Chapter 75: Revenge
Adam
With the taste of vanilla ice cream still lingering on my tongue, I headed out of the central mall and headed straight to my car, the cool evening air brushing lightly against my face. I was in a much better mood than I was when I left the office as I headed home, the tension from earlier slowly easing off my shoulders.
Not surprised to get to my home only to see a familiar red car waiting in the driveway, parked slightly off like the owner had been too impatient to straighten it properly.
Looking up, I spotted Zaren, my older brother, the last person I definitely wanted to see. He looked extremely displeased, jaw tight, shoulders squared, and I already knew why.
Turning off the ignition, I sat there for a second before heading out as I watched him walk towards me, his steps heavy against the concrete.
Blond hair like mine but messier, with a much rougher face and expressions that rarely softened. Scars on his neck from various missions he had succeeded in, faint but visible under the dim porch light.
He was a great agent with terrible diplomacy when it came to people which was why, although we were both senior agents, he was a bit lower than me in the ranking. The top brass wouldn’t let you have free reign if they thought you were hard to manage, no matter how good you were in the field.
Letting out a sigh as I watched him come barreling straight towards me, his brown eyes lit up in anger, I braced myself. "You cloned Joe’s phone!" he screamed right in my face, grabbing my shirt as he yanked me towards him, the fabric tightening around my neck.
His hold on my shirt was tight enough that it would have been a hassle to pull him away from it as I met his eyes with a pleased expression on my face, completely unfazed by his outburst.
"You fucking cloned Joe’s phone. That girl was mine!" he snapped, his grip tightening for a second before I simply shrugged my shoulders as I responded, knowing that he was simply blowing off steam. He wouldn’t actually hit me... unless he did.
"What’s gotten into you Adam!" he snapped, pushing me away as I stumbled back a step, my shoes scraping slightly against the ground. I tried to straighten my wrinkled black shirt with my hands which was a lost cause as I met his glare again.
"What’s gotten into me? You were playing it safe! Coddling her! Her father is Castilo! She can take it!" I snapped back, my voice rising to match his, but clearly Zaren didn’t agree.
"She is a civilian! She had absolutely nothing to do with Castilo or Nico!" he shot back immediately, his voice sharp with frustration.
"Yes she does now! She’s in Nico’s house and she can get us all that we need. All the evidence we’ve not been able to get. Better still, they’re not even worried about her!" I said with a grand smile on my face, spreading my hands slightly as if the answer was obvious, wondering why Zaren couldn’t see what I could clearly see.
Watching his face wreath into a deeper frown as he glared at me, shaking his head slowly as if trying to process what I’d just said, he spoke again, voice lower this time,
"What did you do?" taking a step back like I had pushed him, eyes wide with the hint of anxiety in them that showed that he was worrying about me like the elder brother he was.
"What the hell did you do!" his voice louder this time around, echoing slightly in the quiet street as I went ahead to tell him before he busted my eardrum, cleaning my ears with my fingers casually as I spoke.
"What else? I made her an informant and told her to plant a bug!"
"Adam!" he snapped, voice full of outrage, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, "You’ll get her killed!" but at this point I had heard enough. It was evening and with all the shouting we were starting to draw attention of the neighbours who I would rather not have in my business, a curtain across the street shifting slightly.
Leaning closer to Zaren as I spoke in the harshest tone I could muster, lowering my voice but making every word count, "God honest truth! I don’t care what happens to her! Did Nico care when he killed Simon and placed his head on his pavements?"
The words hung heavy between us.
"We still can’t find her body until now." I told him, lowering my tone even more as I spoke with a sigh, pulling back as I looked around briefly. Aware that calling Simon’s name, our brother and the youngest, was a low blow, a very low one, but one that was necessary.
"I would have loved to kill the motherfucker myself, but I’ll settle on watching him rot in prison!" I said with a growl, my jaw tightening as I fixed my eyes on Zaren whose frown only deepened, but I continued to stare at him without flinching, refusing to back down.
A moment later he let out a long sigh, the tension in his shoulders easing just slightly as he looked at me and nodded once. "Fine! But we do this together!" he reminded me, his tone firm, leaving no room for argument.
"...in the right way. If it seems like she’s going to get caught we pull her out with everything we’ve got. I will not have a civilian dying on my watch!" he said, and for all his stiffness, for all the anger, I looked deeply at him and realized that he really was a softie, even if he tried so hard not to be.
"Of course! We need her!" I answered with a nod, keeping my tone even as he passed his hand through his blond hair, frustration still lingering in the gesture. His square jaw tightened for a second before relaxing again. He was only three years older than me but he looked much older, the years showing more on him than they did on me. His skin much more tanned than my pale skin, like he had spent far too long under harsh suns and worse conditions.
"How did you even get her to agree in the first place? She has more balls than I expected!" he said, a hint of disbelief creeping into his voice now as the anger slowly faded.
I simply smiled, not answering directly, pushing him lightly toward the house and changing the topic before the conversation dissolved into another screaming match in my neighbourhood.
"I have a setup you’ll love, we can listen and monitor whatever’s going on once she plants the bug. This is only the first step!" I told him, opening the door and stepping inside, and I could hear the glee in my own voice as I spoke, unable to hide it.
A chance at finally getting the revenge I was owed.
