Nemesis Unlimited [1] Sweet Revenge Read Online Free Page A

been so long since he’d had any choice at all, even deciding between two bad options was a luxury.
    “Don’t plod over your decision,” the woman said, cold as a knife between the ribs. “We’ll need enough time to get out before the warders arrive.”
    Jack stared at her. Such a pretty piece, but full of poison. He’d known women like her, except they didn’t have a gentry mort’s fine words and manners to disguise their ruthlessness.
    She stared back in challenge. Maybe it was on account of him not seeing a woman besides the prison laundresses for the past five years. Maybe he was a sick bastard who’d gotten even sicker during his incarceration. But something about the way this woman looked and spoke, with her unyielding spine and amber eyes, stirred him up.
    For fuck’s sake, she’s got a gun on me.
    “They’re here.” This from the blond toff, standing at the window. Voices from outside drifted up, the shouts of the warders as they roused the villagers.
    “The critical moment is upon us, Mr. Dalton,” the woman said. “Make your choice.”
    He stood, and noted with some satisfaction that the woman took a step back, putting more distance between them. “You’ve got a plan for getting out of this place?”
    She tipped her chin up. “We always have plans.”
    “Then we go.”
    The two men and the woman shared a glance, a silent exchange that made Jack edgy. At least none of them looked nervous at the idea of getting away from the warders. When people were panicked, they made bad decisions.
    Jack wasn’t panicked, just determined.
    The woman tucked her gun into a reticule as calmly as if she were stashing away a tin of comfits. “Do everything they tell you to,” she said to him.
    “If you wanted a dog,” he answered, “you should’ve gone to the wharf.”
    “And if you want to stay out of prison, you’ll do what you’re told.” She opened the door and walked out, her stride direct and purposeful. The warders’ voices barked on the ground floor. Jack recognized the sound of Warder Lynch. Likely the bastard was eager to do Jack some violence.
    The dark-haired gent shut and locked the door behind the woman, muting the sounds from below.
    “Where’s she going?” Jack demanded.
    “Eva is buying us time,” the darker man replied. “Which we’re losing by hazing about up here.”
    Jack wondered if buying time meant that the woman—Eva—might use that revolver of hers on the warders. Trading bullets with the screws would be dangerous and messy, and she’d already proven that while she was dangerous, she wasn’t messy. No, she was a tidy morsel, from the top of her pinned curls to the hem of her dress, with a lot of mettle in between.
    “How are we looking out there, Simon?” the dark-haired man asked the blond.
    “Damn warders are a bunch of low-pay amateurs,” Simon muttered. “They’ve got no one patrolling the perimeter.”
    “Let’s be grateful for a badly trained workforce.” The dark man reached for Jack, but pulled his hand away when Jack reared back.
    He didn’t want anyone touching him. Nobody did before he went to prison, and he hated it when the screws shoved him around on his way to chapel or to the rock yards. They wouldn’t touch him ever again.
    Turning from the darker gent, he saw the blond one, Simon, straddling the open window.
    “Going to assume you can climb down as well as up,” he said, then disappeared as he eased out the window. Jack had to admit that the toff moved as slick as any second-story man leaving a burglary.
    “That’s Simon, incidentally. I’m Marco.”
    “I don’t give a buggering damn.”
    “You ought, since we’re all that’s keeping your neck from being stretched.” After shouldering a pack, Marco waved him toward the window. “Now climb.”
    Jack bit back a mouthful of curses. For now, he had to play the puppet. When the time came, however, he’d cut the damn strings, and maybe some throats, too.
    After giving Marco a glare,