Tansy's Titan: Cosmos' Gateway Book 3 (2 page)

The second man she killed was responsible for the countless deaths of men, women, and children. He used them to sell his drugs, as slave labor for his mines, as prostitutes for himself and his men or to gain even more wealth, and the children… it was the children that finally changed Tansy the most. Her hands shook as she remembered holding the dying little girl in her arms.

Sonya.
Tansy thought as she let the rage burn through her giving her the strength to keep on fighting.

She wrapped the name around her soul so she would never forget why she did what she did. Sonya was only eleven but Roberto San Juan used her little body for his own sadistic pleasure. She lay beaten and bloody in his bed. He was the man in charge of all the drug cartels in the region where her sister had been taken. Even the military was afraid to touch him. After the raid at the camp where Hannah was taken many of the men involved in the raid or their family members were killed because of the attack. Sonya, Tansy later learned, was bought from a Russian white slave trader. Roberto liked young, innocent girls. He used them and discarded them like he did a used tissue. He didn’t care who he hurt or killed.

Tansy let her thoughts drift for a moment back to her time in Nicaragua, when she struck out in vengeance against the man who hurt her sister. She had always looked younger than she was which aided in her infiltration of Roberto’s stronghold. At nineteen she could easily pass for being three or four years younger. She had the face of a sweet young girl and the body of a centerfold. It was an explosive combination for a man like Roberto. Tansy often wondered where she got her different build and coloring from until she saw a picture of her father’s mother. She was an exact replica of her grandma Bell. That combination was how she was able to get close to Roberto.

He saw her in the local Cantina and wanted her. She was pretending to be on a missionary mission with a small church group who was staying nearby. Within hours of arriving, she was being loaded into his car with two of his guards. She just pretended to be a scared, confused child. She had to admit she was scared but she was far from confused or a child. She had enough weapons on her to kill the two guards with room to spare. She saved that pleasure for Roberto when he came for her. She let him play with her hair and tell her all the ways he thought she was beautiful and was going to enjoy discovering all her secrets. She let him talk, feeding his ego, and watched him as he poured himself a glass of gin. She did as he commanded at first, removing her dress until she was clad only in her tiny pink panties and matching bra, both very conservative but alluring in their innocence. She carefully kept the twin hair sticks holding the poison she would use on him in her thick mane of hair. She wasn’t sure how long that would last by the way he was staring at it. She waited until he was close before turning slightly with a tentative smile.

“What are you going to do to me?” Tansy asked in a small, hesitant voice.
             

Robert reached out and ran the back of his hand along her smooth, silky cheek. “I might keep you,” he said with a thoughtful look. “There is something about you that is… different.”

Tansy smiled shyly up at him. He was a breathtakingly handsome man if you could ignore the coldness in his eyes and the cruel twist to his lips. She knew everything there was to know about him. She used the skills her mother taught her on computers to hack into his most private accounts and followed everything he did. At exactly midnight tonight he would be broke. Every penny of his ill-gotten gains would be distributed to charities around the world and to the families of his victims. He would never know it, though. He would already be dead and Tansy would be far away from here.

“But… what about my family? The missionaries will be looking for me and tell them I am missing,” Tansy asked in a slightly husky voice as Roberto ran a kiss along her shoulder.

She shivered as he pushed one of her bra straps to the side. “Your family will be informed you are dead. You belong to me now. I like the taste of you, Julie. You taste wonderful. I wonder what those beautiful lips will feel like wrapped around me,” Roberto said moving to cup her breasts from behind in one of his large hands.

Tansy smiled softly before turning in his arms before he could touch her. She licked her lips making sure he was focused on them as she reached her arms up slowly and pulled the hair sticks from her hair letting the thick, heavy mane fall down her back almost to her waist. She knew she had Roberto’s attention when his eyes flared with desire and his face flushed. Tansy took a step closer to him letting her arms come down to rest on his shoulders.

“Roberto,” Tansy breathed against his lips.

“Yes, my beautiful Julie,” Roberto whispered against her lips passionately.

“My lips will never be wrapped around you,” Tansy whispered as she quickly jabbed the needle-like end into the side of Roberto’s neck and depressed the poison it contained. “And my name is not Julie. My name is Tansy and you have just been erased.”

Roberto’s eyes widened for a moment, the glass falling from his hand as he started to collapse. He tried to yell out but Tansy covered his mouth with a small tut-tut sound, shaking her head. She helped lower him to the floor where he gazed up at her with a combination of rage and fear.

“This is a much nicer death than you deserve. The poison will make it appear you suffered a heart attack,” Tansy said as she moved away from where Roberto lay paralyzed by the poison. “No one can save you. You have terrorized your last victim,” Tansy said as she finished dressing in the same clothes the servants wore that she had in the small bag with her.

Pulling out a black wig with gray highlights in it, she quickly and efficiently pinned her hair up tightly against her scalp before sliding it on. She just as quickly added makeup, making it appear she had wrinkles, and the thick, heavy sandals preferred by the older women. She turned her bag inside out so it looked like a woven basket and deftly filled it with some fruit from a basket on the table. Next, she moved quickly and efficiently around the room wiping anything she had touched with a special cloth designed to remove fingerprints. She used a lint brush to make sure no hair fibers were left either. Moving over to where Roberto was struggling to breathe, she knelt down next to him and tapped his cheek once with a slight smile.

“This is for my sister,” Tansy whispered looking down into his pale, sweaty face. “You should never have messed with my family.”

Tansy watched dispassionately as he struggled to say something before his face went slack and his eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling. She was moving out of the sitting room area through to his bedroom when she found Sonya. She knew he had left the girl there so she could watch her die slowly as a warning. She had heard he had done that before but it was still hard to actually see something like that in real life. There was nothing that could be done for the girl. Tansy could hear the death rattle in her chest from where her lungs were filled with blood. All she could do was sit and hold her, singing one of the childhood songs her mom used to sing to them when they were sick. Tansy rocked Sonya’s lifeless body in her arms for almost ten minutes before she forced herself to gently lay the girl back down on the bloody sheets before covering her. Coldness settled in her heart. It was far worse than even after Branson’s death. At that moment, Tansy knew she would die young because she would not walk away from the Sonya’s of the world. She would fight for them until her dying breath. That was how she found herself in the position she was in now. She was after the elusive Russian billionaire Boris Avilov who dealt in the black market. This market included the one who took Sonya from her home and sold her to Roberto four years before.

*.*.*

Tansy came back to the present abruptly when she heard the soft squeak of the stair below her. Moving to the side, she blended into the shadows. She listened carefully to the hushed whispers. Tansy let a small smile curve her lips as she moved silently down the stairs towards the basement area. There
were
several doors leading out
of the building
but she was interested in the hidden one that would lead her under the streets. She made sure before she made the hit to know the area like the back of her hand. This little hidden jewel had been buried in the archives of the building department. Branson always taught her to know her prey and to have numerous escape routes.

Always be ahead of them, Tansy. It is th
e only way you will stay alive,
Branson’s soft words echoed in her mind.

I know. I miss you, Branson,
Tansy thought sadly,
I always will.
Tansy paused as the footsteps moved.

“
Есть ли какой-нибудь признак ее?
” A raspy voice asked in heavily accented Russi
an if there was any sign of her.

“
Нет, ничто,”
No nothing
came the short response. “The doors were still boarded up. We had to break in to get inside. None of the windows were missing boards either,” the voice continued to answer him in Russian.

“Check it
anyway. Mr. Avilov wants her found and brought to him – alive. He wishes to have the pleasure of killing her personally,” the man said
harsh
ly.

“Why?” The second man asked. “He usually doesn’t dirty his hands with killing… especially the females.”

Tansy listened as the man who asked the question received a physical response. “It is not your place to ask why. You will do what you are told,” the first man coldly responded.

The only answer was a muffled grunt. Seems like he didn’t like the first answer so he wasn’t about to ask a second. Tansy moved into one of the rooms off to the side. There was a hole in the floor leading down to the first floor. She carefully grabbed the long board she had propped inside of it and slid down. She broke out into a sweat as she silently hit the concrete floor harder than she expected. Her leg gave out and she landed heavily on her knee. Gripping her side and struggling to stand, she limped over to the door. The men were heading up the stairs. She waited until she could hear their footsteps above her before she moved through the bottom rooms. She stayed in the shadows, not trusting there might not be additional support behind them. Moving on silent feet, she quickly made her way down the hallway and to another set of steps leading to the basement. Ignoring the pain, she slipped into the darkness.

Chapter 2

Mak strode into his parents’ living quarters looking for his father. He growled out bad-temperedly when he discovered neither of his parents was in residence. In frustration, he walked over to the large bank of windows overlooking the huge palace gardens his mother loved so much. He took deep breaths to try to calm down before he continued his search. Mak pulled an image out of the front pocket of his vest and look at it for the hundredth time. He felt the rage burning deep inside him. He wanted the female. He knew she was his. Ever since he saw her image she seemed to take over his every waking and sleeping moment. Not even beating the new warriors in training could tire him enough not to dream about her. He had petitioned the council and his father for permission to bring her here but it was denied. The council was still waiting for Borj to return with his brother’s bond mate’s mother. In addition, there was concern about the human male who was still at large.

Mak ran his finger over the female’s cheek studying her eyes. There was something in them that called to him. He felt a need to wipe the secrets that haunted her away. The first time he saw her image his whole world seemed to narrow in on her until nothing else matter but finding her, holding her, protecting her. Never had he felt such strong emotions from just looking at an image.

Tansy,
Mak thought rolling her name over his tongue.

It was an unusual name for an unusual woman. Mak smiled as he let his gaze run over the image he had burned into his memory. She was built with more curves than her sisters. Her hair was a mixture of their red sands and the giant trees surrounding them. Not a
bright
red
but
a dark
rich red
with tints of
mahogany
highlights. She was looking out at the sea, a far-away look in her eyes like she was deep in thought. The white shirt with long sleeves she was wearing billowed out around her as the wind blew, pulling it back just enough to show hints of the small triangles covering her full breasts. She was wearing short, tan colored pants and thin leather sandals on her feet. But, most of all, it was her expression that haunted Mak. He could see the secrets in her. Secrets he wanted to discover, uncover, and share with her.

“Mak,” a soft, feminine voice said. “What is wrong?”

Mak looked up and his expression softened as the female approached him. “Nothing,” he said as a small smile curved his lips.

Terra chuckled and shook her head. “I do not believe you. You looked like you wanted to kill someone,” Terra said as she peeked at the image Mak was holding. “Who is the female?”

Mak glanced down at the image for a moment before he carefully slid it into the pocket of his vest. “No one,” Mak replied gruffly.

Terra just looked at Mak quietly without saying a word. Mak could feel himself groaning inside. He hated it when she did that! It was so much like their mother, Tresa. Whenever either one of the women in his family looked like that at any of them, including their father, the men knew they were doomed.