Surrender: A Salvation Society Novel Read online

  Surrender

  J. Saman

  Contents

  Letter to Reader

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  The Salvation Society

  Acknowledgments

  Books by J. Saman

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2020 by J. Saman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by: My Brother’s Editor

  Cover: Shanoff Designs

  Thank you to you the readers. For it is you who I write for. Writing as part of this world has been nothing short of a joy and a highlight of my author career. I hope you enjoy Surrender. Kellin and Alanna are extremely special to me and I know you’re going to love them as much as I do!

  Letter to Reader

  For those of you who don’t know me, I’m USA Today bestselling author J. Saman. I’ve been writing contemporary romance and romantic suspense for more than five years and have over seventeen published works not including this book. I cannot begin to explain how excited I am to be writing as part of Corinne Michaels’ Salvation Society world.

  I became a fan of both Corinne and this series when it was released, devouring each one as fast as they came out. So to me, to be able to continue this incredible world and these amazing characters with my own story and my voice is truly an honor.

  I’ve lined up all your favorite characters for you, so get ready to be thrown back into the world with Surrender.

  Prologue

  Kellin

  “Kellin, do you care to comment on that?” The sound of my boss, Tom’s, voice snaps me back to the room. Back to the situation at hand. Being debriefed after a mission gone wrong is never a good time, but this feels more like a grand inquisition than a simple debriefing.

  “Francois and Antoine Badeaux are dead, sir. Same with Samuel Blackbourne.”

  And that’s all he needs to know.

  The pertinent details I’m going to hold on to for just a bit longer.

  Especially when I have no idea if I can trust the man sitting across the table from me.

  The fact that three very prominent drug and arms dealers are now dead, ostensibly at my hand from what I’m relaying today, makes this case seem like a win. I did my job. I took them down.

  Only it’s not.

  Only I didn’t take them down.

  Instead, I was shot in a safe house in Las Vegas four months ago. I put my trust in the wrong man and it nearly cost me my life. So, you can understand why I’m a bit reluctant to share all my details and fantastic finds when the man who sold me out was none other than my boss’s boss.

  The director of the CIA, Christopher Asher.

  I appreciate that a mammoth shakedown took place after it was discovered that Christopher Asher was really Al Mazir, numero uno on the terrorist hotlist, but that doesn’t mean I trust that all his pawns were flushed out. Yeah, he not only fooled us all, but got plenty of his own men and women killed in his fight for global terrorist domination.

  The fact that my case is linked to all this, and I’m the only one who knows it, is what’s keeping my mouth shut. We may be a government agency, but that’s never stopped us from killing in the best interest of our country when the mood strikes, and the deal is right.

  “How about you walk me through what happened in Vegas.”

  I stare at Tom, a pencil pusher for the last fifteen years after being a decent field agent for at least ten, a man who rose through the ranks, getting as close to the top as he’ll ever climb, and know that I will not be telling him anything resembling the truth. I passed my polygraph already, but then again, we all pass our polygraphs.

  They train us to.

  Hence why we bother with debriefings.

  They want us to slip up. To grow emotional over our missions that we sink our life’s blood into. That has better agents than me turning to alcohol and other lovers than their partners to buffer the perpetual festering weight that surrounds our hearts. After all, our lives are built on lies. Our trust in our fellow agents is half-assed at best.

  And you never know from one day to the next if it’ll be your last.

  That said, I can bullshit this game better than most who have been part of this agency as long as I have.

  I clear my throat. Sit up straight. And then I lie while my mind replays that night, as it’s done every day since it happened.

  Emma fidgets silently on the bed, folding and unfolding her legs, playing with the sleeve of her shirt, staring at the dark bruises on her arms. Anything not to think about the situation we find ourselves in. “I don’t like being kept out of this, Kellin. Antoine is mine to take down. Not Gavin’s.”

  I nod in understanding, but don’t have much to say that will change the situation or make her feel any better. The truth is, she’s right. It should be her to take down her half-brother, Antoine Badeaux, after what he did to her. After all the things he’s done to her since she was a child.

  Emma Small, or rather Emeline Badeaux, has been chased her entire life by her uncle and half-brother. Chased for a key to a vault and chased so that they can kill her and end their vendetta. Emma already took out her uncle Francois, and now her half-brother Antoine is on the warpath.

  Emma being beaten to within an inch of her life has made her assassin boyfriend, Gavin, a bit on the overprotective side. He’ll do anything to keep her safe and away from Antoine. Which is how we find ourselves here in this safe house on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

  But in this moment, I can’t focus on Emma’s plight. My job is to keep her safe and alive, and I will do that because I owe Gavin my life. But my mind is elsewhere. Stuck on the things I’ve discovered on Francois Badeaux’s cell phone.

  The calls. The texts. The men behind them…

  It took me a little while to put all the pieces together. To figure out this mess. A three-way conversation in half-baked coded messages isn’t always the clearest.

  I didn’t waste time on agency middlemen. I called Christopher Asher, the director of the CIA, the moment we got to the safe house. Something this big, this monumental, and with this many implications cannot be handled by just anyone.

  When you discover a conversation between Al Mazir himself, Francois Badeaux, and an unknown third-party who I believe to be a high-ranking United States government politician discussing trafficking both illegal drugs and arms throughout the US and to the Middle East as well as laundering the money they take in, you have to play it cautiously. Involve as few people as possible.

  Chris responded that he would take care of it and that once this was done, I was to return to Langley for a
lengthy, and private, debriefing. And to bring Francois’ phone.

  All of which is standard protocol.

  But something isn’t right. Something is eating at me. I can’t even put my finger on what necessarily.

  “Kellin? Did you hear me?” Emma asks in that soft, sweet voice of hers. My eyes have been fixed on Francois’ phone since my initial correspondence with Chris. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for anymore. I’ve scoured the thing pretty good by this point.

  I glance up, meeting her light blue eyes. “Sorry, darlin’. What was that?”

  “Why did the CIA get involve in the first place?”

  I stare at her, blinking a couple of times as I work through what I should tell her and what I shouldn’t. If I lie, she’ll read it in a second. After all, Emma Small was trained by the best. The agency sent me after Samuel Blackbourne, Emma’s ex and a rival of Antoine and Francois Badeaux.

  In fact, Antoine and Francois were not my initial targets.

  “I was to get close to Sam, find out all I could about his operation, and then take him out. Sam had killed a couple of our operatives in the Middle East who were hunting a well-known terrorist by the name of Al Mazir. It was believed that Sam was helping to supply Mazir with drugs and guns.”

  I pause here, because this is what isn’t adding up for me. It wasn’t Sam who was supplying Mazir. It was Francois and Antoine Badeaux with the help of someone else. Sam wasn’t the one who took out our operatives either.

  It was Badeaux and Mazir working together.

  And now everything is a mess. This whole operation is upside down and I can’t tell who the patsies are versus who the real players are.

  Emma swallows hard and looks away.

  “I wish you had killed Sam before he turned me over to Antoine and Francois. Now we’re stuck in this safe house and who knows what’s going to happen to Gavin when he goes after Antoine.”

  “Gavin will kill him. That’s what he does best.”

  “I can’t tell if that makes me—”

  Her words are cut off and we both freeze, having heard the sound at the same time. Her eyes widen and she silently slips off the bed, standing beside me. I reach into my back holster and pull out my gun, loading a bullet into the chamber. Emma slides out her small gun and we hear it again.

  A quiet click that can only be the front door of the apartment.

  My head swivels around to the window behind me, but I know before my eyes even glance at the glass that it’s useless. We’re ten stories up and there are no balconies in this building.

  Reaching out, I shift Emma behind me, moving us both over to the side near the closet and behind the door. It’s not Gavin. I know this. We’re in total radio silence and he would never be stupid enough to show up and try to sneak in.

  He’d announce himself.

  This is someone who not only knows where we are but is after us.

  The problem with that?

  Only Gavin and Christopher Asher know about this place. And Gavin would rather die than hurt Emma.

  So that can only mean Christopher Asher sold me out.

  My heart starts to thrum out a punishing rhythm as a steady stream of adrenaline courses through my blood, clearing my mind and focusing my thoughts. I can hear whoever it is in the living room, searching around. It’s a two-bedroom apartment and luck seems to be on my side as they go into the other bedroom first.

  I slip out my phone and type out a quick text. It’s impossible to know who to trust right now. How deep this goes. If Christopher Asher is involved, who else is? But in this situation, right now, I don’t have a choice but to trust Daniel.

  I just hope he can get to us in time.

  I catch soft voices whispering words we cannot understand. I’m growing impatient, waiting on them. Not knowing who’s on the other side of the door. I chance a glance through the crack in the door frame and spot three men, all wearing black, all holding silenced guns.

  Well, I guess that answers that.

  I pivot to look over at Emma. In this room, we’re sitting ducks waiting on them to come to us. Her eyes meet mine and I know she’s thinking the same thing.

  My instinct is to stick her in the closet and take them on myself, but the look in her eyes tells me I better not dare try it. She holds up her gun, silently telling me she’s ready. That she can do this. Frankly, I don’t have the luxury of time to argue with her.

  Holding up my hand, my fingers count down from three. I suck in a deep breath and then we move, forcing Emma to stay behind me. They obviously hear us as the three of them begin to weave around the living room furniture in our direction.

  My eyes land on the first man and I fire off a shot, taking him out.

  He falls to the floor, and I swivel around, ready to kill the next, but before I can get the shot off, I’m knocked to the ground, hitting my head on the side of the coffee table.

  Silver spots dance behind my eyes, and I do everything in my power to shake them off. To clear my vision. The room sways as a warm trickle of what can only be blood flows down from my temple. I drag myself back up to my feet and lift my gun, when a swift kick lands straight in my ribs.

  White-hot pain sears through my side as the air in my lungs is expelled in one forceful gust. I stagger forward, the hand not holding the gun clasping against my side. I hear sound all around me. Emma yelling, mouthing off as she always does.

  My vision sways once more, but I fight against it, trying to get a clean shot on the man in front of me. The one now holding Emma, who is struggling against him with all her might. Her eyes meet mine and in them, I see her terror. She knows that if they take her, that’s it.

  Antoine will kill her.

  “Come now, pretty,” the man holding Emma murmurs into her hair in French. “It’ll only hurt more if you fight.”

  French. So these men are working for Antoine Badeaux.

  And they were sent here by Christopher Asher.

  It’s the only way they could have found us. I go to take my shot just as a high-pitched piercing shot rings out and I go down.

  “Kellin…” Tom snaps and I clear my throat, focusing on him. His eyes are narrowed. “Is there more you want to add?” I shake my head. He knows nothing of the safe house. Only that both Badeaux men as well as Samuel Blackbourne are dead. “Okay. I think it’s clear we’re done here for now. Take some time off. Go home. See your sister. Get your shit together,” he orders. “And come back to us with a full report. I know you’ve been through it after everything that happened with Christopher Asher. We all have. It’s messing with all of us. But we need you, Kellin. I hope you don’t forget that.”

  Home. The way he says that, so cavalier. Like that’s a real place for me anymore.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  I stand up and exit the conference room.

  Home. That’s where I’m headed.

  Only there will be no rest in my future. Not until I find the third person involved in this and take them down.

  Chapter One

  Kellin

  “I just got into town,” I say into the phone, standing in front of what used to be my parents’ estate. Now it belongs to another family. Their children’s playscape is hidden in the back of the grounds on the other side of the pool. Beyond that is the ocean. They must have taken down the treehouse my sister and I built with our father because I don’t see it.

  “So you’re having dinner with us?” my sister Kayleigh asks, unable to hide the hope and excitement in her voice and my gut twists. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her. At least a year or two and that was when she and Sean got married in New York. I haven’t been back to Virginia Beach since my parents died five years ago.

  But Kayleigh is not the only reason I’m here now.

  She is not why I didn’t stay in my tiny, never-lived-in apartment in DC.

  Charlie Erikson is. Her husband Mark Dixon is.

  I need answers and since Charlie and Mark are the ones who discovered that
Mazir was really Asher, they’re the best place to start with this.

  “Not tonight, babe. I have to meet someone, but I’ll be home after. And I’ll make you pancakes in the morning before you leave for work. Get up early with me. I won’t go for my run and you and I can spend the morning talking and eating sugar and bread.”

  Kayleigh laughs and instantly, I feel lighter. It’s a fantastic coincidence that my sister still lives here. The same place as the headquarters for Cole Security Forces where Mark and now Charlie work.

  “Okay. You’ve got a deal. I’m just so glad you’re home. I know you’re still working, but this last stretch without hearing from you was rough.”

  And just like that, the guilt is back.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help that. It was—”

  “For my safety,” she finishes for me. “Yes. I know. Doesn’t mean I like it.”

  “I love you too. I’ll see you later.”

  We disconnect the call and I stand here for a few minutes longer, allowing the memories of my childhood to run through me. My father wasn’t home much either. In fact, he was gone for the first few years of mine and my sister’s lives. A general in Operation Desert Storm, he was one of the men who directed the entire invasion. Most of the later portion of his career was serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and when I was old enough, I served in the Army too. Not under him, but every soldier knew my last name. Knew who my father was.