Schooled in Revenge (2 page)

The training room was about a half mile behind the tera. A smaller version of the main house, the structure was surrounded on three sides by large stone walls. The fourth side needed no marker. It ended at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the far-reaching sea.

It wasn’t as cold as it had been the day before, but that wasn’t saying much. It was still a million times colder than Napa. Ava forced herself not to think about it. Cold was minor compared to what she had endured, compared to what she was willing to endure to see vengeance served.

She entered the training area through a wooden door, surprised to find a powerfully built man with short sandy hair already inside.

“Hi,” Ava said quietly, unsure about the rules and customs of their training.

He nodded. “Hey.”

She stepped forward, extending a hand. “I’m Ava Winters, resident new kid.”

He chuckled, taking her hand, his brown eyes guarded. “Jon West. And I thought I was the new kid.”

“It’s your first day, too?” Ava asked.

“It is,” he confirmed. There was something dark behind his confident gaze, and a powerful current of attraction flooded Ava’s body as his eyes held hers.

Before she could respond, another guy, tall and lean, burst into the room, Reena, the flinty-eyed redhead from the night before, at his side.

“The newbies have arrived!” he exclaimed, opening his arms magnanimously.

“You’re such an asshole, Cruz.” Reena rolled her eyes affectionately before smiling at him. “I like that about you.”

Their exchange was familiar, like they’d replayed the same scene many times before.

The guy named Cruz gave Reena a slow grin, the chemistry between them a palpable presence in the room.

A moment later, Takeda stepped through the weathered door, his expression solemn. Cruz immediately fell in line next to Reena, his lighthearted demeanor gone. After a brief hesitation, Ava and Jon followed suit, taking their cues from the more experienced students. They watched Takeda reverently as he paced in front of them.

“Revenge,” Takeda began, “is not a swift blow to the skull or the simple pull of a trigger, although you will learn these things in the event that something goes awry in your quest. Rather, revenge is death by a thousand cuts, a slow and calculated process to make your enemies suffer as you have. This is not cruelty. It is a restoration of justice, of balance.”

Takeda stopped in front of Ava, meeting her eyes as if he was speaking only to her.

“You must dedicate yourself to revenge. It is not a hobby.
Not a part-time pursuit. It will consume you. It will engulf you. But with my guidance, it will also empower you.”

Faces flashed across Ava’s mind. Charlie. William Reinhardt.

And everyone who helped them take what was hers.

“Together we will map a course to bring justice to every person who has wronged you,” Takeda continued, resuming his pacing in front of the group. “But to exact revenge without preparation is suicide, and first among these preparations is control. You must learn to control your emotions, your mind, your body, so that you may act with a clear head and a focused heart. I will teach you this control.”

Takeda’s words were still ringing through the training room when the door opened and a young woman stepped in quietly. Slender, with long blond hair twisted into a loose braid, she looked even younger than Ava. Somehow the scar that ran across one cheek only added to her fragile beauty. Eyes downcast, she took up a position apart from Ava and the others.

Ava refocused on Takeda as he stopped in front of Jon, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Revenge is not an option. It is a need. A burning desire to right the wrongs of those who have taken someone from you.”

Daring a glance at Jon, Ava was surprised to see his impassive expression turn steely. Is that why he was here? Because someone had been taken from him?

Takeda walked farther down the line, stopping in front of Cruz. “To right the wrongs of those who have crossed you…” Cruz stared straight ahead, unflinching, as Takeda continued to Reena. “To right the wrongs of those who have destroyed
everything without consequence. Without remorse.” He gazed at each of them as he made his way back to Ava. When he spoke again, his words seemed meant just for her. “Revenge is a room with an entrance but no exit. Are you ready to walk inside?”

Flashbulbs pop, unrelenting as twenty-four-year-old Reena walks out of notorious Los Angeles hot spot Lily’s Lounge holding a martini glass in one hand and a second martini glass in the other. It’s only 2 p.m., but as the cliché goes, it’s five o’clock somewhere, and Reena never misses an opportunity to cause a scene.

It’s what the paparazzi love best about her.

“Reena! Reena! What’s your mother going to say?” one of the tabloid journalists calls out, waiting on the bustling boulevard outside to snap as many photos as he can of her.

“The senator has bigger things to worry about than me,” Reena scoffs as she spills gin all over herself, stepping into a decadent black limousine.

She’s rash and reckless, but okay with it. All of it. She doesn’t need structure, just an open bar.

“Do you think your mother will get reelected?” the vultures shout.

Reena downs her drink and puts on her large sunglasses. “Dunno. That would mean I was paying attention.”

Reena slammed the wooden bow into the dense, frigid sand as Cruz jumped away, narrowly escaping the blow.

They were on the beach below the tera. Takeda and the other students stood off to the side, observing Reena and Cruz’s training exercise.

“Pay attention to the moves he hasn’t yet made,” Takeda advised. “Your rage distracts you.”

The criticism got under Reena’s skin, raising her ire even as she continued to circle Cruz, looking for another opportunity to gain the upper hand.

“My rage is what fuels me!” she shouted.

She swung the bow behind her back, using the momentum to bring it forward, nailing Cruz in the thigh. He dropped to the ground in pain, grunting in frustration as Reena walked over his fallen body to place her bow in front of Takeda.

“You lack sympathy,” Takeda stated.

Reena walked toward the others, Takeda’s words echoing in her ears. She assumed it was a compliment, but there was something in the way he said it that made her wonder. She fell in line, the waves just reaching her bare toes. Reena gritted her teeth against the frigid water. Physical discomfort she could endure.

It was knowing that no one had paid for her mother’s death that was unbearable.

She pushed the thought away. She was taking steps to remedy the situation. It’s why she was here. She had to focus. And even her feelings for Cruz couldn’t get in the way.

She watched as Jon bent down, picking up Cruz’s bow from
the sand near his feet. He walked over to where Cruz lay, still recovering from Reena’s blow, and offered him a hand.

Cruz reached past Jon’s hand, grabbing his arm instead and flipping him onto the harsh sand. “Sorry, dude. You lose.”

Even Reena didn’t see it coming, and that was saying something. She knew Cruz almost as well as he knew himself.

Cruz bounced up, standing over Jon with a look of triumph on his face.

Takeda shook his head. “Vengeance may not reside with pity,” he says. “Only one may win. You must decide which is most important. To have pity for your opponent is to give them an advantage. You must distance yourself from emotion,” Takeda further advised. “It will get in the way, it will make you weak.”

Takeda was speaking to them all, but Reena felt her face flush with the words. It was no secret that she and Cruz had a relationship. But her feelings for him went far beyond that of a lover. He was her best friend. The only person who really knew who she was. The only person who had been with her both before and after her mother’s death. Who knew how she suffered.

Cruz was a part of her. Whatever Takeda said, she would find a way to balance her feelings for him with her desire for revenge.

“But our emotions are what brought us here,” Ava said.

Reena fought the urge to roll her eyes. They were all novices in revenge, but Ava gave new meaning to the word
amateur.
It was obvious that she was too naïve. Too soft. Training to fight and speak other languages was the least of her problems.

“But it is here you must leave them when you one day head back out into the world,” Takeda responded. He turned and walked away, signaling their break.

They waited for him to clear the beach before breaking formation. Reena was turning to say something to Cruz when she caught Ava staring quizzically at her.

“Is there a problem?” Reena asked, narrowing her eyes.

Ava shook her head. “No problem, it’s just…”

“It’s just
what?”
Reena demanded.

“I recognize you,” Ava said. “At least, I think I do. You’re Reena Fuller. The daughter of that senator. The one who was killed.”

A chill ran through Reena’s body. She knew her mother was dead. Had lived with the reality of it for a long time. But she hated hearing someone say it out loud. Especially someone she didn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” Ava continued, placing a gentle hand on Reena’s arm. “I didn’t mean to upset you. My parents died, too, in a car accident.”

As if that mattered. As if that somehow made it better. The words didn’t even begin to thaw the ice around Reena’s heart.

“Yeah, well, this wasn’t an accident.” She picked up her bow, stalking for the path leading to the tera.

Walking through the tasting room at Starling Vineyards, Ava is warmly welcomed by Napa mainstays, vintners, and a multitude of tourists who’ve come to experience the wine country’s most esteemed establishment. The repurposed wood of the colonial-style space coordinates perfectly with the mustard-seed bar tops and café tables where patrons sip and savor.

Ava pours a healthy glass of Pinot Gris for a young couple sitting on the plush bar stools.

“Aren’t starlings those birds that defend their nests to the death?” the young man cracks as he drinks his wine.

“Stop flirting,” his wife warns with a laugh.

“Leave me alone,” he says. “I’m making small talk with the heiress to the Starling throne.”

Ava laughs, offering the lady another glass.

“To the death, huh?” says an Englishman sitting a few feet away. “But it’s just a nest.”

She looks at him coolly. “Well, the nest is their home. And home is…”

“Let me guess, where the heart is?” he jokes, his shaggy
hair a boyish contrast to his chiseled jaw and striking cheekbones.

Ava nods, feeling an instant physical attraction to him. She takes out a glass, asking if he’d prefer red or white.

“Actually, how about your name instead?” the man says.

“Ava Winters,” she responds, selecting a nice red.

“Why that one?” he asks, tipping his head at the bottle.

“Red wine often goes through a process called fining,” she explains. “It corrects the wine’s faults.” She smirks at him. “Looks like you could use some fining yourself.”

“Touché,” the man laughs. He extends a hand. “I’m Charles. Charles Bay. You can call me Charlie.”

He removes a brochure from his jacket pocket. On the cover is a photo of Ava with an older woman, the two of them sitting by a large marble fountain in front of Starling Vineyards.

“Nice picture,” he says.

Ava chuckles, embarrassed.

“So is it true?” he asks her.

“Is what true?”

He waves his arm expansively. “That all of this is going to be yours one day.”

Ava nods. “I suppose so.”

Charlie sips the Cabernet she poured for him. “What’s your favorite part?”

“About what?”

“About all of it; Napa, your vineyard…”

Ava thinks about the question as she reaches into a small bucket. She pulls out a souvenir key chain with a dangling cork, the words S
TARLING
V
INEYARDS
, N
APA
V
ALLEY
, CA embedded on it in black ink.

Ava hands it to him. “The little things.”

Charlie regards her with a slow smile. “Would you care to join me for a drink?”

“I can’t,” Ava says, feeling a twinge of regret. “Not with all these customers around.”

“Then after you’re done working,” he says insistently. “There’s a pub just a few blocks from here. What do you say?”

“Actually,” Ava says, embarrassed all over again, “I won’t turn twenty-one for another six months.”

He smiles his understanding. “A rain check, then?”

“How do you know you’ll still be around?” she asks.

Charlie smiles. So does she. And it’s suddenly clear that he will.

Ava was standing on the edge of the cliff when she heard someone approach from behind.

Turning toward the footsteps, Ava was surprised to see Jon.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, stopping beside her.

Pulling her robe more tightly around her body, she looked back out over the water. It was after midnight, the ocean endless and inky under a clear sky blanketed with stars. It was desolate, feral. And very, very beautiful.

“I’d always dreamed of coming to Japan. Seeing this part of the world,” she murmured. “But not like this.”

“I know what you mean,” Jon said beside her. He seemed to hesitate. “Why does he do this? Takeda? What does he get out of it?”

She glanced over at him. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, his biceps bulging from the sleeves of his T-shirt. He was wearing shorts, as unprepared for the cold as Ava.

“You didn’t ask that question before you came here to train?” she asked.

“I was too busy loving the idea of retribution.”

His smile was wry, but Ava shivered as he spoke the word. Retribution. Justice. Revenge. Whatever its name, it was what drove her as well.