Chapter 13
Atwinge of sharp pain from her jaw shooting up to her temple reminded Nicole that she was grinding her teeth again. She’d lose some of them if she didn’t stop, and that would be unacceptable. Much of her current power was based on her beauty.
Eventually, beauty faded, of course. But she had a plan.
By then, she’d have extreme wealth and power.
At that point, beauty and sex were no longer necessary.
They were just tools, anyhow. A mirror for men’s lust and ego.
She looked forward to leaving that particular part of the whole sweaty, stinking mess behind her.
It had been a bad night. Wex had been furious after last night’s debacle.
And since the fuck-ups were frozen corpses scattered across a hotel parking lot, he’d taken it out on her, meaning she was unpleasantly sore in her nether parts.
Her stomach was in knots. She kept tasting bile.
It happened when she was murderously angry.
Which was to say, fairly often lately.
But she would get through this. This was her pet project, even if Wex thought he was running the show.
She was the mastermind, the one who had understood what Ethan Masters was capable of during that internship she’d done with Masters Tech, Inc.
a few years ago. She’d snooped into Ethan Masters’s notes and been dazzled.
He was a brilliant, exceptional man who needed someone like her at his side, helping him rule the entire fucking world.
Since not even a man like him could possibly do it alone.
But he hadn’t seen the potential in the two of them together. When she had tried to seduce him, Ethan Masters had bought her dinner, fucked her very expertly and thoroughly, and blown her off. She’d been tempted to kill him for it, but she’d held back.
He’d die for it eventually. In the meantime, she could plan all the ways she could make him suffer, and slowly devise the perfect punishment.
It had been a big shame that Ethan hadn’t been there when they destroyed the Ready Line facility, but he lived and worked hundreds of miles away from Shane and his company.
But she hoped it stung, taking his brother away.
That it made him suffer. Who knew, if a man like that even had a heart. Anyone’s guess.
She was going to profit from what Ethan had created. She would take it from him. It should have been hers to begin with. He should have been hers.
She had finally found her entry point in Wex Boer. He’d served with the Masters brothers in the Rangers, and Ready Line Security had sometimes collaborated with Wex’s security company. Shane knew the codes to open his brother’s algorithms.
Wex was perfect for her purposes. He had funds, a large team of mercenaries at the ready. He was self-centered, amoral, arrogant enough to be ambitious, stupid enough to be manipulated, and he’d been absolutely on board once she’d explained the potential of the SmokeScreen algorithm to him.
Nicole had dreamed up the Ready Line massacre in every detail, but Wex and his team had executed it.
She’d made the story airtight, backed up by financial data, bank deposits, forensic evidence, etc.
The way it was supposed to look to the cops, Wex had burned to a crisp along with the rest of them.
The fall guy was Jed Clearwater. He’d sold them all out and fled, the bastard.
Or tried to. That bit was her favorite, the part the press would eat up with a spoon.
How Jed had run his car off a bridge and died trying to flee the scene.
Karma’s immediate retribution, ka-pow! A story like that would go viral in a heartbeat.
People loved when an evil asshole got his comeuppance.
Especially when he looked a fool while he was getting it.
But Jed hadn’t died. Somehow, that cast-iron sonofabitch had crawled out of the totaled mess of a car under the bridge, and lived. Fucking up her perfect narrative.
Though she still had hopes of salvaging it.
Then Wex Boer, idiot extraordinaire, had boasted to his most powerful and dangerous client about his shiny new algorithm, and their captive, who held the key to it.
What happened next was what any person with half a brain would predict.
The bastard had swooped down and yanked Shane Masters out of their grasp. Of course.
God, she was so sick of cleaning up stupid men’s messes.
But Shane wasn’t the only one who knew the SmokeScreen codes. Ethan Masters wrote them, and persuading Ethan to give them up was going to be the most fun she’d ever had. And there were other weak points. The sister, Freya. The niece, Holly.
Yes. Fun times ahead.
The perfect conclusion would involve a river of blood and a mountain of body parts of anyone who had ever insulted her. To say nothing of hundreds of billions flowing into her personal offshore accounts. She’d be content with nothing less.
And Wex Boer…well. She was sick of his undisciplined impulses.
Last night had been one tantrum too many.
That new face he was so proud of, that would be his punishment.
She would slowly slice all the way around it with her scalpel.
Then, she would peel it off him, while he was fully conscious.
Staring at her with lidless eyes. Screaming with a lipless mouth.
The image gave her a stimulating rush of endorphins.
She glanced over at the computer screen, and by pure chance, she saw it flicker into being. The blip on the screen where none had been before. The little blue icon that represented Freya Masters’ phone. Excitement exploded inside her.
Nicole grabbed the headset and listened to the call. The signal came from about thirty miles up into the mountains. It looked like a dead end road, and it was going to be slow going in that snow, but on the plus side, their prey would be easy to trap up there.
The conversation itself was of no particular interest. Freya calling to say happy birthday to the little girl, not ask for help or rescue. How sweet. Clearly, she cared about Holly, which was good. Beloved children were effective levers, in her experience.
And Nicole would do what was necessary to get SmokeScreen functioning.
She was unbeatable with her scalpel. She’d spent a few years in medical school before they kicked her out.
They were afraid of her. Too many jealous, nervous colleagues.
But she had talent. She would have been a great surgeon. She had nerves of fucking steel.
Nicole paced through the house, running up to the master bedroom. Boer was lying on the bed, a damp cloth lying over his face.
“Wex,” she said. “News.”
“Leave me the fuck alone, you sulky cunt. I’m sick of your bullshit.”
Nicole thought of some entertaining things she could do with her scalpel to certain sensitive nerve bundles in his face. His eyes, too.
“I have a fix on Freya Masters,” she told him.
Wex jolted upright. The wet cloth fell. His face was red, swollen, and unpleasantly shiny from the ointment he had smeared on it, to speed the healing process. “What? Where?” he demanded.
“Up in the mountains,” she told him. “It happened just now. She turned it on to make a call. To wish Holly a happy birthday. Evidently, she just turned nine today.”
He laughed under his breath, grinning. The grooves in his healing cheeks looked red and painful.
“What a dumb bitch,” he commented. “Get everyone we have here mobilized. We should kill Clearwater and take Freya to control Ethan. Finally, you get to put these special skills you boast about to use while I watch and learn. Are you finally ready to show me what you’re really made of, my killer bitch queen? ”
Oh, yes. Her headache from grinding her teeth vanished as she pictured Wex’s shock on that fine day when she finally showed him what she was really made of.
She gave him a blinding smile. “That sounds just perfect.”