Page 25 of Angelic Vengeance

More silence. After everything that had happened, I was starting to sound like a goddamn sociopath.

“Do you remember what one of the targets said about you before he was shot?”

“Ángel de la Muerte.” I repeated his words.

She closed her file. “Pretty fitting, don’t you think,Angela?”

I clenched my jaw. No one ever addressed me by my middle name.

“He wasn’t wrong. You’re exactly what is sought after in federal agents.”

I gave her an unimpressed look, which she ignored.

“Young. Naturally skilled. No background,” – Something told me to keep my mouth shut about Natalia – “Merciless. Strong.” She said the last words with more force. “You’re a diamond that just needs polishing. Some important, powerful people were impressed with your performance. I got your foot in the door, despite you being under twenty-one or lacking military training.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “And you want me to do what? Join the C.I.A.? Just like that?”

“If you agree, you will enter mandatory training; minimum six months. You have no links to the outside world, so you will be declared dead on Government records. With your background in combat, you’ll complete the mandatory training in less than a year and officially become an agent in training for the U.S. Federal Government.”

Despite my best attempt to hide it, my interest peeked. It’s not like I had anything else going on in my life.Still, something felt off. This was too unrealistic; too good. “What about my life in New York?”

Ruiz let out a sardonic breath. “What life?”

She wasn’t wrong. What was I going to do back in New York? Probably end up homeless or dead.

“I understand your negative emotions in regard to the way I chose to introduce you to this life, but I hope you will come to understand it was necessary. I am offering you a new beginning. A fresh start to get it right this time.A second chance at life.”

When I didn’t respond, she simply walked up to me and untied my lower body from the bed. My earlier anger had simmered, now replaced by adrenaline.

“Read it.” Ruiz dropped some papers and a pen on the hospital bed. Before she walked out, she looked at me one more time over her shoulder. “You saved a lot of lives last week. There are more people out there who need you to fight for them.”

An hour later my signature was at the bottom of the contract.

CHAPTER 9

Present

THE GROUND SHOOK AND THE loud screeching of tracks filled my ears. The afternoon sun burned from above, but the bridge cast me in its cool shade. Stranded subway cabins that had fallen off broken railways, as overgrown nature surrounded them. Dead grass – filled with trash, broken bottles and used syringes – softly swayed from the summer breeze. The area was dystopian.

I was in the middle of nowhere, with no passers-by except for the occasional trains carrying foreign merchandise over the bridge.

Two cement walls, drenched in graffiti, stood to my far left and right. In the distance ahead of me, a deserted rusty car. Empty beer bottles balanced on its roof.

I pulled the .45 out of my waistband.

Pop.

Glass shattered.

Pop.

The air carried the echo.

Pop.

I barely felt the recoil of the gun, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t get to finish the rest of the targets.

A chill ran down my spine. The hair on the back of my neck raised. A twig cracked somewhere behind me.

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