by CJ Lyons
Table of Contents
Title Page
The Shadow Ops Finale
Introduction
Prologue
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
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
EDGE OF SHADOWS
The Shadow Ops Finale
CJ Lyons
and Cynthia Cooke
Praise for New York Times Bestseller CJ Lyons:
"Everything a great thriller should be—action packed, authentic, and intense." ~#1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child
"A compelling new voice in thriller writing…I love how the characters come alive on every page." ~New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver
"Top Pick! A fascinating and intense thriller." ~ RT Book Reviews
"An intense, emotional thriller…(that) climbs to the edge of intensity." ~National Examiner
"A perfect blend of romance and suspense. My kind of read." ~#1 New York Times Bestselling author Sandra Brown
"Highly engaging characters, heart-stopping scenes…one great rollercoaster ride that will not be stopping anytime soon." ~Bookreporter.com
"Adrenalin pumping." ~The Mystery Gazette
"Riveting." ~Publishers Weekly Beyond Her Book
Lyons "is a master within the genre." ~Pittsburgh Magazine
"Will leave you breathless and begging for more." ~Romance Novel TV
"A great fast-paced read….Not to be missed." ~Book Addict
"Breathtakingly fast-paced." ~Publishers Weekly
"Simply superb…riveting drama…a perfect ten." ~Romance Reviews Today
"Characters with beating hearts and three dimensions." ~Newsday
"A pulse-pounding adrenalin rush!" ~Lisa Gardner
"Packed with adrenalin." ~David Morrell
"…Harrowing, emotional, action-packed and brilliantly realized." ~Susan Wiggs
"Explodes on the page…I absolutely could not put it down." ~Romance Readers' Connection
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2012, CJ Lyons
Legacy Books
ISBN: 978-1-939038-10-4
Cover art: Cory Clubb
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Library of Congress Case # 1-273031561
EDGE OF SHADOWS
The Shadow Ops Finale
CJ Lyons
and Cynthia Cooke
Introduction
Dear Readers,
Thank you for your patience in waiting for this, the finale of the Shadow Ops trilogy.
If this is the first Shadow Ops book that you’ve read, you should know this is the third in the trilogy and does not stand alone. But, the first two books are on sale for a limited time—in fact, you can pick up all three Shadow Ops books for the price of one if you buy them today!
The first book is CHASING SHADOWS and can be found HERE
The second book is LOST IN SHADOWS and you can buy it HERE
I hope you enjoy Rose and Billy’s story as well as those of the rest of the Shadow Ops family! If you do, please leave a review and consider one of my other series such as the Hart and Drake medical suspense series (for those of you who enjoy a touch of romance with your thrillers) or the Lucy Guardino FBI Thrillers.
As always,
Prologue
Two years ago
Billy Price juggled a pizza in one hand while dangling a six-pack of Yuengling from the other as he turned the key in the lock and nudged his door open with his hip. He stepped into the dark foyer of his townhouse, kicking the door shut as he reached for the light switch with the hand that held the beer.
The instant the light flicked on, he realized his mistake. He straightened, senses on alert, his well-trained heart barely shifting gears despite the rush of adrenaline. He swung the six-pack toward the intruder behind the door, but he was a half second too late.
Icy cold scurried down his neck as the barrel of a semiautomatic nudged him. He froze mid-swing. The beer dangled from his fist in midair, pizza box still balanced in his other palm.
“Been a long time, Billy.”
Billy sniffed the air and felt more than heard her move behind him. Her body pressed against his as she efficiently patted him down and removed his weapons, a Beretta nine millimeter and a knife. Her voice was different now, but he knew this woman. Knew he didn’t stand a chance.
The last seen he’d Rose Prospero was when he’d abandoned her in a cesspool of a former Soviet state known as Razgravia—affectionately dubbed “Rat’s Assvia” by Billy’s Delta team.
“Why are you here, Rose?”
Instead of answering, she nudged him forward, her weapon never wavering. “Your dinner’s getting cold.”
He moved down the dark hallway. She turned on lights as they went, eliminating the possibility of a sneak attack. Not that he didn’t consider it—he knew half-a-dozen ways to thwart an attacker positioned behind him—but he wasn’t in the mood to take a bullet in the head. Not from a friend.
At least, he hoped she still considered him a friend. If not, he could damn well understand why.
“I’m sorry about what happened in Razgravia,” he said. Regret filled his voice, and he didn’t shy from it. He hoped she heard it. Needed her to hear it.
She stiffened behind him, obviously surprised and caught off guard by his words. Apologies weren’t in Delta’s vocabulary...and especially not Billy’s. Not usually. But this was different.
“I had no choice but to leave you.” He’d had two wounded men and a civilian to evac, and his orders specifically forbade him from interfering with the CIA’s op. Even if it meant abandoning the CIA officer who’d risked her life to save him and his men.
Not that she’d asked him to take her with him. But, of course, neither of them could’ve known what would happen next. Even now, Rose had no idea how much he knew about her captivity. He was one of probably only five or six men alive who were privy to the truth about what had happened after Grigor, the psychopathic Razgravian dictator, captured her.
She kicked a chair away from the kitchen table, a beautifully streamlined piece of cherry crafted by Pennsylvania Amish. The matching chairs were elegant, soft curves and narrow legs he could use as weapons if need be. He hoped it didn’t come to that. Wondered if he could go through with it—hurt Rose to save himself.
No. He’d already caused her enough pain.
“Sit. You know the drill.” Her voice was low, s
moky as a good single malt. He might’ve described it as seductive if his memory wasn’t filled with her old voice, a clear alto. A vision of her—head flung back, laughing, dark hair flashing in the light of a campfire while they did a meet-and-greet with the local insurgents—flooded over him, bringing with it a sense that maybe the brass had been right: He was getting too damn old for this.
No. Not old. Just tired as hell. He sank into the chair, propelled as much by the weight of regret as her pistol. Get in, get out, get the job done. That was how Delta operated.
Keeping his movements slow and his hands in sight, he set the beer and pizza down. She circled around, taking the chair opposite his, and he got his first good look at her. His impulse was to look away, but she deserved better. He forced himself to absorb the changes three years had wrought. Not the years, they hadn’t changed her. It was the nineteen days of the most inhumane torture Grigor and his warped imagination could devise.
She was still beautiful, but in a different way. As if she’d absorbed some secret, ancient knowledge, she appeared older than her thirty-four years—but also timeless, ageless. There were no obvious scars on her face, although her nose was slightly crooked and one eyebrow now arched higher than the other. Her eyes were still the same dark pools, fathomless as they watched and analyzed everything in sight.
She leaned back in her chair and Billy continued to catalog the changes in her. The wry, half smile that twisted her lips was new, more sardonic than the mischievous grin he remembered. Her cheekbones arched over a gaunt face—not malnourished, more strained. Her jaw locked tight as if she did not look forward to this reunion between battlefield friends.
Which surprised him. He’d often thought of her during the past three years, wondered how she was getting on, if she’d continued working for the CIA after everything that had happened to her. Truth be told, he’d hoped he’d see her again in better circumstances.
And now, here she was.
“What happened to your voice?” he asked.
She wore the clothing of a street person. A knitted cap covered the dark curls he remembered so fondly, oversized layers of flannel and khaki swathed her small frame, and fingerless gloves allowed her to grip her HK M1911 with a casual tension that belied the stopping power of the .45 caliber semiautomatic. He should know—he owned the same model, left over from when he was in the field.
Her chuckle was dry, brittle, but her smile appeared genuine. “Scars on my vocal cords.” Nineteen days of screaming would do that. “If I could carry a tune, I could get a job as a torch singer.”
“There’s always phone sex,” he offered, trying to keep things light. His attention was on her hands, but she surprised him with a smile that actually made it all the way to her eyes.
“You always were a smooth operator, Billy Price.” She nodded to the pizza. “Please tell me that’s not more of the vegetarian crap I found in your fridge. I mean, you’re retired now, shouldn’t you live a little?”
He liked how she wasn’t afraid to let him know she’d breached his security in more ways than one. Professional courtesy, letting a friend know when they’ve screwed up, gotten lax.
All it took was thirteen days living as a civilian—no place to go, no time to be there, no one waiting for him. He flipped open the lid on the pizza, glad that he’d chosen tonight to indulge, unleashing the tantalizing scent of sausage and pepperoni. “Got your favorite. Garbage-can special.”
Let her fill in those blanks—incorrectly, he was ashamed to say, but right now, staring at the wrong end of a gun held by a woman who had every reason to pull the trigger, he’d take any advantage he could get.
“My lucky day,” she said, scooping a slice with her free hand and taking a healthy bite.
Billy popped open two beers and began to eat as well. What the hell? If this was his last meal, at least it was still hot.
He watched her eat. Every bite was filled with confidence. Nothing dainty, no half measures. Enjoying and savoring life while she could. She didn’t know it—couldn’t know it—but she’d often been the object of his late-night fantasies. As she chewed and swallowed, and licked tidbits of red sauce from her lips, he allowed himself to wander into no-man’s land, imagine she was here because she felt the same about him, and now that they’d both left their respective services, they were finally free to pursue a life together.
They polished off half the pie, but she never relaxed her hold on the forty-five. So much for his fantasies.
“Want to tell me why you’re here?” he asked again, clearing his throat.
She smiled again as if she’d won a bet with herself on how long it would take to break him. “Heard you were up for a promotion.”
He tipped up his beer, letting the cool liquid sluice down his throat, finishing it. She nudged hers toward him, still three-quarters full.
“Got beat out by some damn civilian.” The bitterness in his voice disturbed him more than the pistol aimed at him.
“So you really did leave Delta? For good?”
“The official story is I separated voluntarily, but they made it pretty clear I was too old to do the job I wanted. I didn’t want the job they offered, pushing paper, so,” he shrugged, “the Army and I parted company. For good.”
She chewed in silence, her gaze weighing his words.
He swept up her beer and leaned back in his chair. “Their loss.”
“What happened in Razgravia,” he continued before he lost his nerve, “it shouldn’t have gone down that way. I shouldn’t have left you behind, Rose.” It was hard to say her name. He took another sip of beer to cover the fact he could barely swallow.
“You got the job done, extracted your target safely.” Her voice grew distant. “Did your guys make it out okay?”
This was the old Rose, the one more concerned with the people than the job. “Yes. They did. Thanks to you.”
“I’m glad. You built a good team there, Billy.”
“Is that what this is about?” He nodded to the gun still in her hand. “If so, I’m happy to take the heat for my team. It was my call to leave you behind.”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at the forty-five like she’d forgotten it. “You were just following orders, Billy. I don’t blame you.”
An edge to her voice made it clear that she did blame someone—and God help them if she found them alone one dark night. Her chuckle was raspy, raw. She laid the pistol on the table and spun it toward him. “I owe you an apology.”
He grabbed the gun before it completed a revolution. As soon as he raised it, he knew it was empty. And that it was his old service weapon, taken from his bedroom. He leaned back in his chair and laughed, long and loud.
“I’m sorry,” Rose said with a smile that gave life to her words. “But the direct approach would never work with you. And I wasn’t totally sure—” She blinked, and he knew a thousand images of Razgravia and nineteen days left to suffer at the hands of a psychopath sped through her vision. There wasn’t enough time in the world to heal from that...not totally.
This Rose wasn’t his comrade in arms, but she also wasn’t a helpless victim. She was someone altogether new, forged in the crucible of battle and loss. Just like Billy.
“You didn’t trust me?” he asked.
She shrugged, a little sheepishly. “Tell me about the promotion you wanted.”
Why did he have the feeling she already knew all about it? “Leader of a new team.” He gave her the sanitized, not-so-top-secret version. “Multidisciplinary, multiagency, counterterrorism. Cutting-edge.” He made a pun of his Delta nickname, hoping she’d smile again.
“And the civilian you lost out to?”
He jerked a shoulder. “Younger, some kind of covert ops hotshot. Probably NSA or CIA, maybe FBI—never found out for sure. Has a decade of fieldwork behind him, but from what I could tell, damn little leadership experience. Idiots on the selection committee couldn’t get it through their thick skulls that taking care of yourself playing I Spy is
a helluva lot different than sending a team into the line of fire, coordinating and preparing multiple strike forces. Hell, just the logistics—”
He broke off, realized she was grinning at his tirade. His heart lurched. “Wait. You?”
Her chin bobbed up and down in affirmative.
A wide grin split his mouth. This was too much.
“Guilty. How’d you like to come work for me?” she said. “I need an XO I can trust. Someone who understands what it means to send a team into the line of fire, coordination, logistics...”
Now it was his turn to laugh. For the first time in thirteen days, he felt fully alive. This was why she’d taken her unconventional approach to a job interview—to remind him of all he’d lost when he walked away from Delta.
If Rose Prospero was offering him a ticket back into the game, damn straight he was grabbing it.
It would mean shoving all those late-night fantasies into a vault and locking them away, but that was okay. In fact, somehow, this was better. The chance to watch her back, to protect her like he hadn’t been able to in Razgravia. He owed her that much.
And maybe someday…
Billy raised his beer bottle in a toast and took a swig. “What can I say, Rose? You know the surefire way to a man’s heart.”
