Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Still, he woke sweating. Afraid. He was supposed to be the one to strike fear into every man or woman who came across him, yet he’d been humiliated in front of the world. Those traveling with him looked at him differently now. Even the ridiculous senator wanted to distance himself from him when he’d been fawning on him earlier, eager to do business.
Lefebre had taken a private plane to Washington, DC, and entered the Canadian embassy. No one would be able to get to him, not even Deadly Storms. There was no sandstorm for the assassin to hide in.
He admitted to himself he was in trouble. With members of his cabinet exposed as aiding Scorpion, many people would believe Shabina. The video images had been playing in the news for the last two days. He had been commanded to get home. If the prime minister did believe Shabina, he was in deep trouble, yet he was certain there was no proof that he was the notorious Scorpion. He could recover from this.
Lefebre knew several governments had contracts out on Scorpion. He had secretly laughed at the various governments. He’d been right out in the open, the charming, benevolent ambassador who everyone loved. Every single country he’d gone to, he’d managed to kill entire communities. He kept track of those killed, wanting his numbers to be higher than Vlad the Impaler, his idol. He especially found it delicious to choose a girl around the age of fifteen or sixteen that reminded him of Yasemin to hold for weeks. He encouraged his men to be as brutal as possible with her. She deserved everything done to her.
He believed he was very clever blaming the men he worked with, naming Owen Pelletier the Scorpion. He had learned acting at an early age and was able to convince those around him that he had the best interests of the smaller farm communities at heart.
A slight breeze washed over him, chilling the sweat on his body. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as fingers of fear walked down his spine. He threw back the covers and glared at his bodyguard, the one who had opened the window. The man sat on the floor, back to the wall, clearly asleep. Lefebre swore and stalked across the room.
“You’re useless to me,” he snapped. “I should slit your throat right here.” He held up his knife, his favorite, the one with the wicked curved blade that he showed to the men and women and even children before he sliced them into pieces.
His bodyguard moved fast, his hand slamming so hard into Lefebre’s elbow that he heard the bone snap. Before he could shriek in pain, the knife was torn from his numb fist, the curved blade sinking into his left thigh muscle over and over. He’d tortured Shabina with this exact move. He opened his mouth to scream in protest, but a fist punched into his throat hard enough to break everything in its path and take away his voice.
The man was lightning fast and incredibly strong. This was no guard. The guard had to be dead. Both guards had to be dead. There was no fighting that knife or those strong hands. There was only pain. More pain. He pried his eyes open to see the hard, merciless features of Deadly Storms.
“You’ll go to your grave with my brand covering yours,” Deadly Storms informed him, never once flinching from inflicting cruel knife wounds. Each deep cut followed a precise pattern, and the assassin reminded him of where he had placed those wounds on Shabina. “The world will know you for the murderer you are.”
* * *
—
The news of Scorpion’s death was on every news channel. He’d been killed on the premises of the Canadian embassy. No one in the United States could be blamed, nor did the prime minister demand explanations. The evidence of Scorpion’s guilt was left on his body for all to see with a message for the prime minister. The note simply read, Guilty of unspeakable crimes. Deadly Storms left his calling card, the artwork he left behind on the body of Scorpion was reproduced as a signature on the note.
There was speculation that someone had aided the assassin in entering the Canadian embassy, or perhaps that he was a high-ranking diplomat that had accompanied Lefebre on his journey to the United States. In the meantime, Rainier simply took his private jet home, and his people removed all evidence of his flight.
* * *
—
Shabina unlocked the door to the café to allow Felicity and Eve entrance. The sun had set, and the cleaners had gone home, leaving the building empty. Deliberately, she looked around carefully before she stepped back inside and locked the door, still staring out into the gathering darkness.