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  A Preview of Beg for Mercy

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  To my sweet boys.

  Your fierce hugs and kisses are the highlight of my days. Thanks for letting Mommy write her books, even though you won’t be able to read them for at least ten more years.

  And to Gajus. Without your love and unwavering support, none of this would be possible.

  Acknowledgments

  As usual, I have to thank Monica McCarty for keeping me sane, talking me through the tough times, and helping me figure my way out when I write myself into a wall. Thanks for being MY reader :) I also owe tremendous gratitude to Kelley Murray. I’m so grateful you came into our lives. Thank you for loving and caring for my boys (including the furry one!) and for your willingness to go the extra mile when deadlines loom. You’re the best! And last, but most certainly not least, I want to thank you, my fans. Your enthusiasm and love for the books are a constant reminder of why I love my job.

  Chapter 1

  There was nothing to suggest that tonight was anything other than an ordinary Sunday night at Suzette’s Bistro, but Talia Vega couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

  From her position behind the bar, she scanned the room as though it would hold a clue to her uneasiness. Sunday was never the busiest night of the week, but tonight the crowd was heavier than usual. This first week of May, the spring rains had finally run their course, and with the nice weather and later sunsets, the citizens of this affluent corner of California were flush with spring fever and ready to go out and celebrate.

  Tonight the bar was about two-thirds full, girlfriends catching a quick drink as they braced for a busy week ahead, couples having drinks and a light dinner, a few older students from the nearby university craving something a little more sophisticated than the college bars.

  Certainly there was nothing and no one to account for the itchy, tight feeling high on her shoulders and the sense that something in her nice, normal life was about to go awry.

  She shook the feeling off and fixed her face into a friendly smile as she handed a blonde in her forties another glass of chardonnay across the bar.

  She murmured “thanks” as the blonde slipped her a five and turned her attention to a man in his early fifties, his salt-and-pepper hair swept back from his lined forehead. He was a regular enough customer for Talia to remember the face if not the name.

  She poured him a vodka martini and made small talk, and the feeling of disquiet faded further into the background as she settled into her rhythm. Chatting with customers, mixing drinks, oohing and aahing with the server whose table had ordered a five-hundred-dollar bottle of wine from the cellar.

  It was all so refreshingly normal.

  So far away from where she’d been. What she’d been. Terrified. A victim. Living underground in a series of safe houses in Northern California, always looking over her shoulder as she frantically tried to keep herself and her teenage sister safe from people who wanted nothing more than to see them suffer.

  Now she and her sister, Rosario, were free—had been for two years.

  After Rosie got her GED, they’d spent over a year traveling; then eight months ago they’d settled back down in Palo Alto, California, so Rosario could begin her freshman year at nearby Stanford.

  Even though it had been almost a year, Talia still marveled. Her baby sister was going to freaking Stanford! Not bad for a girl who was mostly raised by a sister who was mostly clueless but did the best she could.

  As for herself, she’d found a good job with people she liked, working as the bar manager at Suzette’s, which didn’t land her in the lap of luxury, but it was enough to pay her bills and help Rosie with the expenses her scholarship didn’t cover. All in all, a very nice life, one she couldn’t have even imagined just two years ago. And there wasn’t a day that went by that she wasn’t intensely grateful for it.

  Even on nights like this, when old memories tried to creep back in, unwanted, unsettling. She moved to the other end of the bar to clear away two wineglasses and a picked-over plate of calamari.

  “Talia!”

  A smile stretched her voice at the familiar voice. “Rosie, you’re early,” she said, turning at the sound of her younger sister’s voice. She wasn’t hard to spot in a crowd. At five foot nine, Rosario Vega was a good four inches taller than Talia, easy to spot in the mostly seated crowd.

  But even without the height, Rosie would have stood out from the crowd. At eighteen, she was finally growing into the huge brown eyes, long nose, and full mouth that had given her a mismatched look throughout her childhood. Now the bold features gave her a beauty that was as arresting as it was unique.

  Something that didn’t go unnoticed by a single straight man in the bar.

  Except, Talia noted as she felt her smile fade, maybe by the boy-man standing to Rosie’s left. Rosario’s boyfriend had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his scruffy black hoodie, a look on his face that said everything in the entire world was crushingly lame. “Oh, and I see you brought Kevin,” Talia said, trying to keep the acid from her tone but failing, if Rosario’s warning look was anything to go by.

  “Still cool if we have dinner here?” Rosario said as she plopped onto a bar stool. She motioned for Kevin to follow, who joined her with an eye roll.

  It was on the tip of Talia’s tongue to remind Rosie that the invitation to dinner on Talia’s tab did not include shiftless twenty-three-year-old sixth-year seniors who should be out working for a living instead of sucking off his parents’ seemingly limitless college fund while preying on hapless, wide-eyed freshmen.

  Instead she bit out a sharp, “Sure.” Sure, she’d forgo her share of tips tonight to pay for the extra forty or so dollars of food and drink Kevin would undoubtedly suck up. Sure, she’d do her best to ignore the way Rosario would ignore everyone and focus all of her attention on Kevin, bouncing around him like a puppy while he mumbled monosyllabic replies around a mouth stuffed with food.

  Because two years ago, when the tightrope she’d been walking had snapped out from under her, Talia had promised herself, promised Rosario, that she’d make a normal life for them. A life where Talia didn’t have to hide out in a safe house, away from Rosario, who was forced to live under an assumed name with a family of well-meaning strangers. A life that didn’t include living under the protection of full-time paid bodyguards.

  And plenty of normal college girls had boyfriends, often directionless, disinterested, unworthy boyfriends like Kevin. Part of being normal meant getting your heart bruised by a guy who didn’t deserve a second of your time, a lesson Talia fervently hoped Rosario learned sooner rather than later.

  And really, who was she to judge? Kevin might be a shiftless douche bag, but at least he wasn’t the force behind an international criminal organization that had resulted in the suffering and deaths of countless innocent women. Talia still held the gold medal in the falling-in-love-with-the-absolute-worst-person-on-the-planet contest.

  She swallowed hard and forced the memories of the threats against herself and Rosie from her mind.

  He couldn’t hurt them anymore.

  She put menus in front of Rosario and Kevin and excused herself to fill an order for the main dining room. When she got back, she automatically put a Coke in front of each of them.

  Kevin let out a little huff of disgust and pushed the glass back in her direction. “Can I get a bottle of Budweiser?”

  “I don’t think—” Talia started, only to be interrupted by her sister.

  “God, Tal, why do you do this every time? He’s legal, and you know it.”

  “You’re not, and I don’t think he needs to be drinking with you—”

  K
evin started to stand. “Fine. I’m supposed to meet Sam at the Z-bar anyway,” he said, referencing a bar across town that was popular with the students. A bar underage Rosario wouldn’t be able to get into.

  Rosie grabbed his arm in a vise grip. “No, she’ll give you the beer!” As she spoke, she shot Talia a look that shout-ed, Don’t ruin this. You owe me. You owe me big-time.

  Talia knew she could spot Rosario’s boyfriend a whole truckload of beer and it wouldn’t make a dent in what she owed Rosie for bringing a monster into their lives. She grabbed a beer and thunked the bottle in front of Kevin and asked him sharply what he wanted to eat.

  “What’s up with you tonight?” Rosie asked after Talia returned from putting in their order. “You’ve got your major crabby pants on.”

  Despite her irritation, Talia couldn’t help smiling at Rosie’s description of her bad mood, one that stemmed from their childhood. It was on the tip of her tongue to snap that she’d been in a fine enough mood before Rosie brought Mr. Lazy Trust Fund in to mooch dinner.

  Instead she shrugged and admitted the strange uneasiness that had dogged her most of the evening. “I can’t explain it,” Talia said. “But I just have this bad feeling, like something’s about to happen.”

  Talia was grateful when Rosie pulled her attention away from Kevin and reached out to cover Talia’s hand with her own. “No offense, but I told you to stop reading all that crap. How do you expect to feel when you’ve spent the last two days wallowing in it.”

  Talia’s mouth pulled tight, but she didn’t remove her hand from her sister’s. “I wasn’t wallowing,” she said stubbornly.

  Rosie rolled her eyes. “Call it whatever you want, but when I stopped by yesterday, I checked your browser history, and it shows that you looked up about fifty thousand articles about that old bitch.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mr. Personality asked, finally intrigued by something.

  Talia was summoned by a server and left Rosie to do the explaining.

  As she filled the order, she had to grudgingly admit Rosie was right. Margaret Grayson-Maxwell—the old bitch in question—had been released from prison earlier this week. When her involvement with her late husband David’s less-than-legitimate business of trafficking in people, drugs, and weapons was discovered, Margaret had cut a deal. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Margaret had spilled everything she knew about an organized crime network that spanned the globe.

  Now she was out after only eighteen months served, and her release sparked a fresh wave of press about David Maxwell and all of his sordid dealings.

  And, of course, the stories never failed to detail Talia’s role as the disgruntled mistress who helped to take him and his empire down.

  Talia could have all the fresh starts she wanted, but she couldn’t prevent her picture from appearing front and center of every newspaper in Seattle. She was alternately portrayed as the mercenary gold digger who looked the other way while her wealthy keeper used his monster of a nephew to murder high-class prostitutes, and as the victim who had barely escaped with her life when that same nephew, Nate Brewster—known better under his infamous moniker, the “Seattle Slasher”—had set his sights on Talia.

  Despite repeated admonitions from Rosie and Talia’s own common sense, from the moment Talia had heard about Margaret’s pending release, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from inhaling every news story about it that she could find.

  At first she’d been afraid that people around here would recognize her, that customers would do the math and realize her connection to the whole sordid mess.

  To her relief, what was big news in Seattle proved to be of no interest in bustling Silicon Valley. Sure, the revelation of Nate as the Seattle Slasher had been a national story two years ago when it resulted in the release of Sean Flynn from death row.

  A few months later, it was revealed that David Maxwell, a man who had married into a family often referred to as Washington State’s version of the Kennedys, had not only been the shadowy force behind the Seattle Slasher but had also run a criminal organization that netted millions of dollars and was linked to the Russian Mafia.

  At that point, there had been magazine articles, front-page stories, even features on news programs like 48 Hours and Dateline. Though Talia had refused to be interviewed, her involvement with David Maxwell meant her name was dragged through the mud with his, and for about a week or so there, her name definitely had been on the country’s radar.

  But news moved fast, especially in the Internet age. Though Seattleites had clearly reveled in the opportunity to rehash one of the few lurid scandals to hit their comparatively whitewashed city, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, Margaret Grayson-Maxwell’s arrest and the nefarious activities of her dead husband were lost in the ether.

  And as Rosie had so wisely pointed out, Talia should have let it stay lost, in the past, rather than spend all of her free time delving back into every lurid detail of the past she worked so hard to escape.

  As she went back to the kitchen to retrieve Rosie’s and Kevin’s meals, Talia vowed that from now on, she would avoid any further information about Margaret Grayson-Maxwell, even if it meant she had to cut her Internet connection to do so.

  What she’d done and the choices she’d made were all in the past now. And she’d fought too hard to escape that past to let it ruin what had become a very nice present.

  She’d no sooner had that thought than she turned the corner back into the bar and saw Rosie enthusiastically hugging a very large man. After a few seconds the man released her, and Talia’s confusion morphed into shock at the first flash of recognition.

  Jack.

  She must have said it out loud, because his head whipped around even before the plates holding Kevin’s burger and Rosie’s chicken breast slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. The sound of shattering crockery was enough to jolt her from her stupor, and she felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment as she scrambled to clean up the mess. Real smooth, Talia.

  What did she have to be embarrassed about? she chided herself. No doubt she’d looked clumsy and stupid, standing there with her mouth hanging open while the plates slipped out of her hands, but that wasn’t the worst Jack Brooks had seen of her.

  Not even close.

  And after two years with no contact, suddenly he was kneeling on the floor next to her. “Let me help,” he said, his voice a familiar rumble that tugged at something in her chest. Ignoring her protests, he helped her gather up shards of pottery and mounds of food onto the tray a busboy had helpfully provided.

  Finally Talia stood, wiping her hands on a towel, her mind buzzing with a thousand questions as her tongue remained stubbornly glued to the roof of her mouth.

  “Judging from your reaction, I probably should have called ahead,” Jack said, flashing her a grin that softened the harsh lines of his face and warmed the glacial blue of those eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” she blurted with absolutely no finesse. But who cared? It was too late to pretend his unexpected appearance hadn’t completely thrown her for a loop.

  She moved back behind the bar, partly because a customer was signaling her for a refill, and partly because she wanted the physical barrier between herself and Jack. It had been two years, another lifetime, and still she found herself overwhelmed by Jack’s presence.

  It wasn’t just the way he looked, though at six-four, packed with hard muscle and a square-jawed face that was all planes and angles, to call Jack intimidating was the understatement of the year.

  But it was more than that. It was in the way he carried himself, the way he could be perfectly still yet be ready to spring into action at a second’s notice. The way he could scan a room and memorize every detail of every person and object in it.

  Mostly it was the way he looked at you. Jack had a way of looking at a person that made you feel like he knew all of your secrets, even the ones you didn’t know you were hiding. She’d felt it that first day he
’d walked into Club One and looked her up and down. At the time she’d told herself there was no way Jack knew a damn thing about her, and she was keeping it that way.

  Now, she supposed, Jack knew all of her secrets. The good, the bad, the horrifically ugly.

  She held herself still as he did a quick scan of her face and body. Was he mentally comparing her to the vixen she’d once been and finding her lacking?

  Or was he relieved to see she was no longer the bone-thin, pale shadow of a woman he’d last seen in a safe house less than twenty miles from here?

  Whatever he was thinking, his expression didn’t give a clue. Nor was there anything approaching attraction or appreciation, and Talia was shocked to feel a little pinch of hurt at the realization. She certainly wasn’t the glammed-out man-eater who’d once had men salivating as she walked by, but she wasn’t exactly a dog.

  Stop it. She mentally slapped herself. You should be grateful Jack doesn’t want anything like that from you. If he did, sooner or later he’d be calling in favors.

  The thought made her a little queasy, and she filled herself a glass of club soda.

  “You’ve been working out. You look strong,” Jack said.

  Talia nodded, unsure if she should thank him, unsure it was a compliment. There was a time, a lifetime ago, when she would have come back with something snappy, shown some attitude, run her hands over her body to make sure Jack got a good look at what she had to show.

  All Talia could do was stare, tongue-tied, unable to make even the simplest small talk with the man who had saved her life.

  Rosario was more than capable of taking up the conversational ball. “You never answered Talia—what are you doing here?”

  Broad shoulders shrugged under his jacket. “I thought I’d stop by, make sure you were doing okay with all the noise going on with Margaret’s release.”

  Talia’s brows knit over the bridge of her nose. “You flew all the way down here to check up on me?” It was ridiculous to even consider, but Talia couldn’t deny the tiny burst of warmth at the possibility.