Vengeance (SSU Trilogy Book 1) by Vanessa Kier Page A

spiky white hair. Which meant the man she’d been chasing had been her brother.
    Dammit, he’d been so close!
    But Paterson had disappeared again and so had the girl, chased by four thugs in suits shouting to each other in Spanish. Alvarez’s men.
    He’d followed, but something had sent the men in suits fleeing back into the alley. One of the men recognized Mark as the man who’d been seen around town with Jenna. They’d grabbed him and even though Mark had fought using every dirty trick he’d learned as a street kid in Moscow, Alvarez’s men had overpowered him. When they realized he had nothing to tell them, they’d slammed his head into the wall and he’d blacked out.
    He tested to see if the blood had stopped yet. It had.
    He’d fully expected to wake up a prisoner of Alvarez’s men. Instead, he was relieved to find himself alone in the alley. The only sounds were muted traffic and conversation from the distant streets, and the occasional skitter of a piece of trash across the pavement. Sounds that were all too familiar, calling forth memories he’d much rather forget.
    At age eight his mother moved them to her hometown of Moscow, unable to bear living in Boston after the mob hit on Mark’s father, a prominent judge. For a couple of months they’d lived in relative comfort, but his mother had always been frail and unable to work. After the money ran out, Mark had worked the streets, willing to do anything to scrounge enough money to pay their meager rent. Once his stepfather had entered the picture and their financial situation improved, Mark immersed himself in the good life and vowed never to be powerless again.
    He refused to take tonight’s defeat as a sign his luck was turning for the worse. No matter what it took, he would find Paterson and retrieve the chip.
    His cell phone vibrated against his thigh. Mark strode away from the back door of the bar before pulling the phone out.
    “I hope you have good news,” CIA Director of In-House Projects Wayne Jamieson barked when Mark answered the call.
    He winced. “No, sir. Paterson got away. Alvarez’s men almost nabbed him.”
    There was a disgusted grunt on the other end of the line. “And the girl?”
    Mark thought about lying, but the man probably had other assets in the city and he couldn’t afford to be caught in a lie. “She ran after her brother.” He froze as the door of the bar opened. But it was just an employee dumping out a trash can. When the door closed, Mark added, “Earlier this evening the girl joined forces with an SSU agent named Niko Andros. No big loss, she was a liability. Too much trouble. I’ll do better on my own.”
    “You want to join Kerberos, yet you can’t handle one inexperienced girl?” Jamieson paused, but Mark knew he didn’t really expect an answer. “If you don’t have any luck finding Paterson on your own, then I expect you to get her away from Andros and use her again as bait. Bring me that chip, or no Kerberos. And no name.”
    Mark clenched his teeth. It had been a mistake to let Jamieson know how desperately he wanted the name of the man who’d ordered the hit on his father. A man so well hidden, so high up in the government that Mark hadn’t even realized the top ranking mobster he’d killed hadn’t been the instigator. After years of peace, believing his father avenged, Mark had been shocked when Jamieson stepped forward with proof that the real mastermind lived on. All Jamieson wanted in return for revealing the name and assisting Mark in bringing the man down was Nevsky’s chip.
    But for all the work he was doing, Mark had made it clear he wanted more than just the name. He expected an invitation into Kerberos, Jamieson’s elite, unfettered black ops group. Mark liked the idea of being untouchable. Of joining a group tasked with defending the country in any way necessary regardless of laws or morals.
    Jamieson had reluctantly agreed that if Mark brought him the chip, he’d be worthy of