I WATCHED the entrance to the school from the driver’s seat of the sedan we’d commandeered for the first stage of our plan, my heart thumping at a brisk rhythm. Garrison had disappeared through the doorway a few minutes ago, wearing business casual clothes, a wig, fake facial hair, and an air of total belonging. If he couldn’t pull off this maneuver, no one could.
If he couldn’t, our plan was finished before it’d even really gotten started.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, willing my nerves to stay calm. There was a long road ahead of us after this. I had to stay cool and focused—not buckle under the pressure like we aimed to make the Blood Hunter do.
My latest burner phone rang. I yanked it to my ear. “Hello, this is Carolyn Markle speaking.”
“Oh, hello, Ms. Markle,” the woman on the other end said. “I just wanted to confirm—we have a Mr. Beverly here with a note from you requesting an early pick-up for Brittany?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” I said, keeping my voice as smooth as possible. “She has a doctor’s appointment, and I wasn’t able to get out of work.”
Blaze had hacked into the school network and changed the parental contact number for the girl’s supposed mother so we’d be set if they double-checked. Garrison had gone in with a note Carter had forged for us, imitating the signature on file on a note of business paper that Blaze had created using an exact copy of the logo from the Blood Hunter’s business card.
That was more than I’d imagine the Maliks had access to when they’d kidnapped the first Brittany, but we still hadn’t been sure if that would be enough. The Blood Hunter had almost definitely requested extra caution—but he probably hadn’t considered that we’d find his adoptive daughter at all. And it was the first week of school after summer vacation, with all the chaos that must come with that, so the staff had to be more distracted than usual.
“Good to know. Sorry for bothering you,” the school secretary said, and I sank back in my seat.
Less than a minute later, the school door opened again and Garrison came striding out with a little blonde girl bounding along beside him. She peered up at him, looking a bit puzzled but chattering away all the same. He smiled and nodded as if he found her comments the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard, and she looked like she was eating up the attention. It was kind of sweet, seeing how well he set her at ease.
When this was all over, she’d have a better life. A safer one, not ruled by a controlling, vicious man who’d dragged her into his life as a stand-in for another daughter.
Garrison would have told Brittany that he was a colleague of her father’s and that her father had arranged a little trip for her. I found out the details he was offering about that trip when I stepped out to meet them.
“…and I bet she’ll bake her famous cinnamon snap cookies for you—there’s nothing like them fresh out of the oven.”
The girl let out a little gasp. “I love homemade cookies. Will she let me help? Our cook never likes me in the kitchen.”
“I’m sure she will,” Garrison said, his voice dipping as if he was as affected by that statement as I was. A pang formed around my heart. How much did the Blood Hunter and his staff control his adoptive daughter’s life? How much was she allowed to do?
As I opened the back door for her, Brittany paused and stared up at me. Her eyes narrowed with a wariness that didn’t fit her young age—a sense of caution the Blood Hunter must have drilled into her. “I don’t know you either.” She took a step back, knitting her brow. “I don’t like this. I want to talk to Father.”
My pulse stuttered. We couldn’t give her that. The secretary’s approval of Garrison had been enough to reassure Brittany about him, but seeing another stranger had set off more alarm than we’d anticipated in the girl herself.
With a jolt of inspiration, I grasped the ponytail I’d gathered my hair into and yanked it upward, ducking down and turning so the back of my neck was level with the girl’s line of sight.
“I work with your dad,” I said, motioning to my tattoo with my other hand. Who would have thought that the mark I hated, the ink he’d used to brand me as his, might end up being the key to carrying out our plan for his destruction?
Brittany let out a huff of breath with a little giggle. “Oh. I’m sorry! He just—he didn’t tell me we were doing anything different today, and he always says I should never go anywhere with people I’m not sure he’s approved of. But you’re with him, so it’s okay.”
I turned, giving her a smile I couldn’t stop from being a little sad around the edges. “We are. And you’re going to have a wonderful time with Steffie.”
Brittany climbed into the car with no further hesitation. Garrison checked that she’d buckled her seatbelt and sat in the back with her, encouraging her to tell him about the math test she’d had today. As she started reciting her multiplication tables, I pulled away from the curb.
The first part of my route Blaze had deliberately mapped out so that we’d pass several street cams. We were counting on the Blood Hunter seeing this vehicle—and its license plate, which we’d registered to Damien Malik.
Next I zipped into a shabby residential neighborhood where cams were few and far between. I drove halfway down a back laneway between two rows of houses and parked next to the SUV Steffie had rented under a fake name when she’d arrived in DC this morning.
The Chaos Crew’s housekeeper shot me a warm smile in greeting before fawning over the girl who’d come out to meet her. Garrison made the introductions, and Steffie cooed over Brittany’s outfit before telling her how much fun her father had arranged.
“Why don’t you let me hang on to your school things while you go have a great time?” Garrison said amicably.
The girl handed over the crest-emblazoned jacket she’d been carrying rather than wearing due to the late summer heat and then her backpack. I suppressed a twinge of nervous dread as she and Steffie got into the new car, a sunshade pulled down over the window next to Brittany to hide her from prying eyes and cameras.
We’d picked out a perfect hiding spot far from the city for them to stay busy while we carried out the rest of this mission. And besides, the Blood Hunter would be diverted onto a totally different trail. While I’d been driving over here, Blaze had sent another forged note by courier to the night club we knew the Blood Hunter owned, the place where I’d first truly met him. This note Carter had written in our father’s handwriting, full of taunts and malicious glee, with details and phrasing only someone in the family would know.
Damien Malik had stolen one daughter from the Blood Hunter, and we were doing everything in our power to lead him to believe that the politician had stolen another as well. I couldn’t think of anything more guaranteed to throw the Blood Hunter into a frenzy.
A frenzy big enough to forget himself and his sense of security, if we got our way.
When Steffie’s SUV had disappeared out the end of the alley, I turned to Garrison. “Time for part two.”
“That it is.” He reached over and touched my cheek, staring intently into my eyes as if it was the last time he’d see me. “We want him getting in over his head, not you. Don’t push it too far. Wait until you’re sure he’s vulnerable enough. We’ve got plenty of time to whittle away his defenses. None of this matters if we lose you.”
My throat tightened. “Same to you,” I said. “I know what I’m doing. We’ve got this.”
Please, let that be true.
Garrison nodded and then tugged me to him, meeting my lips in a motion of pure passion and desperation. It was a goodbye kiss if I’d ever felt one. He moved his hands, gripping my jaw and wrapping his long fingers around the back of my head, holding me in place in a way that told me he never wanted to let go.
I didn’t either. I didn’t want to leave him to an unknown fate, but we had to do this. With only three of us fully mobile, we couldn’t afford to stick together. And as the one with the most combat training, I could handle myself better on my own than he or Blaze could.
I slowly pulled away, giving Garrison’s hand a quick squeeze. “This isn’t good-bye,” I insisted. “I expect an even better kiss than that when we meet up again afterward.”
My comment provoked a chuckle, a little of the somberness in Garrison’s hazel eyes fading. “Oh, I’ll do a hell of a lot more than kiss you then, sweetheart. That’s a promise.”
We exchanged one last look and then split up, Garrison jogging toward the third car he was going to put in place for a later part of the plan, me heading off on foot. After getting a few blocks of distance from the scene of the hand-off, I summoned an Uber using a new account Blaze had set up with no links to my real identity.
The next stage of the plan relied on me alone. We knew exactly where the Blood Hunter would go first.
When I got to the Malik family home, it was still and silent. I’d half expected police tape, but it occurred to me that the bodies of Iris and Ruby probably hadn’t been found yet. I’d left them down in their secret basement room. I wouldn’t be surprised if anyone who’d wondered about their disappearance assumed they were running from a potential trial after the evidence that’d been discovered about their murderous activities.
That was no problem. It made it even easier for me to waltz into the house as if I belonged.
I went upstairs to the master bedroom with its bay window overlooking the front lawn, pulling over the wing chair from the corner to sit and wait. The room’s smell, crisp and slightly acrid, made me think of my father. He’d have applied cologne in here while he got ready to face the world in his role as defender of justice. What did his political supporters think of his ideals now?
We hadn’t been sure how long it would take for the Blood Hunter to realize what had happened, but he must have gotten the message quickly. I’d been waiting at the house for less than an hour when four cars pulled up outside, flanking the motorcycle the man himself rode on.
Of course he’d come, but he’d brought a small army with him. Fifteen men spilled out of the cars, all of them armed and slightly bulky beneath their crisp shirts in a way that suggested bulletproof vests. The Blood Hunter himself kept his helmet on, his own chest clearly protected. He wasn’t panicked to the point of foolhardiness—not yet, anyway.
Four of the men marched up to the front door in formation around their boss, shielding him from potential shots. The Blood Hunter’s strides were hasty, his hand jerking at his side as he snapped out orders. I could see the tension reverberating through him. He wasn’t his usual cool, collected self. We’d rattled him at least that much.
He had to be both raging at this violation of his family and unsettled by the possibility that he’d made an even greater mistake.
“If Malik’s in there, find him,” he spat out, sounding as if he was practically frothing at the mouth.
He didn’t know whether he’d failed in his revenge, whether he was going to lose another daughter. The plot he’d spent nearly thirty years planning might have gone off the rails without him even realizing it, and now he was teetering on the brink too.
A few more guards hustled up to the front door behind the Blood Hunter’s cluster, and the rest fanned out around the building to check the back and possibly enter through windows as well. I darted downstairs and slipped into my chosen hiding place just in time. I’d locked the front door to give the appearance that no one wanted them to enter, but the man at the head of the pack smashed it open without missing a beat.
That was just fine by me. I wanted them inside where I could do my real work too. There was no way I could hope to strike at the Blood Hunter directly right now, but the fewer guards he left this house with, the easier the rest of our task would be.
“Malik!” the Blood Hunter bellowed as he charged inside. “Face me for once, you fucking coward!”
He and his core group of guards hurtled upstairs. As more busted open the back door, a few men came toward me down the hall. I watched them from the top of the secret basement staircase, where I’d left the hidden doorway open a crack.
One of the guards noticed the gap in the wall, just as I’d intended. I crouched down as he hurried toward me. “Over here!” he shouted to his colleagues.
Three of them burst past the door. The second they stepped into the darkness, I swept out my leg and slammed out my hands.
The guy at the back heaved forward into the others, and they all tumbled partway down the steps. I leapt out and hurled a knife into each of their heads before they could recover. As they slumped on the stairs, I slipped out and closed the door firmly behind me.
A guard was just emerging from the dining room. His gun arm whipped up, his mouth opening to raise the alarm, but I sprang at him and snapped his neck before he could get out more than a grunt.
More footsteps were thumping toward me from various directions. The Blood Hunter would have seen that the second floor was empty. I darted the short distance to the back door and braced myself there in the mud room, using the narrow wall for cover.
“Man down!” someone shouted as the body by the dining room was discovered.
The Blood Hunter stormed into view. “Where the hell is he? Where is that prick?”
I stepped into view, ready to leap out of range in an instant if need be. “He’s not here. He’s taking your daughter somewhere you’ll never find her again.”
“You,” the Blood Hunter said in a voice that was pure rage. The men flanking him raised their guns, but he held out his hand to stop them.
He wouldn’t want to kill me when I might have information that would bring his daughter back to him. But he couldn’t stop himself from spewing more fury at me. “I should have slaughtered you like your family did to Brittany when I first got my hands on you, you bitch. Where is she?”
I snorted. “Like I’m going to tell you. And it seems to me that you’re my little bitch. I’ve run circles around you. Did you really think I’d choose you over my family—over the people you stole me from? You raised me to be a killer, and you assumed I’d have a problem with their little side business? You didn’t think that through too well, did you?”
“There were bodies,” he snarled, his composure disintegrating by the second. “Autopsy reports. There—”
“You should know better than anyone how easily records can be faked and bodies can be misidentified,” I interrupted with a grim smile that hid my apprehension. I was taunting a very powerful man who still had more than ten armed guards backing him up. “Of course I made sure they didn’t really die. I just gave you what you wanted to see, and you ate it up.”
A tremor ran up his arms from where his hands were clenched at his sides. His knuckles had paled to pure white.
“I’m running out of patience,” he said, and I heard the promise of death in his tone. “Where is he? Where did he take her?”
“I told you,” I replied. “Someplace you’ll never find her.”
The flick of his fingers was so swift I almost missed it. I dove for the back door just as two of his men opened fire, aiming for my lower legs. They wanted to slow me down so he could question me at his leisure, but I wasn’t giving him the opportunity.
I crashed through the door and sprang out of range, positioning myself deliberately so that the side of my sweatpants scraped against the sharp edge of a metal lawn ornament I’d positioned there for that purpose. The pocket at my hip that I’d already frayed tore completely open, and a phone I’d placed there tumbled to the ground.
I whipped around as if to try to snatch it up, but the Blood Hunter and his guards were already barreling out the door after me. “Shit!” I spat out. It was all I could do to dodge out of range around the house, leaving the phone behind.
One of the men raced into my line of sight just as I ducked behind the compost bin, and I shot him between the eyes, not worried about the noise now that the Blood Hunter’s men had made enough of a racket. But only that one guard came near me. I heard a hitch of breath as the Blood Hunter must have checked the phone I’d “lost” and seen the most recent text thread that we’d set up for him to find.
“Forget the bitch,” he hollered to the others. “We’ve got somewhere else to be. Move it, move it, now!”
Their footsteps thundered back through the house. Tires screeched as the cars they’d arrived in tore away from the curb, the thrum of the Blood Hunter’s motorcycle mingling with their engines. They roared away, the sound quickly fading into the distance.
The faint wail of a siren told me I needed to get moving too. The neighbors in this peaceful part of town wouldn’t have hesitated to report gunshots in the area.
I hopped the hedge at the back of the yard and sprinted through the streets until I reached the park where I’d meant to regroup. Hunkering down in a small glade of trees, I pulled out the phone I’d been using for my actual business and dialed Blaze’s number.
It didn’t even finish a full ring before he picked up. “Dess?”
“They’re on their way to you.”
Blaze released a deep, relieved breath. “Everything went according to plan?”
“As much as we were able to plan it,” I said. “He had fifteen men with him; I took care of five of them. They’ve got four cars between them, and he’s on his motorcycle. He kept his helmet on the whole time, and I believe they’re all in bulletproof gear.”
Blaze must have put me on speaker phone, because Garrison’s whistle carried from a little farther away. “Are you sure the phone did the trick?” he asked.
“He gave every indication that he was sure he’d figured out where to look next, and there was nothing else on there that should have given him a clue. I think he’s smart enough to put the pieces together quickly from those texts. I’d bet you’ll be seeing him in twenty minutes or less.”
“Fun times,” Blaze said cheerfully. “We’re ready for them.”
We’d set up the Blood Hunter to follow the trail to a storage facility on the edge of the city. It wasn’t a place we’d ever been before, but it’d seemed fitting when I remembered the trap he’d set for us at a similar compound of storage lockers back in the Chaos Crew’s home town. He probably wouldn’t even make the connection in his current state of agitation.
Why would he anyway? He thought he was chasing Damien Malik now, not the Chaos Crew.
“I’d better get to the next location,” I said. “Keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
I connected the phone to a headset, hearing the clatter of Blaze’s laptop keyboard as I did. As I loped through the park to the car Garrison had left waiting for me, the guys rustled around, setting up their own traps. Blaze made periodic sounds of approval, which occasionally Garrison responded to with a snort. I shook my head at them silently as I turned the car toward my final destination.
The place where, if all this worked out, our war with the Blood Hunter would end.
As I wove through the streets to the highway, a sudden boom reverberated through the phone line. Blaze chuckled darkly. “There goes one of those cars, and at least three men with it. Oh, he does look pissed. You can tell even with that stupid helmet on.”
He’d switched out of speaker phone, so I couldn’t hear much more other than his slightly heightened breath as he must have moved through the facility to a different perch. Garrison would be off taking care of things from a different vantage point. The storage units offered plenty of opportunities to get the jump on the men.
“Garrison just tripped up another of the guards,” Blaze reported. “And now I’m going to…” A metallic clang loud enough to reach the speaker reverberated into my ear, followed by another chuckle. “So long, suckers.”
“Don’t get too cocky,” I warned him, even though I was smiling.
“No such thing,” Blaze retorted. “I’ll have you know—”
The blast of a gunshot blared in my ear, cutting off whatever he meant to say. My heart flipped over, and the line went dead.
