Terminal Vendetta (A Diana Weick Thriller Book 3), Cate Clarke [best books to read .TXT] 📗

counter. The hot water slowly poured over the ground-filled filter, the drip coffee beginning to fill the bottom of the bulbous glass container. The French did really hate to rush anything, even their morning coffee.

Matthieu circled to a small TV, mounted to the wall opposite of the island, and clicked on to the news.

“What kind of favor?” he asked.

They both sat down at the island, a fresh cup of coffee steaming in front of Matthieu’s soft hands.

“I just need to get through security…” Taras said, patting his fingers against the counter and turning over his shoulder.

Matthieu took a sip from his mug, almost hiding his sly smirk. “I knew you were trouble. What ’ave you gotten yourself into, Thomas?”

“Ah.” Taras sat back down at the island, wrapping his legs between Matthieu’s, bringing their stools closer together. “You don’t know the half of it.”

On the TV, there were announcers babbling in French, and images of a grayscale cobblestone alley flashed across the screen. It showed a slow-motion shot of an empty restaurant, and then CCTV footage of people fighting, running, guns flailing.

Diana Weick—on the screen, chasing after the Readers.

With his eyes fixed on the small TV, Taras asked, “What are they saying?”

“Uh…” Matthieu followed Taras’s gaze. “High-ranking American military official murdered in Seoul. Suspected connection to the… uh… drone attack on that funeral... few weeks ago.”

Taras nodded. The Readers needed some PR. They hadn’t even advertised their organization or followed up on the power that they’d demonstrated. Taras had a limited scope of the world, but the scope he did have revolved around terrorism and the organizations that followed them. He could do a much better job than Zabójca.

Besides, he knew what Zabójca was hiding.

At that thought, Taras took a lap around the apartment, rolling the suitcase he’d been carrying around with him for much too long out of the bedroom and onto the living-room floor. It was heavy.

“You’re all packed?” Matthieu asked, giving him an amused look, his legs spread out across the stool, his muscular arms leaning against the island behind him.

“Almost.”

Taras left the weight of the suitcase by the door, wrapping his arms under Matthieu’s and pressing against him, allowing himself one more moment of pleasure before all the nastiness of his future unfolded—to destroy the men that had destroyed him, to kill the men who were responsible for Rex Tennison’s alleged death.

Chapter 6

Diana Weick

Flight No. 873

“He’s not dead.”

She wished so vehemently to hear those words referencing anyone other than the person Amber was talking about.

For Wesley. For Rex. For Ratanake.

But it wasn’t the case. All of them were dead. There was an ongoing process of identifying the charred remains of those in attendance at Ratanake’s funeral. She remembered the sight of it like piles of half-burnt firewood, stacked on top of one another, unable to discern faces, bodies, fingers from one another on the burning patch of grass in the middle of the graveyard. Knowing that Wesley and Rex were still in there, but unable to pull them out because she couldn’t find them. Diana couldn’t recognize them.

That was a pain beyond that of grief; not being able to identify her son in a sea of scorched bodies. They had pretended—her and Kennedy—that they had their ashes, scattering them out on the hiking trails just outside of Seattle. It had eased nothing. Perhaps for Kennedy, yes. But for Diana, there was nothing left but a smoky piece of pain and resentment, wedged deep at the base of her chest. Pulsing in each chamber of her heart, reminding her who was truly responsible for all that unfolded—Alek Fedoruk and the Readers—and encouraging her to take her revenge.

“Did you hear me?” Amber said again as they piled into the airplane.

“Yes,” Diana replied.

“Hoagland took a pill at that restaurant,” Amber explained. “Zabójca thought he was dead and took off. Military contacts extracted the old bastard. They want everyone to think he’s dead so they get him to a safe house.”

“The Readers know this?”

Amber took his seat by the window after struggling with shoving his suitcase in the overhead bin, Diana having to lean over his shoulder and impatiently smash it with her palm to get it inside.

“Of course,” Amber said. “Well, we don’t know for sure but we can and should assume that they do. They had Lionel Barr inside MI6. Cameron Snowman inside the FBI. They’ve got people everywhere.”

There was a moment when Diana realized that she had so easily let Amber take over, so thankful for her resources that she’d let him handle the transportation and the details. Diana had to dip into her offshore account to pay for the tickets to Korea, and she didn’t want to do it again unless she absolutely had to. That money had always been and would always be for her children.

“So we’re going to this safe house?” Diana asked.

“Trying to get the specifics from Voss,” Amber said. “But it’s somewhere remote as all hell.”

“I mean, where are we going now?”

Amber looked at her, blinking.

“You don’t remember where we’re going?”

“I’ve been a bit distracted, Amber,” Diana snapped.

Sighing and tucking a curl out of his face, the sun through the plane window illuminating his chiseled, unscarred side, Amber gave a sad nod.

“Canada,” he said. “Safest place for him to be right now.”

The focus had set in again. Diana was forgetting some of her basics—where she was going, sleeping, showering. She gave herself an unabashed whiff. It was ripe.

“You don’t think the Readers are going to be able to follow him to Canada?” Diana asked, tucking her arms in close to her torso as a skinny woman with several plastic bags sat down next to her.

“Oh, of course they are,” Amber said. “Connections everywhere. But it’s a relatively safe spot when compared to what’s happening in America right now.”

The flight was long and uncomfortable. Diana spent most of it thinking, staring straight ahead, Amber occasionally throwing her concerned glances. It wasn’t a collection of thoughts or an analysis, but the same thing,