Authors: Katie Reus
Tags: #romance, #romantic suspense, #action, #action adventure, #contemporary romance, #alpha hero, #miami romance
No One to Trust
No One to Trust
By Katie Reus
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Copyright © 2012 by Katie Reus
Cover Art by LFD Designs
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This book is a work of fiction. The names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's
imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be
construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead,
actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental.
All rights reserved. With the exception of
quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in
whole or in part by any means existing without written permission
from the author.
Smashwords Edition, License
Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal
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and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.
http://www.twitter.com/katiereus
Table of
Contents
Preview of One Night to Remember by Kristin
Miller
Chapter 1
Secrets are what keep a family strong.
United.
Elizabeth Martinez could still hear her father’s words
echoing in the recesses of her memories. Over a decade had passed
and not a day went by that she didn’t wish she could rewrite
history. Some secrets had a way of eating a person alive. From the
inside out, one giant bite at a time. Gnawing until she couldn’t
stand it. If her father hadn’t forced them all to keep the family’s
dirty little secret, maybe she’d be at home enjoying a nice glass
of wine and a bubble bath. She wouldn’t be picking up her brother
from a drug dealer’s house on a chilly Tuesday evening.
Lizzy put her BMW into park and slid from the
vehicle. This particular mansion in Keystone Island was the last
place in the world she wanted to be. Unfortunately her brother had
called begging for help. Again.
Everyone else in the family had turned their
back on Benny but she simply couldn’t say no when he needed her.
Not when he’d always been there for her.
While she wasn’t sure what Benny was doing at
the recently deceased Alberto Salas’s home, she knew it couldn’t be
good. Salas had been infamous for running drugs up and down the
entire East Coast. She’d heard his son, Orlando, had taken over his
operation. She’d briefly interacted with Orlando at a few charity
functions around Miami and he’d always been perfectly polite, but
the man gave her the creeps. There were some things an Armani suit
simply couldn’t hide.
Self-consciously, Lizzy tugged at her dress
as if she could somehow make it grow a couple inches longer. The
bright turquoise halter-style dress and black cardigan sweater she
wore were completely respectable, but as she walked down the stone
driveway toward the front door, she could feel several sets of eyes
on her. Considering Orlando Salas was rumored to be in the same
business his father had been, she guessed that even though she
couldn’t see them, he had plenty of scary looking security guys
milling around. They were nothing more than thugs in suits and
ties. She worked for one of the best security firms in the nation
and the guys she worked with—they sure weren’t thugs. No, they were
highly trained, mostly ex-military, and didn’t deal with scum like
Salas. They protected uber wealthy clients and government
dignitaries and everyone they worked for got a detailed military
level background check—courtesy of her computer skills—and if it
appeared they were into anything like drugs, Red Stone Security
didn’t take them on. With how much money their company made, they
could afford to be picky.
Before she could knock on the bright red
door, it swung open and a man carrying an assault rifle looked her
up and down.
A cold chill slithered through her, mainly
because of the look on his face, rather than the gun. She’d known
the guards here would be armed, but
yuck
, this guy made her
feel like she was naked. Clutching her purse tighter against her
side—as if that could somehow save her—she started to tell him why
she was there, but he beat her to it.
With a lecherous grin on his face, he stepped
back and allowed her to enter. “Your brother’s out back.” He
pointed down the tile hallway. “Just follow until you reach the
French doors.”
Fighting back the growing panic humming
through her, she nodded and did just as he said. Yeah, maybe she
should have called her boss and told him what she was doing but she
didn’t want to drag anyone she knew into Benny’s problems. Then
everyone would know how messed up her family really was. It was too
embarrassing. She’d take care of it just like she always had.
Chin up
, she ordered herself.
As she neared the doors she could see her
brother stretched out on an Adirondack chair. She yanked the door
open and hurried to his still form. “Benny!”
When he didn’t stir, an icy fist clasped
around her heart. He looked like a corpse. His normally bronze face
was a grayish color. She touched his wrist and a sharp burst of
relief popped inside her. At least his pulse was strong. But his
face…tears blurred her vision for a moment. A garish purple bruise
covered his left cheek and one of his eyes was swollen almost all
the way shut. A light trail of blood had trickled from his nostril
and dried on his upper lip. Had they broke his nose? Her throat
tightened with raw grief. He’d sounded bad on the phone but she
hadn’t expected
this
. She wanted to touch him, comfort him
somehow, but was afraid she’d only hurt him more.
Her hand hovered over his pale face for a
moment before she settled on brushing a lock of his dark hair away
from his forehead. “What have you gotten yourself into,” she
whispered.
“He’s going to be out for a little while.”
She swiveled around at a familiar male voice and let her hand
drop.
Monster.
The word echoed inside her
but she bit it back. “Mr. Salas.” She tried to keep the disdain out
of her voice as she faced the man who’d likely beaten her brother.
Or at least watched while one of his men had. Somehow she managed
to blink back the tears threatening to spill over.
“Please call me Orlando. You’re a very good
sister to pick your brother up so quickly.” Standing about ten feet
away from her, he leaned against the mini-bar with a glass tumbler
in hand.
She narrowed her gaze. Anger battled with the
fear blossoming inside her but she was still level-headed enough
not to cower in front of him. A man like this probably craved the
fear of others. “Did you do this to him?”
His shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “Not
personally. Benito owes me quite a bit of money and I intend to
collect.”
“How much?”
“A hundred thousand.”
Lizzy swallowed but tried to school her
shock. Benny had had problems with drugs in the past but he’d been
clean for a while. Unfortunately, he’d found a new drug of choice.
Gambling. If she had to guess, he owed Orlando the money because of
bad bets. Or maybe he was back into drugs. She just didn’t know.
And she hated what her brother did to himself. He had such a good
heart but he couldn’t seem to keep it together.
Her parents had the money.
She
definitely didn’t. And it was unlikely her parents would fork over
that kind of cash for the black sheep of the family. Unless she
could convince them it was for her. Despite the terror splintering
through her, she stood her ground. “So you tried to
beat
the
money out of him?”
His dark gaze seemed to penetrate right
through to her innermost thoughts. “He’s lucky he’s not dead. Out
of respect for your family, I’m giving him one week to pay me
back.”
“And if he doesn’t?” She hated that the
question came out shaky, but she couldn’t help it. She was scared,
even if she tried to hide it.
“I sincerely hope he has a life insurance
policy.” He placed his glass on the bar and covered the short
distance between them in seconds. Before she could react, he’d
pressed her against one of the columns lining the outer edges of
the lanai. His breath was hot on her cheek and his expensive
cologne nearly smothered her as fear clawed at her insides. “I
might be willing to bargain, however, Ms. Martinez. You are a
beautiful woman. Six months as mine, and I’ll let your brother
off.” His hips jerked forward and she pushed back the bile in her
throat when she felt his erection against her hip.
Instinct overtook her fear as she shoved at
his chest. “You’re disgusting.”
He was immovable. Grabbing her wrist, he
pinned it above her head. When she swung out at him with her other
hand, he snapped it up with the same precision. She tried to tug
against him, but the man’s grip was like an iron shackle. Cold
sweat blossomed across her forehead and spread the length of her
body. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going, and Orlando Salas
was total scum. If he raped her, he wouldn’t let her live to tell
anyone. No, he’d likely dump her in the ocean. She racked her
brain, trying to think of a way out of her situation when a loud
shout and glass breaking inside caused him to let her go. But not
before he backhanded her across the face and growled, “Stay
here.”
The abrupt action surprised her more than it
hurt. A dull throb spread across her cheek, but it was nothing
compared to what would happen to her if she didn’t get out of
there. As he started to reach for a gun tucked in the back of his
pants, the double doors flew open and the last person she expected
to see stormed through, with a SIG in hand.
And it was pointed directly at Orlando.
“Are you okay, Elizabeth?” Porter Caldwell,
her unlikely savior, asked in his typical clipped tone.
“I’m fine.” At the moment, all that mattered
was getting out of there alive. She wasn’t exactly sure what Porter
was doing there or even how he’d gotten past Orlando’s guards. She
wasn’t going to balk at a chance to escape, even if her rescuer was
her sort-of-ex/almost-lover. Even though they’d dated for a month
and gotten pretty physical, they’d never actually had sex so she
didn’t think that qualified him as an old lover.
“Do you know who I am?” Orlando spat, but
Lizzy noticed he didn’t continue reaching for his gun. He wasn’t
that stupid.
Porter’s pale blue gaze narrowed with deadly
precision. “More importantly, do you know who
I
am?” Without
waiting for a response, he strode toward Orlando and slammed the
gun across his head with a vicious blow.
With a short-lived cry of surprise, Orlando
crumpled onto the mosaic tile. Lizzy had expected more of a
response from the man but maybe without his security to back him up
he wasn’t so tough after all.
Porter grabbed Lizzy’s wrist and started
tugging her toward the open doors. “We have maybe sixty seconds to
get out of here before the rest of his guards realize what’s going
on. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but—”
She yanked hard against his grasp. “My
brother!”
He paused to stare at her, his gaze
unreadable. “What?”
She nodded at Benny. “We need to get him out
of here too.”
His head cocked slightly to the side as if
seeing the crumpled heap that was her brother for the first time.
Mr. Tall, dark and annoyed muttered something under his breath
before tucking his gun away. Then he lifted her brother onto his
shoulder as if he weighed nothing. Benny was almost six feet tall
but Porter was taller and much broader. And all muscle. “Follow
me,” he grunted.
Clutching her purse to her side, she hurried
after Porter. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“Saving your pretty little butt. Ask your
questions later. We need to get the hell out of here.” His shoes
were silent against the tile while her heels clacked noisily. If
she didn’t think it would slow her down she’d take them off and run
in her bare feet. When they reached the open foyer, she spotted two
guards unconscious and face down on the tile. Broken shards of what
had once been a vase littered around one of the men.