Elite Metal-ARE-epub (71 page)

He stiffened. “Of course it was my fault.”

“Why? Did you pull the pin? Did you push her into the blast?”

He lurched back and glared at her. “No. Of course not.”

“Then how was it your fault?”

“She went into Special Forces because I did.”

Roni quirked a brow. “Did she like Special Forces?”

His frown was fierce. “Hell, yes.”

“Then maybe she did it because she wanted to.” She shot him a mischievous smile. “It
is
very exciting.”

“It’s dangerous,” he growled.

“Dangerous is exciting. In fact, I can’t wait to go on another mission.”

His growl became ever so much more feral. “No. No more missions for you.”

“I enjoyed it very much.”

“I couldn’t bear it if…” The way he trailed off made her heart hurt. Made her wish she’d never started teasing him.

She cupped his cheek. “If what?”

He turned his head and kissed her palm. “If I lost you.”

She stared into his eyes. “You’re not going to lose me. I’m in this for the long haul.”

His gaze firmed, hardened, burned. “Me too, baby. As long as you want me. I’m yours.”

She kissed the tip of his nose. “Ditto.”

And then she hunkered back down and curled up against him and held on as hard as she could.

And he did the same.

Epilogue

Roni sat at the table in the command center, trolling through Marcus’ emails as she listened in on his phone calls. Excitement whipped through her. She couldn’t wait to share what she’d discovered with Steele.

He, Sterling and Ant had left a few days ago on a mission and while no one had been able to give her any details, she understood. So many of the Elite Metal ops were hush-hush. And for good reason. It was enough to know that through her work, and the doctored stories she fed Marcus, she could help keep Sterling and his friends safe.

A door slammed behind her and she turned around, and then squealed. She wasn’t much of a squealer, but she was so relieved to see Sterling, looking so tall and yummy and, damn it, safe, she couldn’t hold it back. She threw herself into his arms and he held her. It was wonderful.

When he pulled back, he kissed her on the forehead. “Sit down, baby,” he murmured. “We have something to show you.”

Roni glanced at Steele and Ant—both of whom were sporting smug grins—and Chrome who, as always, was looking somber. “Oookay.” She took her seat and Sterling sat beside her, dropping his arm around her shoulders as though he couldn’t bear to be near her without a touch of some kind. She understood. She felt the same.

“Here you go, darlin’. Signed custody papers.” Ant tossed them on the table.

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.” She grabbed the papers and riffled through them. She gazed at Marcus’ signature as though it were the Holy Grail. But then, it was. “How on earth did you get this?”

Ant leaned back in his chair and grinned. It was a shit-eating grin.

“Seriously. How did you get him to sign?” She glanced at Sterling. “Was this your mission?”

His smile warmed her to the cockles of her heart…and elsewhere.

“We went back to LA,” Steele said.

“With Warbucks’ piranha lawyer,” Sterling added.

Ant nodded. “Before we met with Morrow, I looked into his finances, as you suggested. There was enough there to, shall we say, encourage him to cooperate.”

“You looked into his finances? He has them on a secure server. At a separate location.”

Another shit-eating grin.

Clearly she had a lot to learn about the Elite Metal prowess.

“Not to say he was completely cooperative. He wasn’t. At least, not at first. But the big boss’s lawyer was pretty…intense. When he laid out what we knew, Morrow crumpled pretty quickly.”

Roni gaped at Sterling. “That easy?”

“I might have broken his finger.” This he said with an apologetic glance at Chrome, who tipped his head to the side.

“Which finger?” he asked in a curious tone.

Steele barked a laugh. “Let’s just say Morrow probably won’t be flipping anyone off for a while.”

Roni stared at him, speechless.

But then Sterling said something that made her heart lurch, her pulse thrum and her soul sing. “There’s someone upstairs, waiting to see you.”

“Some-some-someone?”

He grinned and kissed her forehead again. “Someone very special.” He handed her the custody papers. “And according to these, she’s all yours.”

And it was right then, in that moment, that she knew.

She loved him.

And she always would.

Sabrina York

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By Rebecca Royce

Platinum’s Choice

By Rebecca Royce

Text Copyright Rebecca Royce 2015

Edited by: Heather Long

All Rights Reserved

Discover more titles by Rebecca Royce at
www.rebeccaroyce.com/

Dedication

To Jennifer Kacey for her tireless effort to make this project awesome.

Platinum’s Choice

By Rebecca Royce

Platinum left the life he had with Rose in New York to rejoin his team and silence the nightmares from Operation Phoenix.  But when Rose is forced to go on the run with Platinum’s hidden son, he will have no choice but to return to his old life and reclaim what he has ached for every day since. Red Wolf’s sniper wants to nudge Plat’s underbelly and they’re going to find out quickly how deadly he can be.

Platinum was a man of few words before he changed his name and had his sniper rifle taken away. But as Elijah, he could start over, maybe even fall in love with his hidden son's Kindergarten teacher, Rose. But Platinum is reborn when Elijah is kidnapped, so he's left with no choice but to vanish, leaving Rose to wonder about his fate, broken-hearted.

Rose has spent the last year getting over the disappearance of the man she knew as Eli. Now, alone and terrified, she finds herself on the run from a sniper while trying to hide a scared little boy from certain death.

Red Wolf's crew isn't done with Plat, and his soft underbelly is just the place to nudge. Sniper vs. sniper, Platinum will reclaim what is his. That is, if she'll even have him back...

Chapter One

Platinum stared at the man across the table and tried to think of all the reasons why killing him was a bad idea.
One
—they were in public. He actually liked coming to Bone Daddy’s. Getting kicked out for attempted murder would greatly affect the bars he could go locally to have fun. Bone Daddy’s was pretty much it.

Oh who was he kidding? If he took the son of a bitch down, the charge wouldn’t be
attempted
murder. If Plat wanted to kill Tony De’Fallipi, he’d succeed even without his sniper rifle.

A man’s neck could be broken multiple ways. Snap. Crunch.

He took a pull from his beer.

Two
—and it really was imperative he make a quick internal list to hold off his murderous rage—his teammates wouldn’t appreciate having to clean the mess. They’d assist without a doubt. Only Copper alone would never let him live it down. She’d want him to talk about why he’d committed murder in the middle of the day. In a bar.

The sheer amount of time spent managing the fallout would cut into his reading hours.

And finally—
three
—much as he hated to admit the sad truth, it really wasn’t Tony’s fault he was such a complete and total incompetent jackass. A certain portion of the population had to be born naturally stupid. Platinum could only blame himself for hiring him.

“Are you going to say something?” Tony fidgeted with the coaster on the table. Platinum specialized in noticing details. At the moment, he zeroed in on the tear in the corner of the cardboard drink holder. The picture on top—a pirate holding a beer—seemed ragged, half-destroyed.

Why was the bar using broken coasters? Were they running short on funds? He'd invest in the place, secretly if need be. Losing Bone Daddy’s wasn’t an option.

“Say something.” Tony threw the coaster down on the table and it bounced once before settling on its side. Plat watched the movement for an extra second before he turned his gaze on De’Fallipi.

Tony needed to lose weight, in a big way. Maybe take off two hundred pounds. He hadn’t been as obese the last time Plat met with him. He smoked, everything he had on reeked of it, and if the yellow stain on the side of his mouth indicated anything, probably chewed tobacco.

At five-foot-five inches, the gray haired mess in front of him was a foot shorter than Plat. He really hoped said mess wasn’t about to have a heart attack. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to resuscitate Tony on the floor of the bar.

“When was the last time you went for a physical? Had your sugars checked?”

Plat really shouldn’t care. He’d left medical school behind when he’d been kidnapped and brought into the Elite Metal fold. When he agreed to rejoin his brothers and sister in arms to make right a major cluster fuck, he’d given up healing and fully embraced the sniper within him once again.

Still, old habits died hard. Old personas too, it seemed.

Tony coughed violently before he answered. “Are you kidding? I told you the weird kid I’ve been watching for you for a year is missing and you want to ask about my last physical? Are you on something? Meeting you here in a nowhere bar, never getting any answers. It’s a good thing your checks cash each month.”

His temper surged again. Outside of his team, there wasn’t a soul alive who would notice a change in him. Control and patience were his best friends.

The knocking on death’s door private investigator in front of him pushed all of his buttons. “I heard what you said.”

“I mean why have I been watching a seven year old? Do you have some sick perverted thing about him?”

Platinum stood up. “Thank you for your help. The checks will be stopping. Permanently. I’ll take it from here. He’s eight by the way.”

“The kid is missing. If I can’t find him, he’s gone.” Tony shrugged “You won’t make it further than I did.”

“Doubtful. Seriously.” Plat leaned forward. “And if you ever call the kid weird again, even in the back of your mind, I’ll put a bullet in your head. You’ll never see it coming.”

Since he’d spoken more in the last ten minutes than he talked usually in a week, he turned on his heel and left the bar. His son was missing. It might be nothing or it could mean Platinum’s demons finally figured out how to hit him where it hurt. He’d spent his whole life trying not to make any connections. One drunken assignation with a woman he barely remembered and boom the universe gifted him with a kid he’d known nothing about for six years—a permanent soft underbelly. Even if Kent never learned his father existed.

One of the two people he cared about in the world was unaccounted for…

Rose was okay, she had to be.

The kid who never knew him and the woman who probably hated the ground he walked on.

* * * * *

Two years earlier

He’d spent the morning watching The Boy. It was easier to think of him in the abstract than by the name The Boy’s mother bestowed upon him, Kent. Besides,
Elijah
knew how flexible names were. He’d owned so many in his life he wasn’t certain what his real designation was anymore.

The government called him Elijah Jones. The name worked as well as any other. He was Elijah—a fake name for a brand new life. His previous self, according to public records, died overseas—killed in action. Since the new life was what he had, he needed to find a way to make it work.

New York City was loud, busy, and anonymous. The city worked perfectly for his current situation. Outside of class, he never talked to anyone. His son, The Boy—Kent he tried to remind himself—seemed social enough.

He hadn’t inherited the introverted nature the men in
Elijah’s
family seemed cursed with. Must come from his mother—a woman he barely remembered except for some heated, drunken images. A little more than six years earlier he’d made a baby—a fact he’d not known for the last six years.