Retaliation

as she walked back, suppressing another outburst.
“Gets me every time.” Jane grinned, giving her a high five.
“Yep.”
Dave and Chad stared at her, wide-eyed.
“What?” Pain said. “He’s seen us, that’s it. Better if he thinks we’re some crazy sect or cosplay gang.”
Chad and Elena chuckled, while Dave pointed a finger at Pain. “This. This is what she did when we first met.”
“That’s so not what I did,” Pain said. “That was a completely different routine. I had to make you come back.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Pain paused at a hushed curse to her left and watched Marco chase the poor dog through the gaping door of a dilapidating warehouse. Ryan stayed outside, his head bowed in resignation.
She smirked, turning back to Dave. “Use that head, Forrester. You come back, I see your face, so if you talk too much about it, I’d be able to find you. This simple realization helps people keep quiet.”
Dave swallowed and glanced at Chad.
“He still wouldn’t shut up about it,” Chad said with a shake of his head.
Pain only spread her arms.
Something banged in the distance, followed by a shout.
She whipped around, her eyes locking with Ryan’s as he froze by the warehouse door for a heartbeat, before dashing inside without a word.
“Marco…” she breathed, and ran after Ryan, shouting instructions over her shoulder. “Stay behind us with these two, you hear me, Chad?”
“Got it,” he said.
They hurtled through the inky darkness. Her left hand closed on her flashlight, and as the bright beam pierced the dark, she could see the long expanse of the warehouse and another gaping door across an alley.
She rose into the air now that she could see the way.
“Stand back!” Ryan’s sharp voice made her speed up, and she broke through the second door before the others could catch up with her. “Don’t move!”
The shield enveloped her as she landed away from the door and pointed her flashlight forward. Ryan was a few feet away, a throwing knife in hand. This building was in a much better shape but just as dark and big.
Marco was in the center, sprawled on the ground next to a tall man in a long leather coat.
“I’m not the one who attacked him,” the man snapped. “He left through that door.” He pointed across the room, and Ryan’s hand twitched.
“Stand still,” she shouted to the man, worried that Ryan would take out their only witness. She could hear the others spill through the door behind her. “Jane, Ryan, go check if it’s true. I got this.”
Ryan disappeared through the door in a blur, Jane close on his heels.
“You, get away from him,” Pain ordered the man and glanced at Chad.
He gave his flashlight to Dave and drew his—Michael’s—longsword, pushing Dave and Elena into the corner behind him. No one could come at them from the back this way.
But just as Pain’s brain rushed through all the ways to get them out of here should things go south, she spotted movement across the room.
Rob and his men. Their backup was keeping an eye on the situation.
Pain pointed at the big, dark shape to Chad’s right, not sure what it was. “Get behind that thing and don’t touch anything.”
The building wasn’t abandoned—it had clearly been broken into.
The strange man hadn’t moved from his spot. He was standing too far for the light to reach his face. Pain gritted her teeth.
“I said, get away from him, or I will off you, whoever you are. Five steps to the wall, now!”
He snorted but finally stepped back, his large frame moving with unhurried dignity. Katana in hand, she strode to Marco, keeping one eye on the stranger.
“He’s knocked out is all,” the man rumbled.
She crouched over Marco. There was no blood or any other sign of injury. His eyelids fluttered, and she pointed the flashlight at his face. Marco winced and turned away from the light.
“You all right? What happened?”
“The bastard tased me,” he muttered, propping himself on an elbow. “Shit, that was un—” He saw the man, and his expression went from the usual scowl to such utter hostility that Pain’s blood froze in her veins.
She bolted upright and pointed the light at the tall stranger.
Her eyes widened. “It was you…” she said, memories from that fateful night filling her head. “You were there at Eugene’s. You stopped and stared at me.”
The man’s gaze finally left Marco’s face, and he gave her a look so strangely familiar it froze her in place. She peered at his face, trying to imagine it without the jagged scar across his lips and chin, and a couple of decades younger.
Before she could wrap her head around it, the man’s eyes flicked to Marco again, and he gave a curt nod. “Hello, Marcus.”
She turned to stare at Marco, but his murderous gaze was on the scarred stranger. He got up to his feet, standing just as tall as the man before him.
“Hello, Father.”
Chapter 5
 
Jane ran through the dark street, pursuing God knew what.
Somewhere along the way, Ryan must have taken a different turn. A thin but persistent rain shrouded the streets, making flying pointless if she wanted to see anything. Something moved at the edge of her vision, and she turned, finding another running figure in the distance, too short to be Ryan. It disappeared as a long building stretched in between them, and she sped up, planning to intercept the man at the corner.
Someone grabbed her from behind, sweeping her off her feet and into a side alley.
She swung her elbow, aiming for the attacker’s jaw, but hit his shoulder instead. He growled something, but the rush of blood in her ears drowned it out. His arms tightened around her and his hand