38

Ten days later, John entered the V lounge of Scanguards’ headquarters. There were few people around, but in the far corner, in front of the fireplace, he saw Samson, who’d requested his presence. Next to him sat Amaury and Gabriel. However, John was surprised to also find Deirdre among them. He hadn’t heard that she was back, although he’d seen news reports from Russia, confirming that her mission was a success.

“Take a seat, John,” Samson invited him and pointed toward the bar in the middle of the lounge. “Drink?”

John declined with a wave of his hand. He wasn’t drinking bottled blood these days. Just like Amaury and Samson, who only drank from their mates. Gabriel, whose mate was a vampire, had a half-empty glass of blood in front of him; same as Deirdre, who drank from hers through a straw.

“Evening, all. Deirdre, good to know you made it back.”

To his surprise, she smiled at him. She looked content and relaxed, and perfectly at ease. “Why wouldn’t I? Logan has always been a great driver. Though I must admit, now that I’m not a Stealth Guardian anymore, I understand that it can be a little disorienting for other creatures to travel in the portals.”

“It was the easiest way to get you into Russia,” Amaury said. “Particularly with all the weapons you insisted on taking with you.”

“I like to be prepared.”

“Give us a full report. I’ve seen your field reports, but I’d like a summary. Is it done? All of it?” Samson said.

Confidently, Deirdre nodded. “Logan and I found every single man on the list we found on Viktorov’s phone. And not just the ones who were supposed to receive the last shipment; we were able to find the clients for previous shipments too.”

“How did you take them out?” John asked. “The news reports out of Russia were kind of sketchy.”

“Let’s just say they all died a violent death. I made sure they knew why they had to die. Wouldn’t be much point in killing them silently, would it now?”

Gabriel and Samson raised their eyebrows, but Amaury simply grunted. John could only agree with Deirdre’s actions. They’d all deserved it for kidnapping and then abusing innocent children.

“It was very satisfying to see them beg for their lives,” Deirdre continued. “I let them suffer a little, you know, pretend that they could buy their way out of it. They really thought that their money could save them.”

As it had turned out, most of the men were Russian oligarchs, many of them connected to the Kremlin and its corrupt government.

“Looks like you enjoyed this a little too much, Deirdre,” Samson said.

She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to enjoy my job. And it is my job now, isn’t it?” She cast John a quick look. “A real job this time, not a pretend one like the one you gave me.”

Samson looked at John. “Yeah, about that, John. You could have told me that you wanted to offer Deirdre a job here.”

“You thought she wasn’t ready. And I knew she was.”

“Well, next time you want to hire somebody, make a better case for it.” Then he looked back to Deirdre. “As for you, Deirdre, yes, you’ve got a job here.”

“Chief assassin?” she suggested.

The three Scanguards bosses exchanged eyerolls.

“This was a one-off,” Gabriel said. “We don’t employ assassins. This is a security company. We protect people.”

“Same thing,” Deirdre claimed. “I protected innocents by killing their tormentors.”

John suppressed a smile. Deirdre was right. She’d done the right thing.

Samson sighed and exchanged a look with Gabriel, then gave him a sign to continue.

“You’ll undergo our bodyguard training, learn the rules we live by,” Gabriel said. “That will have to be enough.”

Deirdre nodded. “It’s good enough for now.” Then she sighed. “How are the girls Logan and I brought back from Russia?”

Deirdre and Logan had transported almost a dozen other girls back from Russia, in addition to the ones John and his team had rescued from the ship in Vladivostok.

Samson gave her a bittersweet smile. “Physically, they’re mending. Maya is doing her best to make sure they heal. But emotionally, there will be scars. Particularly the ones who were in Russia for a few months, are in bad shape. They endured weeks of sexual abuse. We haven’t been able to return them to their parents yet. Some of them are so distraught that we are worried they’ll harm themselves, given the chance.”

John’s heart broke for the girls. “Have you thought about erasing their memories?” It was a gift vampires possessed, but used only in dire circumstances.

“We’ve discussed it with Maya and Dr. Drake. Both are of the opinion that it’s the best way, rather than having these girls undergo years of therapy. We’re taking care of it later tonight.”

“I’m glad,” John agreed. “And with what explanation will you send them back to their parents?”

“We’re working on that with Detective Donnelly. They’ll need to know the truth, or at least part of the truth. But we can’t tell them everything.”

John knew that Donnelly would come up with something that worked for everybody and threw no suspicion on Scanguards or revealed what had really happened.

“And Viktorov’s money?” John asked.

“Thomas hacked into his accounts and transferred all of it out. He wired Savannah’s ransom money back to her. The remaining money is going to a fund to benefit victims of sex trafficking.”

“Good.” Then John looked at Deirdre. “You probably don’t know yet, but we’ve dealt with all the people who were involved in the trafficking stateside.”

“You didn’t kill the kidnappers?” she asked.

“Only Viktorov himself. We handed Otto Watson, the hacker, over to Donnelly. He’ll receive a reduced sentence in exchange for his cooperation. The two kidnappers, the ones who kept the girls at the port in Oakland, will do hard time. Donnelly will keep Scanguards out of it, and the police chief and the mayor are backing us up.”

“You should have killed those two,” Deirdre said.

“I would have, had they touched the girls,” John confessed, “but I don’t kill indiscriminately. Don’t worry, they’re paying for their crimes. And they’ll have nightmares for the rest of their lives.”

Before handing them over to Donnelly, John had made sure that they knew what he was, and that he would rip their throats out if they ever breathed a word about vampires. He could have erased their memories, but he wanted them to know that vampires existed, and that the two kidnappers were on his personal shit list.

“So it’s over, then?” Deirdre asked.

“Yeah, it’s finally over.”

Though for John, life was only just beginning. He’d gotten a second chance, and he was grabbing it with both hands and holding on with all his might.