by Skye Warren
ANTI HERO
“Thrilling, suspenseful, sexy as hell. Skye Warren can simply do no wrong.” – Book Bellas
Nate Gaines used to think he was fighting for freedom. Then his team died in a fiery betrayal and he realized corruption went all the way to the top. He was no hero. Not anymore.
Not working for the highest bidder. A mercenary.
And the girl he loved? She was better off without him.
Until she became a target. He’d protect her. He would kill for her. He just couldn’t let himself fall for her again. That wouldn't be safe, for either of them.
WARNING: Contains an inked military man, a plucky reporter on a mission, and explosive chemistry!
FOREWORD
I loved writing the sexy, swoonworthy Nate! I’m thrilled for you to meet him in Anti Hero. As a free bonus, On the Way Home is included for you to read once Anti Hero ends. That changes the percentages, but don’t worry – both Anti Hero and On the Way Home are full-length novels, so you’re not missing anything.
Anti Hero is action-packed, with plenty of explosive chemistry!
Enjoy the ride…
Chapter One
The ceiling fan turned above her, barely moving the hot summer air. Sweat dampened her nightgown, but she didn’t push the comforter off. Even the daylight touching her skin was too much. She wanted to be hidden, in the dark. That was how she’d been living for the past month.
Heavy footsteps came up the stairs, too heavy to be her grandmother. Diego.
She kept her gaze on the ceiling even when the door opened.
Silence. Then a sigh. The chair beside her bed creaked.
“Abuela says you aren’t eating,” Diego said.
Without looking she could envision her brother’s skin, darker than hers from hours spent outside smoking pot and drinking with his friends. His long lashes were too pretty for a boy. He got them from their mother. His cold gray eyes made up the difference. Those came from their father.
Tucked into his waistband would be the red bandanna that marked his gang’s color. Outside the house he wore it bigger, wrapped around his forehead or neck. Moving it down was supposed to make him more like her brother, but it didn’t work.
“Not hungry.”
“She’s making your favorite. Posole.”
She already knew that because the scent of spices filled the house. Maybe a month ago she would have been in the kitchen, writing in her journal at the dining room table while her mouth watered. Now her stomach felt like lead, still and solid. It didn’t want any food. And she didn’t want her brother.
“Go away.”
Another sigh. She glanced over and saw that he’d put his fingers together, his face turned sideways. She could study his hard features and wonder when he’d gotten that scar at his eyebrow. His face was so familiar to her, but different too.
His eyes squinted, and for a moment she thought he might actually mention it. The thing they didn’t talk about. The reason she was cooking herself beneath the covers. The moment he’d chosen his gang over his family. No, that wasn’t right. He’d chosen the gang over his family the moment he’d worn that red bandanna.
Instead he said, “Do you remember that flood?”
Back when they’d been living closer to the border, a flood had dropped millions of gallons of rain on the small south Texas town. Water had crawled up the sloped lawns, past the weeds and concrete saints. Then it crept inside the houses, turning the thin carpets to sludge. Higher and higher, until Sofia and her family had taken refuge on their patched roof, homemade quilts wrapped around them and the contents of their pantry in plastic bags beside them.
Most days Daddy had come back from the factory too exhausted, too angry to do anything but eat the plate Mama made for him and go to sleep. That was better than the days he came home drunk. Then his anger came out in shouts and fists.
The flood had transformed him, if only for a week.
As he looked at them huddled together with whatever they could carry, fear ripe in his eyes, he’d seemed to grow taller. A few houses down the neighbor had a small boat he set traps with. The engine had broken, but they used slats of broken fence as oars to scout the neighborhood, making sure everyone had gotten out, that they had fresh water and enough food to last until authorities could evacuate them.
They all had sunburns when they finally got in the boat to meet the helicopter that had landed a mile away.
Daddy’s hands had been ripped apart, bloodied, filled with splinters.
Sofia didn’t want to remember that, didn’t want to remember the time before the crash, when her parents were still alive. She didn’t want to remember huddling with her big brother, believing he’d keep her safe.
She didn’t want to remember anything.
But the fear she felt ripped through the numb veil that had protected her. There was something else there too. Pride. “The puppy.”
Diego made a rough sound. “The damned puppy. How did it even swim that long?”
She didn’t bother to shrug. The second day her father had spotted a puppy paddling through the window, fur slicked to his body, movements slow. They had guessed he managed to sit on some of the furniture for a while, so he hadn’t been swimming nonstop. But he didn’t know how to get out.
Afraid breaking the window would scare him away, or hurt him, their father had swam through the murky water to the back door, then through the house, past anchorless sofas and kitchen tables, soggy picture frames and broken glass, to pull the puppy out.
The puppy had come to stay on the roof with them for the next two days, living on cheese crackers and peanut butter. The newspapers had called her dad a hero.
“You should eat,” Diego said, glancing at her. She had hardly looked in the mirror. What would he see? Her split lip. Bruises. Bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep.
He looked back at his hands.
They were large hands, like her father’s. Not bloodied and splintered.
He hadn’t been a hero.
Chapter Two
Present day
Sofia hung up from another fruitless phone call, another dead end. She rubbed her eyes, so tired of hitting her head against the nearly impenetrable wall named Senator Stephen Moreland. His finances were tied up so tight she couldn’t even see a crack. Assuming there was anything to find.
She knew there was.
She’d been researching political finance since she started at the Daily two years ago. She had interned under a reporter who went to the Washington Post. And the number of secrets on this campaign was unprecedented.
He was dirty. She just had to prove it.
“That bad, huh?” Remy plopped down in her chair with a sympathetic expression. As a fellow reporter, she knew how much it sucked coming up empty.
Their desks faced each other, so when she wasn’t looking at her monitor, she saw Remy, who sported a new look every week. Today her sandy-blonde hair was tied in an intricate braid, with colorful strands of hemp sewn through. Her army-green raglan shirt read Department of Redundancy Department.
Sofia tossed her phone onto her cluttered desk. “That was the third aide who never knew Moreland owned property in Austin.”
“You think he’s telling the truth?”
She drummed her fingers on the desk. “Probably.”
The aide had asked her out for coffee twice, once when she’d cornered him at a taco stand and again on the call just now. If he’d had any information to give, he would have used it as bait. As desperate as she was, she probably would have taken it.
Moreland had disclosed his campaign finances by the book. At least some of his personal property was public knowledge—the private jet, the hotel in Boston. It was here in Texas, near the southern border of the country, that his interests go
t murkier.
There was more money, secret money, and she was determined to find it.
Sofia tapped her pen. “I need to find out what goes on during those trips. That’s where he’s vulnerable. I’m tempted to drive over there and look around.”
The frequent trips to Mexico under the guise of drug control or anti-trafficking reform were bizarre. What was he going to do, have a thoughtful conversation with drug lords and convince them to stop? There were no press ops of him shaking hands with leaders or smiling at children on these trips, either. Everything was hush-hush.
Remy frowned. “You know I love your determination, sweetheart. That’s what makes you a great reporter. Best one I know. But this guy…he’s dangerous.”
“This coming from the girl who meets her sources on the streets,” she said absently, her mind focused on the files Rick had uploaded. Budget cuts meant they’d lost most of their support staff, including the last archivist who loved to comb old newspapers.
Instead she had resorted to free labor—an intern who worked at the university’s paper. She e-mailed him an assignment. He uploaded the files into the Daily’s servers via VPN.
Scooting forward in her chair, she found the files in the network folder and dragged them onto her desktop, sighing when she saw they’d take ten minutes to copy over. The tech infrastructure here was outdated, old-school. Forget the cloud; they had servers the size of entire rooms in the basement.
She’d take the files home, look them over tonight with a cup of instant noodles.
Was this what her social life had come to?
“I’m serious,” Remy said. “It’s one thing to do a report on the state of his campaign finances. It’s another to go snooping around in his private life.”
Except this article would actually be about campaign finance, the true state of his campaign finance, including kickbacks or unsavory connections. And Sofia had spent too much of her life trembling, running. Hiding. She wouldn’t hide this time.
Nate had taught her to be strong, even though he wouldn’t believe it.
God, Nate. That slight smile, the ever-present scruff. The colorful ink covering his muscled body. And of course, the laid-back Southern-boy charm. They had been together for three glorious months before everything had imploded.
She might have believed his don’t give a fuck attitude if she hadn’t lain naked next to him, draped over his chest while she talked about the injustices she covered at work. His heart had raced, whole body tense and ready for combat. He cared, all right. He just didn’t want to.
Beside her laptop, her cell phone flashed a message to the screen. A voice mail had been left. Cell reception was spotty in these old buildings. It hadn’t even rung.
Excitement beat in her chest as she checked the phone number.
Not Nate. Of course not.
She tried not to be disappointed.
While Remy picked up a bomb-shaped stress ball from her desk, Sofia listened to the message. Static sounded in her ear, and she winced. Her mood didn’t improve as she heard the stuttering voice of her landlord, Ernie. It sounded like he got even worse reception than she did. Only a few words pierced the noise: “When are you coming…right away…”
The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She called him back, but it went straight to his voice mail.
“That was weird.”
Remy missed the catch, and the stress ball rolled beneath the heavy metal desk against the wall. Her gaze sharpened. “Who was that?”
“My landlord.”
“Panty-smelling guy?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” she muttered.
“Oh come on, he accidentally takes your laundry out of the dryer, not noticing the lacy panties that don’t belong to him?”
Yeah, that had been awkward. Sofia maintained that nothing inappropriate had happened—but she’d still thrown the entire load of laundry away when he’d returned it.
“I think he wants me to come back to the apartment.”
“Booty call,” Remy said.
She made a face. “Don’t be like that. He’s never called me at work before. I hope everything’s okay.”
“Right, I’m sure there’s a plumbing emergency.” Remy pitched her voice high. “Sofia, my faucet was so lonely without you. Won’t you unclog it for me?”
Sofia chucked a pen in her friend’s direction. It bounced off a two-year-old calendar on the wall and clattered to the floor. The file transfer was only at eighty-two percent, so she’d have to wait another minute at least.
Remy just laughed. “You’re the one living with him.”
“I live above him, not with him. And I love my apartment. It has a sunroom, and I can afford the rent. If he comes on to me…again…I’ll just shut him down.”
“That’s sexual harassment.”
Eighty-nine percent. “The only one sexually harassing me right now is you.”
“Whatever, he’s a creep.”
“He’s not a creep. He’s just…”
What was he? He had this way of cringing with every word he spoke, as if he was afraid of a rebuke at any moment. His gaze tripped over every corner of the room, unable to meet hers.
Okay, he was a creep.
But a nice one, and Sofia wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe she felt a little bad for him. And she really liked her apartment.
“I can deal with him,” she finished.
Remy rolled her eyes and turned back to her monitor.
Sofia didn’t blame her friend for her concern. Remy worked the crime beat, where she spoke to battered women and victimized runaways every day. She expected the worst from people.
When they went out for girl’s night, Remy didn’t just keep an eye on their drinks, she guarded everyone’s, on the lookout for sneaky hands and dissolving pills. And God save the man who tried to take home a wasted girl on Remy’s watch. She was Austin’s own warrior princess.
How long had it been since they’d gone out? Too long. They sat across from each other all day at work, then went home and worked some more. Not exactly glamorous, but it was hard to get excited about the club scene. Had she ever been? The frat boys who called her senorita as if it was so clever.
Her black hair and tanned skin weren’t even rare. On Austin’s east side, every girl looked like her, but she didn’t belong there either. There she was a commodity, to be sold and traded. She tried to forget those times.
A shiver ran down her spine, memories like a cold finger.
She’d tried to hide her past from Nate, but he was smart. He’d figured out the gist when she’d flinched away from his touch. And then he’d been careful with her. An incredibly masculine man, powerful, rugged—and he’d touched her with absolute gentleness. Soothed her until she learned how to find pleasure in his arms, found release in his roughness.
She wasn’t supposed to think about Nate.
The folder blinked on her laptop screen. The file transfer was complete.
She shut the laptop and tucked it into its bag. “Do you think we should go out more?”
Remy stared at her blankly. “Out where?”
“I don’t know. To have fun.”
“You know what would be fun? Not poking a shady politician and risking your neck.”
“Very funny.” Sofia stood and stretched. “You could come hang out at my place and look at these articles with me.”
Remy’s gaze flicked toward their editor’s office. “Not tonight.”
Curiosity tugged at her. “Is Andre giving you a hard time?”
He was the quintessential newspaper editor, which meant he yelled a lot about deadlines and copyedits and budget cuts. But he was passionate about the truth. He was also one of the few people who knew about her suspicions of Moreland, besides Remy.
Remy’s smile felt forced. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
Sofia would let it go for now, but she made a mental note to take Remy out soon for drinks. Maybe getting hit on by rowdy drunk guys would do th
em both good. They could run a competition for who got the cheesiest pickup line.
She swung her laptop bag over her shoulder and headed to Andre’s door.
He looked up from his computer, though his fingers continued typing for another beat. His chestnut hair was askew, shirtsleeves rolled up, eyes bloodshot—so, business as usual.
“What’s up, Reyes?”
“Is it okay if I cut out early? Something’s up with my apartment.”
“No problem at all. Just stay late the next five nights and we’ll call it even.”
“I wish you were joking.”
“Me too,” he said, waving her away. “Now go see what sunlight looks like and report back tomorrow.”
With a wry smile, she left the office. All editors were hard-asses. She figured that was part of the job description. But now that she thought about it, he had been on Remy’s case more than usual lately. Maybe there was something going on between them. Wouldn’t that be scandalous? Definitely girl’s night. She’d get answers then.
The Daily’s offices took up the top floor of the old, three-story building. Escalators brought her to the ground floor, which was bustling at the height of the afternoon. The sunlight blinded her, burning her eyes.
Her sunglasses were probably on her desk. She hesitated, debating whether to run upstairs and get them. The bus was already idling on the opposite street corner. At any minute, the driver would shut the door and pull away from the curb. Her apartment was only a twenty-minute walk, not much for the pedestrian-friendly city, but her laptop bag cut into her shoulder. She wanted that bus.
Damn it. She dashed to the corner. A heavy stream of pedestrians filled the sidewalk, but she darted through, jogging the last few feet as the crosswalk sign flipped to the white hand.
Through the large, reflective windows, she saw the bus driver reach for the door lever. Swearing under her breath, she raised her hand to grab his attention. Too late. The doors swung shut, and the bus started forward with a high-pitched whine.
She stopped, watching the orange stripe along the bus streak across her vision and disappear. Damn. Adjusting the strap of her bag so it mashed her shoulder at another angle, she turned toward home, ready to walk.
