Schooled in Revenge (11 page)

Cain swallowed the liquor in his glass and removed his phone from the pocket of his perfectly tailored Italian suit.

“Hello?”

“I expect to see you on Saturday. You do know that, don’t you?”

Cain wasn’t surprised to hear William Reinhardt’s voice on the other end of the line.

“I told you,” Cain said coldly, “it’s not my scene.”

“Irrelevant,” Reinhardt retorted. “You’re not invited to dazzle me with your witty repartee.”

Cain was unmoved. “Tell your buddy the senator that if he wants to talk to me, he has my number. And for him, I’ll consider picking up.”

“You know Wells doesn’t like to discuss business over the phone. Or through email.”

“So the guy’s paranoid. The way he got into office, I don’t blame him.”

Reinhardt’s voice was muffled as he said something to someone on the other end of the phone. When he came back, he lowered his voice. “Wells wants to meet in person. He has located him.”

Cain laughed with satisfaction.

“The party is the perfect cover,” Reinhardt says smoothly. “You’ll be just two guests of many, and if you come at ten, everyone will be too drunk off vintage port to remember who was conversing with whom.”

Cain thought about it. He and Reinhardt had known each other a long time, their relationship mutually beneficial far beyond their imaginations. Their history could either catapult them to further success—or consign them to prison. Cain might not be sitting in a tony vineyard in Napa, but he was smart enough to know that it was better to pacify than to alienate a person like Reinhardt.

“Tomorrow at ten, huh?” he asked.

“I’ll see you then.”

Ava sits, devouring a warm meal at St. Ella’s Women’s Shelter of Carson City, Nevada, about two hundred miles northeast of Napa Valley. The shelter’s low-hanging ceiling and dreary walls reflect the feelings of the women huddled in the tight space. Trapped and full of despair, this is the end of the line.

Ava, her beauty hidden behind tired eyes, is in a constant state of confused anxiety. She’s been on the streets for almost a year, having sold most of her mother’s and grandmother’s jewelry and clothes to survive, a piece of her heart breaking off each and every time.

But she was only able to get her hands on so much, and it’s all gone now anyway.

Ava tries to make the corn bread and thin soup served by the shelter last. She doesn’t want them to ask her to leave. As she takes a scoop of food, she notices a loose thread from her ripped, fingerless glove and attempts to tear it off, but instead of a clean break, the donation bin glove begins to unravel. The sight of it causes an irrational tear to spill onto Ava’s cheek. She takes a deep breath, trying to get it together.

She just can’t seem to catch a break.

Just then, a man sits down at her table. He’s rugged, good-looking, and the only person in the run-down building who seems in control. It’s obvious he doesn’t belong there, but then again, neither does Ava, something he lets her know when he speaks a moment later.

“This isn’t the life you’re supposed to have.” He leans in close to her. “And I know how to help you get it all back.”

Ava drove like a bat out of hell, hoping she was right. Once she’d recovered from the shock of Jon’s confession, she’d hurried to the car, flipping frantically through her file, looking for anything that might tell her where Jon might go in search of Cain. She’d found it in a report on Cain’s business holdings: a down-and-out bar called Tavern Red on the wrong side of town, reportedly Cain’s informal headquarters.

She could only assume that’s where Jon was headed. If he wasn’t there, she would have to resign herself to the fact that he might be lost to her and the others.

She pulled up outside the bar, spotting Jon right away. He was standing outside, surveying the mission-style building under a sun that was baking the already-hard ground. Ava had seen a gas station a mile back, and more recently, an abandoned warehouse. Other than that, they were in the middle of nowhere, nothing but stray cats roaming and trash tumbling across the dusty ground.

He was heading inside, his stride purposeful, when she leapt from the car, running toward him with all the speed she could muster.

“Jon!” she called out. “Stop!”

He kept walking, seemingly oblivious to her voice.

She grabbed on to his arm, trying to pull him to a stop. But it was like trying to hold on to a Mack truck in high gear. All of Takeda’s training couldn’t make up for the fact that Jon outweighed her by a good hundred pounds, an advantage that was only magnified by his determination.

He tried to shake her off. “Let go of me, Ava.”

“Please,” she begged. “You can’t stop these people this way.”

“It’s none of your business,” he said, his brown eyes cold. “I need to do this. It’s the only way to make things right.”

She took hold of his arm again. “If this is about last night… if you feel guilty…”

“Last night has nothing to do with this!” he shouted.

She reached up, putting her hands on his face, forcing him to look at her, ignoring the connection that crackled between them even now.

“You feel guilty,” she said. “For living, for feeling, while Courtney can’t. I get that. But being stupid isn’t going to solve anything. If you want to make them suffer the way you have—the way Courtney has—this isn’t the way.”

“That’s all you do, Ava. All any of you do; talk and think. And talking and thinking isn’t going to give Courtney the justice she deserves.”

“We’re supposed to be a team!” she yelled. “If you do this, you’re making the decision for all of us.”

Jon pushed past her, heading for the door of Tavern Red.

She stepped in front of him, putting a hand on his chest. “Please.”

“Step aside, Ava.” His voice was flat and cold, no sign of the affection and friendship that had grown between them.

“They’ll kill you.”

His eyes burned through her with dire conviction. “Then so be it.”

Ava was trying to think of something to say, anything that might get Jon to listen to reason, when an ominous thud sounded behind them.

Ava turned and found herself staring into the barrels of two cocked pistols. One of them was held by a massive guy with arms like tree trunks. The other by a man with a beard, his head shaved clean.

“Well, well, well,” the guy with the beard said. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“So,” The bigger guy said, “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

They had forced Ava and Jon inside, tying them to two chairs in the middle of the pub. The two men still pointed guns their way, but other than that, the mood was calm. Too calm. An older man sat with his back to them at the bar, and a group of men sat calmly at a back table as if Ava and Jon weren’t being held at gunpoint in the middle of the room.

The man with the beard—Ava thought she had heard the other guy call him Lee—smacked Jon in the face with the butt of his gun.

“Are you deaf? I asked you what you were doing here. How did you find us?”

Jon didn’t say anything, his face impassive as blood trickled from a cut on his temple. He closed his eyes as the man named Lee raised his gun to hit him again.

“Lee, Vic,” the man at the bar called to them. “Come here.”

Vic waved the gun at Jon and Ava. “Don’t even think about moving.”

“Don’t say anything to them, Ava,” Jon whispered as they walked away. “No matter what they do to me.”

Halfway to the bar, the big man named Vic turned back, leering at Ava, but talking to Jon. “She’s not bad, West. Although I have to say, I’m kind of surprised you brought us another girl after what happened to the last one.”

Jon thrashed in the chair, an expression of pure fury on his face.

Vic neared Jon again, pressing the gun against Jon’s still-bleeding temple. “Courtney, right? Was that her name? How’s she doing, anyway?” Vic’s finger rested on the trigger. “I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”

“Cain!” Jon yelled. “Why don’t you stop hiding behind your hired goons and come do your own dirty work?”

Ava’s head snapped up, her attention drawn to the man at the bar. So that was Frederick Cain. The hired killer who had murdered Reena’s mother for Jacob Wells.

Vic kept his eyes on Jon as he called out to Cain, still at the bar. “Hey, boss, can I waste this guy?”

Cain didn’t even turn around. He just raised a hand, his back still to them. “As long as you clean up your mess.”

Vic aimed the gun, level with Jon’s head, as Ava looked around, frantically searching for a way to help Jon, to get them both out of this mess.

She was bracing herself for the explosion of gunfire when something came swinging from the rafters, crashing on top of Vic.

Not something. Someone.

It was Jane, her momentum knocking Vic to the floor, where he lay unconscious. Ava stared at her in shock. Jane was
hardly recognizable, her hair wild, her face expressionless and cold.

She turned toward Jon and Ava, whipping a knife out of her belt and cutting the ropes that bound them as Cain and Lee rose from the bar.

Lee pointed his firearm at Jane, but before he could squeeze off a shot, the large open window to his right shattered, glass falling to the ground like rain as Reena catapulted through it, crashing into him.

The gun flew out of his hand, landing just inches from Ava’s feet, and all at once her mind started working again, Takeda’s training taking over as she bent to pick up the weapon. The metallic barrel was cool to the touch, the rubber grip firm as she wrapped her hand around it.

Ava was surprised to see Cruz. She hadn’t seen him enter the bar in the commotion. He headed straight for the bar and Reena, landing a wicked punch to Lee’s face, knocking him out as Cain turned toward Jon and Ava.

Cruz registered the chaos around him. “We really should’ve slept in,” he said dryly, jumping onto the bar and launching himself at Cain.

Cruz slammed him against the bar. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

Cain was surprisingly calm. “Should I?”

Reena moved next to Cruz, grabbing Cain’s arm and twisting it behind his back. “What about me?” she asked. “Recognize me?”

Recognition lit his eyes. “You’re that senator’s daughter.”

“Yeah,” she said. “The senator you had killed.”

The man named Vic groaned, writhing on the ground as
he gained consciousness. Jon moved in, slamming his foot into the man’s back, sending him sprawling back to the terracotta tiled floor.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jon said. He looked at Ava. “I’ve got this guy. See if the others need help.”

Ava looked around, spotting two men approaching from behind Cruz and Reena, who were still holding Cain against the bar. Remembering the men who had been drinking at the table in the back, Ava shouted a warning.

“Cruz! Behind you!”

But she shouldn’t have worried. Jane was on it, using the kicking and punching techniques Takeda had taught them to keep the men at bay. Cruz moved in to help but was quickly sidelined by three broad-shouldered men armed with pool cues.

Remembering the gun she was holding, Ava turned it on them, power moving like liquid ice through her veins. The gun felt good in her hands. Solid. Finally, she was in control.

The men froze, staring at the gun aimed their way.

“How does it feel?” she asked them. “I could kill you right now, just like you’ve killed for that bastard you call your boss.”

She contemplated doing it. Pulling the trigger and delivering justice in one shot.

“Ava…” Cruz’s voice was a warning. “Don’t do it. This isn’t how we were trained.”

Over by the bar, Jane grabbed one of the men and slammed his head into the jukebox as Reena held a knife to Cain’s throat, her face distorted by rage as she tried to get him talking.

“Admit what you did!” she screamed. “Admit it or I’ll kill you!”

But Cain must have had nerves of steel, because he remained
silent, his face pressed up against the bar, a rivulet of blood running down his neck as the knife in Reena’s hand nicked his skin.

And then, someone else appeared, rising like a shadow from behind the bar. The bartender, Ava realized. He moved quickly, grabbing the knife out of Reena’s hand in one swift movement.

But it was more than the activity that had Ava’s attention. She was frozen, her eyes glued to the bartender’s face.

What the hell was
he
doing here?

The momentary distraction was all Cain’s men needed. One of them lunged for her, knocking the gun from her hand as they both hit the floor. The gun slid across the tile, out of reach, as Ava kicked the monster off her with a move she’d learned during her third week on Rebun Island.

Jon and Cruz moved in, punching the other two men while Jane jumped on one of the tables, scanning the room like she was trying to get her head around all that was happening.

And then, everything seemed to slow down as Cain’s eyes stopped on Jane’s face, his expression turning to one of disbelief.

“My God. It can’t be…,” he said.

Wait a minute… Did Cain recognize Jane?

Jane, oblivious to the recognition in Cain’s eyes, flipped off the table, dealing quick, lethal blows to the last two of Cain’s men still standing.

Takeda’s group of revenge-seekers stood, breathing heavy and surveying the carnage, until the sound of rusted metal scraping against concrete screamed through the air.

Ava turned with the others toward the back door, where Cain, taking advantage of the chaos, was making his escape.

Jon took off like a shot.

“Jon! Don’t!” Ava called out.

Reena shoved the bartender off her and sprinted after Jon. Ava wasn’t surprised to see the bartender step aside now that the danger had passed. Jane’s gaze locked on him, and for a moment, Ava wondered if Jane recognized him, too.

Ava’s attention was pulled away from them as Lee stumbled up from the floor, blood pouring from his skull. She only had time to shout as he reached for the gun lying on the floor near one of the tipped-over tables.