by Jove Belle
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Praise for Jove Belle
By the Author
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
About the Author
Books Available From Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
FBI agent Sera Warren has been working undercover to track a domestic terrorist group to its origins. When her cover is blown, her priority shifts from closing her case to just making it through the day alive. She ends up in the middle of a bank heist, pointing a gun at her ex-girlfriend, Torrence “Tor” Jewel. She sees a flicker of recognition in Tor’s eyes as she pulls her gun and yells, “On the floor!”
Before Tor can fully register that “the one who got away” is standing in front of her, she’s pushed facedown onto the floor. Sera might as well shoot her now because as soon as she gets up, Tor’s going to kill her. Or kiss her. She’s still undecided.
First, they have to survive their reunion, then they can worry about happily ever after.
Praise for Jove Belle
“[All] three novellas [in Uncommon Romance] are complete, satisfying on both emotional and sensual levels.”—Publishers Weekly
“After reading Jove Belle’s new book, Uncommon Romance, I’m convinced that the novella is the perfect length for thoughtful erotica.”—C-Spot Reviews
Indelible has “some pleasing plot twists and delicious sex scenes.”—Seattle Gay News
Chaps grips the reader in its first few pages and never lets go…There are heart-pounding scary scenes contrasted with plenty of quiet country roads, and enough action to keep the pages flying.”— Just About Write
Edge of Darkness “wins points for its well-rounded and developed main character and its breezy, light writing style, making it a fun read…The plotline has its share of twists, turns and revelations…I look forward to reading more from Jove Belle.”—Our Chart
“Edge of Darkness is a very well written book. It has sympathetic characters, an exciting story, hot sex, and a wonderful cliff-hanger ending. This is a book that makes the reader forget everything but turning the next page.”—Just About Write
The Job
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The Job
© 2014 By Jove Belle. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-257-1
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: October 2014
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Shelley Thrasher
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])
By the Author
Edge of Darkness
Split the Aces
Chaps
Indelible
Love and Devotion
Uncommon Romance: Three Erotic Novellas
The Job
For Tara, who continues to love me year after year.
I love you.
Chapter One
“You’re going to have to talk to him.” John sat straight in his chair, his eyes focused and hard as he watched Sera.
Sera Williams, a name she’d answered to for so long she’d almost gotten used to it, was involved enough in the illegal interests of Lithman Corporation to be afraid of the way John studied her just a little too long. A man like him didn’t look at you unless he knew what he was going to find. Right now, he obviously had unanswered questions, and she hoped to hell they didn’t have anything to do with her.
“Tonight?” To her mind, Marcus was a problem that could wait until the morning, but her opinion wasn’t the one that counted.
Lithman Corporation, a multifaceted conglomerate, had ties all over the world in every marketplace. The FBI’s interest, and therefore Sera’s interest, was specific to the funds Lithman funneled into an extremist group in the Middle East called Liberty for Allah. Her job was fairly simple. She tracked the money. Too bad simple wasn’t always easy.
John waved his hand dismissively but kept his gaze trained on her. “No, it can wait until morning. Take care of it first thing though.”
She nodded. With John, it was safest to speak only when absolutely necessary. The rest of the time, she tried for steadfast and silent. He seemed to appreciate it, as he’d promoted her far too quickly for most people’s liking. John, however, didn’t give a shit what other people liked. As far as Lithman’s criminal enterprises in this city went, John was one step removed from God and could do whatever he damn well wanted. He didn’t need the approval of other people. They needed his.
Sera worked hard for him. Methodical and detail oriented, she had just the right amount of ruthlessness. It had gained her his recognition and, to a degree, his trust. He let her manage a large amount of the daily business, interfacing with street-level affiliates. So far, however, he’d kept a very tight grip on any information regarding what happened to the money once it moved beyond him.
She’d learned that Lithman’s affiliation with the LFA was nothing more than a means to an end. A very bloody, ruthless, political firestorm of an end, but an end nonetheless. Lithman had interest in certain resources and felt they’d be better able to manage those resources if they controlled the ruling faction in the region. John hadn’t given even that small amount of information freely to her. She’d stumbled across a memo in his office, and the only thing the memo really proved was John was aware of Lithman’s terrorist links. The thread of information wasn’t enough to provide any further insight.
Sera had studied the tenets of the LFA carefully. They abhorred capitalism, a system that Lithman embodied and flourished within. It struck her as ironic that they could hate the fundamental structure of Lithman, yet still take the money when it was offered. She’d learned when it came to wealth, the people who had it also had all the power, and the people who wanted it were often willing to compromise to get it. Still, would the foot soldiers be so willing to strap explosives to their chests and die for their cause if they knew who paid for the bombs?
“Will that be all?” Sera kept both hands on the arms of her chair, ready to stand when dismissed but casual enough to look like she wasn’t rushing.
“Just get him in line.” John turned his attention to his computer screen.
She still wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to speak to Marcus about, but she wasn’t willing to ask John to clarify. She would study the earnings reports and figure out for herself what was bothering him. So far, all she’d found was slightly below-average income from Marcus’s group, but nothing that would raise a red flag. Definitely not anything to warrant a one-
on-one meeting with John. It didn’t help that he’d been overly vague in his rant, saying only that he was disappointed and that Sera needed to do something about it.
She stood. “I will. Thank you, sir.”
She left the meeting feeling uneasy for no good reason, with plans to visit Marcus first thing in the morning.
*
Sera banged on the screen door, determined to wake Marcus. The door was rusted and rattled like crazy, but so far she’d only managed to draw attention from the neighbor without actually rousing anyone inside the house. Her next move, if Marcus didn’t respond, was to kick the damn thing in and wake him up with her Glock. Of all her direct reports, Marcus challenged her the most. He resented her position to an astounding degree. Although he never came out and said the words, she could feel his judgment in the way he looked at her, lingering on her hips and breasts. She was a woman, which meant she was qualified to fill few roles for him, and supervisor wasn’t one of them.
In a simpler world, one where she was who she pretended to be, she would just kill him as a message to every other low-life punk who wanted to test her resolve. As it was, though, she had to remain on the right side of the law as much as possible, even though she was posing as a badass gangster.
“Marcus, making me wait is not in your best interest.” It was futile to raise her voice. If he didn’t hear her banging, he probably couldn’t hear what she was saying either, but it made her feel better to yell at him. Also, it was better than shooting through the deadbolt, which is what she wanted to do. Marcus flared her temper without even being there.
Her phone rang. Caller ID came up UNAVAILABLE. For most people that meant a telemarketer was calling. For Sera, on this phone, it meant her handler, Special Agent Elizabeth Morrigan, was trying to reach her.
Beth had been her handler since she started this assignment. At the onset, they hadn’t known each other, but now Sera trusted the other woman with her life.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Sera kept her greeting informal just in case someone was listening in.
“I need your report.” Beth spoke in her usual succinct, no-nonsense way.
“Right now? I have a meeting starting,” Sera glanced at her watch, “five minutes ago, actually. Marcus is late.”
“Military intelligence says something major is about to happen, but nobody has any details. Have you heard anything?”
NSA had reported with an escalating sense of urgency that something big was coming. Unfortunately, no one seemed to know exactly what that something was. The consensus was LFA was planning a major terrorist action on US soil, but that’s where the information dried up.
With every intersected and decoded message, the pressure on Sera increased exponentially. She was one of a very few federal agents who’d managed to infiltrate the LFA, even as tangentially as through Lithman. That she couldn’t offer any supporting details wasn’t surprising considering she’d been undercover for a relatively short time, given the scope of the operation, but it was still frustrating.
“They’ve been reporting that for months.” Sera glanced around, checking again for signs that anyone might be home and awake. The uneasy feeling from the night before still clung to her. She wasn’t sure if it was the result of John’s meeting, which had actually been a confusing non-meeting, or the increased pressure for her to find something useful.
“I know. And they still don’t know what that means. People keep asking me to clarify.” By “people” Beth meant every superior in line above her, possibly all the way up to the FBI director. If the buzz from military intelligence was loud enough, and even semi-verifiable, then he definitely knew about it. LFA was too well known to ignore reports about their activities.
“I wish I had something more to give you. I had a meeting with John last night, and he gave no indication that anything was coming.” An idea tickled at the back of her brain. He hadn’t said anything specific, but he’d also shown unusual interest in Marcus. “He was acting a little off, but that’s it. Nothing concrete.”
“What did he do differently?” Beth was a good handler because she was an expert interrogator, skilled at extracting information that the subject often didn’t even realize she knew.
“He was upset about Marcus’s performance. But other crews have done worse with no notice from John. He sent me here to talk to him this morning.”
“Huh. And Marcus isn’t there?”
Sera kicked the door. “Doesn’t look like anyone is.”
“What do you think about Marcus? Is he LFA?”
Sera shrugged. “It’s possible.”
The shroud of secrecy at Lithman made it nearly impossible to tell who was directly involved with LFA, therefore considered a terrorist and a threat to national security, and who was a garden-variety thug trying to make a buck. Both ended up in jail eventually, but only one really interested her in the scope of her investigation.
“Marcus traffics illegal firearms, correct?”
“Primarily, yes.”
Marcus’s group specialized in gunrunning, which made him of special interest federally. Even if nothing panned out for the case she was working on, ATF would benefit from the intel she provided.
“How is he special enough to get John’s attention?”
“That’s just it, he’s not.”
Marcus’s role in the organization was pretty simple. He ran his crew and kicked up a set amount each week. The past few weeks, he’d been consistently short. John had at least twenty men beneath him who were exactly like Marcus.
“That’s…worrisome.”
Sera propped the screen open and pounded on the wooden door. It wasn’t nearly as loud, but she liked a little variety to her noise storm. Marcus had to be deaf or a corpse not to hear her. She hoped he was just hard of hearing because dead bodies were hard to explain, and she wasn’t in the mood for that much paperwork.
She stepped off the porch and made her way through the flowerbed that lined the front of the house. She peered in the window. The room was dark. “No one’s home here. Want me to go in and take a look around?”
“Is the door unlocked?”
“Let me check.” She returned to the door and tried the handle. Locked tight. She smiled. “It can be.”
She’d been standing in front of Marcus’s place for over ten minutes, and the woman next door, a twenty-something college student with black-rimmed glasses and a sweet ass, had peered out her window three times. Finally, she’d given up the pretense of subtlety and had come out to stand on her own porch. She held her hand up to shade her eyes from the morning sun as she stared at Sera. Sera had arrived at that moment of truth where she either opened the door through any means possible or walked away. Shooting a hole in the door, while a pleasant thought, would result in the hot, nosey neighbor calling the police. Just like dead bodies, conversations with local law enforcement required more paperwork than they were worth.
“Not without a warrant. I want to be able to use whatever you find.”
Sera glanced at her watch. “Okay, I’ll hang out here for a few more minutes, then take off. The neighbor’s watching me. I’ve been here too long.”
“Call if you learn anything.”
“Definitely.” Sera disconnected the call. She had an old-school phone that looked like a $29.99 burner bought at the local Walgreens. She hated it and had asked the bureau to upgrade her too many times to count. The rest of the planet had a smartphone, and she had a phone left over from 1999. Of course, it fit in nicely in a world filled with arms dealers, murderers for hire, and organized crime lords who all considered it normal to conduct business anonymously with prepaid phones.
She banged on Marcus’s door one last time and was about to walk away when a black SUV rumbled out of the alley next to the house. The window on the driver’s side rolled down and Marcus sat behind the wheel, staring at her in a way that set her teeth on edge.
Marcus had an adorable little-boy smile, tousled blond hair, and sparkling blue eye
s that were a complete mismatch to his cruel temper. She’d watched him do some truly inhumane things while wearing that exact smile.
One time, when he’d thought one of his guys was informing on him, Marcus had cut off all of his fingers with garden shears, then left him stranded in the middle of the desert. As they drove away, Marcus had cleaned his hands on a baby wipe and asked who was in the mood for pancakes. Later she’d learned that a vacationing family had found the man several weeks later. He’d never made it out of the desert.
Back then, she’d been too new to the organization and had no influence over how Marcus ran his crew. Even now, with their relative positions within Lithman, she wasn’t likely to intervene. As gruesome as it was, an execution like that was nothing more than a staffing issue—not something that fell under her purview.
Her role with the FBI was trickier. In a normal investigation, torture and murder would be enough to close the net. They would use the murder to extract other information and establish current criminal activity in a RICO case. RICO, or Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, was typically the brass ring when investigating organized crime.
But the rules all changed when investigating domestic and international terrorists. All she could do was make note of the incident and include it in her report, then continue to wait for something that the National Security Agency, NSA, found actionable.
Between her position with Lithman, her assignment from the FBI, and NSA mandates, Sera generally felt at odds with her own instincts.
Marcus lowered the volume on his stereo and shifted in his seat. It was a simple adjustment of posture, but something about the movement put Sera on alert.
“You look so flustered, boss. What’s wrong?” Marcus leaned out the window and didn’t kill the engine.
