The Exit Strategy Bundle
Page 1
The Exit Strategy Bundle
Jocelynn Drake
Contents
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
Lover Calling
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Vengeful Lover
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
Epilogue
Final Lover
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
Author’s Notes
Don’t Miss These Adventures!
About the Author
Also by Jocelynn Drake
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEADLY LOVER Copyright ©2018 Jocelynn Drake. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Jocelynn Drake.
Cover art by Stephen Drake of Design by Drake.
Edited and proofed by Jenni Lea of LesCourt Author Services.
Created with Vellum
For Robert.
Prologue
There was still time…
Heavy footsteps pounded across the hardwood floor, followed by the slam of the garage door as it shut behind Kevin. He raced across the kitchen, not bothering to flick on the lights as he maneuvered around the marble-topped island toward the narrow hall leading to the master bedroom and his private office. The dim work light over the stove created grim shadows, but he ignored them, focusing only on getting back to his computer.
Kristen’s wide, frantic eyes flashed through his mind. She’d grabbed him, warned him they were being watched. Her slender fingers bit into his arm like talons, and he’d only wanted to shrug her off, walk away, and claim that it was paranoia riding her overworked and exhausted mind.
But she was dead now.
His own access to key data files had been cut off at work. The IT department had claimed it was an unknown malfunction and they were working on it, promising to have it fully restored tomorrow. But Kristen’s desperate words didn’t sound so paranoid anymore.
Reaching his cluttered desk, he jostled the mouse, waking the computer from its slumber. The dual monitors flicked on, revealing a login screen. Kevin didn’t bother to sit down as he typed in the first password to decrypt the hard drive and then a second password to get into the actual operating system. If he could just upload all his new data to the cloud, he’d be able to access it from anywhere. He could finish his report while on the run and present his data to the world. Then he’d be safe.
A soft creak echoed through the silent house, barely drifting above the clatter of keys and the loud beating of his heart in his ear. Kevin stopped, trembling fingers hovering just above the keyboard. The house was new—barely five years old. There were no sounds of shifting and settling.
The creak had come from a particular floorboard in the kitchen. He’d hit it a hundred times on the trek between his office and the fridge to get a bottle of water or coffee as he worked late into the night on his research. He wasn’t alone in the house.
A sob tried to break past his clenched teeth, coming out as more of a muffled moan. Blinking, he looked back down at the monitors to find them blurred and unreadable.
He was out of time.
Chapter One
The man’s face was swollen, covered with ugly purple and blue bruises, so that he was unrecognizable. Not that Justin would have recognized him if he hadn’t been. He’d never met Dr. Kevin Weiss. The biochemist had been badly beaten before he’d finally died of a vicious blow to the back of the head.
The next picture showed a living room that had been torn apart. Stuffing poured from shredded sofa cushions, broken bits of coffee table lay scattered around the room, and holes pockmarked pale tan walls. And in the center, the doctor’s limp body was awkwardly sprawled in a large pool of blood.
The local news had claimed the doctor had the poor timing of coming home during a burglary attempt.
“So…I’m guessing the reporters got their story wrong,” Justin drawled, lifting his eyes to the woman sitting opposite him in the small booth of the crowded coffee shop.
Marilyn lifted one sleek eyebrow at him, her plump red lips twisting slightly. Dressed in a lilac blouse and white Capri pants, she portrayed the perfect image of a middle class suburban mom. But a hardness in her light brown eyes whispered of a past that most knew nothing of. Not even Justin, and he preferred it that way.
Justin hid his smirk behind his coffee mug as he took another sip. It was so fucking easy to irritate her. Marilyn would never have called him if the police were already on the right track with this one.
“Do you know anything about Iaso Health?” she asked, tapping her manicured nails on the table. Her firm voice was pitched just loud enough to reach him above the steady clatter of noise filling the busy coffee shop.
“Big pharma headquartered in New England—New Hampshire, I think—with a research facility up in Blue Ash. They have their fingers in drugs to treat a variety of diseases, but their big money makers over the years have been in psychopharmacological and diabetic drugs.”
Marilyn nodded. “Dr. Weiss was one of their lead developers. Rumor has it he was part of the Siltryptrose development that is expected to receive the FDA’s stamp of approval any day now.”
Justin put his mug down and frowned. “New anti-depressant?”
“Cancer treatment. Pill form. It’s rumored to be more effective than chemo and without most of the side effects.”
His breath froze in his lungs. The smallest of tells and Marilyn still caught it, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Yes. Worth billions for Iaso if it works as they claim,” she continued.
“Makes you wonder about poor Dr. Weiss,�
� Justin murmured when he could draw air into his lungs again. Marilyn’s estimate of billions felt like an understatement.
“Particularly since he’s not the first.” She paused when her cell phone vibrated at the far end of the table. Glaring at it, she flipped it over to look at the display. With a huff, she pushed a folded piece of paper over to Justin while she answered the phone.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said, her voice lifting an octave and becoming significantly softer, kinder, while at the same time her eyes were narrowed in warning at him.
Justin swallowed a snicker as he picked up the paper and quickly read the story of a woman who had died in a car crash just a week earlier. It had occurred late at night as she was leaving work. The accident had been ruled a hit and run, with no leads on the killer.
“No, that’s no problem at all,” she cooed. “I’ve got to take Tyler to violin lessons in a few hours and then Isabelle has soccer practice at seven. We’ll just catch up later tonight.”
A couple minutes later she ended the call, turning her full attention to Justin who was smiling at her. “Fucking his secretary?” he mocked.
Marilyn rolled her eyes, putting her phone aside. “So cliché. It’s his marketing director.” The gentle, saccharine tone was completely gone as if it had never existed and the cold woman Justin was accustomed to dealing with settled back into place.
“Does it bother you?”
“That he’s cheating on me?” She sat back in the booth and pushed her empty teacup and saucer aside. “God no. I’m more pissed at the notion that he honestly thinks I don’t know about it.”
“Does he know you’ve cheated on him?”
“First, I’ve never cheated on him.” Justin just grinned at her, and Marilyn glared. “What you’re assuming from my past was only business. It doesn’t count. And second, the man knows what I want him to know.”
He chuckled before picking up his coffee and draining the last of it. “Sounds like the foundation for a successful marriage.”
“No, it’s not,” she countered lightly, giving a shrug. “But it is a marriage where I am in control. It works for what we both need.”
Justin stared at the prim woman sitting across from him. There was nothing he could read from her eyes or expression. Few people he’d met in his life could create such an emotional blank, and Marilyn was one of the best. You knew only what she wanted you to know, and in most circumstances, it was a lie. He knew she was actually married with two kids, and she lived in Lakeside Park, Kentucky in a very nice home. But that was all window dressing. While she’d never admitted to it, Justin was positive that she was ex-CIA, like himself, or maybe MI6.
“Would you like me to wipe out her 401K? Destroy her credit rating? Get her car repossessed?” he offered for the hell of it.
A soft laugh bubbled from her lips and she smiled genuinely at him. “No, I have other plans for her. The time just isn’t right yet. And I will be handling it personally.”
Justin shrugged. “Well, if you don’t need my skills for that…”
“There is this little thing that needs attention.” As she spoke, she slid another piece of paper across the table. This time, all the text was written in Russian. Justin’s spoken Russian was passingly fair, but he could fluently read the language. His eyes darted over the job description, his mind soaking in the details, analyzing and breaking down what would be needed. Someone was needed to track down the missing proof that something was wrong with the drug as well as uncover who was hiding it.
“No,” he said, the single word sharp and angry. “It’s a two-man job.”
“That’s why it pays so well.” Justin’s eyes jumped to where she had turned over her smart phone while he had been reading. On the screen, he saw where she had typed “22” into the calculator.
$22 million?
His heart lurched in his chest as he looked up at Marilyn. She nodded, her smile becoming slightly more devilish. The bitch knew he was interested now, even if it was a two-man job. Most of the paid work he got from her rarely tipped the scale above two million. And the truth was he didn’t need high-paying jobs. His instructions with Marilyn were to find him jobs that would allow him to net at least six million per year, while the rest of his time was devoted to what she liked to call his “Robin Hood causes” — missions that didn’t pay but made sure that the little guy came out ahead for once.
She flipped the screen over, laying the phone back on the table. “The difficulty and the … recent developments have forced the contractor to pay well. And while you might not like it, this one is right up your alley. You know it is.”
Shifting in his seat, Justin tamped down the need to fidget. This job was a tantalizing mix of Robin Hood and Red Hood for him. Do a good deed and get fucking paid handsomely. The stars couldn’t align better, except for the fact there was no way in hell he could do the job alone. Oh, he could easily handle the computer hacking end of things, but there was going to be a part that demanded feet on the ground, someone to potentially protect his back if he had to go inside as well.
“You know who the contractor is? This is legitimate?”
“Nothing definite, but I have a solid lead.” Marilyn shook her head, sending a lock of brown hair cascading over her right shoulder. “The contractor has been very discreet, but then I’m very good.”
“Rival company?”
“No. If you accept, I’ll send you the details I’ve gathered, and you can confirm for your conscience.”
“I can’t,” he growled, throwing up his arms. “It’s a two—”
“I have someone,” she interrupted. Her expression became smug as she met Justin’s gaze. “He’s good. Experienced. Usually a solo, but like you, this is a perfect fit for him. You accept and pay him a percentage when it’s over.”
“You’ve worked with him?”
“Not like you’re thinking, but I know his work.”
“Trustworthy?”
“No,” she said with an almost girlish giggle. “But are any of us?”
“Mar—”
“He’s a professional.”
Justin frowned. Professional meant little more than the man would honor their agreement, which was about all he could ask for. He glanced at the job description in neat Cyrillic script again. Even without the killer payday, this was a good job for him. It would save lives. Passing it up was painful. It wouldn’t be a long job. He could do a large chunk of the prep work and research without the other guy. Just call him in at the end when it was time to go in. Maybe two, three days of actually working together…
“I…”
“Just say yes,” she said with a weary sigh.
“Yes,” he growled.
Marilyn snatched up the bits of paper, shoving them into the file containing the pictures of the dead Dr. Weiss. She tucked it into her large purse along with her phone before turning her attention back to Justin. “I’ll contact the contractor and arrange twenty percent upfront payment for signing to be used for expenses. I’ll take my usual finder’s fee from that and send the remainder to your account as usual. The files have already been sent over to you.”
“Bitch,” Justin grumbled but still smiled at her. She’d known he’d take the job. God, he’d been working with her for far too long. “The guy. You’ll arrange an introduction?”
“Tomorrow night. Eight o’clock at The Club.”
Her words smacked him in the face. “He’s a local?”
Marilyn slid out of the booth, smiling at him as she shouldered her purse. “No, his plane arrives tonight.”
Justin’s laughter followed her out of the coffee shop. He never stood a fucking chance.
Chapter Two
Justin tamped down the urge to adjust his tie as he stepped inside The Club. The eclectic restaurant stood near the center of downtown Cincinnati, near Fountain Square. And while it had been open for less than a year, it was already one of the most popular restaurants within the city. Justin itched to know how the hell Marilyn
had managed to get reservations on a Friday night without calling four months in advance. There was no way the woman had hacked into their scheduling system. He didn’t get the impression that it was her forte.
As he waited for his turn at the maître d' podium, he glanced around the elegant restaurant. The walls were a buttery cream with unique pieces of modern art that were supposedly created by local artists. But they all had a warm yet haunting quality to them; certainly eye-catching, even in the subdued lighting. The sound of soft conversation and the clink of silverware on china just barely rose above the classical music that filled the air.
“Good evening, sir. Can I help you?” the young woman behind the stand greeted, bringing his attention back to her.
He dropped Marilyn’s name and was instantly whisked away to a half-hidden table. He wasn’t surprised to find Marilyn and the other man already there. He was only five minutes late. Justin had briefly contemplated trying to arrive before them and then let it go. If Marilyn wanted to meet secretly with her little friend, then she had ample opportunity to do it whether he was early or late. No, Justin was content to let them wait on him.