Prologue #2
Keira refused to be manipulated and coerced into doing their dirty work anymore. To keep Strickland and his cronies from continuing to play God by brainwashing young women and girls, she’d have to collect enough information to nail the bastards.
On the wall over the desk, she’d tacked photos of the key players, the locations and the connections she’d been gathering for months before the senator’s murder.
“You trained us to be invisible. To trust what you told us as truth. To trust the mission.”
Keira shook her head and cursed as she stared at the faces on the wall.
It was all a lie.
Now, they’d sent in the clean-up crew to set her up to take the fall for Morales’s death.
Her burner phone chirped. The sound, suddenly breaking the complete silence, made her jump.
Keira stared down at the text message sent from an Unknown caller.
They’re coming for you. Move now—Your friend
Instinct kicked in. With less than ninety seconds to react, she dove into action.
Keira grabbed the jug of accelerant, doused the wall, the desk and the floor.
She set the timer on the detonator, shoved it into a lump of plastic explosives, grabbed her pre-packed go-bag and tucked the burner phone into her pocket.
Rather than go down and out, she pulled her hoodie up over her head, slung the go-bag strap across her body, then climbed the twenty rungs of a metal ladder and exited through the maintenance door to the rooftop.
Fifteen steps to the edge of the roof. An eight-foot drop to the rooftop of the adjoining building.
With her bag slung behind her, Keira leaped from the safehouse roof to the neighboring roof.
When her shoes hit, she tucked her arms against her sides and let her knees bend to absorb the impact.
A moment later, she rolled on her side and came back up on her feet.
Twelve strides running across the roof as she’d practiced half a dozen times.
On the far side, she’d find the exterior metal ladder that was retracted when not in use but could be easily extended to reach all the way to the ground.
She slung her leg over and started down the ladder.
When she reached the next section, she flipped a lever and released the extension.
It slid downward, stopping two feet above the ground.
Keira hurried the rest of the way down and jumped free when she had only four feet remaining.
Keira shot a quick glance at her watch. Eighty-five seconds.
Five seconds faster than before. Two minutes now until show time.
She slipped across the street and found a shadowy position in an alley behind a large trash bin and waited, her gaze trained on the building she’d vacated.
As she waited, she wondered who was behind the text message warning her to get out.
As far as she knew, she had no friends. Refusing to perform her given mission, she’d cut all ties with her trainer and other trainees. She was truly on her own.
After a minute passed, Keira wondered if she’d been fed a false alarm.
At that moment, a sleek black SUV charged down the street, coming to a hard stop in front of the warehouse. Four men in tactical gear climbed out of the SUV. Not police. Not federal.
Two more dark SUVs skidded to a halt behind the first, adding eight more men to the team gathering in front of the warehouse. A fourth black SUV arrived.
Her breath caught, and her jaw hardened when she recognized the two men who emerged.
Marcus Kaufman and her mentor, Viktor Rousseau.
Viktor stepped into the middle of the team of mercenaries.
Though she couldn’t hear his words clearly, she could read Viktor’s lips as he told the men, Find her. She must not leave Texas alive.
Armed with military-grade rifles, the men in combat gear ran toward the warehouse. They used a crowbar to pry open the door and rushed in.
Viktor joined Kaufman and spoke a few words Keira couldn’t hear. They were standing too close with their heads averted for her to lip-read either.
Marcus nodded once, his eyes narrowed at the building.
Using her cell phone, she zoomed in and snapped a photo of the men at the exact moment Marcus turned away.
The two men climbed into the SUV.
Twenty seconds…
Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five... Four
The vehicle containing Marcus and Viktor drove away from the warehouse.
Keira drew in a breath. Held it.
Three... Two...
She ducked behind the heavy metal bin, covered her ears and closed her eyes.
Boom!
The explosion rocked the ground beneath her, but the trash bin shielded her from flying debris.
Flames rose and quickly consumed what remained of the warehouse, turning the cloud of dust into an impenetrable orange fog filling the night.
Keira rose from behind the trash bin and hurried away from the scene. Several blocks away, she emerged from the choking dust and smoke, climbed onto the motorcycle she’d stashed in an alley and drove away.
Adrenaline still racing through her system, she headed south, taking the backroads, putting as much distance between herself and the people who wanted her dead.
If not for the warning, she might not have made it out of the warehouse in time.
Who had warned her? Who knew about her safehouses? How had they found her?
This time had been close. Too close.
Would she be as lucky next time?
Anger spurred her on.
For the past ten years, she’d been groomed, trained and molded into Onyx. She’d learned to be invisible, to blend into the shadows. A ghost. A lethal weapon. It had been her identity.
Before Onyx, she’d been nothing. Homeless. Living on the streets of Dallas. Barely surviving. As part of Onyx, she’d had a purpose. Or so she’d thought. Their brainwashing and manipulation had been all too complete. Too effective. She’d been Onyx.
Now, she had to relearn who she was. Who Keira Davies was. Plus, gather enough evidence to put the people away who’d made her a weapon to be feared, before they erased her completely.
Truckstop on the outskirts of Austin, 8:30 am
Keira entered the shower stall in the truck stop, carrying the supplies she’d purchased at a drug store several blocks away.
She stripped out of the hoodie she’d worn since leaving Waco and stuffed it into the trash receptacle.
She stripped out of the rest of her clothes and hung them on a hook, out of the way.
She pulled on the pair of latex gloves that had come with the kit and went to work.
Following the directions on the box, she applied chemicals that would bleach the color out of her naturally dark brown hair.
When she’d waited the recommended time, she stood beneath the shower and rinsed the chemicals from her hair, then patted it dry with one of the towels she’d purchased.
Then she applied the toner and waited twenty minutes.
She rinsed the toner out of her hair, squirted conditioner into her palm, rubbed it into her hair and rinsed again.
She finished her shower, washing her entire body with body wash, glad to be clean after running for over three days.
After she dried off, she bent over and brushed her hair toward the floor. Tangles removed, she grabbed the length in a loose ponytail near the crown of her head. With the scissors she’d purchased, she hacked off the ponytail four inches from her scalp.
When she straightened, her hair fell in damp layers almost to her shoulders. When it dried, curls would make it appear shorter and frame her face, helping to hide some of her features.
Keira dressed quickly, the hair color and cut having taken too long already.
She’d been in the shower stall for over an hour.
Truck stops had security systems. Systems accessible via the internet.
If one of the cameras had caught her face beneath the hoodie, it might only be a matter of time before facial recognition software found her, and before Onyx and Kaufman Syndicate located her and sent their goons to eliminate the threat.
She’d ditched her dark jeans for the faded blue jeans she’d picked up in a thrift store.
A long-sleeve chambray shirt tied at the waist and worn dingo boots would help transform her from black ops to farmhand.
Believable at a truck stop in Texas. The battered straw she had pulled out of her go-bag would hide her eyes and complete her disguise, for the moment.
She had a backup wig, baseball caps, different-colored shirts and lightweight jackets she could throw on at a moment’s notice.
The go-bag was reversible, allowing her to change the color and carry it as a duffel bag or wear it as a backpack.
Disappearing and blending into a crowd were all part of her Onyx training. She just had to make sure she used it well enough to fool her mentors and other operatives.
Keira stepped out of the shower stall and checked her reflection in a mirror.
She didn’t recognize herself from the woman who’d walked in an hour ago.
But she recognized the desperate street rat from ten years earlier—the girl who had been dragged into the police station and handed over to a social worker.
“There’s this program I know of. One that can help you get off the street.
Learn new skills. Give you training and purpose,” the woman had said.
That woman had been Layne Jenner. How had she flown under the radar for so long, disguised as a social worker?
What state official had rubber-stamped her background check?
Yeah, Keira had chosen the “program” over foster homes where the foster “parents” were in it for the money and couldn’t care less about the kids and teens for whom they were supposed to provide a loving, stable home.
She and her sister, Kit, had been in a few.
They’d carried their garbage bag of meager belongings that were eventually lost or replaced with worn hand-me-downs.
She’d stuck it out for Kit until they’d ended up in a home where the foster parents’ oldest son raped Keira.
When he went after Kit, Keira had nearly beaten the teen to death with a baseball bat.
She’d taken Kit and run away, going from a bad situation to worse.
At sixteen and eight years old, sleeping under a bridge, they’d been captured by a pimp who’d sold them into a sex trafficking ring where they’d been drugged into submission.
In Kit’s case, she’d been drugged to death.
The morning Keira had woken in the filthy room where they’d locked up at night to find Kit lying cold and still beside her, she’d lost her shit.
She’d begged them to kill her, too. When they wouldn’t, she’d tried to hang herself with her clothes. They’d taken away her clothing and fed her food laced with drugs.
Keira had stopped eating for a couple of days, giving her portions to the other girls in the room.
By then, the drugs had worn off. For the first time since her capture, she’d been able to think clearly enough to plot her escape.
Pretending she was drugged too much to be a threat, she’d waited until one of the men carried her out of her cell and tossed her in a van.
Thinking she was out cold, they’d ignored her.
At a stop in downtown Dallas, when they’d gotten out to chat with someone, she’d eased open the door, slipped out, then run naked and barefoot through the streets.
Stopping at a donation box, she’d scavenged jeans and a shirt.
She’d even found a pair of ratty tennis shoes.
Though they were too big, she’d managed to tie what was left of the laces tight enough they wouldn’t fall off if she ran.
As the sun rose in the city, she found an alley where a giant trash bin overflowed and an old mattress had been discarded.
It was there she’d passed out from exhaustion.
It was also there that the police had found her, dragged her into the police station and turned her over to social worker, Layne Jenner.
Keira had lost everything she’d ever cared about.
Her parents when she was only twelve. Her sister.
Her will to live. All she’d had left was anger.
Deep burning anger. At life. At “the system.” At men who did whatever they wanted because she couldn’t fight back. At herself, for Kit’s death.
When Keira entered the training compound of Onyx, Viktor had been there to greet her. A big, hulk of a man with a shiny bald head and tattoos covering much of his body. He’d laid one of his meaty hands on her shoulder.
Keira had flinched, ready for another man to slam a fist in her face or gut. She’d learned that was what they did. Why would he be different?
Instead, he’d stared straight into her eyes and said, “Keira, from now on, you’re not a victim. You’re a weapon. Weapons don’t feel.”
All of those memories rushed over her as she stared at the blond stranger in the mirror.
For all those years, she’d locked her feelings away, refusing to think about her little sister or the life they’d had before her parents had died in a car wreck.
For a little longer, she would keep those emotions tamped down.
Long enough to bring down the people who’d fed her lies and made her think she was doing good.
They’d made her think that she belonged.
Her jaw hardened, and her dark eyes narrowed.
“I’m not a weapon. I’m not Onyx,” she whispered through clenched teeth.
She placed the straw cowboy hat on her head.
“I’m Keira Davies, and I’m about to make a lot of powerful people very sorry they screwed with me.
” She slung her go-bag over her shoulder and lifted her chin. “I’m done with being used.”