The Valiant

Book 4: Spy Girl®

by Jillian Dodd

Genres: YA Contemporary Romance; YA Fairy Tales & Folklore

Synopsis

From USA Today bestselling author Jillian Dodd comes the fourth book in a sizzling series filled with action and adventure. Fans of The Selection and The Hunger Games will discover a heart-pounding thrill ride of espionage and suspense set in glittering high society.

What will happen when the world goes ka-boom?

The assassin known as The Priest was tasked with a series of three hits, and the last one blows up in his face—literally.

People will die. People will go on. Unlikely alliances will be formed.

And when British intelligence learns that a series of nuclear backpack bombs were smuggled into their country, there's a lot more to worry about than discovering why a covert agent was assassinated over six years ago or what's going to start in Montrovia.

Release date: March 17, 2018

Publisher: Swoonworthy Books

Print pages: 236

Sample

PRO:LOGUE

 

A small, elite group of men are seated around a round table in the underground wine cellar of a luxurious home outside of London. Upon entrance to the home, guests were greeted at a door sculpted in oak and gilded in gold leaf featuring the Sun King on horseback that was inspired by the war room at Versailles.

“We can report our takeover of the port in Tartus. This will cripple the Russian naval force’s reaction time,” one of the elite states.

“Your plan is failing,” another elite replies with a traitorous sound to his voice.

“Our plan is not failing,” a deep voice booms. Although all the elites sit at a round table, indicating their equality, this man is clearly in charge. “We are on track.”

“We lost the president of the United States. How will we invoke martial law when the time is right?” yet another elite questions in a deep accent, English clearly not his native tongue.

All the men in the room want their say. That is what happens when you gather a group like this together. They all think because they have earned or inherited more money than the per capita of many countries that they are somehow more knowledgeable on the workings of the plan—the brilliant plan Ares Von Allister set in motion and this group strives to finish.

“We were behind the change in leadership,” the leader says, stunning the room into silence.

Shock is murmured in multiple languages. 

The leader hopes this revelation will cause the men to understand that could be their fate as well if they don’t complete their assigned tasks. He glances to his right at his old spot when he was the right hand and heir apparent to former President John F. Hillford Senior. He gestures toward the empty seat. “I’d like us to share a moment of silence for our former leader. May he rest in peace.” He waits a few beats for effect and then adds, “It brought him great sorrow to have to order the assassination of his own son, but his son refused to comply.” 

“We put him into power, and it went to his head,” his second-in-command states. “Literally.” 

The group nervously looks around.

“But now, we have an unknown leader in power,” one of the elite says. “What do we have on him and, more importantly, can we control him?” 

“He’s annoyingly clean, especially for a politician,” the leader says. While he was shocked to learn of the old man’s hunting accident, he is thrilled to finally take control of the group. “From what we can tell, he can’t be bought.”

“So, what will we do? How will we get him to act when the time is right?” another elite counters.

“Simple. We make sure his family is affected. His son is a well-known Olympic athlete.”

“And since it starts in Montrovia … ” the second-in-command says.

“He will have no choice,” the leader states. 

The rest of the men nod in understanding.

“What about the Montrovian situation?” an elite questions. This man has been quite outspoken about the plan and has attempted to manipulate it to his liking.

“We are going to call off the third hit. I’m sure you have all seen the tabloids. It seems the king of Montrovia is dating Ares Von Allister’s daughter.” 

“And you don’t think that’s a bit odd?” another questions. 

“Just the opposite. Imagine Huntley Von Allister as queen and Aristotle Von Allister taking his father’s place at our table. It’s better than Ares himself could have imagined—his children in their rightful places in the New World Order.”

The leader signals the end of the meeting as usual—by raising his cut-crystal glass filled with the rarest of all scotches. “To Arcadia.”

 

 

 

Ari is freaking out. He and Terrance were pulling into the drive of Lorenzo’s London residence when the car in front of them exploded, blasting out the windows of their car, spraying them with safety glass, and showering them with fiery bits of burning wreckage and God knows what else that had been launched through the air upon detonation.

All he knows is, he has to get to his sister. He turns to yell at Terrance to get out of the car, but Terrance’s head is slumped forward against the air bag. He grabs a knife from a sheath at his leg, gaining composure as his training kicks in, and quickly pops their air bags. 

Terrance shakes his head, coming to. Ari can see Terrance’s mouth moving but can’t understand him, and he doesn’t have time to explain. He jumps out and races toward the burning car in front of him. The car’s doors and windows have been blown open, allowing Ari to witness what’s left of the driver burning in his seat. He screws his eyes shut in horror, his mind quickly realizing no one in the car can be saved. 

He has failed. 

Failed to protect the King of Montrovia. 

Failed his mission. 

And, failed to protect his sister—the missing piece he’d felt his whole life but never understood why. 

He opens his eyes just as a heavy breeze parts the black smoke, and Lorenzo’s limo, which is directly behind the lead security car, comes into view. The tires are flat, the door panels have been torn off, and the hood is dented and askew. 

 

 

 

The Priest opens his eyes. Black smoke billows from the driveway below. It’s his worst nightmare. 

He knows that he deserves this. After all the people he has killed throughout his lifetime as the best assassin in the world, he ends up inadvertently killing his own son. It was bad enough that his profession caused his beloved wife and the mother of his child to be killed, but in a strange twist of fate, he alone has caused the death of the one thing they cherished most. Their son. 

He considers taking his own life. It would be easy enough to die on this rooftop.

But he can’t bring himself to do it. He has to go see for himself that his son is dead.

What he’s thinking is unreasonable. It’s completely unthinkable that he would step foot at the scene of the crime. 

But he has to do it. 

After all, he has nothing left to live for.

 

 

 

“Lee …” 

I hear my mother calling my name. 

But then I realize it’s not her voice. 

“Hunt-ley. Hunt-ley.”

I shake my woozy head and pry open my eyes. Chauncey’s little face is about two inches from mine, and it startles me.

“She’s awake!” he yells.

“Where are we?” I am feeling a little woozy but remember the way the car sputtered before it turned over, and I recall the last time I heard a similar noise. “Are we all dead?” I ask, but the second it comes out of my mouth, I know I’m not because I feel pain in my shoulder.

“You hit your head,” Lorenzo says. “I was trying to pull you away from the door when the incendiary device went off.” 

“But I told you to get out!” I hold my hand up to my mouth, gagging a little and feeling like I’m going to be sick. 

“You might have a concussion, Lee,” he says, studying my pupils.

“I’m fine,” I reply even though I’m not sure I am. But at least the nausea has momentarily subsided.

“I’m sick of explosions,” Chauncey quips, looking at me with his big blue eyes, tears threatening and making me feel like I’m the one who caused them. If I hadn’t gone after his father—actually, that’s not true. If I hadn’t gone after them, they’d probably both be dead now.

“Me, too,” I say, ruffling his hair. “How are we still alive?”

“Highly armored car,” Lorenzo’s head of security says. “All of the official royal vehicles have such protection, but we need to get out of here due to the smoke.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I counter. “You were obviously the third hit.”

Lorenzo glances at Chauncey and shakes his head. “Regardless, you need to be seen by a doctor. You’ve barely healed up from your last …” He stops talking. “Your last fall.”

Juan appears to have taken control of the situation. He already has one door open and is assessing the damage to the vehicle. 

“The bomb could have been just a ploy to get us out of the car, especially if the killer knew it was armored,” I warn.

“The house is heavily reinforced and has suffered no damage. We will provide cover for you to get inside,” Juan instructs. He gets out on the right side, then runs around to the left side, which is closest to the house, and knocks on the window. 

Lorenzo opens the door, then picks up Chauncey, and rushes into the house.

The rest of us follow.

Once inside, we run to Lorenzo’s study where we find Admiral Philipe Lamonte and Gabriel Lavin coming out of the secret elevator. 

“What in the world just happened?” Gabriel asks. “The whole house shook.”

“Car bomb,” Juan says immediately. “I want to get everyone in the bunker before we discuss our options.”

As far as I’m concerned, there is only one option. And I know exactly what I’m going to do as soon as Lorenzo and Chauncey are safely hidden away. 

Everyone seems to be talking at the same time as we board the elevator, all wanting to express their opinions on the best course of action. Well, all of them, except Gabriel. He’s just staring at me. And I know he’s thinking what I’m thinking. 

“I’m going to find him,” I whisper.

“You aren’t going anywhere until you see a doctor,” Lorenzo orders. He obviously has excellent hearing. 

When the elevator doors part to the underground facility, Gabriel discreetly asks me, “Do you know where to find him?” 

I watch as Lorenzo and Chauncey get shuffled into the war room. 

Chauncey immediately starts running around, commenting with excitement. “This looks like something out of a movie! Are we going to be fighting Transformers?” 

“The first time I came here,” I whisper to Gabriel, “I noticed the perfect location for a sniper. But I have a problem. I’m not sure how it happened, but I think my shoulder is dislocated.” 

Juan turns to look at my shoulder, which is hanging limp at my side. “You tried to get us out of the car, but Lorenzo stopped you from opening the door just as the bomb went off. Since you weren’t yet buckled, you flew up and hit your head on the ceiling. That sudden jolt combined with Lorenzo gripping your arm must have pulled it out of its socket.”

“Can we fix it? Here? Now? Quickly?” I ask him and Gabriel.

“I can do it for you,” Gabriel says, “but it’s going to hurt. A lot.”

“It already hurts a lot. Let’s do it.”

Gabriel has me lie down on the floor. He sits next to my injured side, positioning himself so that his foot is pressed against my ribs. 

He tells me to relax—which is easier said than done when you are in pain. I nod, indicating that I’m fine, so he guides my arm away from my body in a horizontal motion. 

“Oh,” I cry out. It hurts like hell, but when he pushes his foot against my side for leverage, there’s a little popping sound, and the pain greatly subsides.

“Thank you.” I jump up, hold out my good hand, and expectantly look at him. 

He shakes his head, but pulls a handgun from his back anyway and hands it to me. 

“I’ll be back,” I tell him. 

“I’ll go up with you,” the admiral says. “I need to assess the situation outside, and one of us should be there when the local authorities arrive.”

“What about the guards in the other car? Or was it armored, too?” I ask.

“Oh, merde,” Juan says, rushing toward the elevator with us. “We’ve got to go help them.”

 

The smoke is still thick and dark. While the admiral and Juan check on the men in the car, I look up at the spot atop a nearby building. I know, if The Priest had been watching, that’s where he would have been. I take off running in that direction but come to a screeching halt when the guard’s car comes into view. 

Well, what’s left of it. It definitely took the brunt of the damage, and I fear there are no survivors. 

And that pisses me off even more than I already was. I take off in a sprint again. 

“Huntley!” Ari yells out. “You’re alive!”

“No time to talk!” I yell as I run by him, but then I stop in my tracks and turn back, realizing how distraught he looks. 

He thought I was dead. And he actually cared.

I rush back and am greeted by the strong arms of my brother wrapping around me in a hug. Tears are streaming down his face. 

“I thought I’d lost you. I’d finally found you, and I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m fine, Ari. Can you handle things here? I’m going to find the assassin.”

“I’m going with you,” he insists, setting his jaw in a stubborn stance.

“No need,” The Priest says from behind us.

I pull out of my brother’s hug, turn around, and punch The Priest right in the face. “You just killed four innocent people!”

The Priest falls to his knees and lets out the kind of anguished wail you can feel to your core. I understand exactly how he feels. Even though we seem to be at the opposite ends of the spectrum from good to bad, there are times when it’s hard to distinguish what should be considered right and just. Especially since it seems to vary on which side you are fighting for. 

I drop to my knees next to him and place my hand on his back, trying to comfort him. “Your son is fine. The car was armored.” 

“Are you telling me that my son is alive?” The Priest asks, his eyes wide as he collapses in my arms. 

“Yes, he is. If he weren’t, I’d kill you right now. Come on; we’ve got to get you out of here before the police arrive,” I say as I hear a siren blaring in the distance.

“Quick,” Ari says, rushing us toward the garden gate. 

I slam my hand onto the palm reader that allows entrance and then drag him, Ari, and Terrance, who just joined us, into the garden. 

Once safely within the walls of the compound, we race toward the house. 

“Wait!” The Priest says. “Is Chauncey in there? In the house?”

“Yes. Don’t you want to see him?”

He drops, exhausted, on a nearby bench. “I need to think this out. Is he safe here?”

“As safe as he can be at the moment. You have no idea what the two of us went through after you shoved us down the tunnel.”

“Tell me everything, please,” he says.

“Your son is quite brilliant really. He showed me the backpacks in the pantry and led me on the escape route to the pub. I thought The Bartender was going to try to kill me, but after I told him who I was, he knew I’d take care of the boy and lent me his car. We went to the bank in Zurich and retrieved his items from the box, but an assault team showed up very quickly, and if it wasn’t for the fact that my own mother had left me a key to a box there, which included safe passage, we might not have escaped.”

“How did you get him here? What did you tell the prince?”

“First off, he’s the King of Montrovia now. It’s a long story, but with the help of a British agent, we smuggled Chauncey into the country, gave him a new identity, and got him accepted into a prestigious school nearby. He’s been assigned a well-trained nanny to care for him when Lorenzo and I aren’t here. The bearer bonds have been split between two banks—one in London, the other in Montrovia—and a trust has been set up for him. He’s doing great, but he misses you.”

“Does he think I’m dead?”

“Of course not. I would never tell him that unless I knew for sure. I told him you were on a business trip.”

“You knew I wasn’t dead?”

“I didn’t know until I heard the news about the former president’s demise.”

“I heard it was ruled an accident,” The Priest says with a sardonic chuckle.

“I heard that, too. Henri, what were you thinking?” I ask, calling him by his real name. “You know I’m seeing Lorenzo and that I have your son.”

“I was just trying to finish my contract quickly,” he says, sighing heavily, “so I could get the money and go into hiding. But, now, as soon as they find out I have failed—”

“Message them,” I order.

“Later. I want them to hear the news first. Trust me on this, please.”

“You just tried to kill her!” Ari butts in.

“I am very sorry about that. If my son is safe here under a new identity, I’d like him to stay. Let him think I’m still traveling. Otherwise, he will never be safe again. I might have killed the man who double-crossed me, but there’s more going on—more to do with your mother’s death.”

“You mean, when you killed her mother?” Ari bellows.

“Shh,” the assassin says. “Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but we’re going to have to work together.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ari says, getting more worked up. “Is this who I think it is?”

“We don’t have a lot of time for pleasantries,” I say, “but I’d like you to meet Henri Durand, otherwise known as The Priest.”

“He’s supposed to be dead,” Terrance argues. “You killed him!”

“Yeah, well, apparently, he got away,” I counter. “And the fact that people think he’s dead should be reason enough for you to want him on our side.”

“You mean, so he won’t try to kill us again?” Ari quips.

“Exactly. Plus, he’s a damn fine shot. He can help us. Terrance, why don’t you take him with you?”

“What am I supposed to do with him?” Terrance says.

“Just get him to a safe house or something. And get him up to speed on what’s going on. He was involved back then; maybe he can shed some light on it now.”

“Fine,” Terrance snorts, “but I’m taking his gun away.”

The Priest and I share a look.

“Ah, crap.” Terrance throws his arms up in the air and walks toward the back gate. “Come on, Guy Who Could Kill Me With His Bare Hands; let’s be roommates and BFFs.” He looks at Ari. “You coming with?”

Ari nods toward me. “I’m sticking with her like the plague.”

His comment pings around in my brain and then solidifies. “Henri, can you reach The Bartender?” 

“Of course,” he replies.

“Terrance, you’re going to need a bigger safe house,” I say with a laugh.

“I’m not following.” Terrance looks confused.

“You know how Olivia was able to find out where the second hit was? The Bartender sets up the supposedly untraceable stuff for Henri. He’s a hacker, too.”

Henri nods in agreement. “And a very skilled one.”

“Terrance, I think he and Olivia need to become well acquainted if you want to follow the money trail.”

“But we already know who we are going after next. We don’t need his help. Seriously, how can you trust him?” Terrance is not convinced.

“Because we have his son,” I reply harshly, tired of this conversation. “And we need to get him out of here before the authorities arrive.”

Terrance makes a big show of trying to make up his mind but finally acquiesces. “Fine, let’s go.”

Henri gives me a quick hug good-bye, whispering, “Trust no one.”

 

After they leave, Ari and I go into the house through the garden entrance to avoid the scene outside the wall. “This is spinning out of our control,” he says. 

“Where were you and Terrance? Lorenzo said you had something to do this morning.”

“We were just following up on some loose ends.”

“And what did you find out?”

“The account used for the down payment on the hits was traced back to a Delaware-based shell corporation, but the account has been closed, so it’s a dead end. I learned that Mr. Dupree is a well-known and well-respected man in London—well, the world really—who owns a large pharmaceutical conglomerate. He donates millions to charitable causes, but exactly how he earns all his money isn’t really clear.”

“I’m sure Intrepid could get you a file on him.”

“Oh, he did. British intelligence believes that some of the prescription drugs his company manufactures go missing and end up on the street where the market value is high, but they haven’t been able to prove it. With his connections, it’s highly doubtful they ever will. It’s also quite possible that the Moneyman lied to you.”

“I didn’t consider that.” I sigh heavily, feeling defeated.

 

We don’t stay in London for long. Juan is anxious to get Lorenzo back in his own country where he believes he has more control. I don’t know if I agree with that assessment, but I am very ready to go regardless. 

As we’re boarding the plane, a wave of nausea hits me and I stumble up the steps feeling woozy. 

Then everything goes black.