Revenge Read online

  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  About the Authors

  Also by James Patterson

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part Two

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Part Three

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  For an Excerpt, turn the page. JUROR NO. 3

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  MURDER

  Former SAS soldier David Shelley was part of the most covert operations team in the special forces. Now settling down to civilian life in London, he has plans for a safer and more stable existence. But the shocking death of a young woman Shelley once helped protect puts those plans on hold.

  BETRAYAL

  The police rule the death a suicide but the grieving parents can’t accept their beloved Emma would take her own life. They need to find out what really happened, and they turn to their former bodyguard, Shelley, for help.

  REVENGE

  When they discover that Emma had fallen into a dark and seedy world of drugs and online pornography, the father demands retribution.

  But his desire for revenge will make enemies of people that even Shelley may not be able to protect them from, and take them into a war from which there may be no escape.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 375 million copies worldwide. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

  James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions, and Maximum Ride series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and has been the most borrowed author of adult fiction in UK libraries for the past eleven years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

  ANDREW HOLMES is the author of the acclaimed thrillers Sleb, Nobody Saw and Bloody Kids, as well as a previous Shelley adventure in collaboration with James Patterson, Hunted. He can be found on Twitter at @holmeswriter.

  Also by James Patterson

  STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

  The Thomas Berryman Number

  Hide and Seek

  Black Market

  The Midnight Club

  Sail (with Howard Roughan)

  Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro)

  Don’t Blink (with Howard Roughan)

  Postcard Killers (with Liza Marklund)

  Toys (with Neil McMahon)

  Now You See Her (with Michael Ledwidge)

  Kill Me If You Can (with Marshall Karp)

  Guilty Wives (with David Ellis)

  Zoo (with Michael Ledwidge)

  Second Honeymoon (with Howard Roughan)

  Mistress (with David Ellis)

  Invisible (with David Ellis)

  Truth or Die (with Howard Roughan)

  Murder House (with David Ellis)

  Woman of God (with Maxine Paetro)

  Humans, Bow Down (with Emily Raymond)

  The Black Book (with David Ellis)

  Murder Games (with Howard Roughan)

  The Store (with Richard DiLallo)

  Texas Ranger (with Andrew Bourelle)

  The President is Missing (with Bill Clinton)

  A list of more titles by James Patterson is printed at the back of this book

  For little Bertie, and all his kisses on the coloured squares.

  — A.H.

  PROLOGUE

  SHE LOCKED THE door, double-checked the gun was in place and took up position on the bed, drawing the laptop towards her, ready for her next customer.

  She sat with her legs folded beneath her, wearing an off-white vest top and short denim skirt. Her lips were dark crimson, cheeks thick with blusher. And as she regarded herself in the tiny communication window of the laptop – dispassionately, as though it were some other twenty-four-year-old staring back at her – she remembered a time when she wouldn’t have dreamed of slathering on the make-up. Not unless it was for a student fancy-dress party. Rocky Horror theme, tarts and vicars, something like that. Uh, gross, she’d have said. How obvious.

  But those days were history. She didn’t go to fancy-dress parties any more. Although she often invited men ‘to party’.

  Fixed to a tripod at the foot of her bed was the camera, its impassive eye trained on her, ready to take her image to screens in hotel rooms and upstairs studies and man caves; to laptops opened furtively in back rooms or maybe in the living room if the wife and kids were out, where she’d be appraised as though she were stock options, or a good deal on beef at the supermarket, or a bargain on Amazon. Yes. No. Dunno. Maybe.

  Again, it was a thought that should have disgusted her, and once upon a time it had. The thought of all those unseen eyes on her body. The mortal dread of being recognised. But not any more.

  The camera light turned green, which meant that somewhere out in the world of the Internet a man was looking at her right now, assessing her, sizing her up, deciding if she was worth it.

  Her laptop cursor blinked. In the office sat her supervisor, Jason. Right now he’d be peering at his own monitor through a cloud of weed smoke and wondering why she wasn’t typing, so she stitched on a smile for her audience and reached to the keyboard: Hi, I’m bored, want to play?

  They hardly ever wanted to play. Mostly they came here via triple-X pop-ups and knew that ‘play’ meant ‘pay’. All they wanted to do was ogle for a few seconds and then click off in search of free porn elsewhere.

  But sometimes they did want to play, and this was one of those times.

  What did you have in mind? came the reply.

  She smiled, licked her lips, and wrote, I can show you something you’ve never seen before.

  Hidden beneath the duvet, the gun dug into her thigh.

  Great, wrote the punter.

  There was a pause. Payment details were entered. Plenty baulked at this stage, but not this one. He was on the clock now.

  Get in! wrote Jason on the IM. He always did that. In a funny way, she was going to miss Jason.

  How about we lose the top? wrote the punter, emboldened, wanting to hurry things up, knowing the score. Most likely he was an old hand at cams. They were the worst, the regulars. Treated the girls like cattle, like slaves. No manners.

  She turned and dipped a shoulder, dropping a strap of her vest top. Trying to smile, she found she couldn’t. Instead her mind went elsewhere – to her parents, to whom she said a silent ‘sorry’; to the man in the hat from when she was little, her SAS man, her very own special forces, who’d protected her from the bad guys but couldn’t protect her now. Wishing she could have heard his voice one last time and told him what she knew.

  Why are you crying?

  She hadn’t even realised. But yes, a tear had slipped down her face.

  Babe, WTF? What’s up? wrote Jason, but she ignored him, writing to the punter instead.

  What’s your name? she typed.

  For a second or so she thought he might not respond, things getting a bit weird for him, maybe. But then it came back. Peter. That was probably a lie, but as one who’d been living under a false identity for so long she could hardly judge. Either way, it felt better knowing his name, alias or not.

  I’m sorry for what’s about to happen, Peter, she wrote.

  What’s about to happen? wrote Peter.

  It isn’t your fault, she typed.

  What isn’t? came the reply.

  This, she wrote. And she pulled the gun from under the duvet, using two hands as she put the barrel upside down into her mouth. She closed her eyes, and for a moment or so she paused in order to look for the courage inside, trying to find the strength to do what she needed to do.

  And she found that strength. She found it because she had no other option. Because she had no choice. She said something around the barrel of the gun, two final words, and then pulled the trigger.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  THE STREET IN Finsbury Park was much like any other residential London road: rows of terraced homes bunched up on either side, cars nudged into every available space, each house telling its own story. This one: home to a retired couple, well kept, tidy and house-proud, wheelie bins neatly arranged out front. This one: student digs, overgrown patch of yard out front, windows dirty, shabby curtains that never seemed to open. This one: stickers in the window, paper chains hanging off the frame, home to a noisy family of four.

  There was one particular house, however, where things weren’t quite so easily delineated. Neighbours knew that a family of Eastern Europeans lived there – Bulgarians? Russians? Nobody was sure – and that they had a lot of visitors. The woman always had a smile, and the husband – if that’s what he was, no formal introductions had been made – was a big chap, no stranger to the tattooist, and maybe not the sort you’d want to meet in a dark alley on a foggy night. But always perfectly pleasant if you saw him in the street.

  And that was it. If you passed and looked into the front room, often you’d see a much older man who whiled away the hours watching TV, and you’d probably think it was heart-warming that the older members of their family were being looked after in their dotage. Not like the British, who’re happy to let them rot in an old folks’ home.

  One of the regular visitors to the house was Sergei Vinitsky, now walking along the pavement, hunched up against the chill of the pre-dawn, his hands thrust into the pockets of the hooded parka he wore, feeling dog-tired.

  He opened the low gate and let himself into the yard. Raising his hand to knock, he noticed that he still had blood beneath his fingernails and he made a mental note to wash his hands thoroughly before he slept, which would, with any luck, be very soon indeed.

  He knocked at the front door – one, two, pause, one, two, pause, one, two. As he was knocking, he glanced into the front window of the house. Sure enough, sitting in his favourite chair in the front room was the man they called Grandfather, glued to an episode of some TV programme, cup of tea at hand. To look at him you’d never know that this particular old man had killed and killed again, and that his favoured method of execution was to remove body parts one by one, literally to cut his victims to death.

  The door was opened by Dmitry’s English wife, Karen. A welcoming smile dropped from her face like falling bricks as she closed the door behind Sergei and indicated for him to make his way along the hall.

  He remembered himself, stopped and called to Grandfather in the front room, ‘Hello, Ded,’ he said, Ded being the name reserved for those unrelated to Grandfather. Dmitry, his actual grandson, called him Dedushka. Karen too.

  At the sound of the greeting the old man turned his head in Sergei’s direction and grinned toothlessly, his beady eyes gleaming. He inclined his head in reply, then switched his attention back to the TV.

  ‘The Skinsman’, they called him. Just to say his name made men beg for mercy. But his ways were the old ways. Sergei and Dmitry were seeing to that.

  Venturing into the bowels of the home, Sergei was struck afresh by the marked contrast between the front of the house and what lay further inside. Leading off the hall was an adequately furnished kitchen with the full complement of washing machine, dishwasher, fridge and cooker, but otherwise all semblance of domestic normality was absent, the pretence so carefully projected for the benefit of neighbours and passers-by abandoned. There were no photographs on the wall, no lamps or light shades where a listening device might be concealed, ditto no carpet. Just a stretch of corridor – bare, as though awaiting refurbishment – which led to a door and the lair of the man who to the neighbours seemed a pleasant enough fellow.

  This was Dmitry Kraviz, and he spent the bulk of his days peering through spectacles at a mosaic of computer screens arranged above his desk.

  Sergei knocked, walked in and stood close to the door, just as Dmitry preferred. He had called ahead to warn his boss that he had news of some importance, but of course the information itself had to be delivered in person.

  ‘So, what do you have to tell me, Sergei?’ asked Dmitry. He swivelled in his seat in order to give his second in command his full attention. A gold tooth gleamed, but there was no malice in his smile, not like his grandfather.

  ‘There has been trouble, Dmitry, at one of our studios,’ explained Sergei, and he told Dmitry about the girl.

  When he had finished, Dmitry processed the news without comment or even apparent emotion, turning lazily in his chair, his eyes flicking over the screens. On one a young girl was removing her bra. Another showed men gambling in a dimly lit room. Another displayed a list of what Sergei took to be prices, but of what he couldn’t say, while yet another rested at a Google search screen. Who knew where Dmitry’s interests might take him? As head of the organisation’s London operation, Dmitry had excelled in numerous areas of business: drugs, pornography, prostitution, gambling, protection and trafficking among them. Having the family connection to the Skinsman had certainly done him no harm, but Dmitry had also earned a reputation as a thoughtful tactician in his own right. Ruthless, maybe, but never wilfully cruel. Again, not like his grandfather.

  ‘Is Karen aware?’ he said.

  ‘She didn’t mention it when I arrived.’

  ‘Is that so? I thought it was her job to look after the girls.’

  Sergei gave him a look that he hoped would convey at least two things. One, that Karen was not exactly conscientious when it came to those duti es. Two, that Sergei did not consider it his place to say so.

  Dmitry understood. ‘Stupid bitch,’ he said. ‘But you, Sergei. You have done well.’

  ‘Thank you, Dmitry,’ said Sergei. He recalled the clean-up operation with a barely restrained shudder: calming down Jason, trying not to spook the other girls, keeping a lid on the whole thing during a process that had gone on into the early hours of the morning until, finally, they had deposited the body in a hostel in Clapham then left via the fire exit, stepping over an unconscious junkie on their way out.

  Oh yes, it had been a very, very long night indeed.

  ‘Which one was she, the girl?’ asked Dmitry.

  Sergei gave a small half-shrug. ‘Her name was Faye. She was only with us for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘How did she come to us?’

  ‘From our street people.’

  ‘Good-looking?’

  Sergei kissed his fingers, Italian chef style.

  ‘Such a shame. I’ll have to refresh my memory.’ Dmitry indicated his screens. ‘But a junkie, though, yes?’

  Sergei nodded. ‘She owed us money. Our boys referred her to me and I put her to work.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Will you tell Grozny, Dmitry?’

  Dmitry thought a moment then asked, ‘It is all taken care of, yes? No comebacks?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  He considered. ‘Then there is no need to upset Alexander,’ he said.

  Moments later Sergei was excused, and on his way out he bid farewell to Karen and then to Grandfather, who returned his goodbye with a curt nod and a strange and malevolent smile.

  Briefly, Sergei wondered if there was anything more to that smile than an old man losing what few marbles he still had left. But then he decided he was way too tired to care.

  CHAPTER 2

  HE DIDN’T KNOW why, but that morning Shelley had been thinking about the guard in Iraq – specifically what Lucy had done to him.

  This particular guard had been posted in what they called an ‘interrogation suite’. It wasn’t a particularly accurate name for it, not unless you substituted the word ‘chamber’ for ‘suite’, and ‘torture’ for ‘interrogation’. And from the intel they’d been given they had known he wasn’t just an ordinary screw doing his duty – he enjoyed the work.