understand why you have an AK-47 in your back pocket."

"In situations like these," Ace said in a rough voice, "it is best to be prepared."

One of her hands was planted on the wall above Mavis, and with the other, she tilted Mavis's chin.

"What's your game plan?" Mavis asked, more than a little breathlessly.

Ace liked the way Mavis looked up at her, eyes shadowed with long lashes. She trailed her fingertip over Mavis's jaw, and Mavis shuddered, arcing into her touch.

"To fuck you," Ace whispered darkly. "Right here. Right now."

Mavis's breathing turned uneven. "We're in an airport bathroom!"

One long, leisure graze against the underside of Mavis's breast. "I." The peak of Mavis's nipple hardened, and Ace caressed it through the layer of Mavis's shirt. "Don't." Mavis bit back a moan, and something vicious, hungry unfurled within Ace. "Care."

Between breaths, Mavis managed, "What if―someone―walks in―"

"Then they'll turn around."

"We can't―"

"How do you want to be fucked, Mavis?" Ace said, in a voice edged with desire. "What do you need?"

And Ace knew Mavis needed it―badly. She had just seen her daughter for what she thought was the last time. She was about to offer herself up to the Russian Mafia as a grieving mother. And in exchange, they'd do blyad knew what to her.

But Ace didn't care if it meant putting a bullet into her brother's head herself.

Mavis was determined to give herself up to the mob. And Ace was not going to let her go gently.

"Teach me self-defense," Mavis gasped into Ace's mouth.

"Like this?"

Ace pinned one of Mavis's hands above her head.

"Yes, I want to learn how to fight!"

"Hit me," Ace whispered.

"What?"

A soft, dark smile. "Try and hit me."

Mavis's eyes were wide, glossy and bright. Pure determination sparked in those liquid depths, and Ace gritted out a laugh at the fire she had first been drawn to. Red―if Mavis was a colour, it was red.

Mavis punched her.

Or she would have―if Ace hadn't lashed out her own hand, sealing Mavis's fist in hers.

"Puta! How are you so fucking fast?"

Ace released Mavis's hand. "Try again."

"Confident, aren't you, Blondie?" Mavis taunted. She struck again―probably hoping to surprise Ace.

This time, all Ace had to do was hold her wrist.

"How?" Mavis gasped.

"I was once a weapon for the Russian mob, remember?"

"Yeah, but I've made grown men cry with a flip-flop."

Against her will, Ace felt a smile sharpening the side of her mouth. "Then we are even."

Mavis tried hitting her again.

Now, Ace had easily trapped both of Mavis's hands.

"Are you ready?"

"For what?"

"Ask me."

"Just give me one more chance." Mavis's eyes glittered with promise. She licked her lips.

Ace restrained herself from fucking Mavis right then.

"Try again," Ace dared in a low, harsh voice.

Mavis raised herself onto her tiptoes. Ace saw it as her mouth twitched, hands fluttering. Blood was warming her brown skin, and Ace was beginning to realize she loved every beautiful, rosy shade of her wife.

Mavis balled up her fists. Drew her eyebrows together. Furious willpower danced in her dark eyes as she prepared to launch a punch.

Adorable, Ace thought.

When Mavis threw out her fist, all Ace had to do was knock it aside. My turn.

Ace stepped closer towards Mavis, tilting her head down so she could meet Mavis's eyes.

Then she slid her hand over Mavis's throat, like a necklace.

"This is how easy it would be for one of those mobsters out there to kill you," Ace whispered into her wife's ear. "All they'd have to do was squeeze." Keeping her touch gentle, Ace used her other hand to run her fingers through Mavis's curly, tangled hair.

"But―"

"If I thought teaching you self-defense right now would save your life in any way possible, I would. But nothing I do right now will stop those men out there."

"So what? I'm helpless?"

"Of course not," Ace said fiercely. "You have me."

"Could you really on take on five gentlemanly mobsters?"

All Ace had to do was raise a single eyebrow, and Mavis blushed. Yes, boginya indeed.

"So . . ." Mavis's breathing had turned uneven. Ace recognized that weakness, and she smiled. "It would really be this easy to kill me?"

Ace's hand was a light touch on Mavis's throat. "With the right pressure, yes."

"Is it wrong that I feel . . ." Mavis swallowed. "Incredibly turned on right now?"

The bathroom door opened.

Ace saw a woman in her forties with blonde hair and a furry cheetah print sweater pause mid-step.

The woman had hot-pink lipstick. Her mouth opened into an O. She started, "I―"

Ace lifted her eyes off Mavis, and it took every ounce of restraint in her body not to unsheathe her gun and shoot the woman. It was Mavis's silent warning―Don't you dare―that stopped her.

Instead, all Ace did was turn around.

She did not have to speak.

The woman's mouth opened, closed, and opened. "Okay, I'll just―"

She hurried back out of the bathroom.

"Did you see that?" Mavis hissed. "We can't―!"

Ace only smiled softly, lifting Mavis's dress up to her hips. "I want to taste you. No one is going to interrupt."

"I don't know how you're so certain―"

But at the first stroke of Ace's tongue, Mavis stopped arguing.

Ace loved these―what had she called them?―stretch marks. Soft, pinkened scars on her round hips. And the softness of Mavis's stomach, the half-moon curve . . . Ace worshipped her. And now, as Mavis's thighs trembled, Ace showed her just how much.

Mavis clutched her fingers through Ace's hair. From between her legs, Ace saw her head tilt back against the wall. Ace loved teasing out these shuddering, breathless moans from her.

"Ace," Mavis hissed, eyes closed. Her skirt pooled around her waist, her inner thighs wet with a gleam, she let out a guttural sound. "Ace. Mierda."

And when Ace made her come, there had never been a sweeter sound.

It was also right at that moment that the phone rang.

Ace pulled the black device out of her jacket. The contact name was THE BESTEST MOST DEADLIEST NINJA IN THE WORLD.

"Isla?" Ace said.

Mavis's eyes widened. She tugged down her skirt, blushing furiously, even though it was only a phone call and Isla couldn't actually see her.

"Hi, Ace!"

"What is it?"

"Can you come back to the country club? There's someone trying to kill me."

Mavis let out a startled choking sound. "Baby? Are you okay?"

"Um, well, it's just that there's this rude man with a gun pointed to my head. I really wish you had given me a weapon, Ace. It's not fair."

"Next time, you will have a weapon," Ace promised, the darker edge of her Russian accent leaking through.

"Baby, what does the man look like? Who is he? What'd he say?"

"Well, he said I'm an annoying little fucker for a kid."

Mavis was about to respond―probably with something hysterical―but Isla continued in a bold, cheerful voice.

"And he also said I'm the heir to the American Mafia, which sounds pretty cool."

Ace looked at Mavis. Her face had drained of colour.

Evan Powell, she mouthed to Ace.

It was all Ace needed.

"Isla, kiska, please pass the phone to this man."

"Sure, Ace. See you soon?"

"Yes. Very soon." It was clear that Isla had indeed passed the phone to the man who was holding her at gunpoint, because his jagged American accent slithered in her ears. "Who are you?"

"All I want," said the man, "is the kid."

"That's my daughter!" Mavis screeched.

Ace raised an eyebrow at Mavis, but into the phone, she said, "You are going to leave Isla Griffon unharmed."

"Can't do that. I got orders from the boss."

Ace asked, "Do you like children?"

Even Mavis seemed surprised by the question. She gave Ace a look as if to say, What the fuck?

The man seemed reluctant to admit, "They're alright."

Now, Ace smiled. She knew he couldn't see her, but she savoured this anyway. "What's your name?"

He sounded uncomfortable. "Rufus."

"Rufus, if a single hair on Isla Griffon's head is so much as touched, I will come for you. First, I will cut off whatever is between your legs, no matter how small that may be. Then I will cut off your hands, both of them, so you can never touch a gun again. Last, I will kill your entire family, including your goldfish. And only then, after you have witnessed the murder of everyone you love, I will slit your throat and watch you choke on your own blood."

"You're a sick bitch, you know that?"

"I have not even mentioned the part where I bathe in your blood to keep myself immortally beautiful. It is a Russian tradition."

Mavis's hand flew to her mouth. Stopping the laugh.

The man hung up the phone with a swear.

"The secret to beauty," Ace said, "is bathing in the blood of my enemies."

Mavis's mouth twitched. "You're joking, right?"

Ace strode to the bathroom door, honing in on her one task: Save Isla.

Mavis hurried after her. "Blondie, you are joking, aren't you?"

Outside of the bathroom, the lady with the cheetah-print sweater and the hot-pink lipstick was waiting. She leaned against the doorframe, hip jutting out, and trailed her hand seductively over her thigh.

"Here's my number, Blondie," she said in a throaty smoker's voice. "I'm open to anything you have to offer."

Mavis, right behind Ace, stopped in her tracks like a bull changing directions.

"Get your hands off my wife, you puta! That's my blonde bitch, not yours. Go fuck yourself and your mother!"

Ace lifted Mavis beneath her arms, calm as she began dragging her away.

The five gentlemanly mobsters, as Mavis had called them, no longer seemed so gentlemanly.

They had noticed the commotion, and single-minded, they narrowed in towards their direction. Ace recognized none of them, but then―Aleksi did always have a habit of disposing anyone he was in the mood to kill.

"Would you like to help?" Ace asked, keeping her voice blank.

Mavis stopped struggling. "With what?"

"I need you to cause a distraction."

Mavis raised an eyebrow. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

"Make it so big no one is able to keep their eyes off you. I need all focus in the room on one place."

"What will you do to the mobsters?"

Ace knew her expression was cold. "It does not matter."

"It's Evan," Mavis said breathlessly. "The guy who has Isla. I know it's Evan's doing. I . . ."

"This will not take long," Ace promised. "Once the Russians are off our trail, we will deal with who has Isla. But if we lead these men to her on our way back, it will only be a matter of time before she gets caught in the crossfire."

Mavis nodded. She was so fierce―Ace loved that.

Then, so quickly Ace barely had time to blink, Mavis pushed herself up onto her tiptoes and kissed Ace on the mouth.

When she pulled back, there was a faint smile on her lush, swollen lips. "Be careful, okay?"

Careful. Ace didn't have time to respond before Mavis dashed back in the direction of the cheetah-print woman.

Spanish swearing. It was all Ace heard before the five mobsters descended on her.

It was the perfect distraction―a catfight between Mavis and the cheetah-print lady―as Ace unleashed herself on the mobsters.

Even knowing about her, who she was, what she could do, how she had been raised, they still underestimated her.

They did not attack one by one. They surrounded her all at once. But it was easy for her to snap the first one's arm, cracking his elbow behind him. And it was even easier to shatter the second one's kneecap. But the third was different―an old man with a scar through one eye. He did not go down easily, but she hit him right between the legs.

The fourth and the fifth she took care of with relative quiet. They slumped down behind a flowerpot.

Now it was just her and the third man. He was rising on knobbly legs, his teeth bared, with one milky-white eye.

That scar. It struck her at that moment. She had heard of this old man before.

In bedtime stories, they called him the bogeyman.

"Nikolai Retkov?"

He was a wartime veteran, allegedly descended from Joseph Stalin. He was a weapon, a deadly one, and he had refused to work for even her father. If he was back in the Russian Mafia now, under her brother, this was worse than she had thought.

Nikolai's split into a manic grin. "The one and only."

As much as Ace wanted to know if she could measure against him―this villain of children's tales―there was no time. It was Isla's life in danger.

Nikolai Retkov did not see the tranquilizer dart coming. A bullet was too noticeable, and a dead body on an airport floor was even worse.

He crumpled to the ground silently, teeth still bared into a smile.

Ace held herself back from shivering. She had never been afraid of her enemies. It was not time to start now.

Once Mavis retreated from the catfight, her mouth dropped open. "You did all this yourself?"

"Yes. Time to go."

It took less than eleven minutes to reach their car in the parking lot. Ace did not waste a single second. Mavis buckled her seatbelt and Ace said quietly, "Hold on."

"Hold on to wh―"

Ace drove right over the sidewalk, cutting over the grassy hill, and launched the car into the freeway.

"Are you fucking crazy?" Mavis shouted. "Dios mio. My wife is a lunatic!"

Cars honked, but the noise faded to a hum in Ace's bones. This was what her father had called her killer mode. But now it was directed to saving Isla.

"Ace? What are you doing?"

Ace had slammed the car into a parking position sideways in front of Wal-Mart.

"It is important," was all Ace said. It took her twenty eight seconds to retrieve what she needed, and then she was back in the car.

"You made a quick stop for Froot-Loops?" Mavis said disbelievingly.

"Yes," Ace said. "It will be a long ride into the country once we have Isla."

"And . . . Froot-Loops were necessary?"

Ace's jaw hardened to steel. "Yes."

"Robin's country club is almost an hour away," Mavis said. "We'll never make it. Oh, God―Robin. I hadn't even thought of Robin. Do you think she's . . ."

Ace always expected the worst. But telling Mavis her long-time friend was dead would not help.

"The country club is not an hour away," Ace said, stepping harder on the gas.

"Ace, please!"

"I like hearing you beg my name," Ace said. "But now is not the time."

"Blondie, I'm going to strangle you!"

"I like hearing threats even more."

"Wait―Ace―turn around."

The shock and sheer, sudden terror in Mavis's voice brooked no room for hesitation in Ace's mind. She cut between the cars, forcing them to brake suddenly and swerve, and made a U-turn right on the highway.

"What did you see?"

Mavis's eyes were wide. "You didn't even question me before you did that."

"I trust you," Ace said roughly. "What did you see?"

"I saw Isla," Mavis said. "Banging on a car window. This is the direction to where I live, my―" Her voice caught. "My hometown. Evan's home, too. I told you―I knew they had her."

"We are going to get her back," Ace swore, slamming on the gas pedal. "Even if it means I kill have to kill everyone on this intersection."

"Ace, there's a name for that. Mass murder."

"Good. Which car was she in?"

"Um―a black Sudan."

"Is it that one?"

From the back of the black car, a rifle positioned itself. A single shot echoed across the freeway.

The windshield in front of Mavis and Ace cracked.

"Yeah," Mavis said. "I'm pretty sure it's that one."

And from the back of the car, Ace saw Isla's little face. Her palms were pressed flat against the glass, and her mouth was open―but her scream was soundless.

Blood splattered on the window.