With Vengeance Read Online Free PDF Page A

Xanax
before getting out of the car.
    As she made her way up the flagstone walkway,
she resisted the urge to mess with her hair and adjust her outfit.
She wasn’t here to look pretty—never mind the fact that she’d gone
on a shopping trip to pick up new jeans and a cute top and spent
nearly an hour on her makeup. She was here to find out if she’d got
the job…and maybe even to jam with her favorite band.
    She froze in her tracks.
    “Fuck!” she hissed under her breath. She’d
left her guitar in the back of her car. Dashing back to it, she
prayed the band wasn’t watching her on the security cameras and
laughing.
    Quickly, she grabbed her Gibson and made her
way to the front door. She took a moment to admire the ornately
carved mahogany before ringing the bell. The beginning of some
classical tune chimed.
    Klement answered, still wearing the same
t-shirt and jeans from earlier. Now she felt silly for
changing.
    He didn’t seem to notice. “Come on in. We’re
in the kitchen.”
    She followed him across a vast expanse of
hardwood floors to a luxurious but messy kitchen. Pizza boxes,
dirty plates, and miscellaneous clutter covered virtually every
inch of granite counter surface. She even spotted a screwdriver
lying next to a bottle of ketchup. Obviously he didn’t have a
maid.
    Cliff and Roderick stood over the island
counter, eating like veteran bachelors.
    Cliff’s eyes swept over her. “Hey,
beautiful.”
    “Hey,” Kat answered a little
breathlessly.
    Roderick rolled his eyes and elbowed the
singer aside. “So, how’d you get the name Katana?”
    “My mom was a huge fan of the videogame,
Mortal Kombat.” And damn, how she’d gotten teased about it.
    “God, that makes me feel old.” Cliff’s eyes
narrowed. “You’re not a minor, are you?”
    “No, I’m twenty-three. Mom was only sixteen
when she had me.” Heaviness weighed down her heart with an
unreasonable guilt at being born. Her mom had just earned a full
scholarship to Juilliard before she got pregnant. Instead of
becoming a concert violinist, she ended up trapped with an abusive
pig. Because the guy was a cop, it took years—and three broken ribs
on Kat and a slipped disc on her mother from a chokehold—to escape
him. His buddies in blue finally couldn’t cover for him. He’d been
half the man Kat recognized as her true dad, her mom’s second
husband, who had introduced her to kindness, laughter, and music
before he died saving them from a house fire.
    Klement broke the awkward silence. “Rod
brought tacos, and there’s beer in the fridge.”
    Kat took a shaky breath and lifted her chin.
“I’m not going to be able to eat a damn thing until I know if I got
the job or not.”
    “If you didn’t, won’t that kill your
appetite?” Roderick inquired with a raised brow.
    Kat’s stomach plummeted.
    “Shut up,” Klement said and shook his head.
“Yes, you’re hired…for recording at least.”
    “We decided to keep you.” Cliff gave her
another flirtatious wink, looking devastatingly handsome, and Kat
would have been more affected by his hotness if she wasn’t
overwhelmed with mixed emotions: joy at the band’s accepting her to
join them in the studio, and worry that they still hadn’t
determined she was capable of performing with them onstage.
    “So, can you eat now?” Klement teased.
    She met his gaze, feeling more at ease. He
had such a kind smile. “Now I’m too happy to eat.” But she reached
for a taco anyway.
    Klement laughed, a kinda dorky giggle, though
it was pleasant with its unabashed merriment, and Kat couldn’t help
but laugh with him.
    After eating, Kat grabbed a beer from a
fridge full of mostly condiments. It was some fancy-schmancy
microbrew. Klement passed her a bottle opener, and she noticed that
he was drinking coffee. She blinked. If she had caffeine at this
hour, she’d be bouncing off the walls until three A.M.
    Roderick raised his beer in a toast. “Welcome
aboard, love.”
    Kat clinked her