The Revenge by Tijan

Good Lord.

I loved this little teenager.

Cyclone’s hand snuck into mine and pulled it from Seraphina’s shoulder. He squeezed. “After dinner tonight, can you help me with a computer project?”

“Of course.” I squeezed his hand back.

“I want to learn how to hack into my gym teacher’s emails. I want to get a pass so I can join the next robotics class, and it’s only offered during gym. It’s not fair.”

Matt said, “Maybe wait until you’re not at dinner with the adults to ask that, bud.”

“Why not?”

“Cyclone, your sister won’t be helping you with your computer project after dinner. You and me, we’ll be having a talk instead,” Peter said.

“That’s why,” said Matt.

Seraphina giggled. “You got in truh-bull. Truh-bull.”

She kept snickering, and it was contagious. Everyone was sporting a grin.

I think it was the best dinner I’d ever had.

There was only one person missing.





TWENTY-FIVE

Kash


I was back with my team, and over the last few weeks, we found the rest of Calhoun’s hidden locations. Bailey helped us find them a lot faster than we expected.

Safe houses. Warehouses. His or someone else’s that he used as his.

We destroyed them.

Each one was isolated and so off the grid that I didn’t know when Calhoun would find out about them, but it would take time. I wished I could be there when he was told.

Josh came to the back of our motel room, sitting on the bed beside my table. He let out a sigh, unclasping his holster and putting both his guns on the other side of my laptop. “Derek called. He said Victoria’s detoxed. Wanted to know what you wanted done with her?”

I hadn’t trusted Victoria, so I sent her off with two of my guys. Their orders were to find Robbie, who would get in touch with Ace, who had more friends with places that were completely off the grid. She went to one of those locations, and whoever Ace trusted was getting paid a lot of money to not only detox Victoria but also to deprogram her, since she’d been brainwashed. She’d been spewing pro-Calhoun sentiments when we had her at our first headquarters. Deprogramming was the way to go.

“Is she still pro-Calhoun?”

He grinned, stretching his neck so it cracked. “I don’t think she’s pro-Calhoun, but she’s still anti-you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

I lifted my arms up over my head, clasping them, stretching them. Sitting in the motel room for the last two days put knots in places I didn’t enjoy. “I can work with that. Is she showing remorse?”

“Over what?”

I dropped my arms, eyeing him. “Derek didn’t say anything about that?”

Josh shook his head. “Ace was the one who talked to Derek, said your ex was done and ready to be moved for whatever you wanted for her.”

I glanced at my phone. Bailey’s picture was there, smiling up at me.

Josh fell silent.

I shoved up from the chair, grabbing my own gun and sliding my phone into my pocket. Josh was watching my movements but kept quiet.

“Have we gotten word about my brother or what Calhoun is planning next?” I asked, while holstering my second gun.

Harden had asked to meet in person, but when we got in touch, he said he needed more time. So that’s what we were doing; we were waiting.

I was getting sick of waiting.

“Still radio silence from Harden, but the other team called earlier. They found someone who got wind of your brother, but I gotta say…”

I stopped in my movements and looked at him.

He was grim. “Your brother’s like a ghost. He’s like you, maybe better.”

“He’s laying low. I was a ghost, standing next to Peter Francis. He was a ghost when no one knew to look for him.”

Josh stood from the bed as I was heading for the motel door. “You’re not worried about him?”

I reached for the doorknob, but paused and looked back. “I am, but so far he’s not going after the people I love.” Bailey. Matt. The Francis family. “When he said he hated our grandfather more than me, I felt it.”

Josh’s eyes narrowed. “And about Victoria?”

“Let me think on her.” I opened the door. “I’ll be back.”

We were in the middle of nowhere, a back section of woods in North Carolina. A perimeter was established, but I needed to move. I needed to exert myself.

I needed to punish myself.

I had to run, and like two days earlier, I just started.

It wasn’t enough. It never was.

I sparred at home. I swam to tire myself.

If those didn’t work, I would wake Bailey and bring her and myself to a climax over and over again. There was a drive in me, one I didn’t want, one I cursed, one that was a blessing, one that kept me going and going and going.

It’d always been there.

I had trained that drive into a thirst against my grandfather. He was always the target. He morphed my life, and I let him. I used his image, his threat, to mold me into who I was today. Bailey said I was half animal. Maybe. A half monster, too? Probably. Either way, I had to move and go, and I had to sweat until I wanted to collapse, and at the end of that, I would keep going, because I always had more in me.