Revenge

By Brenda Gable

Kingston is an idyllic southern town. That is why Anna Marie and Diego Navarro settled there. Diego has a job with the local detective agency and Anna Marie teaches yoga at the civic center. They have established roots. They have friends. They are active members of the community. She’s pregnant. They’re happy for the first time in their crime riddled lives. However, their marriage was proceeded by a whirlwind courtship. They really don’t know anything about the other. She knows he engaged with the drug cartels, but she doesn’t know the depths about his involvement. He’s unaware of his wife’s prior career, that she was a spy for a top-secret agency. When hired international assassins come after them, they have to face facts. Their past has found them and they must devise a way to neutralize the threat. Added to the accumulation of live and dead assassins is Anna Marie’s ex-agent grandparents looking to alleviate boredom in their retirement. The steps taken by the Kingston Detective Agency to protect the Navarros from the police and the criminal element results in a quick action, high energy Kingston Tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenda Gable
• Release date: Aug 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215734858

Brenda Gable

An award-winning author, Brenda Gable is a graduate of North Carolina State University and the Air Force Institute of Technology. She is published in southern magazines and anthologies. The mother of two adult children, lover of an absentminded yet brilliant husband, and caregiver to a clowder of cats, one hyper dog, and a noble horse, she's a very happy woman. Brenda enjoys sports and daydreaming up "what if" scenarios while she attacks the weeds in her flower and vegetable gardens. Her twisted mind has produced a series of New Camelot tales. She hopes you enjoy reading them as much as she enjoyed creating them.

Book preview

A Kingston Tale

REVENGE

By

Brenda Gable

Book 10

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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ISBN: 9798396707573

Kingston Books in Publication

Vindication

Redemption

Retribution

Taming the Bull

On the Hoof

Broken Soldier

The Promise

Blizzard

Absolution

Revenge

Chapter 1

Dominique Maria Alvarez y Bedoya clenched her fists so tight, the acrylic nails bit into her palms. The words spoken by Miguel Ciprian that disappointed and infuriated her were too intolerable to bear. When her factotum’s black eyes flicked to her tight knuckles, she called upon her will power and with utmost control, forced her palms to lay flat on the glass and chrome office desk.

To buy time to regain her temper, she stood and straightened the designer jacket she wore. It was chic, yet let her audience know she was serious about running a business empire as was the upsweep to her black hair and the medium height heels she wore. No whore heels for the creamy skinned CEO of Bedoya Industries. Daily spa trips and a personal chef had kept the expansion of middle-age at bay. The whole package she presented was tasteful and bespoke of elitism along with power wrapped in feminism.

There was a hint of madness in the exposed whites of her eyes when her cultured Hispanic voice echoed what Miguel had reported after his trip to Mexico. The corpse of Javier Hernandez is not Sebastian’s?

No, madam. I bribed the morgue attendant and was personally able to look upon the dead man’s face. The man identified as Javier Hernandez is not Sebastian. He bears no resemblance to your husband and son. This man was a mongrel, a mix of Negron and Mestizo. He does not have the pure blood of the conquistadors in his veins. If you wish for conclusive proof, you can pay for a DNA test. But I regret to say, its not him.

Like his soul, Ciprian’s voice was dark, full of the evil he’d done and would do again for the Bedoya family. The grey-haired man had served her and the family faithfully, ever since Fernando had pulled him out of the despair of the barrios. As Fernando’s fixer, he’d never failed them. However, in her quest to find her husband’s bastard son, he’d been unable to deliver satisfactory results. She cast a sly glance at the indomitable figure and thought, Maybe he didn’t want to find Sebastian.

She shook off her paranoid suspicions and paced across the office marble floors. A prominent decorator had received an outrageous fee to eliminate all traces of her husband in this room. Her steps took her past a black leather-covered seating arrangement to a large picture window. She stared out onto the multistoried industrial buildings that were the genesis of the Bedoya empire. In those buildings, raw cotton was converted into cloth and then processed into wearing apparel and sold throughout South America.

She knew her need to destroy Sebastian was an unhealthy obsession, but he had to die. Not only had the boy been a witness to his mother’s murder, he also posed a serious threat to the legitimate Bedoya heir’s name and wealth.

However, that threat was old. Sebastian was in his thirties now, if he was still alive. He’d made no claim on the estate over the past years. A logical person would say, So, why should he now? Why bother yourself to erase a bastard?

Because she knew he was waiting out there. Waiting for the legitimate heir to take control. Waiting until the head of the empire was weak. Then he would strike and destroy the Bedoyas, one of the fourteen founding families of El Salvador.

And then there was the matter of the blackmailer. It had to be Sebastian, laughing at them, draining them of resources. Asking for just enough for the family business to teeter on the precipice of bankruptcy.

Her rage at Sebastian’s effrontery was so hot, she could barely tolerate Ciprian’s failure. She relished the power her anger gave her. It made her think clearly and take decisive action, actions others would be loathed to take. Upon her husband’s sudden heart attack that hospitalized him twenty years ago, she made the decision to eliminate the lingering threat to Bedoya Industries. It was decisive and fatal to Sebastian’s whore of a mother. Unfortunately, Sebastian escaped his imprisonment to disappear into the city slums of San Salvador.

Under the law, by-blows got equal shares of an estate. She was not going to stand for Sebastian being involved in the business Fernando Bedoya had built. Or worse, force the business into a liquidation so Sebastian could walk away with an obscene payoff.

She got control over her seething emotions long enough to say, So, Sebastian has shed his skin once again and eluded us.

Yes, madam. This corpse had no usable fingerprints with which to confirm his identity. All the officials had was the empty wallet with Javier Hernandez’s identification. Cash and credit cards had already been stolen. I did order a comparison search for dental records. It will take time to identify this man.

She spun on a Christian Louboutin heel and snarled, Does it matter? By the time any records surface, if they do, Sebastian will have changed his identification again.

Ciprian silently nodded his grey-leonine head in agreement. They both accepted that Sebastian over the years had become quite adept at evading their clutches. However, Fernando’s mistress had not been so fortunate. Too bad her husband’s bastard saw Ciprian put a bullet in Alondra Ramos’s head with Dominique gloating in the apartment living room.

In victory over her competition for Fernando’s love, Dominique had ripped off the ruby ring Fernando had given Alandra and placed it on her left ring finger to admire while Alandra’s head made a bloody mess on the floor.

Ciprian had subdued the screaming Sebastian with a blow to the head. Then the boy had been sold to a business that satisfied the perverted tastes of certain men. Children in those bordellos did not survive long. They’d thought that had been the last of Sebastian. However, the boy proved to be resourceful and escaped to disappear into the crowded barrios.

Twenty years had passed and Bedoya Industries had flourished under Dominique’s control. Sebastian was an occasional loose thread she attempted to find and cut with no success. Then two years ago, the blackmail started. They’d been on a futile search to stop the bleeding ever since.

Dominique’s voice quivered when she said, That sly bastard exchanged wallets with a victim again.

It’s a tactic that’s proven effective for Sebastian.

Dominique turned from the window and walked over to a chrome and glass buffet to pour a splash of whiskey into a Waterford tumbler. She downed it in one gulp. All her life she’d had to overcome disappointment. It had made her stronger. If only Enrique was half as clever as Fernando or Sebastian, she’d give him free rein over the business and she’d tour the world. But he wasn’t. Her son was another disappointment in a long string of them, including Fernando.

After she got her breath back from the assault of the whisky, she glowered at Ciprian. How did this stranger die?

Multiple gunshot wounds. He was in a drug cartel shootout with some of the locals.

Where! We’ll pick up the trail there. She slammed the crystal tumbler onto her desk. The retort rang out like a nail being hit home by a hammer.

He released an imperceptible sigh before saying, In a small southeastern town in the state of South Carolina. It’s called Kingston.

Dominique heard his sigh. She looked into her factotum’s face and realized he thought she’d made a serious tactical error when she’d had Sebastian’s mother killed. She could read it in his black eyes. Why do so? All powerful men had mistresses and bastards sequestered elsewhere. Fernando would have eventually grown tired of her and paid them to go away.

Because of her decision, the murder triggered a second fatal heart attack and Fernando died at hearing of Alandra’s death. Now, both she and Ciprian were in danger of a life in prison. Until Sebastian was truly dead, they’d continue to suffer from nightmares of him returning to El Salvador to get revenge for his mother and lay a claim to the Bedoya empire.

Dominique’s attention was snatched from the past and back to the threat at hand. You will send someone to investigate this town. If we’re lucky, Sebastian will feel secure in his new identity. Find the man that fits Sebastian’s age enhanced photo.

And then?

I will do what I should have done twenty years ago. I will not stop looking for Sebastian until I can walk up to his casket and put a knife in his heart.

Chapter 2

A week later, Sebastian Bedoya, aka Diego Navarro, aka Javier Hernandez, aka other aliases that were best not mentioned and better forgotten, sat in the middle of a leather covered couch between the only two friends he had. Ironically, Justin and Daniel were ex-government operatives. Funny how fate could take a hand and divert a criminal off his path and turn him into an upstanding community citizen.

He looked to his right at Justin McCloud sitting on the edge of the couch cushion. Once a Special Forces soldier and later a police officer, he was a large man born out of Celt and Native American lineage. Justin gripped a game controller with white knuckles, forcing his will through the zeroes and ones that comprised the electronic game programming. His bronze face had bushy brows that were clenched in concentration, making his teal colored eyes mere slits. His broad shoulders were tense with anticipation. His square jaw tightened in determination to reverse the course of battle. He jerked as he followed the action on the flat screen TV where the rest of his team’s avatars were soundly being thrashed by their teenaged opponents.

Justin had once tried to arrest Diego and send him to prison for drug smuggling and other nefarious crimes. Now, they were the best of friends, brothers from different mothers and fathers, along with the slender guy on his other side.

Daniel Lutz, Diego’s tech-savvy partner, held down the arm rest like a gargoyle on a castle wall. His slender frame was as tight as high tensile wire as he battled against a superior force; one more younger, nimble and experienced. Daniel had given up his position in the CIA to stay in Kingston with his wife Raisa and her son Mateo. Coming from diverse backgrounds, and united by a battle against the drug cartels, Diego, Daniel and Justin currently comprised the investigators of Kingston Detective Agency.

At the moment, Diego was the only one on his team resolved to his fate. The other two were determined to vanquish their challengers and for once, be undefeated. He allowed a slight smile of self-depreciation to curve the chevron mustache he affected. He knew what the outcome of the competition was going to be the moment they’d received the challenge after supper. Although he willingly agreed to the match, he’d rather be back at his home across the street and in bed making love to his wife.

He stretched his corded arms to get the kinks out of his neck from the constant manipulation of the toggles and buttons on the controller. Unlike his counterparts, he wore casual business attire—twill Dockers, cotton Oxford shirts, and leather loafers. Justin usually wore a lot of leather, giving him a don’t-mess-with-me vibe. He’d stripped down into a t-shirt and gym shorts for supper. Fair-headed and green-eyed Daniel, high octane in a can, was always in gym shorts, sandals and t-shirts whenever possible.

How would he have ever known that he, a past drug kingpin under another name in another town, would become best friends with two lawmen? Letting himself be vulnerable to these men had paid tremendous dividends in friendship, protection, and as a bonus, he’d gotten roots. Something he hadn’t had since he was a child.

The three owner/operators of Kingston Detective Agency, actually the only detective agency in town, had had an early night and were home in time to enjoy a hot family meal at Justin’s house. In fact, it was the commercial grade kitchen and its proprietress that was the cause of all their orbits coming together into a cohesive solar system. Clair McCloud and her kitchen was the sun the three men, their wives, and children orbited around.

Pooling their various talents, the men were the most successful skip tracers in the state. Really, bond busters were so predictable. They always went back to where they had their last meal or home to momma.

Justin was the brawn of the new agency operating out of the recently renovated carriage house on the adjacent lot of his wife’s two-story blue Victorian. The man possessed a large repertoire of martial arts and wasn’t adverse to knocking heads together. He also had an arcane ability to connect the dots and an ear for recognizing the language nuances of various Hispanic cultures.

Daniel was their computer guru. His training made him an information wizard as he worked magic with black boxes and keyboards, retrieving data from various data sites, legal and otherwise. He was a third generation Venezuelan whose family had migrated to America just before Maduro took over the country.

Diego was their manager. He interviewed, reassured, and calmed the clients as he extracted facts from them as would benefit the case. The plethora of illegal activity he’d engaged in before meeting Justin gave him a detailed and predictive insight into the criminal mind. Blessed with the handsome features of a Spanish grandee, he was the official face of the office, Justin the brawn, and Daniel the brains. They made a good team.

Between the coffee table and the widescreen TV, their three young nemeses sprawled in youthful, boneless abandonment making progress into destroying their opponents’ protective force fields. Justin’s daughter Scarlett, a local boy Raoul Rameriz, and Mateo Lutz, stepson of Daniel, had challenged them to a game of Battle for the Universe before the diner table was cleared.

Both young Hispanic males were thirteen and were sprouting up into young manhood, primarily because they were always underfoot looking for odd jobs and receiving nourishment from Clair’s kitchen in bonuses. Scarlett was twelve going on twenty-one. Justin was going to have a devil of a time keeping her under control as the blooming beauty edged closer to her teen years and maturity.

The kitchen was where the men’s wives were chatting as they cleaned up the evening meal, and from the jovial laughter, were putting away another bottle of wine. Hovering in the living room ceiling was an amorphous blob that was the ghostly spirit of Benedict Josiah Haltiwanger, a long ago prior owner of the house. Few people could see Benedict. Only those that had come close to death could.

Hence, the McClouds and Diego enjoyed the spirit’s witticisms and observations on the living. The others present took their word for Benedict’s existence, particularly since that word was substantiated by various other citizens in the town of Kingston that had claimed to skeptics to have seen Benedict at various times.

Phineas, the family’s black cat, had deemed the raucous noise emanating from the gathering in the living room too uncivil for his tastes and had departed to seek suitable night-time victims. Unusually large for a house cat, he had scimitars for teeth and claws. Those weapons of mass destruction had been employed when he helped save Clair from a violent gang banger during a shootout with the cartel. As fate would have it, the deceased man had been one of Diego’s past associates.

Diego let his attention stray to watch Scarlett relish Justin’s avatar’s imminent demise. Her tinkling laughter joined in with the boys’ shouts of exultation after each successful assault on the force fields. A few months ago, she was near to death from leukemia. Now, she was a healthy young female on the cusp of womanhood.

Cha-ching! Who’s your daddy? Shouted Mateo as he leapt up from the floor with the elasticity of youth and countered Justin’s preemptive strike He returned a lethal volley of plasma energy that depleted Justin’s energy reserves.

That’s what I’m talking about! Cried out Raoul as he snatched a high-powered laser from out of a crate and aimed it at Daniel’s avatar. Daniel’s figure, dressed in space-age attire, leapt behind a rock to avoid a fatal vaporization.

Benedict announced in stentorian tones laced with a British accent, I’ll alert the ladies that the game is almost over. Once the cloud vanished, Diego snorted. There was nothing fleeter than a gossiper with a good piece of information. A moment later, Diego heard tipsy laughter ensue from the kitchen.

The three male adults were professionally trained in tactics and strategy from various schools: Justin from the army, Daniel at Quantico, and Diego had learned on the streets from some of the best criminal minds in South America. Yet, out of weaponry and out of medical reboots, they were going down in flames by a bunch of kids if a miracle didn’t happen soon. Just as Scarlett’s rail gun’s crosshairs landed on his back for a lethal barrage, the doorbell rang.

To the cries of teenage outrage, Justin slammed the pause button, saving his avatar’s head from being blown off by Mateo and delaying a humiliating rout.

Benedict appeared to announce in sepulcher tones, I do believe the agency has another customer.

Justin rumbled back in a deep baritone, Why do you say that Benedict?

I sense misery and anger behind the front door.

Justin stood. Big, with a hatchet face that could stop a train, he towered over everyone else in the room. He shoved his hair over his shoulder. It was the color of jet and flowed from a widow’s peak and was secured in a braid that trailed down his broad back. As an undercover cop in Huntsville, he’d grown it and applied henna tattoos to infiltrate gang operations. It was Diego’s gang he’d infiltrated and in the process become a staunch friend. I’ll see what they want.

It was a few steps to the front door. When he opened it, a nervous Hispanic couple stood on the wooden