“Can you get us over there?” Rex asked, going back to the railing.
“You’ve gotta have a boat, right?” Wesley piped up. Amber turned to him, shaking his hand as well and clutching his hand to Wesley’s forearm.
“I do,” Amber said.
“I bet you do,” Rex said.
“Yeah…” Amber stated, pointing down the docks to a speedboat, bouncing against its ropes. “That’s MI6, boys.”
“This SCO19 isn’t doing much for me…”
“With Voss going off her rocker,” Amber muttered, “I’m acting vice-chief, so Ms. Watts won’t be stopping us.”
They were stopped, however, by several people on their way down the sidewalk and toward the docks. Not only by Jillian Watts of SCO19 but by other MI6 agents looking for direction from Amber as well as several persistent journalists.
There was the sound of another helicopter approaching in the distance. At least, backup was on the way.
But Rex couldn’t wait around any longer. As soon as his feet were on the dock, he hustled toward the boat, helping Wesley inside despite the cries of the journalists and Watts above that he was endangering the life of his son yet again. But the safest place for Wesley was—and had always been—with him and his mother.
Being more important and wrapped up in his own politeness, Amber had to literally weed himself out of the hands of confused agents and a blonde woman who was shoving a camera into his face. He gave a small shake of his head and a heavy sigh as he came onto the boat.
“All right,” Amber said, unhooking the rope from the dock and tossing it into Wesley’s lap. “Extraction team Weick, are we ready?”
Both Rex and Wesley nodded.
The boat started. The engine drowned out some of the noise from the sidewalk above. Water whipped up around the sides of the engine, splashing Rex across his face, and they headed toward the island.
Chapter 28
Amita Voss
London, England
Had it been easy? Absolutely not. Had it been reckless? They would say so. Was it worth it? Exponentially.
By the minute, Amita felt more and more satisfied with every decision she’d made to get her here. Weick and Alek in her hands, tied up against the desks in the form that they were always meant to be. One against the other. Weick finally taking down her mortal enemy and ascending to a status greater than Amita could have ever obtained. It was like seeing her daughter—if she’d ever had one—walking across a stage, graduating. The principal moving the golden tassel from one side to the other as she smiled and waved at the crowd, but really her eyes were only looking for her mother. It wasn’t the stage that she’d wanted, but she was forced to use what was in front of her. Amita also had to move faster than she anticipated, shoving desks out of the way, scraping them against the old floors to make her own tableau of vengeance in the ancient classroom.
Using masking tape, she taped both Weick’s and Alek’s hands to their pistols, using the entire roll to affix them to the wooden surface. The remaining zip ties had been used on their other hands, fastening their wrists to the back of the chair. One of Alek’s hands had been bandaged up and drops of blood speckled the gauze.
The school smelled of dust and chalk. Two of the four windows in the classroom had been broken open and a scattering of beer bottles littered the floor by the chalkboard. This wasn’t the ideal but it would suffice. It would have to.
Amita didn’t have time to waste so she slapped both of them awake, starting with Weick and then her ex-husband, Alek Fedoruk. She allowed them both a brief moment of panic as they pulled against the tape on their one hand and the zip tie on the other, staring at one another, trying to discern where they were and what was happening.
“Amita,” Alek said in that patronizing tone. “What did you do?”
“It’s your place,” Amita replied. “Thank you for the idea.”
“Why are you doing this?” he growled—his voice rising as he yanked against the tape and it creaked under his strength.
“It is your time, Alek,” she said. “It was meant to be this way.”
“This isn’t fate, Amita,” he replied. “Worry about yours, not mine.”
“Our fates have been intertwined for years, Alek. You know that very well, dear.”
“Not by choice.”
“Of course it was by choice! Did you not choose to abandon me and your son? Did you not choose to send that plane crashing down into the Earth? This is all a result of your choices, Alek. And by doing so...” She stood up straight, crossing her arms and standing just outside the line that the gun barrels had formed, pointing at one another. “You took away my choice.”
The sound of her boots against the ground echoed off the old stone walls of the school as she circled the room. In the distance, there were the sounds of approaching engines and motors.
“And now you must be punished,” Amita said, bringing her hands down to her side. She looked at Weick who was watching her with wide brown eyes. Her gaze flickered to every small movement, intense and trained, looking for a slip in her demeanor or another weapon concealed in her sleeves. Doing another circle around the room, Amita landed herself behind Weick, reaching over the back of the desk to put two hands on her shoulders.
“It is your time now, Diana,” Amita whispered. “Shoot him.”
“While I’d love to,” Weick muttered, not turning her head and barely flinching at Amita's grip on her, “I’d rather just wait for MI6 to burst in here and kill you both.”
“If MI6 gets here before you shoot him,” Amita said, “I’ll kill us all.”
There was nothing left for her outside of this aside from prison, and Amita had no plans to spend her time locked away in an unkempt cell. No. This was the final notch in the tightened belt that her mother had
