved with a careful, calculated grace, forcing herself not to flinch amid the onslaught. It was exhilarating, knowing that her life wasn’t, for the moment, in her own hands. Knowing that if Jonathan looked away, the shield would fall, and she’d be hit.

But sometimes, you had to have a little faith.

Marcella marched across the penthouse to the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows, the jagged rim of glass gaping open like a mouth. She touched the edge, and the remaining shards crumbled, crystals caught up and swept away by a gust of cold night air as Marcella stepped through the empty window, heels grinding on glass and sand and debris.

This, she thought, crossing the balcony, is why you don’t hide.

This, she thought, lifting her own gun, is why you let them see your strength.

Marcella squinted through the flash and spark of Jonathan’s shine, trying to find the flares of light that marked the sniper’s rifle in the dark as she fired, again and again, emptying her clip into the night.