Home > Honor Avenged (HORNET #6)(6)

Honor Avenged (HORNET #6)(6)
Author: Tonya Burrows

   Her gaze traveled past his shoulder to where Seth lay on the floor. “No. You don’t. Harrison made sure of that.”

   Ian ground his teeth together. Harrison Stead, the leader of Defion and one-time father figure to Ian. Harrison was the reason he was willing to throw away the good thing he had with HORNET by releasing Mercedes. Harrison no doubt took her betrayal personally, and would make it his mission to find her and kill her…leading Ian right to him.

   Mercedes returned her gaze to him. “I take it you didn’t find Sebastian?”

   “No, we did. Fucker just had the courtesy to already be dead by the time we got to him.”

   She flinched like he’d struck her and shut her eyes tightly. Despite that, her tears leaked out.

   There was that tug again, somewhere in his chest. Bait, he reminded himself. That was all this woman meant to him. She was the chum in the water—her only purpose was to draw his own personal Jaws toward his spear.

   Mercedes drew a shaky breath and shoved to her feet. “If they found him, it doesn’t matter where I am. They’ll find me, too. I’m already dead. I just didn’t know it yet.”

   Ian watched her go and smiled grimly to himself. She’d taken his jacket. His favorite, but he’d been willing to make that sacrifice. There was a tracker sewn into the lining. As long as she kept it, he’d know exactly where she was.

   …

   Sebastian was dead.

   God.

   She hadn’t wanted to think it a possibility, though that tune had been playing on repeat in Mercedes’s head ever since he’d left her in Nigeria.

   Sebastian was dead. Sebastian was dead. Sebastian was dead.

   Why else would he have left her like that?

   She’d wanted to believe he was still alive. Wanted to believe there was a chance. The only reason she’d given HORNET his location was the faint hope that they’d find him and lock him away, too. Keep him safe for her.

   Sebastian was dead.

   It wasn’t a creeping suspicion anymore, but a fact. He was gone and it hurt so much she struggled to breathe in the icy night air. Ian’s coat was like an iron cape around her shoulders as she trudged through the snow toward the woods, but she didn’t dare get rid of it. She wouldn’t last long in this cold without it. Her boots—the ugly brown things basic girls wore to Starbucks for their pumpkin spice lattes—were already soaked through. Useless pieces of footwear. What the hell was their purpose if not to keep your feet warm and dry?

   She needed clothes more suitable for this weather. She could access one of her hidden bank accounts if she found a town, but she had no idea where she was—other than somewhere cold as fuck, likely in the northern hemisphere.

   Maybe she should just lie down in a snowbank. That way, she’d deny Ian the satisfaction of using her as bait—oh, she knew exactly what he’d planned for her—and Harrison Stead the pleasure of killing her. She should just give them both a big middle finger and freeze to death.

   But, no.

   Those thoughts reeked of defeat, and she’d never been the kind of woman to give up without a fight. Harrison had taken everything from her. Her brother. Her lover. Why lie down and give him her life, too?

   Shivering, she trudged forward another step. And another. Rage became a fire in her, stoking her engine, keeping her moving. Ian thought letting her go would lead him to Harrison? Well, she would, but he was going to be mighty disappointed. She’d get to Harrison first, and Ian would never have his revenge.

   The crunch of a foot through the icy snow halted her in her tracks. For a split second, her body coiled in preparation to bolt into the line of trees up ahead. She quickly reconsidered that idea. If she had a gun pointed at her right now, the snow was too deep to allow for a quick exit, and she’d probably wind up with a new lead accessory to go with her fugly boots.

   Forcing herself to relax, she turned to face her follower.

   No gun.

   It was the first thing she registered. The second?

   Marcus Deangelo.

   And he was in no shape to fight with her. He stood there swaying on his feet, blinking like he didn’t believe what his peepers told him. Judging by what little was left in the bottle he carried, he could very well be hallucinating.

   Her lip curled. She hated him for what he’d done to her. For making her so weak that she’d betrayed the only man she’d ever loved. It didn’t matter that Sebastian was already dead—her betrayal was a betrayal all the same.

   She could take the bastard out now. Easy. Like Ian, she didn’t need a weapon to kill. Harrison had made sure of that.

   She took a step toward him but stopped short when he collapsed to his knees. The bottle rolled out of his hand and spilled into the snow. He looked…broken. There was nothing she could do to hurt him more than he was already hurting.

   “Go inside,” she called. “You’ll freeze out here.”

   “Deserve it.” Marcus stared up at her, his face reddened by the cold, his eyes reddened by the booze. “Do you know…more? Please. I don’t care if you leave. I don’t…care about anything but getting justice for Danny. And Leah. She deserves peace.”

   With those slurred words, some of that hate she had for him vanished, swept away by the wind with the little flakes of snow swirling around them. He wanted revenge, same as her. Same as Ian. In his shoes, she would’ve done exactly the same thing to get answers. And worse. Because again, like Ian, she didn’t have many moral hang-ups when it came to murder. In comparison, a little waterboarding was a weekend holiday.

   God, was she going soft?

   Maybe.

   This newfound compassion would probably get her killed, but she didn’t entirely hate it. She’d lived so long pushing down her emotions, doing her best to view other people as objects to be used and discarded. She was exhausted by it.

   “I don’t know anything more,” she told him as gently as she could manage. “Sebastian never told me who contracted the hit.”

   He nodded, then glanced around like he wasn’t entirely sure where he was. “I’m sorry,” he slurred. “Hate myself for what I did to you.”

   “Others have done worse.”

   “Sorry for that, too.”

   “Jesus, you’re pathetic. My sob story is not your fault.” She stalked forward and searched his pockets until she found his phone. She grabbed his hand, using his fingerprint to unlock the screen, then scrolled through his contacts until she found one of HORNET’s head honchos.

   She didn’t wait for a response when the line picked up. “Come get your boy before he freezes to death.”

   Without ending the call, she tucked the phone back into his pocket. She had to get gone for now, but even as she ran toward the woods, she knew she hadn’t seen the last of the HORNET guys.

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