The Crescendo

by Fiona Palmer

  The Crescendo

  Fiona Palmer

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  The Crescendo

  Fiona Palmer

  Jaz risks everything to save the love of her life in the latest instalment of Fiona Palmer’s series about the young spies of the MTG Agency.

  Recruited by the Agency less than a year ago, Jaz has had her life turned upside down by a shocking revelation and the death of a friend. Now Ryan, the sexy, dangerous man who recruited and trained her, has gone MIA while out on an undercover mission. And on top of all this, she’s sitting exams and finishing school.

  With the help of her friends, Jaz is going to have to risk her own life to save Ryan, even if it means walking on the dark side. But can she work alongside the bad guys she’s been trying to take down if it means seeing Ryan again?

  About the Author

  Fiona has been writing rural stories for years and is now indulging in her love of YA. It’s not a big change, considering she already writes about strong women who fight for what they want. She is a full-time writer, farmhand, ex-speedway racer and mum of two fabulous kids, from rural Western Australia.

  Acknowledgements

  I couldn’t do this without Jim, big hugs, thank you for always answering my questions and helping my creativity along. Also to my friends and family who read my work, especially Jeni Wyatt and Lea Murray for the help and Kate for taking this series on. Also Belinda for the fab editing. Thanks to Rach Johns for your support and friendship. To my writing buddies, thanks for being just an email away. Big thanks to my family Darryl, Mackenzie and Blake for their understanding. And as always, thanks to the readers who make all this possible. Thank you.

  For Jim Jim

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  There was vibrant red all over her hands, on her chest, her jeans and quite possibly all over her face, like a preschooler dabbling with paint, only it wasn’t paint.

  It was blood.

  The smell of it drenched the air in the small car, raw metal in a sickly gut-churning scent.

  It wasn’t Jasmine Thomas’s first foray into having other people’s blood on her skin, nor her own. Having had her leg shot not that long ago, one would think she would be used to this, or at least not feeling so panicked. Then again, it could have something to do with the person who was sprawled over the back seat, blood seeping through his clothes like spilt wine on a tablecloth, as she pressed her shirt against the bullet wound in his shoulder.

  Ryan Fletcher’s normally tanned skin was looking like glossy white paper and his dark eyes watched her carefully. His eyes crinkled at the edges, the only sign he was in pain. He winked and gave her one of his sexy smiles.

  He was the love of her life. Also a secret spy who she was not permitted to fall in love with.

  Too late.

  Far too bloody late.

  You can make soldiers but you can’t tell them who they can and can’t love. Well, maybe you could, but Jaz’s excuse was that she hadn’t been with the agency for that long. She’d only been recruited at the start of the year. She still had her year twelve exams to sit soon. This year had been one crazy ride, and it was yet to stop.

  ‘Jaz, how’s he going?’ Tay glanced in the rear-view mirror as he drove on the freeway.

  Taylor was her best friend, along with Anna who was driving another car behind them. Jaz could see her pale face through the back window, strawberry blonde hair looking almost red and her white knuckles gripping the wheel. She could tell Anna was sick with worry, her freckles standing out like cherries on a cream cake.

  Both her friends had just been recruited into the MTG Agency as well. Yes, she felt partly responsible for them, for they now swam in the deep dark waters of danger. But they wouldn’t have it any other way. It was nice to know they had her back and if it wasn’t for them, well, they might just not be alive right now.

  ‘He’s okay,’ said Jaz with a lot of hope as she glanced at Ryan.

  At twenty-four, he was truly a man of strength and menace. His physique was muscled and lean, his body scarred from knives and bullets and Jaz knew the first time she saw him that he was dangerous. Maybe it was all that which drew her to him, yet even though she was wary, she was also attracted like a moth to a flame. Finding out he was working for a secret agency and then being recruited, having Ryan train her, all it did was make him more awesome. She had fallen in love with him and yet she couldn’t tell him. It was not permitted. If he knew, then he was likely to distance himself from her, and Jaz wasn’t sure if she’d cope without Ryan in her life.

  Ryan lifted his hand and brushed her long raven hair back over her olive skin.

  ‘In your honest opinion, Doctor Jaz, do you think I’ll live?’ asked Ryan, shooting her a smile that melted her insides.

  Short stubble covered his lean jaw, his hair clipped short, making him sexy as hell. She wanted to kiss his full lips but the smell of blood and the red splattered up his neck reminded her this was not the time or the place. A wave of panic washed over her again and she masked it by replying to his question.

  ‘Of course. This is just a scratch,’ she said, repeating what he’d said when she’d been shot in the leg. ‘How long till we get there?’ she asked Tay.

  ‘Just a few blocks away.’

  Ryan tried to sit up and glanced out the window. ‘Pax will spew if I get blood all over his car,’ he said with a chuckle and a wince. ‘But it wouldn’t be the first time.’

  Pax was her fifty-nine-year-old adopted granddad who ran the local gym The Ring, a front for his real job which was working for the agency as their computer guy; fake IDs, passports, rap sheets, you name it. Pax had been doing it for years, long before Jaz was born. Only she never knew until this year.

  Then, to twist her mind even more, she found out her mum had been a part of the agency also. In fact, it was her mum’s family, the Montenegros, who helped set up the MTG Agency with the government’s backing. But her mum got pregnant, gave up being a secret agent and, with help from Pax, made a new identity and disappeared to Western Australia to live a normal life. So yeah, this year had been full of surprises. Dodging bullets was just the tip of the iceberg to her crazy year.

  And to think Jaz would be none the wiser if Ryan hadn’t come into Pax’s gym to train. Which in a way irked her, as she’d never have known about the huge secrets they kept from her. But now she kept one from her mum. Tasha had no idea that Jaz knew about the agency. Pax had sworn her to secrecy for fear of what Tasha would do to him if she found out her daughter had joined the same agency she’d once belonged to.

  Yep, it was a big intertwined bundle of secrets and crap you couldn’t even begin to believe, but that was her life. And funnily enough, she could live with the secrets because she knew the work she did for the agency was saving lives, saving in
nocent people, and she liked making a difference in the world.

  Okay, so sometimes she ended up in deep shit, like with their recent mission and the slight hiccup of Ryan being shot.

  Running on a lead of drug smuggling, Ryan and she had followed the drugs to the source, Salvatore De Luca. Known drug smuggler, which the agency had been unable to pin on him. Yet Jaz and Ryan had come face to face with him and his goons in a big shoot-out in his airplane hangar. Ryan’s bleeding shoulder the result.

  Jaz still couldn’t understand how they’d got out of there alive. She glanced down at her chest, where her medallion usually sat. It had been her biological father’s and it was the only thing she had of his. Now Salvatore had it, torn from her neck as she’d been pushed down onto the black ‘body bag’ plastic.

  ‘Just drop me and Jaz off and take the cars back to the gym. Check you’re not being followed. Like I showed you,’ said Ryan as Tay pulled up by his house.

  ‘Got it. Can we come back?’

  Tay was worried and wanted to help, Jaz could see that. But it would be too risky to have them all together.

  ‘No, stay there. Jaz can keep you updated.’ Ryan tried to slide his body to the door but paused halfway for a breather. ‘Oh, and thanks Tay. You and Anna saved our arses back there. We appreciate it.’

  Jaz caught Tay’s nod in the rear-view mirror before he took off his shirt. ‘Jaz, put this on.’

  Ryan held his padded wound while she threw on Tay’s black t-shirt. Then she opened the door and helped Ryan out. They tried to look inconspicuous as Tay drove away. Anna slowed down in the Commodore but Jaz waved her on to follow Tay. She nodded, her face grim as she made the hand sign for ‘call me’.

  ‘Right, let’s get you inside before your neighbours decide to look out their windows and report “weird stuff” in their hood.’ Jaz put her arm around him as they quickly headed to his tall fence. She unlocked the gate and soon they were in the safety of his private yard.

  ‘Thanks, Jaz.’

  Jaz unlocked his door; she knew where his spare key was hidden. This wasn’t the first time she’d been to his house. Only this time, it was Ryan who was bleeding all over his bathroom floor with Jaz trying to fix him up.

  ‘This is quite the role reversal,’ she said teasingly, as she pulled out the scissors from the drawer by the sink and cut away his shirt.

  ‘Hmm, as I recall, I wasn’t wearing a shirt.’

  Jaz did recall that, vividly. Even now it still brought chills of pleasure as she studied his chest, scars and tattoos. That fact that Ryan had stitched her up had only made him even more amazing.

  ‘Don’t think I’m going to be stitching you though, and I’ve already had my shirt off.’

  ‘Hmm, I remember,’ he said. Dark eyes dropped to her chest.

  Ryan wasn’t normally this flirty, if anything he always tried to keep anything between them downplayed as slip-ups, accidents or things they shouldn’t do. Maybe it was being shot that was having an adverse effect on his mental stability.

  Jaz heard a bang as the back door was swung open and slammed shut.

  ‘I’m here, how bad is it?’ said Tilly as he came into the bathroom at a rate of knots, his arms filled with medical supplies and a bottle of Scotch.

  That explained the door, shut with his foot no doubt.

  ‘Hey Tilly,’ said Ryan with a smile. ‘Brought the goods, I see.’ Ryan used his good arm to gesture that he wanted a drink.

  Tilly gave him the bottle then put the bandages down on the sink bench beside Ryan. Jaz stepped back and watched Tilly work. Tilly was older, thirties she guessed, scrawny like a bag of bones and had nicotine stains on his fingers and teeth. He looked like someone who’d had a hard life; he wore the scars and not just on his body. She’d first met Tilly when she accompanied Ryan to Pakistan to retrieve vital intel. Soon after, she’d also witnessed her first death. It had been horrific, a slit throat from a knife welded by Ryan, no less. She’d been a little traumatised but since then she’d seen more. Like watching Game of Thrones, Jaz was starting to feel numb towards the violence and blood.

  Realising this, she stepped forward and asked Tilly if she could help.

  ‘Good on ya, kid. Doing this stuff could save your life,’ said Tilly as he cleaned up the wound and checked for any glaring problems. ‘It’s close to your bone, not sure if it nicked it or not but I guess time will tell.’

  Ryan grunted as he took a swig from the full bottle and grimaced more at the potent liquid than he had at Tilly’s poking.

  These two blokes were like grizzly bears, or more like Bear Grylls, that crazy survival guy. Tougher than nails.

  Tilly passed her the bloody gauze and she tried to keep them in a neat contained spot, but soon Ryan’s bathroom was looking like the scene of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Red dots were splattered up the mirror and across Ryan’s white tiles, making vivid contrasts.

  ‘So what were you two up to? Why is it one of you is always getting shot?’ asked Tilly.

  ‘Us? What about you? You’ve been shot enough times to make a submarine out of the bullets,’ said Ryan.

  In Pakistan Tilly had been shot in his arm, but he’d carried on as if it was no biggie. Tilly getting shot was probably like Jaz getting pimples. Something annoying that happened that you couldn’t really control.

  Ryan put down his large drink and began to relay their mission.

  ‘You know we went north, staked out the beach, watched the drugs float in on the waves, they collected the drums, we followed.’

  Jaz listened carefully when Ryan got to the stake-out part, no mention of nearly getting caught and having to improvise. Just the thought of that improvising brought a flush to Jaz’s face. It had been the best moment of her life. Ryan’s eyes avoided her as he continued with the story.

  ‘They went to a storage shed, then some guys split straight away, talking about an urgent shipment, we followed and ended up at Salvatore’s plane hangar.’

  ‘No way. You finally caught him?’

  ‘Kind of. We walked in but caught a worker after he’d just capped a bloke, we saw his gun and blood. He couldn’t let us go then, so he marched us inside and lined us up next on the black plastic.’

  Tilly grimaced. Not a fan of black plastic either. Jaz liked him even more now.

  ‘He doesn’t like loose ends and, as innocent as he thought we were, he couldn’t have us out and about. Cold-blooded death. We had to wait for our moment to strike and then there were shots going everywhere; we barely got out of there alive,’ said Ryan gesturing to his bullet wound. ‘Lucky Jaz managed to get word out to Tay and Anna and we got away.’

  Ryan looked deep into the bottle he held, as if searching for answers to the questions she could see swimming around in his dark eyes. She knew he had many, so did Jaz, but neither of them spoke about these to Tilly. Neither had mentioned ‘that moment’ to each other but it was there, lurking like a shark hungry for fresh blood.

  ‘You two are lucky bastards. A bit like me,’ Tilly said with a chuckle, and ended with a smoker’s raspy cough.

  Jaz used a flannel to wash the blood from Ryan’s body, cleaning him up without getting in Tilly’s road. Soon they had him patched up and clean.

  ‘Righto, I think you’ll live, Fletch,’ said Tilly.

  Ryan’s colour had come back a fraction, more due to the alcohol, as they couldn’t fix the blood loss.

  ‘Let’s get him to bed before he passes out.’ Tilly took away his bottle of liquid painkiller and handed it to Jaz while he positioned himself under Ryan’s good shoulder. ‘Come on, mate.’

  Jaz put the bottle on the outside coffee table before getting to Ryan’s room to turn down his bed. It took all her willpower not to climb in there and wait for him to join her.

  Ryan got into his bed, mumbling ‘thanks’, and as he lay back, the pressure on his shoulder caused him to groan. He closed his eyes and started to breathe deeply, while they watched him. He looked so peaceful. Lying without his sh
irt gave her time to admire his gorgeous body and the scars marking it. She searched out the word ‘forever’ tattooed under his arm. Under a black light it had more detail to it. It was a memorial to his mate Chris who was killed by Salvatore. Hence Ryan’s massive vendetta against Salvatore. Today would have really tested him. Face to face with the man he’d been hunting for over a year. Trying to take down a cunning man like Salvatore wasn’t easy.

  Her eyes moved across to his chest; there was no visible tattoo, yet Jaz knew the Southern Cross marked his skin there. It was her favourite. It was Ryan’s way of reminding him of home when he was overseas on missions.

  ‘He’ll sleep for ages. Do you wanna drink … ah, I mean a cuppa?’ said Tilly. ‘Then maybe you can fill in some blanks about this mission.’

  Jaz nodded and Tilly headed off to the kitchen. Jaz stepped closer to Ryan and bent down to kiss his forehead. His eyes fluttered at her touch but remained closed.

  She wanted to say so much but couldn’t. Once you opened that can of springy worms they just never went back in the same way. Sometimes life was just a bit tricky. With a sigh, she stepped softly from his room and went to clean up the bathroom before joining Tilly for that much-needed drink.

  Chapter 2

  Jaz chatted to Tilly for a while until he was satisfied he’d heard enough about the mission. He kept giving her this strange look and she had a feeling he knew she was omitting something, but he didn’t pressure her. Yes, she had omitted a few things, neither of which she felt like sharing with anyone.

  Jas heard the rumble of Tay’s Mustang and headed for the door. ‘Thanks Tilly, let me know when he comes around.’

  ‘Will do. I’ll be here for a few days, I reckon. He’ll be fine,’ he added with sincerity.

  As she shut the door behind her, she wondered if Tilly could tell how she felt about Ryan, as his face portrayed a strange empathy towards her. Oh well, right now she couldn’t care less as there were more pressing things occupying her mind.

  She went through the high fence at the front of the property and slid into the back of the Mustang. Before she could even shut the door properly, Taylor was driving off. Already he was programmed not to hang around for too long and risk being recognised.