Lawson

Book 1: Delta Squad

by Diana Gardin

Genres: Military Romance; Multicultural & Interracial Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

I'm a natural protector, whether I'm guarding political big shots or celebrity VIPs. It's true that I failed — once. When I was a SEAL, when it mattered most. But that's never going to happen again. So if there's one thing my new partner, Indigo Stone, should know, it's that she's safe. Not that she wants my help.

With amber eyes full of intelligence and a body covered in ink, Indigo is one of the toughest people I've ever met. But this job has us deep undercover, playing car thieves and lovers, and we'll have to become pros at faking it. But when feelings turn real, I'm reminded that emotions are dangerous...especially when one wrong move can be deadly.

Release date: October 23, 2018

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 256

Sample

Prologue

One year ago
The cool liquid slides down my throat as I survey the room. The air is thick with drunkenness and bad decisions, and there’s a good chance I’m about to be part of that. All I know is that there’s only one way to make the demons having a rager inside my head shut the fuck up. And that’s all I want.

For the world to go quiet. At least for a while.

The bartender snatches my empty glass away, and it only takes a minute before she plunks another down in front of me with a wink. Our arrangement? Keep feeding me scotch and soda until I slide my credit card across the counter. No small talk. And definitely no fucking questions.

Clutching the new glass in my hand, I stare down at the cubes of ice swimming inside. Around me, the murmur of conversation continues, but I’m only listening for one thing.

I’ve been listening all night, and I’m about three-quarters of the way through my fifth scotch and soda when something distracting pops off behind me.

It’s what I’ve been waiting for. Anticipating. Craving.

“Listen, you fucking bitch. You think anyone else in this bar is going to want to take you home? You’re trash. Nobody wants you. You’re lucky I still want you. Now get your ass up and let’s go.”

It never fails. Even when it looks like you’re in a bar full of regular people having a good time, letting loose, celebrating life, there’s always a shark swimming among the fishes.

And for some reason, the only thing that quiets my demons is silencing that shark.

Without turning around to locate the shark, I take out my wallet. Sliding my credit card across the counter, I finish my drink in one swallow while I watch the bartender pick it up and process my bill. She hands the card back. I sign the receipt and replace my card in my wallet. Lifting my chin to acknowledge her, I swing my legs over the side of the barstool and stand.

I’m fucked up. I realize that. No man drinks five scotch and sodas without feeling it. But fucked up for me, an ex-Navy SEAL who’s seen more than my fair share of the darkest parts of hell, isn’t the same as any other drunk dude. Fucked up for me means my brain is fuzzy, but no one would know it from watching me. My movements are precise, exact.

It takes me exactly one-point-five seconds to locate the shark. There’s a man—can I actually call him a man?—standing next to a chair. His movements are sharp and jerky as he shoves his coat on over his shoulders. Then he yanks the woman seated beside him onto her feet. She winces, glancing around the bar as if to see if anyone is witness to her fear and humiliation.

“Out the goddamn door. Now.” She lowers her eyes and walks ahead of him, while he turns and leers at his friends. Giving them twin birds, he walks backward for a few steps before turning and following the woman out of the bar.

That’s my cue. I make my way toward the door, shrugging into my jacket and stuffing my hands into my pockets before walking out of the bar.

Out on the parking lot, I glance to the right. Cars are scattered across the paved lot, surrounded by black calm. Out here it’s quiet. So quiet that the noise inside my head lifts to a deafening level. Determination grows, spreading inside me as I look in the other direction.

And dive into shark-infested waters.

He’s walking away, still pulling the woman by the arm. She doesn’t struggle but instead tries to keep up with his long strides. He continues to bad-mouth her, and I know his ugly words are carving the deepest sort of scars—the ones on her heart. I know his type. He’s a coward, plain and simple. He takes out his aggression on women who don’t have the willpower to stand up and tell him he can’t talk to them that way. Treat them that way. Somehow he’s convinced her that she needs him, that this is as good as her life is going to get.

Silently, I move in behind them, and when I’m only feet away, I speak.

“Take your hand off her.”

His steps stutter to a halt, his whole body going rigid. The woman peeks over her shoulder, shock clear on her face.

My knees wobble at the sight of the pain and fear in her eyes. She’s at the point where she doesn’t even want a stranger to step in to help. She thinks that all it will do is hurt her in the end. And maybe she’d be right.

If the stranger wasn’t me.

“What did you just say to me?” The man turns around slowly, deliberately.

His height matches my six foot one inch, but he’s thinner. It’s clear he doesn’t spend hours burning off the rage like I do. Running, lifting, boxing…I’m desperate to make the noise in my head shut the fuck up. It gives me an advantage over douchebags like this every time.

“I told you to take your hands off her.” I hold his stare while slipping my hand into my jacket pocket and pulling out a white card. Holding it in the palm of my hand, I direct my words to her.

“You need to get out now, or you never will. You won’t survive him. Take this card and call the number. Tonight. You’ll be safe.” Holding the card out to her, I watch the hope flare in her gaze.

She’ll take it, no matter how afraid she is of the shark. It’s a lifeline, a way out, and it’s what they always want. Someone to help them, to let them know they can be safe beyond the shadow of a doubt. And once she calls the number on the card, she will be.

She plucks it out of my hand. The shark glares down at her, momentarily letting go of her in his fury. “What the fuck, Samantha?”

I pull my gaze from his and lock it onto her. “Go. Now.”

She takes a step away from him, hesitating. She glances back and forth between me and the shark, her eyes searching. His eyes widen in her shock that she’s listening to me, that she wants to go.

“You take one more step, Samantha, and you’ll—”

She turns and flees, the clicking steps of her heels the only sound rising in the dark night.

When she’s gone, I turn to the shark. Launching myself at him, I allow the noise to take over. I don’t hear it when I lose myself; instead I allow the madness and the fury and the insanity to rule every move I make.

He goes down hard. The alcohol dims my senses, but not my reflexes. No, I’m too well trained, too sharp-witted for that. I drink until the inhibitions fall away, but not until I can’t function to get the job done.

But this time…this time it’s different. Maybe it’s because of the way her thick, black hair reminded me of another woman in another place. Maybe it’s because this shark seemed so willing to hurt her. Like he’d enjoy it, relish it. Whatever the reason, every ounce of control I have snaps into pieces and I unleash my beast on the shark with reckless, white-hot rage.

He goes down fast with a direct punch to his trachea, a wet sound gurgling from his throat. And then I’m on top of him, my fists slamming into his face again and again. The sound of bones crunching, the feel of flesh giving way beneath my hands is electrifying, exhilarating.

And somewhere in the back of my brain, a buzzer sounds. Letting me know it’s time to stop.

But this time, I know I won’t be able to.

Again, I hit him. His head lolls against the pavement, his eyes swimming in and out of focus right before they close.

And still I hit him.

A distant shout ricochets in my head, but I don’t turn to acknowledge it. I’m too far gone, and icy fear grabs hold of me. Not enough to make me stop.

I’m going to kill him.

“Sleuth!” A voice I recognize breaks through the haze. “Sleuth, stop. Stop.”

Grisham Abbot, fellow former SEAL team member, brother, friend. His voice breaks through the roar in my ears as he grabs my shoulders. I allow myself to go limp in his arms, let him pull me off the shark. I glance down and see that his face is nothing but a bloody pulp against the gravel.

Panic flares. “We gotta…we gotta call someone…”

Grisham whips me around to face him. He palms the back of my neck, forcing my gaze to meet his steady one. “I’ll call. Get in the car, Snyder.”

He shoves me toward his waiting Jeep, which is idling nearby. My ears perk to the blaring sound of distant sirens. Help is on the way for the sorry sack of shit lying on the ground. I climb into the front, slump against the seat, and take a deep breath.

When the breath leaves me, I listen.

Still quiet. The noise won’t be back for a while.

“You can’t keep doing this shit, Sleuth.” Grisham climbs behind the wheel, guns the engine, and pulls out of the bar’s parking lot.

Rubbing my head, where an ache is starting between my temples, I nod. “Yeah. I know. It’s just…someone has to do it, Ghost. Why can’t it be me?”

Grisham jerks his thumb backward. “That’s why. You aren’t in control. And I get it, Sleuth, I do. But that? That shit isn’t the answer.”

Turning to look at him, I beg him with my eyes. To tell me. To show me another way. “Then what is?”

His eyes flick toward me, filled with understanding. He knows what I went through. He knows what it’s like. After our last mission, I didn’t come back whole.

I’m not the same man I was before.

“I’m taking you to see Jacob Owen. He’ll have a place for you at NES.”

I tip my head to one side, evaluating him. “What’s NES?”

Grisham is silent for a moment before he answers. When he does, his words change everything.

“Your lifeline.”

1

“Failure is not an option, Lawson. Do you hear me? You will be the best. Because I won’t settle for anything less.”

I haven’t lived in my father’s home in over twelve years, but somehow his words follow me everywhere I go. Even now. Will there ever be a day when I don’t recall him standing at the side of the pool, looking down at me after I finished training? The disappointed look in his eye when I failed to break my own personal best time? He instilled the values inside of me that I have today; for that I’ll always be thankful. He taught me never to settle, to strive to achieve my best no matter what.

But his words haunt me now, as my palm smacks against the side of the pool. A full second later, my sister reaches the end of the lane beside me and surfaces. She turns toward me with a glare, and I chuckle at the sight.

Shrugging, I pull my goggles up and over my head. “You know you’ve never been able to beat me. But every single time…every single time!” I laugh while she stays silent. “You’re salty. Why?”

She climbs out of the pool, water raining down behind her. “Because it’s not fair.” Flipping her long, black hair over one shoulder, she squeezes it out. “I’m older than you. I should be faster.”

I follow her out of the pool. “You realize I’m almost twice your size, right? There’s no fucking way you’ll be able to beat me. That’s just a fact. And you’re only older by two and a half minutes, Lil.”

She sticks her tongue out at me. My twenty-nine-year-old twin sister actually sticks out her tongue.

“Older is older, little bro. That was a good workout. You headed to work?”

I nod, grabbing my towel off a nearby chair. “Yeah.”

She tugs at her bottom lip, pulling it between her teeth the way she’s done for as long as I can remember. “And you’d tell me if you were doing anything dangerous, right?”

Dropping the towel around my shoulders, I shoot her an exasperated glance. “No, I wouldn’t. You know that, Lil. What I do at work isn’t something I talk about. Not when I was a SEAL, and not now. Trust me when I say it’s better that way.”

Lilliana’s lips puff out in a pout. “I don’t like it, Laws. If you knew how many nights I stayed awake worrying about you when you were God knows where, doing shit I can only imagine…”

I pull my sister into my side as we walk toward the locker rooms. She’s the other half of me, and that’s how it’s always been. When our dad came down too hard on me, she was always the one who took me aside afterward. She checked on me to make sure I was okay. And in return, I protected her from anyone and everyone who might want to hurt her.

I drop a kiss on Lil’s head. “I’ll be fine. I always am. You know that.”

She sighs. “Change of subject.”

“I’m game,” I answer. “You headed to the Underground today?”

She nods. “You know how I feel about that place. It’s the kind of job that has you, not the other way around. I live and breathe for these women who have no one else to turn to.” She bumps my shoulder with her own as we pause outside our respective locker room doors. “I appreciate it every time you send one my way. But I’m still waiting for you to tell me how you find them.”

I’d rather die than tell you how dark I can get, how far I can fall. “The less you know, the better. In my line of work, I come across people who need help more often than I’d like. I’m in a position to help them, thanks to my super-talented sister.”

She offers me a smile that lights up her whole face. “Yeah, well.” She bumps me again. “Whatever.”

“See you later.”

“Count on it, little bro,” she calls over her shoulder as she disappears into the locker room.

  

As I walk up to the plain black building, the plaque with the letters NES right beside the miniscule camera lens catches my eye, and I place my palm on the scanner beside the door. It beeps, and the lock disengages. I push the handle and enter the place that’s become more of a home to me than my actual house.

“Morning, Lawson.” Rayne Teague, wife of a fellow Night Eagle Security member, produces the genuine smile all the guys know and love.

Rayne is a knockout, but she is taken by her now-husband, Jeremy “Brains” Teague—hell, she was taken before she even arrived in town. High school sweethearts and all that.

“Hey, Rayne.”

The NES headquarters houses a three-story office space near Wilmington’s Wrightsville Beach oceanfront. Jacob Owen, founder of NES, owns the building and the surrounding space, which houses a separate warehouse-type area that we call the Chamber, used for interrogations, and a third-floor training facility that we utilize for workouts and maneuvers.

I stop and lean against Rayne’s desk. “So what do you have for me today?”

Rayne checks her computer screen, her brow furrowing as she reads the details of today’s agenda. “Well, you have a meeting at nine with the rest of the Delta Squad. It looks like Jacob has a new assignment pending.”

Interest grabs my attention, causing me to stand up straighter. “Yeah? Know any details?”

Rayne offers me a rueful smile. “Sorry, Sleuth. I’m on a need-to-know basis around here.”

Which we both know is a load of bullshit, because Jacob can’t live without his assistant/office manager, and her husband worships the ground she walks on. She’s probably the first to know anything and everything that happens around here.

“Right.” I continue moving toward the lounge, my first stop when I arrive each morning. “Keep feeding us that line, Rayne.”

Pushing open the door to the lounge, I find Sayward Diaz, the only other woman working at NES. She’s a part of another organized unit, the Rescue Ops team. My fellow SEAL brother and friend, Grisham Abbott, works on that team as well. When Jacob’s little personal security company began to grow, adding a second team to help handle all the personal security business for important foreign diplomats, dignitaries, celebrities, and royals alike, along with the black-ops jobs we receive a few times a year from the government, became necessary.

I was one of the first new members on that team, thanks to Grisham. And then came another member of our SEAL team, Ben McBride, one of the men I call a friend today. NES gave us a home after going through hell to serve our country, and there’s no turning back for either one of us.

“Hey, Sayward,” I greet her as I stride to the counter and open a cabinet. Pulling out a mug, I glance over at her. “How’s it goin’?”

Sayward doesn’t meet my gaze as she answers. I don’t know her very well, but at one time I thought that maybe there could be something between us. She went through a lot about six months ago when she became the target of a Columbian drug cartel. It was hard for me to read signals from Sayward, since she doesn’t usually make eye contact and social graces aren’t really her thing.

But she’s a beautiful woman—glasses, Converse, and all—and I can’t say the thought of asking her out didn’t cross my mind. But when Bennett Blacke, the blond bomber himself, showed up on the scene, there was no other man in sight for her. I backed off, and she and Bennett turned out to be a pretty solid pair.

“Hey.” Sayward continues stirring her coffee without glancing over. “Heard your team has something exciting going on.”

“Yeah?” I huff out a laugh. “Does everyone know about it except for me?”

Sayward lifts her delicate shoulders in a shrug. “Dunno. Maybe just those of us with vaginas.”

I’ve just taken my first sip of coffee, which almost goes spraying across the granite countertop at her words. But then, why am I ever shocked at the shit that comes out of Sayward’s mouth? She keeps you guessing.

“Yeah. Copy that. I guess I better head up to my meeting, then.”

Taking my leave, still chuckling under my breath, I exit the lounge behind me and head for the stairs. The second-level conference room is just down the hall from the open area every member of the Delta Squad calls our office. . .