Prologue
The world is a fucked up place.
That was probably the first lesson I learned in life. A hard-taught lesson when he’d yell at me or slap me. Or worse.
He was supposed to love us. To protect us.
But “supposed to” is only the truth in a fairy tale world. We lived in the real world, my sister and me. And when it got to be too much—when there was nothing and no one we could turn to except each other—that’s when we ran.
I’ve done things I’m ashamed of. Things I had to in order to survive. To keep us safe.
And I learned a long time ago not to trust anyone but myself and my sister. Because the people who are supposed to protect you will fail you. And the people who are supposed to love you can just as easily be monsters.
But lately, things have started to shift. My world is opening, and people are surprising me. I’m letting down my guard; I’m letting people in.
It’s a mistake, and I know it. Because now he’s come into my life.
And though I know I need to keep my distance—though I know damn well that he’s going to hurt my heart—I can’t help but slide down that hill toward him, terrified all the while that he won’t be strong enough to catch me.
And even more scared that he will.
Chapter 1
“Any luck?” Antonio Santos stood with his arms crossed as he stared over Noah’s shoulder at the nonsensical string of numbers, letters, and symbols that flowed across the screen in time with the tapping of Noah’s fingers on the keys.
“Almost there,” Noah said, his attention never veering from the monitor.
Tony shifted his weight, then took a step back and leaned against the massive oak table that made up one of the three sides of Noah’s cluttered workspace. Despite being the top dog at the Austin division of Stark Applied Technology, Noah’s office looked more like the basement of a kid who loved to code and play video games.
Then again, Tony could hardly fault his friend for that. Noah Carter had mad skills with computers, electronics, anything tech. Tony had skills, too, but his leaned toward the more deadly variety. A skillset for which he’d been well-paid in the past, though only for jobs that were on the right side of his conscience.
Those paid gigs, though, had been simply a means to an end. Even the time that Tony had spent working with Noah for a vigilante group called Deliverance had been for a purpose. Tony fully supported the work that the group had done rescuing kidnapping victims and taking down their tormentors. But he’d also utilized the organization’s massive resources for his own purpose.
Specifically, the search for one man, known only as The Serpent.
Tony could never get back what The Serpent had stolen from him. His mother. His uncle. His whole goddamn life. But he could have revenge.
And he was getting pretty damn close to the prize.
He had Noah to thank for much of his recent progress. His friend was the one who had set Tony up with a secret identity on a notorious dark web message board. A place where, over the span of years, Tony had cultivated a reputation as a badass mercenary with skills for hire. Not a lie … but not exactly the truth, either.
He’d posted fake details to boost his reputation and taken just enough real jobs to support the cover. But only jobs that he’d vetted first, carefully making sure the targets weren’t innocent. In fact, far from it. Murderers, sexual predators, and the like.
He’d built his reputation slowly until he had enough cred to ask questions about The Serpent without attracting too much unwanted attention.
Still, progress had been a slog. For over three months, he received no leads. Then a few trickled in, but none panned out.
Months passed, and even though he’d known that this was a long-haul game, he’d started to lose hope.
Then a private message from The-Asst had appeared. A woman, or so she said. And she promised Tony that although she didn’t know where The Serpent was at the moment, she knew how to learn his true identity.
More important, she promised to share that information if Tony would meet her at the exclusive Debauchery Resort, a no-holds-barred sex party island located in the Caribbean.
She named the date—exactly five days from now—and that was an appointment he intended to keep. So long as it wasn’t a trap.
Like his own dark web identity, The-Asst’s profile had no identifying information. Which meant that he had no way of verifying if she was even really a woman, much less someone in a position to, possibly, have access to information about The Serpent.
And that, of course, was why Tony had come to Austin to see Noah. Because if anyone could peel through the layers to discover who The-Asst was, it was his tech genius friend.
Dragging his fingers through his close-cropped hair, he once again came up behind Noah as words and symbols flashed rapid-fire across the screen. “What’s—”
His friend held up a hand, cutting off Tony’s question. “Almost done. Just one more—yes. Got it, you slippery little fuck.”
Tony looked from the nonsense on the screen to Noah, then back to the screen. There was a reason Tony didn’t do tech. There wasn’t a damn thing on the screen of interest that he could see.
“I could explain it,” Noah said dryly, looking over his shoulder at Tony. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
“Funny man.” Tony pulled over one of the chairs and sat, rolling close for a better view of the nonsense. “Don’t explain. Just tell me what you’ve learned.”
“I can’t get a name for you. Not yet. But I’m working on software that will—”
“—do something magical with bits and bytes and quantum physics. Yeah, man, the whole world knows you’re a genius. What’s the bottom line?”
“Eighty-seven percent probability your contact really is a woman. I derived that from—”
“Ah, ah. Do I bore you with ballistics?”
Noah rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing boring about ballistics, and I’m a damn good shot, too.”
“I’m better.” Tony grinned, enjoying himself. Hell, the first time he’d laughed in months was last night at Noah and Kiki’s new house overlooking Lake Travis.
“Right now, the only cojones that count are mine. You want the intel or not?”
“You know I do.” He leaned back in the chair and kicked his feet out, prepared to get schooled.
Surprisingly, though, Noah skipped over the miracles of semiconductors and whatever programming language was in vogue these days. He dove straight to the results from his still-in-beta software.
“I can’t confirm your contact is a woman, but the probability is high. And based on where I’m pinging back from the shadow on her messages, she’s located in Southern California.”
“I didn’t think you could trace that kind of thing on the dark web.”
“Most can’t. I can. At least to a seventy-two percent certainty rate. Like I said, this is still in development.”
“So there’s a good chance she’s in California.”
“Either that, or knows her way around this nerdy tech stuff as well as I do and is purposefully shielding not just her location but the shadow of her location that I’m tracking.”
“I’m impressed.”
Noah grinned, but continued. “Since your intel suggests The Serpent’s based around LA, the probability that her information is legit increases.”
“All of which means it’s worth a shot to meet this woman.”
“Sounds to me like she’s the best lead you’ve had.”
“Lately, she’s been the only lead.” He’d had a bead on The Serpent years ago, but the plan had gone horribly wrong, and Tony had lost a hell of a lot more than the year of tracking and planning.
“Women are allowed to arrive alone at Debauchery,” Noah continued, and Tony nodded. That much he knew. “Men aren’t.”
“And she’s planning on meeting me there,” Tony said. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. That means that she assumes I’ll find someone to come with me. And it means that she isn’t trying to entice me to travel with her. She’s probably going early to protect herself or to set a trap.”
“Right now, the probabilities are pretty much equal. But I did find a few single seats booked on Debauchery’s private jets booked the day before you’re set to meet her.”
“Any names?”
“Nope. Their security is tight. Not surprising considering the nature of the resort. I’m sure I can get around it if you think it’s important. Want me to keep poking?”
Tony shook his head. “Don’t bother. Odds are good I won’t be able to tell whether she’s there to help me or kill me just from a name on a ticket.”
His friend sighed. “That’s true enough. This whole mission is a question mark. It might be a trap. It might not. She might have intel about The Serpent she wants to share with you, though God only knows why. Or she could be someone in your line of work, and she’s coming to the island to kill you. Hell, maybe The Serpent screwed her, too, and she wants to kill him and hopes you’ll team up with her.”
“Only way I’ll know is to go,” Tony said without hesitation, because the trip became a done deal the moment The-Asst had suggested it. After all, he’d risked his life for things a lot more mundane than his own lifetime vendetta.
“Figured you’d say that. You’ll need to go in as a couple. You seeing anyone these days? Anyone you’d be willing to take on a mission?”
“No on both counts,” Tony admitted, ignoring the tug on his heart that came with the admission.
Noah watched him for a moment, those deep green eyes never leaving Tony’s face. “It’s not so bad, buddy. Honestly, it’s pretty damn good.”
That tug turned into a downright squeeze as he silently shrugged. He was doing just fine, at least so long as he lived in the moment. It was only hard when the dark, lonely nights came, a reminder that he couldn’t ever truly get close to anyone because that would be like painting a target on their ass, then—
Fuck.
He grabbed the mug of now-cold coffee and took a long swallow, just to camouflage his souring mood.
“I’m happy for you,” he told Noah after he set the mug down with a thunk. “I really am.” He smiled, the expression genuine as he remembered dinner at their house the night before. “You and Kiki are great together.”
He meant it, too. Tony didn’t know the whole story, but he knew that Noah had lost a wife and child, and that the tragedy had scarred him. Kiki, he knew, had helped heal those wounds.
“Yeah,” Noah said, smiling so wide that Tony could see all his teeth. “We really are.” He hesitated, and Tony tensed, afraid that Noah would give him the you should settle down speech.
Instead, Noah cleared his throat and said casually, “So who are you going to take? Or are you planning on a surreptitious arrival.”
“I read a bit about the place. The only habitable area is the resort. Beyond that is a small, dense jungle. There’s a road to and from the airport, but that’s about it. So if I’m going to the island, I’m going to the resort.”
“And you need a woman. Got one in mind?”
“I don’t. Anyone I take, I put at risk.” And even if that wasn’t the case, he didn’t have anyone in mind. While he’d picked up a few women here and there, those hadn’t been the kind of encounters where he’d kept a phone number. And as for women with the kind of skill set to be a partner and not a decoration? Well, his contact list was short as he preferred working alone and had been fully solo since Deliverance disbanded.
“You need someone who can hold her own,” Noah said.
“Agreed. But who?”
His friend shook his head. “No ideas. I’ve been riding a desk for too long now, and my contacts have dried up. I wish I could point you somewhere.”
“I do, too. I need someone connected. Someone who has a large pool to—of course.” He smiled. “Stark.”
“Stark?” Noah repeated. “As in my boss? Damien Stark of Stark Applied Technology?”
“And the Stark Security Agency,” Tony reminded him. After his daughter was kidnapped, Damien Stark founded the elite security group to go after scum like the kidnapper—and worse. The goal of the SSA, as Damien had told him, was to be a line in the sand. To fight the battles that law enforcement couldn’t—or wouldn’t—and to help those who might otherwise fall through the cracks.
The SSA was relatively new, but it had already earned a stellar reputation. And though Tony had declined Stark’s offer to join the team, that didn’t mean that he didn’t respect the hell out of its mission or its operatives.
“Good idea,” Noah said, nodding slowly. “You want me to give him a call and see if any of the women on the team are free for a job? Or, hell, Liam and Quincy are both with the SSA,” he added, referring to two other former Deliverance members. “You could hit either of them up to approach Stark.”
“No worries. I’ll call him myself.”
Noah’s eyes widened, and Tony had to chuckle. Tony had learned that Stark was a hell of a nice guy, but there was no denying the billionaire was intimidating as hell. And Noah had no way of knowing that Tony had met Stark on multiple occasions—and that Stark had been actively recruiting him.
“He owes me a favor,” Tony explained.
Noah leaned back, clearly intrigued. “That’s a hell of a chip to be holding.”
“Yeah, well, let’s just say he thinks I’m worth it. I helped his wife out of a jam in Paris a while back.”
An attacker had gone after Nikki and, thankfully, Tony had been in the right place at the right time.
“Stark said to give him a shout if I ever needed anything. Guess I’ll call in the favor and tell him I need a woman.”
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