Taming the Knight’s Untouchable First Lady

Audrey’s POV I climbed out of the black van with an air of confidence, the vehicle that served as the Vixens’ getaway van. I slammed the door shut behind me, holding my cellphone in my left hand and the tool I would use to destroy my target’s property in my right—a baseball bat. A cutter was tucked inside my boot. This is my secret occupation. During the day, I am a café owner, the boss, the cashier, and a businesswoman. I lived a quiet and simple life, serving coffee and dealing with customers like any other ordinary woman but at night, I transformed into a fearless troublemaker who could destroy expensive cars and motorcycles without losing a wink of sleep. I was the leader of the Vixens, a group of women who had dark pasts because of the men they had once loved and trusted, whether boyfriends, biological fathers, or other male relatives. Our mission was to make abusive men pay for the pain they inflicted on women who had done nothing but love them and try to understand them. Instead of appreciating the women who stood by their sides, these men repaid their loyalty with betrayal and shameless behavior. They were never satisfied with what they had. No matter how much love and attention they received, they always went looking for someone else. Tonight, we had a target—Marcus Penton, a proven and certified cheater. Our client was Candace Miller, Marcus’s pregnant girlfriend. Despite the fact that she was carrying his child, the bastard still had the nerve to cheat on her with a stripper. I didn’t bother looking back at our getaway van. We had done this countless times before, and I was already used to it. Every time I swung my baseball bat at the vehicles of heartless men, I reminded myself that they deserved to be punished. It was only fair that karma came knocking on their doors as soon as possible. I walked straight toward the motorcycle parked along the side of the club, only a few meters away from the entrance. It stood among a row of motorcycles belonging to the bikers gathered there. The bike had a Ducati label, and from the way it looked, it was probably just a customized replica. Who could afford such an expensive motorcycle, anyway? I unlocked my cellphone and checked the information we had gathered during our investigation. After quickly scanning the screen, I raised my gaze toward the motorcycle. I examined the details carefully but quickly, keeping an eye on my surroundings to make sure nobody was watching me. I took a deep breath. My heart was beating faster than normal, but I wasn’t afraid. I had done this before, and I knew exactly what I was doing. My face was barely visible beneath my cap, and I was wearing a mask, too. Nobody could easily recognize me. After making sure there was nothing unusual around me, I raised the baseball bat with all my strength and began smashing the motorcycle. The sound of metal crashing against metal echoed through the parking area, but the music blasting inside the club was so loud that nobody could hear what was happening outside. With every swing of my bat, memories of my mother and my own life flashed through my mind. I remembered the women I had met who cried until they could barely think straight. I remembered Candace, who had been devastated after Marcus treated her like she meant nothing to him and most of all, I thought about the innocent baby growing inside her. “This is for you,” I muttered as I pictured their unborn child. Then I pulled the cutter from my boot and slashed through the motorcycle’s leather seat. I kept going until I was satisfied with the damage. By the time I finished, I was panting heavily. Sweat trickled down my forehead, and my hands were trembling slightly from the exertion. Still, I didn’t waste another second admiring my handiwork. I turned around immediately and headed back toward our van as if I hadn’t done anything wrong. The moment I opened the door, four pairs of eyes turned toward me. “Faster!” Bianca urged from the passenger seat. I barely had time to close the door and settle into the seat beside her before Chloe stepped on the gas. The van sped away so suddenly that I nearly lost my balance. I gripped the edge of my seat as we raced down the road, leaving the club behind us. Adrenaline rushed through my body while I watched the building grow smaller through the window. We had escaped safely. Nobody followed us, nobody chased after us, and nobody had seen my face beneath my cap and mask. “Nice work, Boss!” Bianca exclaimed with a grin as she handed me a bottle of cold water, “That was so clean. Our timing was perfect!” I took the bottle and drank greedily. My throat was incredibly dry. After several gulps, I leaned back against the seat and placed the baseball bat on the van’s floor. Sweat covered my forehead, and strands of hair clung to the back of my neck because of the heat trapped beneath my leather jacket. Despite my exhaustion, a strange sense of triumph filled my chest. What I had done wasn’t simply about destroying metal, leather, and plastic. To me, it was justice. It was a reminder to shameless men that they couldn’t simply step on women, betray them, and treat them like they were worthless just because they believed women were weak. Every smashed vehicle carried a message. You can hurt a woman, but you don’t get to walk away as if nothing happened. “I’m sure Marcus is going to cry blood when he sees his motorcycle looking like it was run over by a flying hammer,” Chloe laughed from the driver’s seat. She was busy maneuvering the van through the city’s dark streets, “Imagine pretending to be a serious family man while showing off a Ducati replica, all while your pregnant girlfriend is crying at home.” “He deserves it,” I replied coldly, wiping the sweat from my face with the back of my hand, “Men like him deserve to lose the things they’re so proud of.” Nobody argued with me. Why would they? Every woman inside that van had a story of her own, and none of those stories ended with a man treating her the way she deserved. A few minutes later, our van entered the rear section of Vixen’s Café. This was our kingdom. During the day, it was a clean, fragrant, and popular hangout for people who wanted to relax and enjoy a good cup of coffee. Customers came in to work, meet friends, or spend a quiet afternoon away from the chaos of the city. But when night fell, everything changed. The secret library on the second floor became the Vixens’ headquarters, where we planned and studied every act of revenge for a fair price. It was also where women who had been broken by pain and betrayal gathered to share their stories, find support, and reclaim the power they had lost. We didn’t force anyone to join us. Every woman had a choice, and every client had to understand exactly what she was paying for. Once the deal was settled, we carried out the mission. And tonight, we had supposedly completed another successful job. I climbed out of the van first, carrying my equipment with me. My four friends followed, laughing and chatting about how we would spend the full payment Candace had promised to transfer to the café’s bank account. Everyone was happy. Everyone felt safe and I felt the same way. With every vehicle I destroyed, I felt as though I were delivering justice to my mother all over again. Maybe that was the real reason I had never stopped doing this. No matter how many men we punished, no matter how many clients came to us, there was always a part of me that believed I could somehow make up for what had happened to her. I entered my office and placed the baseball bat beside my desk before removing the heavy leather jacket I had been wearing. Then I leaned against the edge of the desk and watched my friends begin opening cans of beer to celebrate. “Cheers to another victory for the Vixens tonight!” Bianca shouted, raising her beer into the air. The others joined her, laughing and clinking their cans together. I smiled faintly. Then I reached into my desk drawer and took out my cellphone. I intended to send Candace a message informing her that the mission was accomplished but the moment the screen lit up, it felt as though the entire world had stopped spinning. My body went rigid. I stared at the screen, my fingers trembling so violently that I nearly dropped the phone. What the hell?! I rubbed my eyes, hoping I had somehow misread the words displayed before me. Fifteen missed calls and from Candace Miller, and that wasn’t all. There were several text messages from her, all sent within the last thirty minutes, the exact period when I had been busy smashing the motorcycle outside the club. My eyes widened as I opened the messages. One after another, I read through them, my stomach twisting with every passing second. Then I reached her final text, and my entire body went cold. “Audrey, please tell me you haven’t started the mission yet! I just confirmed everything with Marcus’s sister. His entire story was fake! That motorcycle doesn’t belong to him! He’s only borrowing it from his buddy at the motorcycle club so he can show off to the stripper he’s with! His sister said it’s a real Ducati worth millions! Please, don’t touch it yet!” My jaw dropped. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The room suddenly felt as though all the air had been sucked out of it, and an invisible weight settled in my chest. I couldn’t lift my eyes from the screen and read the message again. The words kept repeating inside my head, each one striking me harder than the last. Slowly, I raised my gaze toward the baseball bat lying beside my desk. My fingers tightened around my cellphone as the horrible truth began to sink in. I had made a mistake, a very expensive mistake.