The cat persisted, so she got up and fed him and warmed up her coffee from the pot on the kitchen counter before going back to her desk in the second bedroom she used as an office.
Mr. Whiskers was her first pet, and she loved him to pieces. She’d wanted a cat her entire life and had never been able to have one until recently. In Paris last year she’d heard his tiny mews while walking down a back alley, and discovered him trapped in a Dumpster with his dead littermates.
There was no way she could have left him there. She had been abandoned and preyed upon as a child, and if she hadn’t rescued him, she was convinced he would have died. He was her best friend. Her only friend, a source of the unconditional love and acceptance she’d been denied her entire life.
Through the cracked-open window, the sound of a wedding procession making its way up Great Queen Street drifted in from outside. The flat’s location was one of the reasons she’d snapped up this place as soon as she’d seen the listing come up, despite the high cost of the rent.
Nestled right in the heart of Covent Garden, it was the only place she’d ever been able to choose and set up with the intent to stay for at least several months. She loved its quirky, antique charm with the squeaky wood floors and the old beams in the ceilings, loved the vibrant neighborhood with all the shops, cafés and restaurants, and the theater district was only a short walk away.
Here she could venture out into the streets and disappear into the crowd. Here she could be anyone she wanted.
But she wouldn’t be free until she’d finished this one, final mission.
A soft ding from the computer alerted her to a new hit. She leaned forward, eyes on the third monitor where she brought up a new story about the suspected crimes of a dead female former CIA officer. The article didn’t mention the woman’s name, but Ivy knew exactly who it was.
She had followed the story about Jane Allen’s death last fall during a high-security prison transfer here in England with great interest. The US and British governments had both rushed to cover it all up with a cover story, but in this digital age, no one could ever cover up the truth entirely.
Ivy had immediately started digging, had kept going until she’d compiled enough evidence to be satisfied that her suspicions were correct. That transport van hadn’t been destroyed in a freak accident.
The Valkyries had executed the so-called “Architect.” Ivy applauded them for it. But they remained a potential threat to her, and she was going to find every last one of them.
She sat back, tapping her fingers on her desk. All eight women had disappeared since then. Not a surprise given their training and how highly skilled each of them were. They were to be admired—and feared.
Above all, they were not to be trusted. They were elite killers, every last one of them, and the bonds of loyalty that supposedly linked them all meant nothing in their world.
Having been targeted by their kind once before, Ivy knew that all too well.
Lost in thought, lulled by the rhythmic tapping of her fingers on the wooden surface, she considered her options. Of the remaining eight, Amber was still the best choice as a target for what Ivy had in mind. They shared certain…similarities that could be used to her advantage.
And she just happened to have some information that Amber and another Valkyrie would be personally interested in.
After stretching her fingers, she quickly opened a specialized, private messaging program on the first monitor and began typing out a message, her fingers flying on the keyboard. When she was done she sat back to read it through several times, tweaking the wording in a few spots.
With a few shortcut commands, her custom program encrypted it. The message itself was already coded, but the encryption added another layer of protection on the off chance it was intercepted by anyone other than Amber.
When everything was ready, she hit send.
Mr. Whiskers jumped up into her lap again, purring like an engine while he rubbed his face against her neck. She smiled, stroking his thick, soft fur.
He was the only living being that had ever truly loved her back. She’d thought someone had loved her once, a long time ago, but she’d been wrong. The lesson had gutted her, and almost cost her life.
“And now we wait,” she murmured as nerves and anticipation fizzed in the pit of her stomach. She’d just taken a huge risk, but there was no other option at this point.
This was a test, and Amber was one of the only people in the world who could pass it.
If she did, then it would only be a matter of time before the thread Ivy needed to find would appear. After that, she would keep unraveling everything until she found their locations. Only then could she finally make her move.
****
Just after breakfast Megan strode into the barn to find Ty in the middle of brushing his horse, muscles flexing across his back and arms under the T-shirt stretched across his lean torso. He glanced up at her and raised his eyebrows, continuing with his smooth strokes. “What’s up?”
“Amber just texted. Said she needs to talk to us in person right away.” When her sister said something like that, Megan dropped everything.
He lowered the brush, watching her with those alert, slate blue eyes. “Why, did something happen?”
“Must have.” She opened the stall door where her horse Houdini was waiting. The mare wasn’t as big or as bomb-proof as her beloved Rollo, who she’d had to leave back at Laidlaw Hall, but the horse was a talented escape artist, and Megan enjoyed that quirk in her personality. “Come on, girl. Time for a ride.”
By the time she’d put the bridle on Houdini and mounted bareback to ride out of the cool shadows into the hot July morning sun, Ty was already waiting outside the paddock gate atop his gelding, highlights shining in the golden brown hair he’d recently grown out.
Normally, she would pause to admire the sexy view, but right now she was too amped up inside. Tightening the leather thong beneath her chin to hold her hat on as she joined him, she grasped the reins and leaned forward. “Hyah!”
Both horses leapt forward, hitting a canter within seconds, and then opening up into a gallop. Ty was right with her as they raced across the gently undulating Montana pastureland, so different to the rolling, patchwork Cotswolds hills she’d ridden across with Marcus while she’d lived there.
Her life was here now, with Ty on this three-hundred-acre horse ranch they shared with her sister and brother-in-law. Amber and Jesse’s timber-framed house sat just under a mile away to the east, perched atop a slight rise in the terrain.
When the house came into view they slowed the horses to a trot, allowing them to cool down a bit as they approached. After clipping leads onto the bridles at a water barrel placed where the pasture met the edge of the back lawn, Megan hopped the white-painted rail fence and strode across the long expanse of manicured grass on her way to the patio doors.
She knocked once and punched in the security code before walking in. “Amber? Jess? We’re here.”
Jesse appeared around the corner and stepped into the large chef’s kitchen, his deep golden skin tanned bronze by the prairie sun, and nodded at them. “Come on back. She’s in the office.”
Amber must have found something big.
Megan exchanged a look with Ty, then followed Jesse down the hall to Amber’s private lair. No surprise, her sister was stationed in front of Lady Ada, her chocolate-brown hair pulled up in a messy bun held in place by a pen stuck through it.