Elite Metal-ARE-epub (93 page)

John decided that maybe he wasn’t the only one who was poison. She was, too. She’d infected him, gotten inside of him and was now part of every fiber, every cell.

He understood now why men who were smarter than he ever hoped to be like William James Sidis and Nicola Tesla were celibate. They used their genius to better mankind, not get their dicks wet.

What kind of genius was he that the woman he was obsessed with, the woman he… loved… She loved him back and he’d turned her away.

Thrown her away with both hands.

He reminded himself that it wasn’t like that. She needed—
she needed him
.

He needed her.

Motherfucker
… he needed her. Like the air he breathed. More, because he didn’t want the air he breathed without her.

This wasn’t living. Everything he’d done before, that wasn’t living either. He didn’t know what it meant to breathe until he’d held her in his arms. He hadn’t felt the sunshine, smelled the rain… none of it was real until Hazel.

He remembered that night he touched her. That night when he’d been trying to feel something, anything. Even pain. He remembered thinking he’d give anything to feel. Now that he had, it was too much and he was too weak. Had been since the moment she kissed him. It wasn’t the serum, it was all him. All because his dead heart had starting beating again—for her.

The realization hit him that it wasn’t Hazel he thought would get hurt.

It was himself.

Fuck, but what had he done?

He wondered if it was too late to fix it. Too late to lay claim to the one thing he wanted out of this life.

Where would he even begin?

He knew he didn’t deserve her, that was for damn sure. For all his flaws, all his ugly on the outside and the inside, she still loved him.

Chrome would know where to find her. He went to his office and found him doing the every day business of living like the whole world hadn’t just shifted on its axis. He supposed it hadn’t, only Merc’s world had spun around the opposite direction.

“Tell me,” he said while the other man leaned over his desk scouring intel.

Chrome didn’t bother to act like he didn’t know what Merc meant. “Not unless you tell me you’ve got your head out of your ass and you’re going to bring her back here.”

“If she’ll have us.”

Chrome cocked his head to the side. “It really is an all or nothing, isn’t it? Fine. She’s here.” He handed him a print out of turn by turn directions from Google Maps.

“You put her somewhere on the grid?”

“It’s where she wanted to go. She’s job hunting on the grid. What did you expect when you shipped her off? I’ve got some ghosts sitting on her, but I’m glad you figured your shit out. Budget is loving the extra labor.”

He didn’t even know what to say to her.

But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to her. He made his Ducati do unreasonable things a bike was never meant to do, even a Ducati. He used the service elevator and made his way to her room.

He knocked and knocked, but when she didn’t come to the door, he let himself in with a neat little trick he’d picked up in his youth.

The first thing he noticed was that the room smelled like her. The sheets were rumpled and bathroom light was on.

His shirt lay across the bed, an accusation.

He sat next to it and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

He didn’t know how long he spent, but seconds were hours and hours were years. It was all a lifetime wasted until he could see her again. Touch her again.

Yes, even confess his sins, his failings, and beg her forgiveness.

The door creaked open. “You’ll have to excuse the mess.”

“I don’t mind,” a male voice said.

“I mind,” John spoke from the shadows.

Hazel shrieked. “What are you doing in my hotel room?”

This wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. And who was the dead man behind her?

“I think the real question is what are you doing in your hotel room?”

“That isn’t any of your business, is it?”

If she’d already moved on, could she really have felt for him the things she’d said? Could she really have loved him? Or was it all dust and ash now because he’d been a stupid bastard? Or maybe she just realized that he really wasn’t good enough for her.

“Maybe not, but you can do better than
that
guy. He’s hiding behind your skirts, for fuck’s sake.”

Then she surprised him. She laughed. It was honest, pure and golden. “You’re unreal, you know that? He’s my friend and he’s on the board at the hospital and trying to help me get my job back. Since, you know, you.” She shook her head.  “Eric, can we catch up later?”

“Or never,” Merc offered, ever helpful.

“Are you okay? Should I get security or…”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” She closed the door behind her. “What are you doing?”

Suddenly, everything he wanted to say died in his throat and stuck there like a dirty sock. That’s how he felt about emotions…dirty laundry. But he could do this. He had to.

For her.

For himself.

For a love that left unlived that would turn toxic—poison.

“Please don’t do this to me, John. I can’t say goodbye again.” She stood there, beautiful in the stark light, eyes full of emotion and her lip trembling.

“What about yes? Can you say yes? To me and all the bullshit that’s a package deal?”

She shook her head slowly. “You need to spell it out for me, because I don’t think I’m understanding you.”

“I’m a fucker, Hazel. I’m not good enough for you by any definition of the phrase. I’m a coward, too.” He nodded. “It wasn’t you I was worried for. It was me. You make me weak because I’m afraid of what I feel for you. But being afraid didn’t change how I felt. I love you and I will until this flesh bag breathes its last. Maybe even longer.”

He fell to his knees in front of her and took her hand. “Forgive me. Love me.”

Hazel brought the back of her other hand against her mouth as her eyes teared. “Always.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried himself in the scent of her, the feel of her, the truth of her.

“Always,” she said again.

Saranna DeWylde

Saranna DeWylde has always been fascinated by things better left in the dark. She wrote her first story after watching The Exorcist at a slumber party. Since then, she's published horror, romance and narrative nonfiction. Like all writers, Saranna has held a variety of jobs, from operations supervisor for an airline, to an assistant for a call girl, to a corrections officer. But like Hemingway said, "Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it." So she traded in her cuffs for a full-time keyboard. She loves to hear from her readers.

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By Roxie Rivera

Forged in Silver

By Roxie Rivera

Text Copyright Roxie Rivera / Night Work Books, LLC 2015

All Rights Reserved

Discover more titles by Roxie Rivera at
http://www.roxieriverawriter.com/

Dedication

To my tireless street team and my fabulous loyal wonderful readers...this is for each of you.

Forged in Silver

By Roxie Rivera

Rebel. Nomad. Troublemaker.

After surviving the double-cross during Operation Phoenix, Former
Elite Recon
Marine Silver embraces the underworld and builds a new life as one of the world's most renowned thieves. Jewels, paintings, corporate espionage--there's no job he won't take for the right price.

Until Poppy Jones orders her ghosts to snatch him up in Budapest and haul him back to Texas to face her brand of justice...

Forced to decide between a prison cell and signing on to Elite Metal, Silver chooses the latter. Quietly operating in the background of a team that no longer trusts or wants him, he completes all the dirty little jobs that keep the team alive and flush with new intel.

But when he learns Poppy plans to infiltrate a terrorist gathering, he refuses to hide in the shadows a moment longer. In a world of secrets and lies, Poppy Jones is his bright light of truth and trust.

And he'll brave the fires of hell--and the disdain of Steele and Chrome--to protect her.

Prologue

April 1, 07:00 AM

Mouth dry and stomach lurching wickedly, Quicksilver Smith inhaled slow, deep breaths. Gagged, blindfolded and bound to a chair, he fought the very human urge to panic and instead relied on the many years of training that had once earned him a coveted spot on the
Elite Recon
team.

The brief flash of unwanted memories at the mere thought of the Elite team caused a ripple of something cold and uneasy to glide down his spine. He stretched his neck and forced away the memories of pain and death and grief.

Focus, asshole. You’re duct taped to a chair. You’ve been drugged. What the fuck do you remember?

The Keleti station in Budapest.

After a dead drop in an alley to pick up the cash owed to him for the Vienna burglary he had just successfully completed, he had switched disguises and headed to the railway station to grab the early morning train to Zagreb. He had his own contact in Croatia that would get him safe passage into Albania where he had planned to lay low and enjoy the fruits of his labor until the next dirty little piece of work came across his virtual desk.

Still drowsy from the drugs, he vaguely remembered stepping into the compartment he had booked. There had been a sudden flash of movement just to his left and then his vision had been swallowed by the dark hood slipped over his head. Another person—a ghost—had grabbed him from behind and jabbed a needle right into his neck. Paralyzed and pliant, he had been bound and gagged and hauled from the train car.

Where am I now? Who took me? Who?

Another glimmer of a memory from his
Elite Recon
days broke through that mental wall to taunt him. Operation Phoenix. The clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks that had wiped out Titanium’s entire team and half of Chrome’s when it all went south in that frozen Russian hellhole. Maybe the blowback from that shitstorm had finally caught up with him.

Red Wolf.
The name of the terrorist who headed his own shadowy organization shouldered its way to the front of the line of suspects who might have kidnapped him. They had their dirty paws poked into dozens of government organizations the world over and were undoubtedly very keen to clip the final loose ends still flying in the wind since Operation Phoenix went tits up.

But if Red Wolf had him in his clutches, he would have been hurting right now. Bleeding. Broken. Battered. Ruined. Those terrorist fucks didn’t mess around. They tortured and maimed. They killed. He was still breathing, and he wasn’t being dangled from the ceiling by his balls with electrodes clipped to his tongue so he slashed Red Wolf off the list.

The Russians?
It was no secret that FSB, the Moscow equivalent of the CIA, wanted all of the surviving members of the disastrous Operation Phoenix rounded up for questioning.

Yeah, right. Questioning? Sure, sure, after they sweat me in a black site for a few weeks and then toss me into the gen pop of some frozen Siberian gulag…

But it wasn’t the Russians this time. Those borscht-eating bastards were ruthlessly efficient. This didn’t have the feel of an FSB black op. This felt almost…familiar.

The squeal of door hinges kicked Silver into high alert. Adrenaline spilled into his bloodstream, washing away the lingering effects of the sedatives used on him, and he perked to the
clack-clack-clack
of high heels tapping against concrete. A woman? Confused, he tried to figure out what woman on the list of people he had screwed over in the last year had enough power to come after him like this. Admittedly, it was a long fucking list.

After the team had been disbanded and forced to scatter, he had chosen to stay in Europe rather than go back to the States. It hadn’t taken him long to fall back on bad habits. The lure of easy money and some old connections to the criminal underworld had given him a seemingly endless supply of contacts who needed help from a ghost with breaking and entering skills.

“I do hope you’ll forgive me for the rather unorthodox way I acquired you, but your reputation convinced me that a heavy hand might be necessary.”

As the first syllable of that sweet, sultry voice hit his eardrums, every nerve-ending in Silver’s body buzzed. Breathing as quietly as possible, he listened carefully to see if he could detect her movements.
Where is she?

The tap of heels and the slight squeak of metal against wood filled in the blanks for him. She was across from him, probably leaning against a table. Wanting to see her and hating to fly blind, he rubbed his cheek against his shoulder in an attempt to shove the blindfold up a little higher. It was slow work but he managed to see the barest sliver of concrete.
Keep going…

“What should I call you? Mr. Quicksilver Smith? Silver? Or perhaps you’d prefer to hear a different name, one you haven’t heard in years I’d wager.”