An hour ago, Katie stepped off an Uber car in front of Jones’s mansion. She wore a tight leather jacket that completely stuck to her skin. Her high heels tapped on the ground. Her brunette hair was tied into a long ponytail. She held onto a black handbag.

If there was one word to describe her, it was sexy.

As the Uber left, she casually walked inside. The police have already left for the factory, leaving the mansion completely open.

Walking past occasional servants and maids, who looked at Katie suspiciously but did nothing to stop her, Katie made her way toward the house. Only then was she stopped by one of the two mercenaries left behind.

“Can I help you?” The man asked unsuspectingly. He has heard that the kidnapper was a woman, but deep down he didn't think much about it. How dangerous can a woman be? Sure, she killed four bodyguards, but those bodyguards were nothing compared to him and she probably had help. In the back of his mind, he didn't think the kidnapper would be crazy enough to walk right into the house of the kidnapped.

Guess he was wrong.

Katie tilted her head and smiled before pulling out a USP with a silencer on it and shot the mercenary in the chest.

“Depends on your definition of help.” She glanced at the corpse before walking deeper into the house. As she walked, she kept her gun right next to her thigh. All the servants and maids that came across her turned and fled after seeing her weapon. Katie knew her presence was probably noticed, but she kept the same pace nonetheless. It made her look badass.

Finally, turning around another corner, before she realized what happened, Katie felt herself being shot repeatedly in the chest. The power of the bullets pushed her back and smashed her against a wall.

“Aggressive. I like that.”

But the bullets didn't even delay her. Katie raised her gun and aimed at the mercenary.

The mercenary wasn’t a coward either. Instead of backing off, he pulled down the trigger to his weapon. Katie did a similar thing. Neither side dodged, and both intended on putting as many bullets into the other side as possible before getting shot.

Several seconds later, the mercenary collapsed with half a dozen bullets lodged in his body. Katie had twice that amount, but she was still standing. Fighting a war of attrition with someone with the ability to heal almost instantly was a foolish call.

Blood soaked the black leather, but it wasn’t a problem. If anything, the mixture of red and black made Katie seem hotter. She spent ten seconds to run her fingers across her wounds before proceeding with her task. She had to admit the transition was a difficult one.

Inside, Ms. Jones knew something was wrong when she heard the gunshots. The second mercenary hid her behind a sofa before taking on Katie. As the mercenary fell dead, the woman was defenseless.

“Hello there.” Katie smirked as she returned her weapon to her belt. Blood flowed down her body.

“You!” Ms. Jones immediately recognized that voice. Rage in her eyes, she charged forward without any thoughts of self-preservation. Katie smirked and punched her in the guts, knocking her over.

“You know, if you want to hire some mercenaries, hire more than two.” Katie looked around the room. After all the noise, if there were more guards in the mansion, they would’ve come over already. “Twenty bodyguards is a challenge. Two? Pfff. Boring.”

To her slight surprise, Ms. Jones smiled.

“You know what? I did have more men. Right now, these men are at the factory you hid my daughter in.” She said an address. “Your pal are probably dead, and any minute now my men will call me and tell me my daughter is safe. You...you are a dead woman walking. I have friends in high places that will make you regret that you were ever born.”

“Well, this dead woman is right in front of you, and she has enough bullets in her gun to make you reach a really uncomfortable death in a couple minutes.”

“Perhaps, but you’ll follow me to the graves soon after.” Ms. Jones responded without any fear. As long as her daughter was safe, she was willing to die with a smile.

“Speaking of graves.” Katie suddenly tapped her chin as if she remembered something. “I’m sure it will be fun for you, considering you won’t be alone down there.”

“What?” Ms. Jones suddenly felt her heart skip a beat. “What do you mean? Explain, for god’s sake!”

“Well,” Katie shrugged. “The thing is, when I left the factory, I knew the cops will find there. How? It’s complicated. Basically, I gave them a ton of leads. Point is, when I left the factory, I rigged it with explosives...”

“But you got my daughter out of there first, right? Right?”

Katie shrugged again.

“I got her out of the chains to make the police think I’ve got a conscious deep down, but did I get her out of the factory out of the blast radius of the explosion? Take a guess.”

“You bitch! Why? She was twelve! Why?” Ms. Jones screamed and leaped toward Katie, who knocked her over with another kick. This time, Ms. Jones refused to stay down. She got up again, but this time Katie put a bullet into her stomach. The woman screamed and collapsed.

Katie rested her pistol on Ms. Jones’s forehead.

“It’s been a nice talk, but I’m afraid all good things come to an end.”

She got closer and whispered into Ms. Jones’s ears.

“By the way, Adams sends her regards.”

Just before Katie pulled the trigger, a thousand things went through Ms. Jones’s head. Mrs. Adams sent this girl, but why? The entire time she was the girl’s target. Both the kidnapping of her daughter and the phone call made to provoke her were to keep her from thinking straight. She didn't know what the deal was with that group of mercenaries that the Adams sent to protect her, but she did know this Katie found a way to use the factory and Carly to distract the police so her real target would be open. When all the security was gone, Katie went for the killing blow.

It wasn’t a good plan. It wasn’t even a discreet one, but Katie cleverly used cruelty and madness to cover her true intentions. Whether it was executing the bodyguards without a sense of mercy or shooting Carly without batting an eye or severing a piece of flesh from Carly just to prove a point that was already understood, Katie did everything she could to piss Ms. Jones off. She knew how vulnerable Ms. Jones was when it came to her daughter, and she knew how to abuse it.

A gunshot rang out through the empty mansion. A woman collapsed with a bullet lodged in her forehead.

Katie returned the pistol back to her belt before picking up Ms. Jones’s phone. She unlocked the phone with the dead woman’s fingerprint and scrolled through the contact list to find one detective Kirsten. She knew Kirsten was the name of the detective she spared from that bar, and now the detective was chasing after her.

A game of cat and mouse. Awesome.

Now she just hoped Detective Kirsten wasn’t killed when the factory went up in flames. That would be a boring end to someone who Katie still wanted to play with for a while.

SWAT officers charged into the mansion. Kirsten was leading the charge. What she saw in the room made her heart accelerate.

Ms. Jones laid dead in the middle of the room, but she wasn’t the center of the attention.

Katie stood against a wall, facing the SWAT officers with her arms raised. Her bag and her weapons were placed on a counter six feet away from her. A small scalpel was on the ground, along with several bullet shells.

The SWAT wasn’t relieved. They have seen what happened to the mercenaries that got into that factory. Who knows what this heartless executioner has in mind this time?

“Katie?” Kirsten demanded.

Katie smirked. “That’s me. By the way, detective, I want to turn myself in.”

Kirsten couldn’t believe her ears.

“What?”

“I said I want to turn myself in. I surrender. I murdered that poor lady over there and her daughter and I am feeling guilty.” Katie wasn’t even bothering to make her talk believably as she had a giant smile on her face. “I need to be punished.” She winked at Kirsten.

“What the hell…” Kirsten felt her face turning red, not from the flirting, but from anger. How can someone not only be brutal enough to kill both an innocent woman and a child and then joke about it. Does she think it’s funny? She took out a pair of handcuffs and tossed it to Katie, who caught it.

“Cuff yourself.”

Kirsten didn't want to put any more officer at risk by sending one to put handcuffs on Katie. She could tell all the SWAT officers and guns didn't frighten her. Who knows what she will do?

“Gladly.” Katie put the cuffs on herself and made sure to make it as tight as physically possible. The metal constraints dug into her flesh. “There, happy now?”

Kirsten cursed under her breath before walking over to Katie and pushing her on her knees. Katie yelped softly as her knees hit the floor.

“Katie, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.”

Ten minutes later, Katie was transported back to the CPD in an armored SWAT vehicle. Six SWAT officers sat in the same car, fully armed and alert. Their weapons were trained on her at all times. There was no doubt if she made one wrong move, she would be riddled with bullets.

Katie just sat back and relaxed the entire way. The fact that all her wounds have healed made her a little bored, but glancing at the expression of the SWAT officers and sudden jerking forward and seeing them almost pull the trigger made the trip more entertaining.

Going into the Masonville Police Department, Kirsten and Leon brought Katie into an interrogation room. Katie sat down in one end of the table while the two sat down in the other.

“Who hired you?”

Kirsten openly demanded. After everything has happened, she realized Katie wasn’t just a random kidnapper out of passion or out of desire for money. The kidnapping was just a mean to an end. Katie’s real target was Ms. Jones.

But she still had some questions. For one thing, it would be much easier for the girl to sneak into Ms. Jones’s mansion and just kill her than go through all the trouble to kidnap her daughter. For another, she wanted to know who wanted Ms. Jones dead.

“Is it the Adams couple?” She pushed on.

“Wow wow wow.” Katie threw her hands up in her chair. “What makes you think someone hired me? Maybe I’m just doing this for fun…”

Kirsten suddenly snapped and slammed her fist on the table.

“Do you think this is funny? A girl is dead because of you! Twelve former Navy SEALs were killed! I have enough evidence to put you in an electric chair!”

Katie suddenly smiled. Her smile grew wider and wider, and eventually it turned into a laugh. Kirsten watched in fury as the brunette in front of her sent her laughter across the room.

“Actually, now that you have brought up the topic of electric chairs,” Katie finally stopped. “I’ll be very disappointed if you fail to put me in one.”

Suddenly, the door was opened, and four men in black suit walked in.

“Detective Kirsten,” One of them glanced at Kirsten and took out a badge. “FBI. We’re taking your prisoner from here.”

Kirsten didn't look at the badge. Instead, she snapped at Leon, who has been strangely silent ever since Katie was captured.

“What…”

“I’m sorry, detective.” Leon’s reply was colder than usual. “But the MPD is not built to deal with people like her. We are.”

“We have talked to your captain.” The leading man announced. “We are free to leave with her.”

Kirsten glanced at Katie again. The girl smiled before suddenly leaping forward and grabbing onto Kirsten’s collar. She whispered something into the detective’s ears before two of the men in black walked to behind her and pulled her back. They pulled out two sticks from their belts and jammed them into Katie’s leather-clad back. With a single click, the two sticks sent countless voltage of electricity into Katie’s body.

Katie screamed as her body twitches uncontrollably. A smell of burnt leather was in the air. The two men held the sticks for five straight seconds before backing off and dragging Katie out of the room.

Kirsten stood up in shock and anger, but Leon stopped her.

“Let us deal with her. You have seen what she’s capable of…”

“Let you deal with her?” Kirsten screamed. “Your people just electrocuted her!”

“It is a necessary step. According to our data, her body can recover from a shock like that in a couple hours. There will be no permanent damage, but she will be effectively contained for the moment.”

“That’s prisoner abuse…”

“That’s efficiency.”

Kirsten took a deep breath before looking Leon in the eyes.

“I barely had a full minute to chat with Katie. I didn't get to know anything about who she is or why she did what she did. How did your pal know we’ve got her this quickly?”

Leon sighed.

“You told him, didn't you?” Kristen pushed on. She was really getting mad. “And you didn't even think to talk to me about this? You said we are partners! We are working together!”

Leon was silent as he stopped up.

“I’m sorry, but it’s for the best...for everyone.”

With that being said, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving Kirsten in the interrogation room, alone and concerned.