Chapter Ten

Piston

I held Venus close. After we were both spent, and she lay with her head on my chest, I took up the earlier conversation.

"You good, baby?"

"Better than good." Her contented purr was music to my ears. I chuckled lightly as I sifted my fingers through her hair.

"That's what I want to hear." I kissed the top of her head. "Much as I hate to ruin the moment, we still have some things to discuss before we decide where we're going and what we're gonna do."

She took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "Giovanni hired me to work at Argent. Not in company itself, but off books kind of thing. I told him I needed to stay hidden, and he had no problem with that arrangement. I helped field test weapons for him. I did better than anyone else he had working for him, taking his weapons to very limit of what they could do without hesitation."

I had to bite back a growl at that. "Sounds dangerous."

She shrugged. "Was. I was there for only couple of months before he sent me off to test his latest gadget. But he wanted me to work with it in real world. Away from his testing ground. He'd already had it tested and adjusted and adjusted some more. Besides, it was really more of spy tool than weapon."

"Your eyes," I said. "The contacts."

She grinned up at me. "You knew about those?" Though she didn't seem surprised, I thought she might be.

"I know some. Not all. Have a feelin' you were havin' trouble with them when we found Victor that first time."

"Contacts enhance my vision. Much like camera. I can zoom in or out. Isolate subject and zoom in. Some of it is through contacts themselves, some I have to do from app on my phone. Gio did update to add infrared vision. He had only uploaded new version with upgrades few days before. My eyes hadn't had time to adjust to new band of light I was seeing. Gave me headache. Had trouble getting my bearings. Kind of made me want to puke."

"Right. Also, about your contacts."

When I didn't continue immediately, she frowned. "What about them?"

"Giovanni can… well, see through your eyes, for lack of a better description."

She pushed up on one arm to look at me in confusion. "What do you mean?" She swallowed and I knew I was right. This wasn't going to go well.

"He can see what you see. I guess they're like little cameras. He can not only get a real-time feed any time you're wearing them, he can track you through them."

She gave an exasperated grunt before laying her head back on my chest and settling back down. "If that bastard was looking at me when I was naked and standing in front of mirror, I may kill him."

"You decide that's what you want to do, I'll go in first and clear the way for you to play as long as you like, baby." That got another chuckle from her before she got serious again.

"You said Victor has been tracking me and that Giovanni knows."

"Yes. He said there's a tracking device in your shoulder. I don't know which one."

"How long has he known this?"

"It's the reason he sent you to ExFil. Before you met Thorn."

"Fucking bastard," she muttered. "The mission with ExFil was where he sent me to test fucking contacts." She closed her eyes. Her nails dug into my side where she clung to me. In all fairness, I was holding her just as close. The claws coming out -- literally -- were a reflex. Yeah. Venus was good and pissed. Instead of expressing her anger, she changed the subject.

"My father was Thorn's oldest brother. I told you that. Thorn doesn't know."

"Yeah. I remember. It's got me thinking, though. There's more there I should know but can't put my finger on what it is."

"Thorn's uncle was Mama's oldest brother."

OK. That threw me. "Mama? From Bones MC? Mama and Pops?"

"Yes. I'm Mama's niece."

"Does she know?"

Venus shook her head. "Thought about trying to tell her. When she came to Salvation's Bane. She came to care for Thorn's woman, Mariana, after she'd been hurt. Father of her unborn child beat her nearly to death. He did kill baby she carried. Mama came to help her heal."

"Why didn't you?"

"Didn't seem like right time. Everyone, especially Mama, had so many things to take care of and my long-lost family didn't seem important in grand scheme of things. After that, decided it didn't matter. Bane was my home."

"Then why have you been wandering from club to club?"

"Wouldn't say wandering. I go where I'm needed. Millie belongs to Bones and I have to see my sister. I came to Grim because I saw Lemon get taken. Little spitfire reminded me so much of Millie I wanted to help guide her and help her reach her full potential. Because of my friendship with Lemon, I met Apple and Danica which led me to Iron Tzars. Now I have people there I want to watch out for. Never really thought of myself as having family other than Millie before Thorn let me into Bane. Now, they're all my family."

"What about Black Reign and El Diablo?"

She seemed to think about that one a moment. "I did something to Lyric I'll never be able to make up for." The softness in her voice, the way she had to clear her throat after she spoke, both told me something had happened that rattled her. Though I'd watched Venus closely once she settled into Salvation's Bane, I hadn't done more than watch from a distance for years. I didn't pry into club business because I didn't care. The only thing I did was shadow Venus.

"What happened, Venus? Whatever it is clearly upset you."

"When Lyric first came to Bane, she'd been held by a splinter of this very club. Kiss of Death was trying to set up business in Palm Beach and had opened up a club called The Dark. Bane burnt it to the ground, but president of Kiss of Death, wonderful person called Rat Man" -- Venus actually rolled her eyes --"had spies in Bane, planting bugs and gathering information. Lyric was one he sent to us. Was Rat Man's bad luck he sent her on day Rycks happened to be visiting us."

"I take it he knew her?"

"Had kid with her, though he didn't know it at time. We thought Lyric was spy Rat Man had sent to Bane. He had, but she wasn't mole we were looking for. Process for finding out those things is never pleasant. You know this."

"Can't afford to have a nice little chat sometimes."

" Da . Anyway, with her being woman, task fell to me for interrogation."

"Ouch." ‘Cause interrogation and nice never went together in the same sentence.

" Da . I hit her couple of times. Was ready to cut her." She held up a hand, displaying those fucking daggers she had for nails. "Rycks intervened, claimed her in front of club to prevent torture I was getting ready to dish out, and got everything out of her. What impressed me most about Lyric was how she responded to everything."

"Oh? What happened?"

"She took everything I dished out, was prepared to take even more, and she didn't protest or beg or even tell us about her child because she believed doing so would put little Bella's life in danger. She kept silent. I hit her face. Twice. And for first time in my life it felt like I was doing exact wrong thing. I didn't know it at time, but when I found out…"

"So you feel like you owe her."

"I do. I protected her afterward. When Rycks went to get Bella and bring her home. I protected them both. In process we found out real mole was one of Bane's club girls."

"Well, Lyric is Rycks' old lady now, so I'm assuming everything worked out."

" Da . Still didn't make me feel better. So I started looking out for both Lyric and Bella. Then I found out Celeste was granddaughter of Mama and Pops. Daughter of their only son. That made her my family too, so she and her daughter, Holly, had to be protected. Holly was vulnerable because she had a childhood cancer, but is in remission now. Her oncologist is Blade from Bane. So, you see? Domino effect, and now I have people I need to protect in more clubs than I can keep up with." She sounded disgruntled, but one look at her face showed the affection she felt for every person she'd mentioned. "Since I'm around everyone everywhere now, I have more people I care about than I ever have in my entire life. Exhausting, trying to do it all."

"But you do."

She shrugged. "As much as I can."

"Giovanni thinks he needs to call in all hands on this one. I think I said he's meeting us at Bane. He says he's calling in everyone else, even Black Reign."

"Which means, he suspects Victor is either in or around Palm Beach area."

"Likely."

"He tell you anything more?"

"Only for us to get there. No doubt he'll be there long before we will."

Venus snorted. "Right. Pesky helicopter."

"So the question we need to discuss is simple. Where do you want to go from here?"

"What do you mean?" She braced herself with her arms on my chest, looking up at me questioningly.

"Do you want to go to Bane like Giovanni told us? Or do you want to go someplace else? What do you want to do?"

She gave me a startled look. "I didn't realize that was option."

"‘Course it is. I happen to think we need to play this according to your instincts. You know Victor better than anyone, even Giovanni. So what do you want to do?"

She looked down, resting her chin on her hands. "I don't know. Since I haven't been able to kill Victor in all these years, my judgment might not be best with regard to him."

"It is. How long have you actively been trying to find and kill him?"

She frowned. "Since we brought Katya to States."

"So a few years, but not the whole decade."

"At first, I was just glad to be away. I was more concerned with how I was going to get to Katya and bring her home than I was with killing Victor. He moved her around a lot before settling her back in his mansion. Probably because he knew I'd be looking for her. I'd never leave my sister behind if I could, but I had second sister to protect as well." She sniffled. "Should have listened to Millie back then. We should have gone back for her and Mama."

"I assume you're meaning your mother? Not Mama and Pops."

" Da . Everything went to shit when we escaped. Mama refused to leave and Katya was only five. Risk was too great to have more than Victor's goons after us because he would absolutely call it kidnapping and bring to bear full force of FSB. I was still young and not too ashamed to admit, now, I was terrified of them coming after us. I thought I knew best, you know, because I had all that training from FSB. Truth was, I knew if they came after us, Millie would die. Almost did anyway with only Victor's goons after us."

"But you didn't. Then you made it to America."

"FSB had plans for me to infiltrate Argent Tech. They wanted better weapons and thought I could get schematics for whatever they wanted. Since I was on my own, I thought perhaps Argent was good way to keep eye on FSB infiltration of company. I was straightforward with Alexi Petrov when I interviewed with him."

"Didn't realize one of the CEOs of the largest tech company in the world did interviews."

"Alexi did. I started off my interview with his HR department by telling them the Russian government was trying to steal their technology. Given who Alexi is -- and I'm not talking about being Argent's CEO -- he sat me down with Azriel and Giovanni for several hours and discussed everything."

"So that's when he found out you were with the FSB before you… defected, for lack of a better word."

"Exactly. Alexi gave me position in Experimental Tech and kept me on his private payroll."

"Which meant your name wasn't in the system. But Victor could still track you."

Venus's expression hardened. "That's something we need to fix before we leave this compound."

"What did you have in mind?" I knew where this was going, and I had to grin. My woman was something else. She was reclaiming her family on her own terms, and I couldn't wait to watch.

"I think is time I introduced myself to Mama as her niece."