Chapter 7

 

 

Kelly slowly opened her eyes, feeling a bit fuzzy as her body started coming back online. She frowned as she tried to remember where she was, and why there was a deeply tanned, corded arm slung around her waist.

As memory flared, her eyes widened just as Riley Armstrong rolled on top of her and pinned her to the bed she was sleeping on.

“Good morning, princesa,” Riley said noncommittally.

Although her tone was casual, her amber eyes had hit a level of pissed Kelly didn’t think she could reach on her best day.

“I don’t know what you were thinking,” Riley continued in the same relaxed voice, with the same dark fury in her eyes, “but running away is not how we do things here at APS.”

“Good thing I’m not APS then,” Kelly snarked, unable to help herself.

“Oh, but you are, princesa.” Riley smiled a cold smile as she brushed back the curls from Kelly’s face. “You were APS even before those asshole dimwits at the CIA decided to burn your ass. Their loss, our gain, actually.”

“You have no right to do this.” Kelly’s anger burned.

Riley’s cold smile deepened. “The night before you ran, baby, you blacked out with my fingers in your pussy, and my mouth on your clit. I’d say that gives me all sorts of rights.” She rolled off Kelly and stood up. “We have a meeting with Bryn and the Seven in thirty minutes. Rowan has packed you a bag with fresh clothes, and there is a bathroom with a shower right through that door.”

“Where are we?” Kelly asked, sitting up, her stomach roiling with nerves.

“APS headquarters. Which means, there’s no way to escape me this time, princesa.” The corner of Riley’s mouth tilted up slightly. “No more running. No more secrets. You are no longer obligated to the CIA for anything, Red…including keeping their confidence.”

Riley strode to the door. “I’ll be back in twenty-five minutes, princesa, so be ready. There’ll be coffee and fruit at the meeting.” Then she was gone.

Maybe I’m no longer obligated to the CIA, Kelly thought as she stared after Riley, but they don’t understand I still need to keep APS safe from Percutio.

Kelly jumped in the shower, then pulled on fresh clothes when she was done, braiding her wet hair away from her face. She shoved everything back into the bag Rowan had sent her, just as the door opened and Riley reappeared.

“Ready?” Riley was still matter of fact.

“So, you said no way to escape you this time.” Kelly was equally matter of fact. “I should take that to mean I’m a prisoner and being held against my will, then?”

Riley’s amber eyes chilled. “Take that any way you’d like, princesa. At the very least, you’re going to hear us out, if only for Rowan’s sake.”

Kelly followed Riley silently through the long hallways until they reached a closed door. Riley punched a code into the electronic keypad set into the doorframe, then opened the door when the indicator light turned green.

Kelly kept her face impassive when she discovered Bryn and the Seven were all there, waiting for them. She was disconcerted to realize the same look was in everyone’s eyes—simultaneously both pissed off and protective.

Kelly took a seat, still keeping all emotion off her face, and sat quietly until Riley began.

“Everyone here knows you’ve been burned by the CIA, Kelly,” Riley said without preamble. “What we don’t know is why, nor do we know how Percutio figures into all of this. We know those fucks from Percutio are chasing you. Again, what we don’t know is why.”

Kelly took a minute to answer, leaning back and steepling her fingers. “You act like you and your crew here have a right to know that, Armstrong. Maybe I missed the memo, but last I checked, I didn’t report to you. As a matter of fact, despite your insistence to the contrary, I don’t work for APS. I owe you all nothing.” Her smile was unfriendly. “And if the purpose of this little charade was to strong-arm me into discussing things I don’t much feel like discussing, just so a bunch of badass butches can piss all over their territory, I’d stick this one into your Epic Fail folder. Because I’m not feeling too cooperative right now.”

“What are you running from, Kel?” Bryn’s hard voice whipped out.

Kelly looked at Bryn consideringly for a minute.

“Because you’re my sister’s fiancé, and because you’ve extended APS protection to her, I’ll give you this much,” she finally answered. “It’s too dangerous for you to get involved in this…for any of you to get involved in this. You need to turn and walk away, right now, for your own safety.”

Kelly looked at Bryn with hard eyes.

“How would you feel, Bryn, if Percutio dumped Riley’s bloody body on your front doorstep as a warning? Or the body of one of your Seven? I personally couldn’t live with myself if that kind of harm came to one of you, so I left to keep you safe, not myself. I don’t know any of you well, but I’m not about to give those fuckwits at Percutio a reason to come after you—if only for what you’ve done for Rowan. You have no goddamned idea what you are playing with here. Grigor Reizan won’t kill me, because I have something he wants, but he’ll damn well kill you or one of yours if you don’t. Back. The. Fuck. Off.”

Kelly leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms, signaling she was done with this discussion.

But Riley leveled a hard look at Kelly. “You have no fucking idea who or what we are, princesa. You don’t have the slightest clue about what we’re capable of, or of what our reputation is, do you?”

Kelly looked a bit startled as she let her glance fall over the Armstrong twins and the Seven. She saw nine hard faces looking back at her, each one promising a walk through hell to anyone who dared to cross them.

“You may want to deny it, but you are mine, Kelly. I protect what’s mine. Bryn and the Seven protect what’s mine, too. Meanwhile, you were out there, all alone, unprotected,” Riley gritted out, “having no fucking idea that Grigor Reizan, the omnipotent head of Percutio, probably shit his pants in fear when he found out you now belong to one of the Armstrong twins.”

Dead silence hung over the room.

“Now.” Riley crossed her powerful arms over her chest as her stare bored into Kelly. “We’ve asked you a question, princesa. You need to tell us exactly what the fuck kind of trouble you’re in, so I know what we’re up against. What is it you have that he wants, Kelly? Why are you so goddamn important to him that he would launch this kind of an effort to take you?”

Riley handed a folded cream notepaper to Kelly. “This is the note Percutio sent to Rowan.” She opened the note, her eyes widening when she saw what was written inside.

 

Tell your sister the eyes of Percutio are everywhere and its “memory” is very long.

 

“Reizan, you motherfucking asshole,” Kelly muttered, closing her eyes as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

She looked at Riley, and then looked down at the table for a long time, thinking hard. The APS management team saw the internal war she was waging with herself and waited patiently for her to finish her silent machinations.

“Fine.” Kelly finally blew out a deep breath and regarded the Seven with a stoic expression. “Do any of you know what eidetic memory is?”

“Eidetic memory.” Riley thought for a minute. “It’s the ability to recall an image from memory with almost perfect precision after only seeing it one time. People with eidetic memory can remember an image in so much detail, with so much crispness and accuracy, it’s as though the image was still being viewed in real time, not as a memory.”

“Wait.” Bryn’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you have an eidetic memory, Kelly?”

“A lot of people refer to it as a photographic memory. But there’s technically a difference between an eidetic memory and a photographic memory, although both terms are often used interchangeably. Eidetic memory usually focuses on recalling more visual-type memories, like photographs, while photographic memories actually involve recalling lists or pages of data, or numbers,” Kelly explained. “Plus, an eidetic memory typically does not last for more than a few seconds in the vast majority of people. A person who has a photographic memory has memories that can be retained for a lot longer, however. Some researchers don’t believe true photographic memories even exist, although people like Leonardo da Vinci and Nikola Tesla and Teddy Roosevelt demonstrated the ability easily enough.”

Kelly paused for just a moment, then informed them, “I have an extreme eidetic memory. Actually, I can recall both images and data, plus perform serial recalls of memories—sort of like playing a streaming movie in my head—in virtually perfect detail, after only seeing any of them once. My mind can also retain these memories for years, an ability that is exceedingly rare.”

The Armstrong twins and the Seven were flabbergasted.

“We didn’t exactly pass out cold, like Rowan said we would, but pretty goddamned close,” muttered Blake as she and the other members of the Seven looked at each other with incredulity.

“One of the reasons I was recruited by the CIA’s covert and clandestine operations was because of my gift,” Kelly continued calmly. “As you can imagine, it’s an ability that’s rather handy in espionage situations. Somehow, however, that information was leaked to Grigor Reizan about five or six months ago, which means there’s a Percutio mole within the CIA. Reizan then decided I needed to be an asset for his criminal organization, instead of for the CIA, which…no fucking thank you, asshole. I’m not interested in playing human audio and video recorder for a bunch of common thugs.

“I suspect the mole found a way to have me burned to open the path for Percutio to recruit me, even though my handler gave me some bullshit reason—that the CIA felt my gift had too much potential to make me ‘unstable.’” Kelly traced quote brackets in the air with her fingers as she rolled her eyes.

“Because, you know, it takes eight years to make that determination, which is how long I was with the CIA before I was burned. My eidetic memory… It’s genetic in my family. Three things happen with all the female descendants in my line: One, we all inherit the gift, without exception. Two, getting pregnant is extremely hard for us, as if the gift itself doesn’t like to propagate for some reason. Three, if we do manage to have a child, it’s always a girl.”

“Rowan doesn’t have an eidetic memory, Kel,” Bryn stated, a bit bemused. “So, how is that possible?”

Kelly went silent until she finally looked at Bryn with a look they’d never seen on her before.

“Bryn,” Kelly said gently. “Rowan is adopted.”