Vivian Riley Chapter 16
Chapter 16
It had been about three months since I’d infiltrated Patrick Marshall Senior’s company and planted a virus that transferred everything onto an external hard drive; surveillance videos, phone conversations, e-mails, everything that happened with every bit of technology around the building and everything the phones of the employees picked up and automatically recorded onto my hard drives where ever they were.
I’d also planted a few bugs to make sure I could pick up everything. They were specially designed to simply record, so I’d had to walk by to download the data with my modified PDA, but it had been worth it. The bugs hadn’t been detected yet, and I’d overheard a few calls, I hadn’t been able to trace, with a man he called Malinowski. And they had been talking about the weekend. Malinowski had never mentioned coming to New York or joining Marshall or anything, but they’d spoken about an important person. My guess was that Malinowski would show up surprisingly proving my point. From all I’d heard, that guy could be Alexander! But maybe my imagination just tried to play a trick on me.
I just had to prepare for everything! I would go and check out yet another one of Marshall’s disgusting parties from the shadows, keeping an eye on the people there and if I happened to find someone interesting, I’d leave my cover and find out what I had to know. I missed Nate and that was something I had difficulties handling, I had no idea what to do with that. It distracted me from my task, from finding and destroying the organization and especially their leaders! How could I do that with my head in the clouds, dreaming of Nate?
Knowing how the organization worked, I chose the ventilation system as my way in, which worked quite well because I wasn’t very tall. For a while, I observed the party and Marshalls guests. I had to be certain about Oliwjer Malinowski, otherwise, I would compromise my cover for no reason and the entire work I’d put into my cover and finding Alexander would go to waste!
Luckily my suspicion proved to be correct, so I worked my way out of the metal pipes and quickly changed into my usual business attire instead of the functional catsuit. “You can’t go in there, Miss,” one of the bodyguards in front of the door said and blocked my way when I approached, “Turn around and leave!” “Excuse me? I organized the entire party for my boss and his most important partner and I can’t get in to check if everything’s all right?” I asked and flicked over the screen on the PDA to block all signals in the whole building. For a moment I looked at both men before my eyes returned to my display, “I’ll have to report you and hire someone else for all future events of Patrick Marshall Senior!” “Could you at least show me your ID, Miss?” he said quickly to soothe my temper and stop me from getting them fired.
So I did show him the fake ID I had used during my time in Marshall’s Company. The bodyguard nodded and gave it to the other to make sure I really was who I said. “I’m sorry, Miss Montgomery, we have to be extra careful with people coming here!” he said apologizing and smiled at me, he even went out of his way to open the door for me.
At first, nobody noticed me, it took them quite a while, and when they finally did notice me, the playlist played “Bang” by Gorky Park, accompanying my silenced gun and the way I fought my way through the room. As soon as the first guys had dropped, the others tried to fight me, tried to stop me from getting closer to Marshall and his VIP guest in the other room. Luckily the music was so loud that they wouldn't be able to hear any of the fighting. While the guys tried to fight, the girls remained in their drowsy state, probably on drugs and whatever they had brought.
“Gosh,” I mumbled euphorically, “I’ve been dying to do this again!” Swiftly I let the knife I had pulled out from under my dress, sliced another guys throat and looked around the place, this would be interesting! It was finally time to work again, not the work I had done in Marshall’s company, but my work, my area of expertise! And once all of this was over, I’d be able to see Nate again!
There were a few more coming at me now, I heard muffled voices, “She’s here!” and smiled. They’d been expecting me, well, some of them had! I picked up one of the guns they had tried to use, no point in wasting my own bullets, ducking from another shot and returned the fire. A quick glance over my shoulder, into the direction I’d come from, made me smile. My path was covered with blood and guts and corpses!
I took another breath and jumped from my shielded position, shooting two more guys as I elegantly swayed to the next door. It didn’t take much time or effort to get through the room, but on the other side, there were a bunch of assassin’s surrounding my target! When the door closed behind me, Alexander looked up in surprise, “Valeska!” “Who?” Marshall asked irritated and shook his head, “That’s my PA, Kathleen Montgomery!”
My heart seemed to have frozen, my entire body stood there, motionless. “Have you finally decided to join us here?” Marshall asked and looked at me with lust in his eyes, “If you want, you can have a go first, Oliwjer!” Alexander glared at him, for a moment I was glad he didn’t look at me like that and slammed his fist into Marshall’s gut. Coughing he went down and I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. “Did he put his filthy hands on you?” Alexander asked, ignoring the man by his feet and looked at me intensely. I couldn’t answer, so I just shook my head.
Slowly my brain adjusted to the situation, to the fact that I stood face to face with the man who had created and tortured me before I’d run away and I realized what I felt had to be fear. “Leave us alone for a few minutes!” he commanded without losing eye contact and the others left. My creator started laughing when the door opened behind me and he saw what had happened to the other party guests on my way in. “Nice work!” he chuckled and I glared at him now. “Why did you come here, Valeska?” he asked and sounded more pleased than annoyed or angry.
“I came to kill you! To end your doings!” I said angrily and put my gun back into my holster. “I wished you hadn’t…” he sounded sad as he nodded, his nod made me spin around just in time to dodge one of the assassins attempt to choke me. I did a quick backward cartwheel to get out of his reach and to fracture his muscled neck by kicking his chin really hard with my foot.
The others moved faster, keeping me busy, while Alexander leisurely sipped his whiskey, leaning against the bar. “Duck,” he said, not even really looking and I did, escaping another blow from his assassins. “Turn left,” he kept commenting the fight until my body moved with his voice, just like when I was a kid and he’d been training me.
With a cracking sound I broke the last assassin's neck, dropping him to the floor, I took a seat beside Alexander and stared at him, “Why did you coach me?” “Force of habit?” he suggested and looked at me, “You’ve improved, Valeska.” “Why do you keep calling me that?” I asked, enjoying the way the compliment made me feel. “Because it’s your name, we named you Valeska, after your grandmother.” “I have a grandmother?” I asked worried, wondering why he hadn’t killed me yet, wondering why I hadn’t killed him yet. “Yes, but she died a few years ago, she never even knew you were born. Your mother stayed with her for a while during her pregnancy but left before your birth because your babka wasn’t very nice anyway. She wanted to give you away after your birth. So your mother and I staged our death, disappearing from every paper in the universe and brought you up like the other kids in our facility!” his voice seemed distant. I wanted to take the chance and execute the man that led the organization when his words suddenly hit home.
“Hold on! You’re saying you’re my father?” unbelieving I stared at him, gun in my hand, ready to shoot him. “That’s right. First, we thought it was a huge mistake, that’s why she wanted to give you away as well, she couldn’t kill her baby. But when I held you in my arms…” he mumbled and pulled a photograph out of his shirt pocket, “Take it, think about it. Don’t think that we don’t love you, in our way, otherwise, you’d be dead since the day you ran away. But remember, if you still come after the organization, people will know who you are, the little runaway and they will come after you and that Brown kid! If he’s still alive that is!”
While he said that, Marshall stirred on the ground and Alexander, my father, shot him right between the eyes. I didn’t really care, but he knew about Nate! I ran out of the suite as fast as I could, jumping over the corpses and shooting the two bodyguards that had just found the massacre. I didn’t have the nerve to take a cab, so I ran all the way to the other side of New York.
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