by Vanessa Kier
“Not a clue. Dietrich didn’t say a word before he died,” Wil said.
“Of course not, that would have been too easy,” Max grumbled.
“But we have confirmed that you’re no longer considered AWOL from Unit 3. Technically, they would have accepted you back—”
“Over my dead body,” Max said.
“Yeah, well, your record is clean. You now have an official honorable discharge. And all charges that you kidnapped Emily have been dropped.”
“Thanks, bro.” Max cleared his throat.
“Before you ask, no. We don’t know yet who leaked WAR’s existence to Dietrich,” Wil said. “But we think it came from my side, not from within WAR.”
“Wil—”
“No, I don’t blame myself. Dietrich’s sponsor has already proved he has access to the most classified areas of the military. Why not my base, too?”
Max raised an eyebrow. His brother might know it wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t erase the bitterness from his voice. After all, an insider had leaked the plans of Wil’s previous base, setting off the chain of events that had led to the attack. Still, Max tried to ease the tension by joking “Why should you be exempt? Join the club.”
Wil snorted, then gave Max a small nod of acknowledgment.
“All right, enough small talk,” Kris said. “Are you and Emily in or not?”
Emily had finished playing with the dog and now stood on the porch steps, kicking sand off her feet. She’d finally put on some weight and lost the constant wariness that had stuck with her for weeks, resulting in a number of panic attacks. In addition to her physical therapy, she’d worked with a PTSD expert to reduce her anxiety and now only rarely had an attack.
He was so proud of her, his chest ached.
She stepped inside and he motioned her over.
She glanced at the computer, shook her head, then started to inch toward the kitchen door.
“Don’t go. Kris wants to know if we’re accepting his job offer.”
“Oh.” She walked over and put her hand on his shoulder.
Just that simple touch sent his body into overdrive. Needing to feel her warm skin under his, he put his hand on top of hers. As he’d promised, the moment his body had been strong enough, he’d taken her to bed and started fulfilling all their sexual fantasies.
Emily glanced from the computer screen to Max.
“Why don’t you tell him,” Max said.
She shrugged, then directed her attention to the image of Kris. “Yes. We accept.”
Both Kris and Wil whooped.
Emily shared an amused glance with Max. The agreement was that Max would resume his cover of being a professor working on a book. Only this time, Emily would accompany him as the photographer for his research. In reality, they’d document abuses by the rebels, gather intel, and coordinate activities with WAR’s civilian supporters such as Rene. They’d also work with Wil in his position of unofficial liaison between WAR and the U.S. military.
Fifteen minutes later, they’d finalized the logistics for the transition to their new life. The plan was for Max and Emily to move to West Africa in six months. Max needed to wait until the doctors had cleared him for heavy activity, which would probably take another month. Then he had to get back up to combat fitness. Although Emily’s work would be mostly as an observer, due to the danger in the region she would undergo training to enhance her current skills and qualify her as a low-level operator. She’d also work with her psychiatrist on techniques she could use in the field to avoid future panic attacks. Once they’d said good-bye to Kris and Wil, Max shut off the computer.
He stood up and pulled Emily into his arms, right where she belonged. Then he took her mouth in a deep kiss. “I thought they’d never shut up,” he murmured as he switched to planting kisses all over her face.
Emily laughed. “Face it, you love their attention. You missed being part of a team, didn’t you?”
He sighed and rested his forehead against hers. “Yeah. It feels good to know that someone has my back.” It humbled him knowing that Wil and Kris had never given up on him, despite his attempt to freeze them out of his life. “I’m a lucky guy.”
“You are. I like them. And,” she snuggled against him, “unless I’m wrong, Kristoff more than likes Wil. I think he has a major crush on your brother.”
“Yeah, I noticed that, too.”
“Do you think Wil knows it? He’s harder to read than Kristoff.”
Max nibbled on her ear. “Oh, Wil’s definitely noticed. And he’s interested. But wary after his previous lover died in the attack against the base. Plus, he’s still adjusting to his new job and life without his lower legs. It’ll take him a while to decide whether to get involved with Kris.”
“Well, they seem like a good fit. I hope they end up together.” Emily arched her neck and Max took her invitation, kissing his way from her ear to her collarbone and back again.
“Wil knows I’ll back him no matter what.”
“Mmm… He’s lucky to have you as a brother.”
Max just shrugged and took her mouth in a longer, deeper kiss.
“So,” he began when he came up for air. He ran his hands down her back to her butt and stroked over the curves she’d recently put on once she’d started eating again. “How about heading to West Africa as my wife?”
She raised laughing eyes to him. “Max Lansing, is that the best you can do for a proposal?”
“What? I love you. You love me. Marriage is a natural next step.” One he’d never thought he’d take. Or be so eager for. But he wanted this so badly, he’d actually approached her terrifying father—he held very old-fashioned views regarding his daughter’s love life—for permission. Max figured since her dad had eventually said yes, odds were in his favor here.
Shaking her head, Emily briefly touched her lips to his. “You’re one in a million, Max Lansing, but you do lack what my parents would call the finer social skills.”
“What? Did I do something wrong? Your dad said it was okay.”
“You talked to my dad?” She choked back laughter. “I bet that was intense.”
“Yeah. So you have to say yes, as compensation for enduring the interrogation he put me through.”
Shaking her head and smiling, she kissed him again, this time teasing him with a featherlight brush of her tongue. “You are completely unconventional and one of a kind, Max.”
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good. Was she thinking of saying no? He’d been so sure…
She took his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Max threw his head back and shouted in joy. Then he scooped her up and carried her inside. “I believe we’re up to fantasy number thirty-nine,” he murmured as he set her on the bed and began to strip her of her clothes.
When she was naked, Emily sprawled on her back, unashamedly letting him see her scars as she raised her arms to him. “I don’t remember that one,” she said.
He shed his clothes and covered her body with his. “Let me remind you.” He whispered in her ear exactly what he was going to do to her and what he wanted her to do in return.
She laughed in delight and ran her hands down his back.
Max lowered his mouth to hers. Felt that now familiar sensation of coming home.
Yes. He’d finally found his place in the world. He belonged here, in the arms of this amazing woman.
And for the first time in years, he looked to the future with hope.
Dear Reader
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading WAR: Disruption. The WAR series has been a long time in the making, ever since the days when I lived in West Africa. I’m so excited to finally share these characters with you.
Max wasn’t too happy with me, but I had a lot of fun putting him through hell.
Do you think the acid attack against Emily sounds familiar? The idea was triggered by the acid attack in January 2013 against the Bolshoi Ballet Theater’s artistic
director, Sergei Filin.
Book two, WAR: Intrusion, is tentatively scheduled for release on June 1, 2015, although I hope to have it finished before then. The hero is Lachlan MacKay, the leader of the WAR team that comes in at the end of Disruption to take Dietrich and his men into custody. Lachlan is Scottish and a former SAS commander. The heroine is Helen Kirk, an American medical doctor who works at a clinic in West Africa. If you’re interested in reading some lines from Intrusion, check out the #1LineWed entries on my blog starting 12/17/14, or follow me on Twitter to see my #1LineWed entries every Wednesday.
To receive exclusive content and information on the progress of Intrusion, click here to sign up for my newsletter, or sign up on my website: www.vanessakier.com
If you’d like to connect with me online, I love hearing from readers. You can find me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VanessaKier or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vanessakierauthor or email me at [email protected].
Finally, if you enjoyed reading WAR: Disruption, I would appreciate it if you would help others enjoy this book, too.
Recommend it. Please help others discover this book by recommending it to family, friends, readers’ groups, and anyone else you think might be interested in Max and Emily’s adventures.
Review it. Reviews are another fantastic way to spread the word about a book. Please consider reviewing WAR: Disruption at All Romance eBooks or on Goodreads.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Vengeance, Book 1 of the Surgical Strike Unit series.
Happy reading!
Vanessa
Excerpt from Vengeance
by Vanessa Kier
Wednesday, Late Afternoon
Surgical Strike Unit Training Compound
Oregon
JENNA PATERSON HAD five minutes to rescue the hostage.
She nodded and her partner rammed open the door. With steady hands, Jenna pulled the pin on a flash grenade and lobbed it into the room. She quickly turned her head away, closing her eyes to protect her vision against the brilliant explosion. Then waited for her team leader to give the signal to enter. Thankfully, the shock of the grenade had startled the hostage inside into silence. Jenna had been afraid that one more minute of listening to the woman’s terrified screams would throw her back to the night two years ago when she’d been attacked.
Don’t remember, she warned herself. It’s not the same. You’re not the victim this time. Your job is to save this poor woman from further abuse at the hands of the terrorists.
Yet her body wasn’t buying it. Her stomach tightened in dread and her mouth was as dry as the paint on a da Vinci. She pressed her back tightly against the cheap plasterboard wall of the hallway. Inhaled the scent of the grenade’s fumes and underneath that, the nauseating mixture of fresh paint and fresh blood. She tightened her grip on her automatic rifle and hoped the team leader would give the go-ahead before her nerves got the better of her.
Stick to the plan, the voice inside her head chanted. These are not the men who attacked you. That’s not Kai in there.
Jenna clenched her teeth. She was better now. She was. She hadn’t frozen during action since the last time they’d rescued a female prisoner in the middle of being raped.
“Go!” The voice of her team leader came clearly over the headset. At a nod from her partner, Jenna drew in a deep breath and counted to five. He went through the door first, high and to the left followed by Jenna rolling low and to the right.
The next minutes were a surrealistic blur. Muzzle flashes turned the lingering smoke from the grenade into a multicolored cloud. The hostage cried out in fear, not realizing she was being rescued. The terrorists grunted in pain, writhing in grotesque death dances as the bullets from Jenna’s teammates found their targets.
Then, suddenly, silence. Jenna lay on her stomach, panting, her heart racing as she searched for another target. But the room was still.
Three short bursts from a whistle signaled the end of the exercise. The house lights came up and the experienced Surgical Strike Unit operators who’d been playing the terrorists rose to their feet, laser tagged vests glowing where they’d been “hit” by her team’s fire.
One of the terrorists pulled off his baseball cap, revealing sweat-stained blond hair. For a second he looked so much like Kai that Jenna turned her weapon toward him before reality returned. Reeling from the close call, she quickly lowered her weapon.
Thank God the man hadn’t noticed her targeting him. She never would have lived that one down. As she pushed hastily to her feet she snuck a glance at the rest of the room to make sure no one else had seen. And met the fierce chocolate eyes of Niko Andros.
Her heart stuttered. Didn’t that figure? The one person who’d observed her slip was today’s guest trainer, the man her classmates spoke about in awed whispers. The man who, with the predatory stillness of his body and the wary intelligence in his eyes, reminded Jenna of a falcon.
Jenna did her best to act casual, like nothing had happened, but Niko glanced from her weapon to the guy she’d almost shot and raised one eyebrow. Damn. She shrugged and forced a slight smile, hoping Niko would chalk her edginess up to adrenaline.
After holding her gaze for an uncomfortable moment, Niko’s expression shifted from questioning to a banked heat that caused an alarming frisson of sexual awareness to shoot through her. Feeling her cheeks flush, she quickly turned away.
Her stomach churned with nausea. She couldn’t handle this. Not now. Yes, she’d worked hard since the rape to get over her fear of being the object of a man’s sexual interest. She couldn’t train with guys and not expect to receive a few suggestive looks or comments. But until today she’d never felt anything but revulsion in response to a man’s attention.
The doctors would say that her appreciation of Niko as a male was a positive step. Yet even as a brief image of her running her fingers through his short dark hair flashed in her mind, panic began a familiar beat in her veins.
She had to get out of here. Had to—
“Hey, you okay?” her partner Elliot asked. She nodded, unable to meet his eyes. Afraid he’d see her fear. Hoping he hadn’t seen the look Niko had given her. What could she say? “I’m scared to death because for the first time in two years I’m actually feeling attraction toward a man, but all I can remember when I think of sex is pain and blood?” Yeah, that would go over well.
Thankfully, Elliot didn’t push for a better answer. Ignoring her trembling legs, Jenna followed him and the rest of her teammates outside where their trainers waited to review the afternoon’s exercise. One of a handful of privately-funded special operations groups that had sprung up in recent years, the Surgical Strike Unit, or SSU, had one of the best reputations for skilled operators in the world. Which meant their trainers accepted nothing but success.
The “terrorists” and the “hostage” moved into place in the center of the assembly area, then the senior trainer read out the statistics. Jenna had killed every one of her targets. She nodded, relieved that her nerves hadn’t affected her performance and proud that she hadn’t even hesitated this time. Not like during the exercise a month ago, when seeing the victim pinned face down under her attacker had thrown Jenna back to the night she and her family had been attacked. Trapped in memories, she’d lost awareness of the action around her. When the exercise had finished and the trainers turned up the lights it took them five minutes to bring her attention back to the present.
From his position in line with the other trainers, Niko mouthed “Good job” at her. Jenna managed a slight nod in response, then looked away before he sensed the panic his continued attention caused her.
Taking slow, deep breaths, Jenna told herself Niko wasn’t a threat. Besides, she wouldn’t see him again after today. Rumor had it that he’d been pulled out of deep cover in Afghanistan when his joint mission with the DEA had been compromised, but that Niko was headed back to Afghanistan the day after tomorrow to set things right.
So, all she had to do was avoid a
ppearing too nervous for the rest of the afternoon, and she wouldn’t have to worry about his effect on her any more. Thankfully, no one else on the team threatened to break her reputation for being impervious to emotion. After two years of struggling to keep herself together so she wouldn’t be thrown out of the training program due to psychological instability, she couldn’t afford to have her suitability as an operator questioned now. Not with only four months until graduation.
“Hey, Thompkins, you shot out my knee again, you moron,” one of the trainees jibed. “I’m your partner, not a damn terrorist, man.”
Thompkins shot his roommate a one-fingered salute. “If you’d moved your lazy ass out of the way you wouldn’t have been shot.”
The man next to Jenna snorted. “Right. That’s what? Excuse number five hundred and twelve? Face it, you’re never gonna be as good as Paterson, here. Beat by a girl.”
“Yeah, she’s accurate. When she doesn’t freeze up and get herself killed,” Thompkins groused.
There was an awkward pause as everyone’s eyes turned to Jenna. “It only happened once,” she muttered, feeling her cheeks heat at the unaccustomed attention. Her teammates didn’t usually include her in their banter. “I’m not the one who just shot his partner for the second time this week.”
