Daniella starts to cry, bringing my thoughts back to my daughter.
I only hope that I’m allowed to raise her, to watch her grow up. Only a few hours old, and I love her so much already.
She’s the perfect weapon her father will no doubt use against me.
Chapter 1
Dutch
Then
Painbeginsatmyfeet, ripping up my calves, then thighs. It rushes over my belly and tits, up my neck, and emerges from my mouth in a scream so terrifying and primal it threatens to shut my brain down.
The pain lessens, my shoulders slumping in relief as my muscles contract—tightening and loosening in blessed relief.
He’ll pay for this.
My army will come for us, freeing us from this fortress of pain and death. Then I will hunt my father down like the dog he is. I will destroy his kingdom, burn it to the ground, and dance upon the ashes. And when he’s at my feet, begging for forgiveness and mercy—I will slice the flesh from him, piece by piece, wallowing in the symphony of his wails and pleas.
Raising my eyes to the cameras, I let him see the promise within them.
I’m coming for you, Daddy. And vengeance will be mine.
The metal grate starts to thrum under me, and I nearly bite my tongue in two trying to stay quiet. But I can only hold on for so long before once more, the screams rip from my throat, echoing eerily in the room that has become my prison.
London, Now
My heart races, a wild grin stretching across my face as I follow the others down the fire escape. Fuck yes! I want to scream with joy, let all of London—no, all the world—know that the bastard is dead. Finally, I’m rid of the evil that is my father, Vincenzo Gianelli.
The past seven months have been some kind of crazy whirlwind. I’ve been working for the FBI for the last four years, working my ass off to rise up the ranks faster than any other female recruit in my class. Some might say I have an unfair advantage; my uncle, Harris Buchanan, is the director.
What they don’t know is that he’s never given me an advantage. He’s looked the other way on occasion—and sometimes does me the honor of ignoring some of my wilder stunts—but he doesn’t believe in giving me a break just because we share the same last name. He definitely makes me work for it.
Originally based in the New York office, my uncle sent me to Flagstaff to help investigate a series of murders plaguing the town. It was suspected that the media-named Retribution Killer was murdering anyone associated with a trafficking ring believed to be operating in the area. That trafficking ring was overseen by none other than my father.
Vincenzo is the head of the Gianelli crime family and is considered one of the most ruthless and vicious mob bosses to ever be spawned from the streets of New York City. Guns, drugs, women—he deals in it all, killing anyone that gets in his way or tries to take his crown.
Even my mother.
The Retribution Killer ended up being Rebecca, the niece of my friend and colleague, Agent Susannah Gerhardt. Kidnapped and kept as a sex slave for over half her life, she destroyed the people that murdered her parents. Rescued by a man named Trey Williams, who she later married. They then teamed up to go after the pedophiles that had abused her and the other girls that had been trapped in what became known as the House of Horrors. Personally, I had been rooting for her. She would never have known justice, not so long as my father was overseeing the operation, even if it was from afar.
I had been drugged and kidnapped by my partner, Chase, who turned out to be one of the moles planted in the FBI by my father. He’s dead now, thanks to Susannah, and I had been rescued by The Duke, a mysterious woman who brought me to London and introduced me to the Bannermans.
Eric and Nate Bannerman, and their wife, Tessa, are assassins. They take down rapists, pedophiles, and traffickers, which—even though it goes against all of my training as an agent—makes them some of my favorite people. When they heard about an international trafficking ring that was responsible for thousands of girls and women going missing every year, they headed to London to take it down, collecting people to help them along the way.
Trey and Rebecca, The Duke and her men, the Charon Group, and little old me. They created their own miniature army, intent on taking down the ring, destroying it forever. And since my father is the head of it, I was more than willing to throw my hat into the ring and climb aboard the crazy train. I might be mixing my metaphors with that one, but fuck, I’m not a cowboy.
We’ve been in London for weeks, training, preparing—and now it’s done. The fifty-six separate heads of the trafficking ring are now dead inside the warehouse we’re currently rushing down the side of. While Rebecca and Tessa waited safely behind in an abandoned building nearby with a guard, the others and I killed the bodyguards, locked the traffickers in a room, and pumped chloramine gas into it.
Killing the fuckers in a slow, agonizing death they more than deserved has brought the biggest smile to my face.
Now, don’t get me wrong—I don’t just go around killing people for the fucking sake of it, okay? I’m not my father. But fuckers that hurt kids? That steal girls and women from their homes, raping and torturing them? Yeah, well, they deserve everything they get.
Pulling my thoughts back to the present moment, I make sure to pay attention as Nate hangs from the bottom of the ladder, dropping to the ground below. Turning, he holds a hand out to me and I scoff at him. As if I can’t take the eight-foot drop myself. Letting my legs dangle, I screech in indignation when I feel his arms wrap around my legs, catching me and lowering me to the ground.
He just smirks at me through the mask he’s wearing, then turns and claps his brother on the shoulder. We grin like lunatics, the high of watching all those fuckers die still running through us. The Duke turns abruptly at the sound of pounding footsteps and I look over my shoulder to see Tessa and Rebecca running toward us, wide smiles stretching across their faces. Watching them run to their men, being scooped in the arms and twirled around makes my chest constrict painfully.
