Page 1 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER ONE

“ W e found the last witch!” a masculine voice yelled from beyond my sight. “Trying to destroy the records!”

With a smile, I turned to the man standing next to me. His viciously satisfied grin told me we’d done everything he’d been hoping for today.

“Your fourth successful raid in as many months. You should be proud,” I said, knowing he was thinking less of his personal achievement and more of how useful this was for the world we lived in as a whole.

“I’ll be proud when this is over… but it’s a damn good start,” Heath said, glancing my way. The violent glint in his eye shifted to something softer for a moment as he looked at me. It only lasted a second before he refocused on the task in front of us. “Let’s group them up and begin questioning!”

I continued smiling as I stood confidently in the chaos around me.

I was the most out-of-place person here.

There were a dozen witches, twice as many werewolves, and then me, the lone werecat.

I was the only werecat who could get away with being here at all.

Even though I was alone, I was the most immovable force in the space, with the exception of my fiancé, the werewolf who had just been standing beside me.

“Jacky, could you call this in?” Heath yelled out from across the gravel parking lot.

I gave him a thumbs-up before getting my cell phone out and finally turning it back on. I smartly rang up the only person who could quickly move now that the raid was over and we needed to haul the witches into proper containment.

“Jacky! How was the raid?” Hasan asked immediately upon answering. “I have Corissa and the other werewolves on standby to bring the witches in if you have them. We have a team ready for corpse disposal as well.”

“No werewolf deaths this time and only two of the witches. We captured a perfect dozen,” I said, grateful to give Corissa good news this time.

We’d lost five of her wolves over the last three raids as we adjusted to how this was going to work and what types of magic we were facing.

I heard the female werewolf sigh as she relaxed at the news, somewhere near my father.

“Heath is coordinating the werewolves to make sure we have them all in a good spot for you.”

“Thank you. We’ll be there in a moment. Davor is coming with me.”

I hung up first, satisfied with that. The moment I hung up, a female werewolf walked up to me.

Tall, Amazonian in nature, she was a broad-shouldered warrior from Corissa’s pack, which all the werewolves were.

Corissa’s pack was full of interesting werewolves, like the large female suddenly next to me.

She was covered in sweat, still breathing a bit heavily from the raid.

She had been one of the breachers, along with me and Heath.

We led three groups into the building, clear to different predetermined areas.

Livia’s team had seen the most action today, and she showed it.

“Good work today, Jacky,” the wolf said stiffly.

“Good work to you, Livia. Your mother is with Hasan right now. They’ll be coming soon.”

Livia snorted, shaking her head at my comment, particularly my choice of words. Livia and I were already becoming familiar with each other over the course of these raids. Whether that was a good or bad thing was yet to be seen, but I had intentionally prodded her.

If this blows up in my face, it’ll be no one’s fault but my own. And I’ll go down laughing, I think.

“No one else ever dared to mention that I’m their daughter, and then you show up,” Livia said, with a sardonic smile. “But you enjoy shaking the status quo.”

“No one lets me get away with being anyone but Hasan and Subira’s daughter. I’m surprised anyone ever let you get away with it. It just wasn’t fair, so I decided to correct it.”

“I never thought you were one to tease.” Livia continued to shake her head as I spoke. “But I can smell it on you, that mischievousness.”

“I can’t explain it. The moment I realized who you were, I couldn’t leave it.

” Part of it was properly petty of me, but it was satisfying as well.

A lot had changed about me in recent months.

I couldn’t put a finger on what was different about me, but I knew I had changed.

Being able to look at Livia and call her for what she was and be confident in getting onto her for trying to hide it was one of those small things that had changed.

“I hate that I like you,” she finally said, huffing hard enough to push her loose hair from her face, no matter how much sweat was trying to keep it stuck to her.

With a chuckle, I decided not to reply to that. It wasn’t the first time I had ever heard it nor the first person to say it to me.

It was another ten minutes before Hasan and Corissa appeared, using magic to open a door in the building we had just raided to arrive from the Tribunal.

“I still wish we could use that for the raids,” I said, making an annoyed face as I thought about how much easier things would be if we could.

“It was considered, but we still need someone here who our fae and witches know who can focus on opening a closed door. And then we need to get to the right door. Get the wrong one and?—”

“I know, Livia.” It had been talked about a lot. Instead, we used the closest werewolf packs, geared up, and drove the long way. We’d be leaving the same way after Hasan, Corissa, and the support team took all the witches into custody.

“Then stop wishing for things you can’t have. It never works out. It breeds resentment and foolishness.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, then lifted my left hand.

She narrowed her eyes as the engagement ring sparkled, me now wearing it more frequently than I ever had before.

When I was in front of the werewolves or anyone from the Tribunal who wasn’t family, I made sure to wear it on the appropriate finger.

I put it on a chain when I needed to enter my werecat form and left it with my clothing.

It was about image but also my personal pride.

“Except for that, I guess,” Livia corrected.

I dropped my hand, the point made.

“What are you two doing over here?” Hasan asked, coming toward us as Corissa directed her other werewolves to collect the witches captured.

Livia gave a fast, militaristic bow. Not a low one, but respectful of his position, even if she didn’t like him.

And she didn’t. There was no way she could hide that, and I wasn’t going to judge her for that. Livia had watched her parents spar politically with Hasan for years. She was part of the war as well. She was no young werewolf, older than not only me but also Davor and Niko.

“Just talking,” I answered. “Do you need something?”

He gestured for me to follow him, so I did. We walked away from everyone, heading back into the now cleared-out building. While the werewolves got the people, Hasan and I collected the records with Davor. We took all of it—every scrap of paper and every device.

My genius brother was already inside, his laptop open at one of the computers left inside.

“Anything interesting?” I asked, leaning over his shoulder.

“Don’t rush your brother,” Hasan said mildly, leaning on the wall in our view. “There are steps, Jacky.”

“She’s fine,” Davor said with a chuckle. “And not on this particular device so far.” With a shrug, he gestured to the others near him. “There’s plenty to keep checking.”

“You’re not supposed to be looking at data.

You’re looking to make sure all their fail-safes are disabled before we try to get all the data,” Hasan reminded us, not that Davor or I needed that reminder.

The first raid, I had messed up. It had been a stupid thing.

I had grabbed a laptop that one of the witches had been working on the moment the raid started.

When I tried to use it, it required biometrics, something most supernaturals refused to use at all.

It bricked the laptop, corrupting everything on the device and melting a lot of the internal hardware.

Davor and Dirk spent days trying to get the data. Nothing could be salvaged.

“And I’m doing that,” Davor promised before rolling his eyes with a smile between him and me.

Things had relaxed in the family in recent months.

With Heath’s ascension to the Tribunal, a lot had changed, but the newfound peace between Hasan and me was one of the best. It wasn’t perfect for everyone in the family, but it was a vast improvement.

That peace didn’t come from Heath joining the Tribunal, however.

It had come from the events that led Heath to fight Callahan for the spot.

In the silence, I thought of what really brought peace between Hasan and me.

There was a new, unspoken understanding between us.

We hadn’t spoken about much, but some things were certain even if they went unspoken.

He accepted Heath wholeheartedly now. I accepted that while he was flawed, he wasn’t evil, always acting out of love, even if misguided.

We both knew that we were scarred people, trying our best to continue healing, to learn and grow from our mistakes.

For now, it was enough.

Hasan reached out to me as I drew near him and touched something at my neck. It would have bothered me if I hadn’t known what he was doing. I was wearing something he recognized.

“I’m glad you’re still wearing this,” he murmured as he revealed the charm Subira had made me before going to Alaska.

“There’s a chance I could get hurt on these raids, and it’s supposed to force me to Change to stop me from dying… Figured it was a good idea.” I shrugged.

He lingered, staring at the charm before he released it slowly, making sure it lay properly.

“Allow me to take it today. The magic needs to be refreshed. I can barely feel her from it now. I’ll have it back to you by tomorrow evening.”

I pulled off, knowing there was no more danger for me today that would require it over a hospital. He pocketed it quietly.

“Thanks,” I said before finding a spot on the closest wall to lean quietly while Davor worked.

“How are things going in here?” Heath asked as he joined us, wrapping an arm around my waist when he got close enough to get his hand on my hip. He kissed my cheek before anyone could reply.

“It’s going to take some time,” Davor answered, sighing. “They have a lot of technology. I need to make sure I don’t ruin anything, but there’s a cellphone for each of them, plus a few extras. Three laptops and two desktops. It’s just going to take time.”

“We can wait.” Heath never rushed once the raid was done. Everyone knew that, knowing he wanted everything done right, even if it took a bit longer.

“You should feel good about this. Fourth raid in four months,” Hasan said, not sounding as proud of Heath as I had, but not condescending or rude, either. There was respect in the words.

“I’ll feel good when we get to the location where they kept the werewolves and that werecat.

” Heath released me, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Four raids, all of them at supply locations. All of them working to mass-produce ingredients for the spells that have helped these witches do what they’ve been doing.

We’re crippling them, but it’s not exactly progress.

We know they’re going to rebuild their sources. ”

“Yeah, but momentarily crippling them is a victory because it buys us more time to find another vulnerable location. We’ve set a pace, and we’re challenging them to match it. They’ll be more prone to mistakes than we are.” Hasan sounded like Jabari for a moment, more general than politician.

“I know and agree with the logic. It is still frustrating not to find any of our moon cursed,” Heath said.

“It is,” Hasan agreed, nodding his head.

“Well, with what Davor is doing, we should eventually have the information we need to track down their other locations,” I pointed out, hoping to lift the mood. We’d done another successful raid on the witches.

“They talk about their orders and work in codes, and the more data we have on those codes, the more likely we are to discover who is who and where they all are,” Davor said, nodding. “Just keep collecting these data points for me.”

“It’s a shame our interrogations haven’t worked out.”

“It’s smart of our enemies to pay their people handsomely and tell them nothing,” Hasan said, not showing his frustration, but we could smell it.

I could only nod. None of the dozen witches we arrested today were going to have any pertinent information.

They used the codes without knowing the truth behind them.

If one of their clients was called Red, they only knew the name Red.

They had no idea who the real person was.

They didn’t know where other groups were, either, since each of these ground-level resource buildings was coded as well, giving nothing away to outsiders or even others in the organization.

It made for a difficult task to even find what we already had, using every shred of knowledge we had to track down even the general areas of these locations.

Then we had a small team try to find the witches in the area.

Heath, Corissa, and Hasan coordinated with the werewolves on that team until enough information was gathered to do the raid.

Heath was a part of every raid, leading from the front, which meant that was also when I finally joined.

He and I promised to fight together after everything that had happened.

Neither wanted to get the phone call that something terrible had happened.

If misfortune was going to come for us, we were going to be together to face it and dive in headfirst for not just each other, but for every moon cursed who needed us to do it.

Silence descended on us until Davor was finally ready to move everything to a secure location.

Without words, we helped him pack and move everything he brought and all the devices that we confiscated.

We helped Davor and Hasan take it into the Tribunal offices that Davor was working in, then met the raiding team back outside.

“Time to head home, everyone,” Heath called out, making werewolves snap to action, jumping into the fleet of SUVs we borrowed for the raid.

All our gear was already loaded and ready for the drive back to the local werewolf pack.

We were in the Rocky Mountain range, the closest pack being in Denver.

It was a solid two-hour drive we had to get through.

“Home sounds nice,” I said, smiling as I took Heath’s hand.