Czytaj książkę: «The Lawmen: Bullets and Brawn»
This undercover agent can’t disguise his true desire!
Undercover DEA agent Marcos Costa is shocked to see Brenna Hartwell—his very first crush—cozying up to the brutal drug lord he’s about to bust! He hasn’t seen her since childhood, but he never imagined she’d turn to a life of crime. What the hunky agent doesn’t know is that Brenna’s working her own bust as a rookie cop undercover.
Brenna didn’t think she’d ever see Marcos again, especially not on her first undercover mission! She knows she has to keep her distance…but while she and Marcos play out their daring ruse, their youthful passion reignites. One wrong move could blow their covers. Can two loners used to self-reliance trust their lives—and hearts—to each other?
The Lawmen: Bullets and Brawn
“So you think you’re safe? Or do we need to run now?”
She gaped at him. “We?” She shook her head. “Even if I’m compromised, you didn’t vouch for me. Whatever happens to me, I won’t betray your cover. This is about me.”
“No, it’s not. We’re a team now, you and me.”
The idea flooded her with warmth, made her feel more secure and more afraid at the same time.
If this was just about her, she wouldn’t hesitate. It was worth the risk.
But it was no longer just about her. “I don’t think he’s going to say anything, but I can’t be positive.”
Marcos nodded, stepping a little closer. “Nothing in life is a guarantee, especially in undercover work.”
Her pulse picked up again at his nearness, her body wanting to lean into him. “What do you think we should do?”
“If you don’t think you’re compromised, we stay.”
If she stayed here much longer, she was definitely going to be compromised, but in a completely different way.
Secret Agent Surrender
Elizabeth Heiter
ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists and a little romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English literature. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. Visit Elizabeth at www.elizabethheiter.com.
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For Andrew—I couldn’t have imagined a
better real-life hero.
I love you!
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
Title Page
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
Extract
Copyright
Chapter One
“This is a bad idea,” Marcos Costa muttered as he drove the flashy convertible the DEA had provided him into the middle of Nowhere, Maryland. Or rather, up into the middle of nowhere. He could actually feel the altitude change as he revved the convertible up this unpaved road into the Appalachian Mountains.
“It was your idea,” his partner’s voice returned over the open cell-phone line.
“Doesn’t make it a good one,” Marcos joked. The truth was, it was a brilliant idea. So long as he lived through it.
The DEA had been trying to get an in with Carlton Wayne White for years, but the man was paranoid and slippery. Until now, they hadn’t even had an address for him.
That was, assuming the address Marcos was heading to now actually did turn out to be Carlton’s mansion and not an old coal mine where a drug lord could bury the body of an undercover agent whose cover was blown. Namely, his.
“According to the GPS, I’m close,” Marcos told his partner. “I’m going to hide the phone now. I’m only going to contact you on this again if I run into trouble.”
“Be careful.”
“Will do.” Marcos cut the call, hoping he sounded confident. Usually, he loved the thrill of an undercover meet. But this wasn’t their usual buy-bust situation, where he’d show up, flash a roll of money, then plan the meet to get the drugs and instead of doing a trade, pull his badge and his weapon. Today, he’d been invited into the home of a major heroin dealer. And if everything went like it was supposed to, he’d spend the entire weekend there, being wined and dined by Carlton.
Because right now, he wasn’t Marcos Costa, a rising star in the DEA’s ranks. He was Marco Costrales, major player in the drug world. Or, at least, aspiring major player in the drug world, with the kind of money that could buy a front-row seat in the game.
Pulling over, Marcos slid the car into Park and popped open a hidden compartment underneath the passenger seat. Ironically, the car had originally belonged to a dealer down in Florida, and the compartment had been used to hide drugs. Today, Marcos turned off his cell phone to save the battery and slipped it in there, hoping he wouldn’t need it again until he was safely out of the Appalachians.
This was way outside normal DEA protocol, but Carlton Wayne White was a big catch, and Marcos’s partner was a fifteen-year veteran with a reputation as a maverick who had some major pull. Somehow, he’d convinced their superiors to let them run the kind of op the agency hadn’t approved in decades. And the truth was, this was the sort of case Marcos had dreamed about when he’d joined the DEA.
“Let’s do this,” Marcos muttered, then started the car again. The dense foliage cleared for a minute, giving him an unobstructed view over the edge of the mountain. His breath caught at its beauty. He could see for miles, over peaks and valleys, the setting sun casting a pink-and-orange glow over everything. Carlton Wayne White didn’t deserve this kind of view.
Then it was gone again, and Marcos was surrounded by trees. The GPS told him to turn and he almost missed it, spotting a narrow dirt trail at the last second. He swung the wheel right, giving the convertible a little gas as the trail got steeper. It seemed to go on forever, until all of a sudden it leveled out, and there in front of him was an enormous modern home surrounded by an ugly, electrified fence.
Most of the people who lived up here were in that transitional spot between extreme poverty and being able to eke out a living to support themselves. They had a reputation for abhorring outsiders, but rumor had it that Carlton had spread a little cash around to earn loyalty. And from the way the DEA had been stonewalled at every attempt to get information on him, it seemed to have worked.
Marcos pulled up to the gate, rolled down his window and pressed the button on the intercom stationed there. He’d passed a major test to even be given this address, which told him that his instincts about the source he’d been cultivating for months had been worth every minute. “Hey, it’s Marco. Here to see Carlton. He’s expecting me.”
He played it like the wealthy, aspiring drug dealer they expected him to be, entitled and a little arrogant. His cover story was that he came from major family money—old organized crime money—and he was looking to branch out on his own. It was the sort of connection they all hoped Carlton would jump on.
There was no response over the intercom, but almost instantly the gates slid open, and Marcos drove inside. He watched them close behind him and tried to shake off the foreboding that washed over him. The sudden feeling that he was never going to drive out again.
Given the size of his operation, the DEA knew far too little about how Carlton worked, but they did know one thing. The man was a killer. He’d been brought up on charges for it more than once, but each time, the witnesses mysteriously disappeared before he could go to trial.
“You’ve got this,” Marcos told himself as he pulled to a stop and climbed out of the convertible.
He was met by his unwitting source, Jesse White. The man was Carlton’s nephew. Jesse’s parents had died when he was seventeen and Carlton had taken him in, provided him with a home and pulled him right into the family business. Unlike Carlton, Jesse had a conscience. But he was desperate to prove himself to the uncle who’d given him a home when no one else would. Marcos had spotted it when he’d been poring over documents on all the known players. He’d purposely run into Jesse at a pool bar and slowly built that friendship until he could make his approach.
“Hey, man,” Jesse greeted him now. The twenty-four-year-old shifted his weight back and forth, his hands twitching. He was tall and thin, and usually composed. Today, he looked ready to jump at the slightest noise.
Please don’t get cold feet, Marcos willed him. Jesse didn’t know Marcos’s true identity, but that didn’t matter. If things went bad and his uncle found out Jesse had brought an undercover agent to his house, being a blood relative wouldn’t save the kid.
Marcos tried not to feel guilty about the fact that when this was all over, if things went his way, Jesse would be going to jail, too. Because Marcos also saw something in Jesse that reminded him of himself. He knew what it was like to have no one in the world to rely on, and he knew exactly how powerful the loyalty could be when someone filled that void. In Jesse’s case, the person who’d filled it happened to be a deadly criminal.
Marcos had gotten lucky. After spending his entire life in foster care, being shipped from one home to the next and never feeling like he belonged, he’d finally hit the jackpot. In one of those foster homes, he’d met two boys who’d become his chosen brothers. He wasn’t sure where he would have wound up without them, but he knew his path could have ended up like Jesse’s.
Shaking off the memory, Marcos replied, “How’s it going?” He gave Jesse their standard greeting—clasped hands, chest bump.
“Good, good,” Jesse said, his gaze darting everywhere. “Come on in and meet my uncle.”
For a second, Marcos’s instinct was to turn and run, but he ignored it and followed Jesse into the mansion. They walked through a long entryway filled with marble and crystal, where they were greeted by a pair of muscle-bound men wearing all-black cargo pants and T-shirts, with illegally modified AK-47s slung over their backs.
One of them frisked Marcos, holding up the pistol he’d tucked in his waistband with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey, man, I don’t go anywhere without it,” Marcos said. A real aspiring dealer with mob connections wouldn’t come to this meet without a weapon.
The man nodded, like he’d expected it, and shoved the weapon into his own waistband. “You’ll get it back when you leave.”
Marcos scowled, acting like he was going to argue, then shrugged as if he’d decided to let it go. The reality was that so far, things were going as expected. Still, he felt tense and uneasy.
Then Jesse led him down a maze of hallways probably meant to confuse anyone who didn’t know the place well. Finally, the hallway opened into a wide room with a soaring ceiling, filled with modern furniture, artwork and antiques, some of which Marcos could tell with a brief glance had been illegally obtained.
From the opposite hallway, a man Marcos recognized from his case files appeared. Carlton Wayne White was massive, at nearly six-and-a-half-feet tall, with the build of a wrestler. His style was flamboyant, and today he wore an all-white suit, his white-blond hair touching his shoulders. But Marcos knew not to let Carlton’s quirks distract him from the fact that the drug dealer was savvy and had a bad temper.
“Marco Costrales,” Carlton greeted him, appraising him for a drawn-out moment before he crossed the distance between them and shook Marcos’s hand.
Marcos wasn’t small—he was five-nine—and made regular use of his gym membership, because he needed to be able to throw armed criminals to the ground and hold them down while he cuffed them. But this guy’s gigantic paw made Marcos feel like a child.
“Welcome,” Carlton said, his voice a low baritone. “My nephew tells me you’re in the market for a business arrangement.”
“That’s right. I’m looking—”
“No business yet,” Carlton cut him off. “This weekend, we get to know one another. Make sure we’re on the same page. Things go well, and I’ll set you up. Things go poorly?” He shrugged, dropping into a chair and draping his beefy arms over the edges. “You’ll never do business again.”
He gave a toothy smile, then gestured for Marcos to sit.
That same foreboding rushed over Marcos, stronger this time, like a tidal wave he could never fight. He could only pray the current wouldn’t pull him under. He tried to keep his face impassive as he settled onto the couch.
Then Carlton snapped his fingers, and three things happened simultaneously. Jesse sat gingerly on the other side of the couch, a tuxedo-clad man appeared with a tray bearing flutes of champagne and a woman strode into the room from the same direction Marcos had come.
Marcos turned to look at the woman, and he stopped breathing. He actually had to remind himself to start again as he stared at her.
She was petite, probably five-four, with a stylish shoulder-length bob and a killer red dress. She had golden brown skin and dark brown eyes that seemed to stare right inside a man, to his deepest secrets. And this particular woman knew his deepest secret. Because even though it wasn’t possible—it couldn’t be—he knew her.
“Meet Brenna Hartwell,” Carlton said, his voice bemused. “I can see you’re already smitten, Marco, but don’t get too attached. Brenna is off-limits.”
It was her. Marcos flashed back eighteen years. He’d been twelve when Brenna Hartwell had come to the foster home where he’d lived for five years. The moment he’d seen her, he’d had a similar reaction: a sudden certainty that his life would never be the same. His very first crush. And it had been intense.
Too bad a few months later she’d set their house on fire, destroying it and separating him from the only brothers he’d ever known.
After all these years, he couldn’t believe he’d recognized her so instantly. He prayed that she wouldn’t recognize him, but as her eyes widened, he knew she had.
“Marcos?” she breathed.
And his worst nightmare came true. His cover was blown.
Chapter Two
Marcos Costa.
Brenna couldn’t stop herself from staring. Fact was, she might have been drooling a little.
What were the chances? She hadn’t seen him since she was eleven years old, a few short months after her whole world had been destroyed and she’d found herself dropped into a foster home. She’d still been reeling from her mother’s death, still been physically recovering herself from the car crash that had taken her only family away from her. She’d walked into that foster home, terrified and broken and alone. And the first person she’d seen had been Marcos.
Back then, he’d been twelve, kind of scrawny, with dimples that dominated his face. Even through her devastation, she’d been drawn to him. To this day, she couldn’t say quite what it was, except that she’d felt like her soul had recognized him. It sounded corny, even in her own head, but it was the best she’d ever been able to understand it.
Now, there was nothing scrawny about him. Next to Carlton, sure, anyone looked smaller, but this grown-up version of Marcos was probably average height. It was hard to tell with him sitting, but one thing she could see quite well was that he’d filled out. Arms that had once resembled twigs were now sculpted muscle, easily visible through his polo shirt.
And the dimples? They were still there, like the cherry on top of an ice-cream sundae. The man looked like a movie star, with his full, dark head of hair and blue-gray eyes that popped against his pale skin. And just like when she’d been eleven, she couldn’t stop staring into those eyes, feeling like she could happily keep doing it for hours.
“You two know each other?”
Brenna snapped out of her daze, realizing Carlton was glancing between them suspiciously as Marcos told her, “Marc-OH. My name is Marco.”
“Marco,” she repeated dumbly, still wondering what in the world he was doing here. Of all the ways she’d imagined running into him again, in the middle of the mountains at a drug lord’s lair certainly wasn’t one of them.
And if she didn’t get her act together fast, she was going to get both of them killed.
Brenna tried to clear the dazed expression from her face. “Sort of,” she answered Carlton, wishing her voice had come out as breezy as she’d intended, instead of breathless.
She glanced back at Marcos, praying whatever he was doing here, he’d leave before he could ruin things for her. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she wasn’t going to let it slip away, not even for the first boy who’d made her heart race and her palms sweat.
She strode through the enormous room, her too-high heels clicking against the marble floor, and then settled onto the chair next to Carlton. “I picked him up at a bar. When was it? A couple of years ago?” She shook her head, letting out a laugh, hoping Marcos would go along with her story.
She could have told them she’d known Marcos from the foster home. Carlton knew her history—at least the version of it she’d chosen to let him hear—and he definitely knew about her time at that foster home. But Marcos was using a fake name, and she didn’t know what his game was, but she didn’t want to contradict whatever story he’d given Carlton. Because no matter how much her heart hurt at the idea of the adult Marcos being a criminal, she held out hope that he was here for some other reason. And she definitely didn’t want to cause his death.
“Sorry for telling you my name was Crystal,” she said to Marcos.
Carlton guffawed and relaxed again. “Lucky man,” he told Marcos.
Marcos’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer before he looked back at Carlton. “Yeah, until she slipped out at dawn. But you never forget a face like that.” His eyes darted back to her for a split second, and then he accepted the glass of champagne the butler held out.
Brenna relaxed a tiny bit. She shook her head at the butler when he stopped in front of her and simply watched as Carlton, Jesse and Marcos toasted to a potential friendship.
Disappointment slumped her shoulders. She knew what a “potential friendship” toast meant. Marcos Costa was a drug dealer.
She should have recognized it instantly. There weren’t very many reasons someone would come out to Carlton Wayne White’s secret mansion. To even earn an invite, Marcos had to have some serious connections.
But Brenna couldn’t help herself. She looked at him now and she still saw the boy who had opened the door for her, taken her pathetic suitcase in one hand, and her hand in the other. That foster home hadn’t been anything close to a real second home to her, but she’d realized after being sent away a few months later that she’d gotten very, very lucky at that first introduction to life in the system. She’d gotten very, very lucky meeting Marcos.
She’d spent most of the rest of her life dreaming of him whenever things got tough, creating a fiction where she’d see him again and he’d sweep her off her feet. She knew it was ridiculous, but that didn’t matter. The dream of Marcos Costa had gotten her through the worst times in her life.
It made her sad to see that he’d grown up into someone who’d have a “potential friendship” with the likes of Carlton Wayne White. Of course, what must he think of her? She wondered suddenly if he’d ever suspected she’d set the fire eighteen years ago that had separated them.
Why would he? Brenna shook it off and tried to focus. She couldn’t let Marcos Costa—whatever his agenda—distract her.
She’d worked hard to get this invite to Carlton’s house. She’d spent weeks planning ways to catch his attention, then even more weeks testing those theories, until finally he’d taken the bait. But Carlton hadn’t gotten to where he was by being careless, or being easily distracted by a woman who wanted to trade assets. She knew he didn’t trust her yet. And there was only so far she was willing to go to earn that trust.
But she needed to get close to him, so she could dig up his secrets as thoroughly as she knew he’d tried to look into hers. Because the events of that day eighteen years ago, when the study had gone up in flames around her, still haunted her. And she suspected that Carlton Wayne White, whether he knew it or not, was connected to that day. And that meant he was connected to her. He just didn’t know it yet.
If everything went as planned, he wouldn’t know it until it was far too late.
* * *
THREE HOURS LATER, after a ridiculously heavy five-course meal filled with meaningless small talk, Brenna walked gingerly toward the room Carlton had put her in. Her feet were killing her. The shoes he’d bought her boasted a label she’d never be able to afford, but as good as they looked, they were far from comfortable. Give her tennis shoes over these heels any day of the week. But she’d never tell him that.
Carlton had bought her the dress, too, as well as a necklace that probably cost more than her car. So far, he seemed to be respecting her boundaries: she’d made it clear that she wasn’t interested in being anyone’s mistress. But she’d also dropped hints that she liked the sort of life her job with the state could never give her.
Slowly, over the course of a series of dinner meet-ups where she’d pretended to be naive enough to think he was interested in simple friendship, he’d dropped his own hints about what he could offer her. About what she might offer him in return.
And now here she was, at his mansion, far from help if he discovered her real intentions, being “interviewed” as clearly as Carlton was doing to Marcos.
Marcos. It had been hard to keep her eyes off him during dinner, a fact she was sure Carlton hadn’t missed. Even if Marcos hadn’t been her first childhood crush, he was exactly her type. Or at least, he would have been if he weren’t a drug dealer.
Besides his good looks, the man was charming and funny and interesting. Maybe a little more cocky and entitled than she’d have expected, but then again, never in a million years would she have pegged that he’d grow up and fall into crime.
He’d seemed so well-adjusted those few months she’d known him, doing well in his classes, having a clear bond with two older boys in the house, a brotherhood that went beyond blood. What had happened to him after that fire?
She knew he and his brothers had been torn apart. All six foster kids had been sent to different places. But that was all she knew; she’d thought about looking him up more than once over the years, but she’d never done it. Now, she almost wished she didn’t know the path he’d chosen.
Was it her fault? If she hadn’t walked into the study when she had, if that fire hadn’t started, would he have traveled a different path?
“Brenna.”
The soft voice behind her startled her, and Brenna stepped sideways on her stiletto. She would have fallen except a strong hand grabbed her waist. For a moment, her back was pressed against a ripped, masculine frame she didn’t have to see to instinctively recognize.
She regained her balance, her pulse unsteady as she spun and found Marcos standing inches away from her. This close, she should have seen some imperfection, but the only thing marring those too-handsome features was the furrow between his eyebrows. It sure looked like disappointment.
Her spine stiffened, and she took a small step backward. “Marcos, uh, Marco.” She glanced around, seeing no one, but that didn’t mean much. Carlton was notoriously paranoid. For all she knew, he had cameras inside his house as well as around the perimeter.
Marcos must have had the same thought, because his words were careful as he told her, “I never expected to see you again after that night. And now you’re with Carlton, huh?”
All through dinner, she could see Marcos trying to figure out her relationship with Carlton. The drug kingpin had seen it, too, because he’d made offhand comments that implied she was his, without being so obvious she’d be forced to correct him. But apparently, Marcos had bought it.
She flushed at the idea that he thought she was sleeping with a drug lord for jewelry and cars. But she also heated at the idea of keeping up the ruse that she’d spent a night in Marcos’s bed.
What would that be like? Her thoughts wandered, to the two of them, sweaty, limbs tangled on the huge bed in her room. She shook it off, but it must not have been fast enough, because when she focused on Marcos again, the look he was giving her told her he’d imagined it, too.
“Uh, no. Carlton and I aren’t dating, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it,” Marcos replied softly.
She scowled at him. “We have a business arrangement, and it’s not what you think, so stop looking at me like that. The fact is, my arrangement with him is probably not all that different from yours.”
Except it was. The ruse she was running with Carlton was about access, not drugs. If she really planned to go through with what she’d promised him, though, it was probably worse than dealing drugs.
His eyes narrowed on her, studying her with a too-keen gaze, and she tried not to squirm. He had the look of a lot of criminals who made it long enough to build an empire—or so she’d come to believe in her limited experience. Oddly, it was a similar probing look that cops used.
“So, Brenna, what do you do when you’re not hanging out in Carlton’s mansion, wearing spectacular dresses?” Marcos asked, shifting his weight like he was getting comfortable for a long chat.
The urge to fidget grew stronger. Lying didn’t come naturally to her, as much as she’d tried to convince her superiors that she could do it—that she could do this, come into a drug lord’s home and lie to him over an entire weekend, get him to give her insight and access. She’d actually felt pretty confident—well, a careful balance of confidence and determination—until Marcos had shown up. Now, she just felt off balance.
“I work for the foster care system.” She kept up the story she’d given Carlton. “I grew up in the system,” she added, even though he knew that. But it was more a reminder to herself: always act as though Carlton or one of his thugs was watching. “And I wanted to be on the other side of it, make some changes.”
Marcos tipped his head, his eyes narrowing, like he suspected she was lying, but he wasn’t sure about what.
She longed to tell him the whole truth, but that was beyond foolish, and one more sign that her boss was right. She wasn’t ready for undercover work, wasn’t ready for an assignment like this.
If she told Marcos the truth, she’d be dead by morning.
Still, she couldn’t help wondering what he’d say. The words lodged in her throat, and she held them there.
I’m a cop.
