Authors: Piper J. Drake
Deadly Testimony
Deadly Testimony
Piper J. Drake
Kyle Yeun didn’t start out bad and he doesn’t intend to end his life while on the wrong side of the law, either. His testimony to his former employer’s environmental misdeeds has earned him a protection detail compliments of the US government. But due to a dark international conspiracy Kyle was unaware of, his former employers have made ending his life a top priority. Realizing he needs more protection than the US Marshals can provide, he turns to Safeguard after seeing the beautiful, deadly Lizzy Scott in action.
One look at Kyle, and sniper Lizzy Scott knows this isn’t going to be an easy protection job. He’s arrogant, irritating and almost irresistible. Instead of being put off by her hardened attitude, Kyle seems to thrive off the challenge. And she’s slowly giving in to his charms.
After narrowly escaping the latest assassination attempt, Lizzy starts taking dangerous risks to keep him safe. But the last thing Kyle wants is another life ruined because of his actions. He found his redemption in Lizzy’s arms and he’ll risk everything to make sure they both make it out alive. As will she, even if it means walking away from him to keep him safe.
This book is approximately 72,000 words
Dear Reader,
I don’t know about you, but when someone asks me for book recommendations, I first ask them what some of their favorite authors or books are, so I can give them something similar, but different. Taste matching is a pretty common way of getting recommendations for anything, really, from chocolate to TV shows to books, so I decided to do some taste matching with our Carina Press May titles.
If you love Kristen Ashley…
Anna del Mar’s contemporary romance may be just up your alley. One of the things I love about Kristen is that she tends to write long, giving us a chance to dive into the characters and relationships, and Anna offers the same great escape. In
At the Brink
, Josh Lane is blunt, ruthless, intense and exacting; a workaholic driven by internal demons; a man who doesn’t play games, except in bed, of course, where he is always in command. Lily Boswell is trapped in a dangerous situation and Josh has no problem taking advantage of that—to protect her and to get her into his bed.
If you love Jackie Collins or Sidney Sheldon…
Remember the awesome sweeping international feel of the ’80s glam romances? The characters were wealthy, they were dramatic, and they were no-holds-barred. Join Laura Carter’s Vengeful Love trilogy as it takes us from London to Dubai in a dark and suspenseful, sinfully sexy tale of love, betrayal and sex. Pick up books one and two before diving into this month’s nail-biting finale,
Vengeful Love: Black Diamonds
.
If you love Josh Lanyon…
You’ll love A.M. Arthur. Both Josh and A.M. are wonderful at sweeping readers into brilliant characterization and developing relationships. In
Come What May
, the first book in the brand-new All Saints series from A.M. Arthur, we meet Jonas Ashcroft—son of a conservative state senator, carefree frat-boy player, and
definitely
not gay. But when Jonas meets Tate, he’s introduced to a life he’s never known. One filled with acceptance and sex and a love that terrifies them both.
If you love Eloisa James or Sarah MacLean…
The sharp wit of Sarah and the fabulous heroine-centric story lines of both Sarah and Eloisa are some of my favorite things about their historical romances. Amanda Weaver’s Grantham Girls trilogy shares similarities with both and is absolutely delightful. A spirited heiress is determined to land a titled husband, but an undeniable passion with a man from her past threatens both of their futures in
A Common Scandal
.
If you love Pamela Clare…
Suspense, romance, action…what’s not to love about Pamela Clare? Piper J. Drake follows in Clare’s bestselling footsteps with her romantic suspense Safeguard series. Kyle Yeun is a very bad man and way too tempting in all the wrong ways, but mercenary Lizzy Scott needs to keep him alive long enough to provide
Deadly Testimony
in court even if it means there will be no rest for the wicked.
If you love Heidi Cullinan…
Annabeth Albert is an author you should check out. Fun and fabulous, romantic and swoon-worthy.
Beta Test
is an enemies-to-lovers, opposites-attract road-trip romance that will remind you of all the things you love about male/male romance.
If you love Linnea Sinclair or Sharon Lee or Steve Miller…
That’s right, if you’ve been craving a dynamite space-opera romance, then you’ve been missing out on the Chaos Station series by Kelly Jensen and Jenn Burke. Love in space? Yes, please. Good versus evil? Check. An ongoing romance that sweeps the galaxy book over book? Delivered. Start where the adventure begins in
Chaos Station
and devour the titles leading to this month’s release,
Phase Shift
.
Backlist bonus taste matching:
If you love Jaci Burton…
Make sure you’re not missing out on Kate Willoughby’s In the Zone contemporary sports romances.
If you love Liliana Hart…
You’ll be enamored with the spunky Lexi Carmichael mysteries from Julie Moffett.
And if you love the Hitman series from Jessica Clare and Jen Frederick…
The dangerous hero of
Didn’t I Warn You
by Amber Bardan is right up your alley!
As always, until next month here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
Dedication
To Patty, who introduced me to the hotel that provides a goldfish to keep travelers company.
Contents
Chapter One
The people standing between Isabelle Scott and a hot bath needed to move. Immediately. Or violence would occur.
However, the event she’d been covering as private security had just ended and she wasn’t technically on the clock at the moment so she wouldn’t be paid for the violence. Nor would she have a convenient justification should legal repercussions ensue.
So she’d try to be patient with the four men managing to block the way to both elevators of the hotel. As she approached, she assessed the situation automatically out of habit. The four of them weren’t friends, per se. Actually, three of them looked to be surrounding the fourth and the poor bastard was backing right into the wall between the two elevators. He was obstructing her access to the button she needed to call her ride up to the ninth floor and she’d be damned if she was going to take the stairs if she didn’t have to.
Not that she had a problem with stairs in moments of necessity. Stairs were a lot safer than elevators in certain situations and there were times when making the choice to step into the elevator was basically the equivalent of entering a kill box.
She drew her brows together in a scowl. Not the line of thought she wanted to end the night with and, allowed to go further, those kinds of memories would result in nightmares. No thanks.
“Look, fellas.” She tried to pitch her voice for politeness. Pleasantry? One of her former teammates, Victoria, was better at it than she was. But she wasn’t the ruffian Victoria liked to say she was, in teasing. Well, not completely. “Could you please step aside?”
There. Victoria would’ve been proud.
One of the three threw a hostile glance over his shoulder without taking time to get a real look at her. “Walk away, bitch. Go get a drink at the bar or something. This’ll take a few minutes.”
Lizzy clenched her jaw.
The bar was crowded and she wasn’t in the mood for a drink. After heading up security for a private party for eight hours and watching important people schmooze with others of equal or greater “status” in a wine-infused corporate boondoggle, all she wanted was to soak out the tension of the day and get some sleep. Maybe order room service. Their client had reserved a block of rooms for the security detail as part of this particular engagement and she’d been looking forward to putting the hotel’s hot water heaters to the test.
Her plans aside, the three men closing in on the fourth had the kind of build and stance that stood out in a hotel full of less rough-and-ready corporate types. These were men of physical action. From the less than perfect fit of their suits and the way the fabric of said suits draped oddly over their forms in a few strategic places, she was guessing they were hired help and armed. Very out of place and definitely moving on the fourth with a predatory intent.
The remaining man was about six foot, give or take an inch with his dress shoes. His suit was properly fitted across broad shoulders and an athletic build. He had a well-defined jaw and high cheekbones. Sharp intelligence was evident in his dark eyes as he took in everything around him, darting around to each of his aggressors and beyond them looking for exit routes.
His pale complexion was not unusual for Seattle in early spring. But in combination with his facial features and thick, stylishly crazy hair, his skin tone was a characteristic of East Asians as opposed to Southeast Asians, who were a few shades darker in skin tone throughout the year.
She’d guess he was Korean as opposed to Chinese. Taller than most Asians and in better shape than most people in general. But it wasn’t going to do him much good against three opponents of equal or larger size unless he had the kind of training to handle multiple aggressors. The kind of training she had.
And if he did, he’d have stepped out of the situation by now.
Isabelle sighed. No wingman or cavalry coming to his aid. He needed help but it wasn’t forthcoming. This was not going to resolve in the next thirty seconds and that was all she was willing to wait. Besides, she couldn’t leave a person alone to face odds like these. She’d been on her own in these situations plenty of times and it’d never been fun.
“Gentlemen, get out of my way.”
Humor and interest sparked in the Asian man’s eyes. He understood English, apparently. Seattle being a major city for travelers, it was always good to note rather than assume a listener could understand the conversation. Especially if she might have to advise him to take action.
The hulking goon who’d originally spoken to her turned then. “What did you say?”
Maybe the English language, or conversation in general, wasn’t goon number one’s strong point.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way.” She put some steel into her voice this time. No need to increase volume when intensity works better.
Beady eyes narrowed at her as goon number one flexed his thick fingers into a meaty fist and released them. Threat clear.
Ah, well. Intonation could work on people with more neurons firing inside their heads. She might not have a whole lot of stature going on at five foot four, but her new friend should’ve at least spared a moment to ponder that maybe a woman in a black suit with white dress shirt and an earbud hanging over her collar from a wire might mean something.
He was a thug dressed in a monkey suit.
She was a much higher pay grade.
He advanced on her and made a grab for her arm. She saw it coming with plenty of time to react, rising up on the balls of her feet and keeping her limbs loose in anticipation, her joints relaxed to maximize her range of motion. As his left hand reached her upper arm, she stepped forward slightly with her left foot to meet him and seized his wrist from the inside, her thumb pointing downward. Swinging her hips and right leg around so her butt lined up with her attacker’s forward leg, she bent her knees briefly and hip bumped him to rock his weight upward. She completed her move with a full upward body twisting motion, throwing him completely over her and onto his back.
She wasn’t entirely heartless though. She kept a hold on his arm to prevent it from breaking or dislocating as he fell. It’d been known to happen when a person was caught by surprise. And judging by his yelp midair, he was definitely surprised.
The man didn’t get thrown by a person almost half his size all that frequently, maybe. He should experience it more often though. It’d make him a better fighter.
He crashed down on the very hard, cold marble floor of the elevator lobby and she turned to address his companions. They were just beginning to respond, their postures open with their surprise as they started to reach for their weapons.
Not the wisest decision for either of them. Her position was easily within most people’s reactionary gaps—the distance needed between a person and an attacker to have the time to react to an aggressive attack. She’d allowed the first man to make a move against her because she needed a reason to cite self-defense but she preferred to take her fight to her opponents.
He’d started it. She’d finish it.
She covered the ground between her and the nearest man standing with a slide step, landing in a Bai Jong or ready stance and immediately lashed out with her rear leg in a powerful front kick directly to the man’s chest, then instantly drew her leg back to return to her stance. The air left his chest in a whoosh and he stumbled backward into the wall behind him.
Pivoting to face the third man, she struck with a hooking kick as she came around, catching his gun hand and sending his weapon clattering to the floor. He didn’t have time to react as her other leg swept up in a high roundhouse and caught him on the side of the head. The man remained standing for a second, clutching the side of his head, then toppled over.
Three opponents, all downed and barely groaning.
The entire altercation took less than ten seconds. She leveled a stare at the only man left standing. He prudently kicked the fallen handgun to one side, well out of reach of the downed men, and pressed the elevator call button for her.
“Thank you.” The elevator opened immediately and she stepped inside without turning her back to him.
There was a faint smile playing on his lips and one eyebrow was raised as if he had found something incredibly interesting. She scowled at him. His smile widened.
“Believe me.” His voice had a rich, sensual quality to it. It hinted at intimacy he had no right to and a lot of naughty things. “The pleasure was mine.”
As the elevator doors began to close, police jogged up to him, huffing with effort. “Mr. Yeun. We can’t guarantee your safety if you don’t cooperate with us and stay where we can protect you.”
Isabelle was curious. Especially as she caught snippets of them arresting the downed men just as the very slow doors finally closed all the way shut. But the call of a hot bath was stronger than curiosity.
She was done for the night.
* * *
Her phone rang and she reached out with unerring accuracy, snagging it from the nightstand. “Scott.”
Damned thing was sturdy enough not to break under a pounding or from being thrown so she’d learned to grab it as quickly as possible to shut it the hell up. Even if she wasn’t quite awake yet.
“Morning, Lizzy. You were involved in an incident with the police.” Gabe’s voice came through, crisp and businesslike, maybe mildly amused.
She breathed in through her nose and out in a sigh.
Gabriel Diaz was her superior in the Safeguard Division, newly formed within the Centurion Corporation. He—and two other people who had made up their fire team—was one of the few people she allowed to use her childhood nickname. They’d spent time in the field, survived enough combat situations to not bother counting anymore and, in general, trusted each other with their lives.
Currently, she wanted to end his.
“What time is it?” She refused to look at a clock. The hotel’s heavy curtains were doing a fantastic job of blocking out daylight and she had planned to sleep in this morning.
“Oh-eight-hundred.” There was definitely amusement in Gabe’s voice. The bastard. “Are you with company?”
The face of the very attractive stranger by the elevator last night flashed into her mind.
She grunted and sat up. “Negative.”
There’d been police, as Gabe so cheerfully reminded her. The hot guy would’ve had complications in joining her for the evening. And while she had no issues with law enforcement in general, she did not want them parked outside her hotel room door advertising to the world she had company. Multiple deployments in the military gave her a preference for discretion. She’d rather forego fun times than have her choices in off-duty entertainment subject to misogynistic judgment.
“Then you can tell me about it.” He obviously didn’t have a snooze button.
As commanding officers went, Gabe was a good one. But aside from admitting whether their conversation could be overheard or not, she wasn’t prone to give him insight into her love life either.
Fortunately, he wasn’t asking about it. Police. He was asking about police.
“Technically, I was involved in an incident and finished before police arrived on the scene.” She could’ve stuck around to answer police questions but she really hadn’t overheard anything before she’d decided to clear her path to the elevator. “Looked like a shakedown or similar disagreement. One of the men attacked me and I defended myself. When he was neutralized, the other two engaged. I eliminated the threats with nonlethal force. Then I entered the elevator and came up to my room.”
Gabe was taking notes on her story as she related it. He’d craft it into an even more diplomatic statement if needed. “No worries, Lizzy, the police aren’t interested in questioning you or involving you in the charges for those men. They had some interesting history, more than enough to keep the police busy without needing to talk to you. Especially when it was determined you were a Safeguard resource on-site for an unrelated contract.”
“Then why did you wake me up?” she growled. If Gabe was using her nickname, they weren’t being formal so she didn’t have to be polite.
“Because seeing you in action can be inspiring.” Gabe remained unfazed. If anything, he sounded downright cheerful. “And in this case, it lined up another contract for you.”
She growled again without even trying to verbalize anything intelligible.
“Now, Lizzy, when you’re good and people are impressed, there isn’t any sense in being irritated about the cause and effect.” This time he actually chuckled. “If you give people a demonstration of what you can do, can you blame them for wanting your services?”
She clamped her mouth shut, refusing to rise to the bait. More often than not in the past year she’d had to deal with chronic instances of underestimation. Clients looked at her and didn’t believe she could be effective as personal security.
When she’d been active duty, she’d spent a decent amount of time proving herself. In the service, soldiers did as ordered and they worked as a team if the mission was to succeed—and in more cases than she wanted to remember, if they were going to survive—so people learned to trust her. She’d carried her own weight. The men and women who’d served with her had come to respect her for it.
Civilian clients didn’t tend to react the same way. The past year with the Safeguard Division had been smattered with a fair share of clients looking for big, burly bodyguards and not willing to believe little Isabelle Scott was capable of defending them. Or, and this bothered her somewhat less, she wasn’t the image they were going for when they’d decided adding a bodyguard to their entourage was the most trendy accessory.
Still, she had her pride to consider and she preferred to be on assignment as opposed to working the administrative side of things or training recruits over at the Centurion Corporation facilities just outside Seattle. She was too on edge to train, and she needed the active assignments to help burn off the deep anger still inside her.
Maybe she’d been looking for the scuffle last night. Just a little.
She sighed. “What do you want, Gabe?”
“You’ve been requested for an assignment. Specifically. And both the US Marshals and police are more than happy to coordinate with you.” Gabe snorted. “I need you to get to the office in the next hour to meet the client and coordinate with his assigned protection.”