Dirty Dealers Read online

  Dirty Dealers

  Tia Louise

  Contents

  Dirty Dealers

  Series Books

  1. An Assignment

  2. Resignation

  3. Reasons

  4. Learning

  5. Floodgates

  6. Closer

  7. The Truth

  8. Reality

  9. Reminder

  10. Debts

  11. Failure

  12. The Whole Truth

  13. Confrontation

  14. Struggles

  15. Dirty Hands

  16. Bait

  17. Leaving

  18. Watching

  19. Explanations

  20. The First Move

  21. A Plan

  22. Heartbreak

  23. Discovery

  24. Strength

  25. Searching

  26. Execution

  27. Recovery

  28. Nothing But the Truth

  Epilogue: After

  Your opinion counts!

  Extra! Extra!

  The Prince & The Player

  Books by Tia Louise

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dirty Dealers

  DIRTY * SEXY * DEADLY

  * * *

  My job is to protect.

  I’m the best, the king’s elite.

  She’s the only thing strong enough to make me look away.

  Logan Hunt is a guard. He’s constantly aware of his surroundings; he knows every angle. He’ll take a bullet.

  His new assignment is to protect the queen regent, keep his eyes on her at all times. He’s more than up to the task…

  Until a face from his past returns, and the one mission he’s sworn to complete becomes his biggest liability.

  * * *

  DIRTY DEALERS is an all-new stand-alone CONTEMPORARY ROMANTIC SUSPENSE in the “Tales of Monagasco.” It features secrets, lies, double-crosses, angst, a touch of darkness, and panty-melting sexytimes.

  * * *

  Never miss a new release!

  * * *

  Sign up for my New Release newsletter and get a FREE Tia Louise Story Bundle, including a

  subscriber-only Bonus Scene from One to Love!

  * * *

  Sign up now! (link)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Dirty Dealers

  Copyright © TLM Productions LLC, 2017

  www.AuthorTiaLouise.com

  * * *

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Cover design by Hang Le

  Photography by Sara Eirew Photographer

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, photocopying, mechanical, or otherwise—without prior permission of the publisher and author.

  Created with Vellum

  BOOKS BY TIA LOUISE

  * * *

  THE DIRTY PLAYERS DUET

  The Prince & The Player (Book 1), 2016

  A Player for a Princess (Book 2), 2016

  * * *

  Dirty Dealers, 2017

  Dirty Thief, coming Spring 2017!

  * * *

  THE ONE TO HOLD SERIES

  One to Hold, One to Protect, One to Save (Derek & Melissa)

  * * *

  One to Keep (Patrick & Elaine)

  One to Love (Kenny & Slayde)

  One to Leave, One to Take (Stuart & Mariska)

  One to Chase (Marcus & Amy)

  * * *

  PARANORMAL ROMANCES

  One Immortal (Derek & Melissa)

  One Insatiable (Koa “Stitch” & Mercy)

  * * *

  Descriptions, teasers, excerpts and more are on my website (link)!

  Never miss a new release!

  * * *

  Sign up for my New Release newsletter and get a FREE Tia Louise Story Bundle, including a

  subscriber-only Bonus Scene from One to Love!

  * * *

  Sign up now! (link)

  For those who like a little darkness with their light.

  An Assignment

  Kass

  The sound of rain.

  Metal scraping.

  Fast breathing; accelerated heartbeat…

  “It’s empty.” Blix’s voice is cold, and my nerves fly to red-alert.

  We’re in a warehouse where dim lighting casts black-and-blue shadows, and the smell of rain grows stronger.

  Petrichor, the scent of rain on dry earth.

  Lunging forward, I reach inside, frantically feeling around, raking my fingers through layers of what feels like crimped strips of paper. “I don’t understand.” My voice is a cracked whisper. My life is on the line.

  “You don’t understand,” he mocks.

  “No…”

  My shoulders try to shudder, but I take deep breaths, doing everything in my power to stay calm. Fear is a sign of weakness, and weakness is like fine wine to my cruel boss. If I beg, he’ll shut down, and then I’ll be lost.

  “Another job compromised. Even more of my money gone.”

  Control.

  “Last year I made you a million—”

  “And you lost it all in one night.”

  Calm.

  “He betrayed us both.”

  “You fell in love with him.”

  My stomach roils as I reject that accusation. I’ve only been in love one time in my life, and it wasn’t with some lowlife Miami drug dealer.

  “He was a dirty dealer,” I counter. “He made us believe we could trust him. We let him get too close, and he betrayed our trust.”

  “You let him get too close.” He hits the you hard. “Now you owe me even more. And you will pay. Make no mistake. Everybody who owes me pays.”

  Ice filters through my stomach. He takes a slow step away, turning his back to me. I hold my breath, listening to his heels click on the damp concrete. Raindrops begin a staccato thrumming on the roof. The rhythm grows faster, and the metallic smell of damp asphalt floods my nose. The pungent sting of tobacco cuts it as he lights a cigarette.

  A cloud of blue smoke surrounds me. “What am I going to do with you, Kass?”

  An ironic smile is in his words, and my throat closes. I’ve never been in the room when it happened, but I’ve heard what Blix does to people who disappoint him. I’ve cowered away from the noise of grown men screaming like girls, and I’ve smelled the noxious mix of vomit and urine as their bodies fight his torture. Certain sounds stay with you forever. The dull snap of Blix’s wire cutters as he removes his victim’s fingertips is one of them.

  My response is fast, breathless. “I know where he’s staying. I can take you to him.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” Another cold smile. “In your car?”

  Vile, evil, villain. The words appear in my mind like flashes on a touch screen. None of them are strong enough. A bead of sweat rolls down the center of my back, and it takes everything in my power to hold still as he steps closer, so close, I feel his warm breath on the tiny hairs at my temple.

  I fix my gaze straight ahead, mentally seeing his pale blonde hair, his flat white-blue eyes as I answer. “Call Taz. Tell him to go to Port Everglades. There’s a motel across the street, a Crown Inn.”

  He raises his hand, and I wince, bracing for the blow. Instead, I hear the grinding of his thumb over the metal wheel, and a burst of orange fire shoots from his lighter, straight up in front of my eye.

  “No
!” I jerk back, whimpering.

  It only makes him laugh. “He’d better be there.”

  I pray he is, although I know what it will mean when they find him.

  “Taz will bring him here, and we’ll have a short lesson on stealing from the boss.” He’s still beside me, exhaling cigarette smoke around my hunched shoulders, evaluating me.

  I have to turn this around. Clenching my jaw, I force the knot in my throat to relax. I force my shoulders down. “I don’t need that lesson,” I say in a low, steady voice. “You left me in charge because I’ve never let you down.”

  A sharp pinch on my upper arm makes me cry out in pain. “Never is a long time. Running this unit is a man’s job. They steal from you because you’re weak.”

  Swallowing, I control my voice. “I am not weak.”

  “He’s been slipping an empty box into every shipment for the past six months. I’ve got suppliers all over the Caribbean demanding blood. I’m about to give it to them.”

  I still focus straight ahead. I won’t let him see the fear in my eyes. “So you’ll kill Davis. Then what? Send them my head as a peace offering?”

  “Not your head…” The tip of a knife blade bites the top of my cheekbone. “But perhaps your blue eyes.”

  My will slips, and I shriek. “NO!” My hands fly up, cupping around my face.

  He only laughs again. The click of his heels echoes in the large warehouse as he walks away from me. The noise of the rain has quieted. “Apparently, I have to use my own eyes,” he mutters.

  “Or eyes you own,” I say still holding my face in my hands.

  “They’re worthless, but at least the color is nice.”

  I can’t stop shaking. Constant shudders rack my body. I hate being alone with him. I hate when he treats me this way. I hate the power he has over me—the power I gave him when I made that first deal so many years ago, all those years ago when I was desperate and had no other choice. That day I was so low, I hoped this job would kill me. I have so many regrets.

  Blix’s buzzing phone distracts him from his game of torture. “Blix.” The voice on the line is unintelligible, but I know it’s Taz, his sergeant at arms, his capo. “Yes… At the warehouse… Bring him here… I have everything I need.”

  He finishes the cigarette. Stomping it out, he moves quickly to the back of the warehouse, and I know he’s lost interest in me. I know the way his features are changing, and the dead focus entering his eyes as he prepares to deal with a traitor. He’s detaching from whatever human feeling is left in his black heart.

  Drawers and cabinet doors open and close, and he lifts out tools, dropping them each with a sharp Bang! on the metal countertop. I’m not going to die, at least night tonight, but dread still twists my stomach. I know what’s coming when Taz arrives with Davis.

  “So you’re back.” My voice is demure, not challenging. “Why?”

  When Blix left six months ago, I’d heard he was running from some government job gone wrong, and all I could hope was never to see him again. I was wrong. The worst ones never die.

  He doesn’t even look up. When he answers, he’s under the cabinet moving heavy objects. “I came for you.”

  His voice emerges just before the sharp Zee! of a power drill slices through the air. I flinch sharply both from his answer and the noise.

  “Me?” My eyebrows pull in a frown.

  I’ve been in Miami five years overseeing this arm of his drug smuggling operation. I tell myself I’m not as bad. I’m not a dealer, and I never even touch the merchandise. We’re not supposed to touch it. We receive shipments of poppy and opium from cargo ships out of Turkey. Then we ensure they get onto cargo ships headed to South America and the Caribbean. That’s it. No further involvement.

  Davis got greedy. He saw the rise in prescription drug addicts and thought he’d line his own pockets by stealing just a little here and there.

  Davis is a fool.

  I’m a bigger fool.

  When these guys go down, I’m going right along with them.

  “Since your eyes have failed me, I’m going to see if your body is still worth anything.”

  My stomach turns at the suggestion. “I don’t do that. I’ve never done that…”

  “Now you do.” He pushes past me, but I follow right behind.

  “You promised—”

  All at once he’s in my face again, seething with fury. “I promised not to take the boy. You promised to guard my lines. Which check are we going to cash?”

  My chest is tight with fear. My little brother Cameron isn’t as little as he was when I started working for Blix. Back then he was only sixteen, but now, at twenty-two, he’s old enough to be one of Blix’s foot soldiers. Men who are always one screw up away from a cruel and horrifying death. I won’t let that happen to him.

  “What do I have to do?” I’m quiet, resigned.

  He touches my cheek with the tip of his finger, tracing a line to my ear and into my hair. “So easy to control.” He twists a lock of my pale blonde hair around his finger. “So beautiful. Your assets are wasted here.”

  “It’s where I want to be.” Far from my past.

  “Too bad.” That flicker of gentleness is gone and I hear a car pulling up outside. “We’ll discuss your new assignment tomorrow.”

  Ice is back in my stomach. I don’t want to be here when the torture starts. I don’t want to hear it, but I don’t have a way to leave. Doors open and slam shut, and I hear Davis’s fast-talking pleading. Soon they’ll turn into high-pitched screams for mercy.

  He won’t find it.

  “I will say,” Blix pauses, giving me one last bit of his time. “It’s a job you might enjoy.”

  I will not. I don’t say the words out loud. I barely have time to think them before Davis’s voice enters the back room. He laughs nervously, trying to buy time.

  “Blix, it’s me! Your right hand. Your pal! I wouldn’t—AHH!” His voice breaks, and I know Taz has jerked his arms back, looping them behind his back and tying them with yellow, nylon rope, as per usual. “Blix! Wait!”

  He’s still pleading when the deafening Zee! of the power drill cuts through the night.

  Blix’s voice is loud, flat. “Thirteen suppliers across the Caribbean have been shorted in the last six months. They will each receive a piece of you as retribution, and to show I have zero tolerance for theft.”

  “It wasn’t theft!” Davis’s voice is hoarse as he tries to shout over the power drill. “I got you a better price here in town. In South Beach!”

  “I’m going to start by removing the kneecaps.”

  The noise of the drill goes louder. Taz’s meaty chuckle is cut off by Davis’s raving screams. I run for the back door, pushing through to the outside and sliding down the wall until my ass hits damp grass. My knees are bent, my face slick with tears, and I wrap both my arms over my head, trying to block out the screams.

  It’s not enough. It’s never enough to kill that sound. I can only pray one day the person screaming isn’t me.

  Resignation

  Logan

  The waters of Occitan are emerald blue and clear as crystal. I stand at the broad French doors on the balcony of the royal estate and look down on the small family I’ve been trusted to guard, mother and child.

  I’ve been with them for almost a year now, ever since Zelda Wilder ran away from Monagasco, leaving her younger sister Ava behind with the crown prince. A lot has changed since that day last spring when I was sent after her, to find her, to protect her and ultimately to bring her back.

  For starters, the crown prince is now the king, Ava is now his wife, making her the queen regent, and I’m in his office waiting to request a release from this assignment. My time is done, the threat is neutralized, and I need a change.

  I watch as Ava lifts her baby niece into the air, laughing and gently rocking her side to side. As queen regent, Ava is always refined and elegant, but when her sister visits, she becomes a completely different person—she
becomes more like Zee.

  Formal gowns and designer dresses are discarded in favor of bikinis and cut-offs, and the two spend every day here beside the ocean, running around the grounds barefooted.

  I confess, I like them better this way. It tugs at old memories I thought I’d put behind me long ago.

  The little girl squeals with delight, and Ava lowers her so their noses touch. Belle’s chubby hands grasp her aunt’s pretty face. She’s a sweet baby with a halo of pale blonde curls around her small face. She’s Zelda and Cal’s child, and she’s part of the reason I can no longer guard their family.

  I got too close. I let my feelings get involved, and now I can’t be around them without wanting things I can never have. It’s inappropriate and unprofessional, and it goes against everything I vowed to uphold when I entered the service.

  “It’s a beautiful day, Logan,” Rowan’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Why such an angry expression?”

  My brow immediately relaxes, and I turn away from the door, bowing to the king. “Your majesty,” I say.

  “I think we can be a little less formal, considering all we’ve been through.” He reaches out to give my hand a firm shake, patting my shoulder at the same time.

  The king and I are equally matched in height. We both have the dark hair and blue eyes of our country’s heritage. Our only noticeable difference is my muscle mass, which serves two purposes—it gives me a more intimidating appearance to potential attackers, and it relieves the tension of suppressing these feelings. The burn of pumping hundreds of pounds of steel takes the edge off the constant longing and regret.