She was a well-tuned revenge machine, programmed to locate and kill Drago Stengl, and put the ghosts of her past to rest. And now look at her, trying to manufacture tenderness for Rachel out of a revenge machine. It was like making cookies with a rocket launcher. Like making lemonade with grenades instead of lemons. Problematic as hell.
Rachel’s shrill, teakettle shriek suddenly sounded, and Tam sprang up like she was on springs and bolted for the bedroom. The kid always freaked out when she woke in the dark and found herself alone.
She slid under the covers and curled up around the rigid little body. After she had soothed the child back to sleep, she nuzzled Rachel’s neck, inhaling the fragrance of no-tangles shampoo. Feeling the magic happen. The tension, easing inside her. That soft, hot place, blooming open. So sweet. She couldn’t resist. She was strung out.
Now that the dream images were easing off, her habitual obstinacy was rearing right up to take its place. She was glad. That was much more comfortable.
Hell with it. Rachel might not have a normal mom, or a normal life, but she’d have pure screaming hell on wheels to protect her if anyone ever tried to hurt her again. That was worth something. That counted. It had to count.
So Rachel was damaged. Big fucking deal. So were they all. She was also tough, and strong. Tam would try everything money could buy to help her. Anything that might give her back some small measure of what those murdering pieces of shit had stolen from her.
Rachel was not so damaged that she should be tossed like garbage in a hole. Buried with indifference and bureaucratic bullshit. Rationalizations about points of diminishing returns. Poor allocation of resources. Black holes.
Fuck that. Rachel was not so damaged as that. And even if she was, fuck anyone who didn’t want to waste his or her precious time and energy on black holes and damaged goods, anyway. Fuck them all.
Tam snuggled the child and inhaled the scent of her hair as if it were pure oxygen in a vacuum. Rachel murmured in her sleep, and grabbed a hank of Tam’s long hair in her damp little fist.
She thought of Novak, Georg, all the rest. She thought of the prickle on her neck. Reptile brain, warning her she was being stalked.
The resolve burned itself into Tam’s mind like a brand.
Just try and take her away from me. Go ahead, try. Watch who dies, and how fast.
Budapest, Hungary
“Are you keeping him under strict surveillance, András? Your men should not take their eyes off him for a second. Vajda is a highly trained secret agent. He can melt into thin air before you know it. Who do you have watching him? When did they last report?”
András sighed, inwardly, folded his massive arms over his barrel chest, and carefully modulated his voice. It would not do to display impatience when mafiya boss Gabor Novak used that fretful, querulous tone. “Bede and Gálas reported to me exactly six minutes ago,” he repeated. “He is at the Országos Traumatólogiai Intézet, and he has not moved from the old man’s bedside, except to piss, for three straight days. Csobán hacked into the patient database, and it tells us that Imre Daroczy is due to be discharged from the hospital at midday. We can make our move this evening, when they are back at Daroczy’s apartment, if you like.”
“If I like?” Novak repeated. “If…I…like? What do you mean, if I like?” Novak turned his poisonous green gaze upon his second in command, purplish lips drawing back from long, yellowed teeth like some fanged beast. “You think this is a matter of liking, András? You think this is a fucking whim?”
András schooled his face to utter impassivity. “No, boss. Not at all,” he soothed. “Of course, we will act as soon as possible, but the Országos is too public a place to abduct them. We must be patient. We must wait until they—”
“Patient? Don’t talk to me about patience! He told me she was dead!” Daddy Novak spat the words out. “Georg told me that treacherous snake Tamara Steele choked to death on her own blood the day Kurt was killed. He lied to me! Why did he lie, András? Why?”
The gazes of the other men standing around the table shifted, darted, uncertain where to land. The boss had been dangerously unpredictable since his son’s untimely death a few years ago. People died without warning when he used that tone of voice.
The intercom buzzed, and András leaned over and punched it, intensely grateful for the diversion. “Yes?” he barked.
“It is Jakab Lajtos,” the sentry said. “Georg Luksch sent him.”
“I told Georg to come himself! Not to send one of his useless butt-lickers!” Novak snarled.
The sentry hesitated, nervously. “Should I, ah, tell him to go?”
“No. No. Send him in, send him in,” Novak muttered. “I want to talk to him.”
Luckless dog, András thought. It was Jakab’s shit luck to happen upon the boss in one of his moods. There would be a mess to clean up today. Not that he was complaining. Better Jakab than András. Oh, much, much better.
The door opened, and Jakab paused at the threshhold, sensing mortal danger. His polite smile faltered as his gaze darted from Novak’s wild grimace to the stony caution on the faces of the rest of the men. “Ah…Luksch sent me to see what you needed,” he said warily. “He could not come himself. He is in Odessa, attending to some problems at a munitions plant. There was a problem with the delivery of a load of—”
“Do you see this thing, Jakab? This filthy thing?” Novak stabbed a skeletal finger toward the huge teak table that dominated the room. A golden torque, displayed in a black velvet box, lay upon it.
The sentry shoved Jakab from behind. He stumbled forward into the room. “Ah…ah, I, ah—”
“This thing is an insult to my son’s memory!” Novak’s pointing finger shook with the violence of his emotions. “That woman’s existence on this earth is an insult to his memory! And you knew about her, did you not, Jakab? Did you not?”
“No! I know nothing about this!” Jakab protested desperately. “Nothing! I am just a messenger! I was sent to find out what you wanted—”
“I want her blood,” Novak hissed. “I want her entrails, spread out upon the ground. That is what I want.”
Jakab swallowed repeatedly. He was gray-faced, shaking. Novak reached out, and stroked a finger along the ropes of gold that twined and twisted, snakelike, in an ancient Celtic design. The finials of the crescent were adorned with cabochon rubies. The piece pulsed and glowed in the light from the library lamp, as if it were somehow alive.
Novak pushed one of the rubies on the finial. It came loose, and a tiny blade slid out. “Do you see this? It’s a miniature of the dagger that opened my son’s throat. It is an exact reproduction of the torque Kurt gave McCloud’s woman. My Kurt’s foul murder is immortalized in a cheap bauble for a brainless whore!”
Jakab jumped as Novak drove the small blade into the table. It stuck, vibrating. He cleared his throat with a dry, nervous cough.
Novak picked up the card in the black velvet box. No logo, no address, just bold letters.
DEADLY BEAUTY
Wearable Weaponry by Tamara
And below, a cell number. Inactive, of course. Nothing so simple as that.
“A direct message,” the boss muttered. “A slap in my face.”
In fact, the message was hardly direct. By pure chance had András noticed the torque on the mistress of a business associate at a party in Paris some weeks before. It had caught his eye, since he knew the odd manner of Kurt’s death. The woman had demonstrated her torque’s special properties when András got her alone, and helpfully shared the name of the broker who had sold it to her lover, but she’d been unwilling to part with the piece when András offered to buy it. Happily, no one noticed that the jewelry