Table of Contents
Characters
Dear Reader
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
The Brilliance Trilogy
The Savage Series
The Lilah Love Series
Also by Lisa Renee Jones
About Lisa Renee Jones
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the supplier and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at lisareneejones.com/contact
All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.lisareneejones.com.
When He’s Bad
Walker Security: Adrian’s Trilogy book TWO
Lisa Renee Jones
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About When He’s Bad
He was dirty. That's how Priscilla met him. She was all about just how dirty he was and, in fact, had to be. Now, he's just plain bad. When you cross a man like Adrian Mack, you find out just how bad he can be. Priscilla started out as an enemy, became a lover, and now, she is his obsession.
Lies. Secrets. Enemies that appear they are friends. The passion and danger just won't stop coming.
Characters
Adrian Mack—34, goatee, dark wavy hair, six-foot-one. Hero of the story. Former FBI agent. Was once undercover with the Devils biker gang, and is now set to testify against Nick Waters, the leader of the gang. Now a prominent member of Walker Security.
Priscilla “Pri” Miller—32, brunette, blue eyes. Heroine of the story. Assistant District Attorney. Used to work for her father’s law firm before she decided she wanted to put away the bad guys instead and went to work as an ADA.
Rafael—Younger brother to Adrian Mack. Rock star Latin singer.
Blake Walker—One of the three owning members/brothers of Walker Security.
Lucas “Lucifer” Remington—Walker Security team member. Blond, tattooed, rock god type looks. Pilot.
Savage—Walker Security team member. Former surgeon and special ops.
Dexter— Walker Security team member.
Adam— Walker Security team member.
Kirk Pitt— FBI agent, was undercover with Adrian. Handsome face, big and broad.
Ed Melbourn—District Attorney. Pri’s boss. 50’s. Fit, a big man, with thick salt-and-pepper hair, broad shoulders, and a broader presence. Single. Ex-military.
Nick Waters—King Devil, club founder, 42, brutally vicious, sports a dark beard with hints of gray, but doesn’t drink or do drugs. He just peddles drugs, weapons, and women, while pumping iron, and adding new tattoos. Green eyes.
Grace—Pri’s co-worker. 30, blonde, green eyes, in a relationship with Josh, shy.
Josh—Used to be the detective for the DA’s office, but now has turned to private sector work. In a relationship with Grace. Light brown hair, strong, classically handsome features.
Jose Deleon—Waters’ right-hand man, his assassin, most likely responsible for the murders of the witnesses.
Cindy—Newest ADA, straight out of school, petite, feisty, pretty blonde.
Logan Michaels—Pri’s ex-fiancé, works with her father still. blond pretty-boy, clean-shaven jaw. Cheated on Pri with her secretary.
Shari—DA’s office receptionist.
Mr. Miller—Pri’s father. Owns his own firm. Pri used to work for him, Logan still does.
Mrs. Miller—Pri’s mother. Wants Pri to come back to their family firm, refused to go out of town to stay safe during the case Pri is working on.
Dear Reader
Thank you so much for diving into Adrian’s Trilogy! Book two in a trilogy is always more difficult for me. I’m so close to giving everyone (characters and readers alike) closure, but there’s always so much more to delve into and experience. It’s also usually the more emotionally tumultuous of the books. It’s where the main characters discover so much more of each other, and I hope that bleeds through on these pages you’re about to read.
But before you get to them, I wanted to give you a brief recap of book one, When He’s Dirty. When we first met Adrian, though he was a solid part of Walker Security, he’s also headed back to Austin, TX to finally testify in a case he was undercover in two years ago. A case that wholly changed his life forever. A case that made him a man he didn’t recognize, and didn’t want to be. He was undercover in the Devil’s biker gang, and he’s testifying against none other than the King Devil himself, Nick Waters. Waters is up for an entire slew of charges, violent and financial.
But before Adrian can testify, he needs to ensure the ADA on the case, Priscilla Miller, is on the up and up. Waters’ reach is far and wide, he has any number of government officials under his control, and Adrian can’t risk Priscilla being one of them. They meet under the guise of happenstance, and he introduces himself as his brother, Rafael. But as Pri (as Adrian calls her) dives deeper into the case, she unearths connections she can’t fathom, and it suddenly becomes clear who Adrian really is.
As they get closer while trying to find out who is killing Pri’s witnesses, they find this undeniable passion they can’t say no to. But their closeness rattles a bunch of cages of those close to Waters, seemingly including Pri’s ex-fiancé, Logan, who still works for her father’s firm. Pri and Adrian are clearly getting too close to officially putting a nail in the coffin of this case and thus go into hiding at a cabin Adrian’s father put together as a hideout many years back. But once they’re settled and sleeping a visitor shows up, Agent Pitt, who was undercover with Adrian in the Devils, and he’s soon stabbed by none other than Jose Deleon, Waters’ right-hand man, who he tasks with all murders. Including the murder of Adrian and Pri. And thus, we’re back at that cabin with De
leon threatening the life of Adrian and Pri...
Chapter One
ADRIAN
Impossible.
Deleon cannot be here at the cabin, at the hideaway I’ve told no one about but my team at Walker Security. And yet, here he is, big, tattooed, and smirking like the clown he is, but he’s not just a clown. He’s a killer, one who enjoys the sport of it.
Before Pitt ever hits the ground, with Deleon’s knife buried in his back, Deleon charges at me. I reach for my gun, but before I can get off a shot, there’s a blast at the rear of the house. My first thought is Pri, please God, do not let Pri be dead in the middle of one of my booby traps. But thank fuck, she screams in reaction to the blast, right here in the cabin, but I’ve hesitated with my fear for her, and it’s a mistake.
Hesitation is the kiss of death with Deleon.
With a tackle, he takes me down, the hard floor punishing my back and jolting my bones and he doesn’t do it silently. He’s cursing me in Spanish, calling me a traitor and pig, but I don’t miss another beat. I punch him. He punches me. I’m about to elbow the fuck out of him and flip us over when I hear, “Get off him or I’ll shoot!”
Pri.
Holy fuck, Pri.
Deleon smirks at me, his long dark hair in disarray, half in and half out of the tie at his nape. His gun shifts, lifts, points at Pri, but he’s still looking at me. “Make one little move,” he promises, “and I’ll shoot her before she shoots me.”
“She’s gutsy and well trained,” I warn. “I wouldn’t gamble against her skills or willingness to kill you.”
“Are you really going to gamble against me?” he demands, smirking again, as if he knows I won’t, but he doesn’t shoot me or Pri.
Why, I wonder, did he bother to tackle me? Why not shoot me and be done with it when he had the chance? All I know are two things right now: I want his attention off Pri and I hope like hell she just shoots the fucker.
“What do you want, Deleon?” I demand softly.
His eyes burn with hatred. “Does your bitch know all the dirty shit you did, man? Does she know you’re like us?”
“Isn’t that exactly what makes me such a damn good witness?” I taunt, but I don’t like where this is going.
“Does she know you killed your brother? Does she know you enjoyed it?”
That’s it. I’m done. Adrenaline and anger collide in a surge. I roll him over, smash him to his fucking back, knock away his gun, and my blade is already in my hand. I don’t even hesitate. I slam the damn thing into his chest, a non-lethal location just below his collarbone. But it hurts like hell and I know from experience that it bleeds like the bitch he is. He gasps, blood spurting from his mouth, and I’m already standing, rolling him to his stomach, my boot between his shoulder blades.
My gaze rockets to Pri, who’s standing in the hallway, staring at me, her face pale, stricken. She’s looking at me like I’m a killer and she’s not wrong, but it still burns the fuck out of me.
“He didn’t come alone,” I tell her. “Which means we have a few options here. We let his men come and kill us, I shoot him and kill him, or you grab me the rope under the kitchen sink so I can tie him up and you do it quickly.”
Deleon quakes under my foot, trying to break free, and Pri darts for the kitchen. I stab Deleon again, just inside the shoulder blade, though I’d like to puncture his fucking lung. Then he’d be dead and that I’d enjoy, but it would also look like I did it to shut him up. I’d never come back from that with Pri. I’m not sure I can now anyway.
By the time Deleon gasps and collapses on the ground, Pri’s handing me the rope. I glance at her pale features, but she’s not looking at me. I guess she can’t bear the sight of me, and it’s starting to piss me off. I grab the rope.
“You stabbed him again?” she asks staring at the knife in Deleon’s back and then gaping at me. “You stabbed him again?” she asks again.
Sure, I think, now she’s looking at me and with accusations aplenty.
“He’s alive,” I say, unrolling the rope. “Check Pitt for a pulse. “
She draws in a breath and gives a choppy nod, rushing away. I knot the hell out of Deleon’s wrists and make damn sure he’s not going anywhere.
I rotate, grab my gun, and shove it in my pants. Pri’s presently using tape and one of my T-shirts from the overnight bag to stop Pitt’s bleeding, which tells me what I need to know. He’s alive. He’s also in the doorway. “I have to move him,” I say. “We need to shut the door.” I don’t wait for her reply. “Call Savage. Tell him Pitt’s condition. Now.”
“I have to finish wrapping—”
“Now, Pri, or someone is walking through the door and killing us.” I grab her arm and pull her to her feet, pressing the cell into her hand. “On speaker,” I add.
She nods and I grab Pitt’s feet, dragging him further into the cabin, blood pooling around his body as Pri punches in the call. Savage answers on ring number one. “We’re ten minutes out,” he announces.
“It’s Pri,” she says, kneeling next to Pitt again, and setting the phone on the ground. “Pitt showed up here at the cabin,” she adds, applying pressure to his wound. “Deleon stabbed him. He’s bleeding badly.”
“Pitt?” Savage snaps. “And fucking Deleon? What the hell? Where’s Adrian?”
I shut the front door and lock it. “I’m here,” I say, kneeling next to Pri and taping up Pitt’s wound. “We’re going underground, so listen up because I’m leaving you a shit show.”
“I love a good shit show,” Savage jokes. “Bring it.”
“I stabbed Deleon and tied him up,” I say. “I saved his vital organs. We need to save him and turn him against Waters.”
“He’s alive?” Savage wonders. “I thought you wanted him dead?”
My eyes meet Pri’s as I respond with, “You have no idea how fucking much I want him dead.”
Pri cuts her gaze, a rejection in the action I feel like a blade in my heart. I stabbed Deleon, it’s true, but there is no question he struck first, cutting me via Pri, and he knew it.
“All righty then,” Savage says. “He’s alive. We want him dead. What else?”
“That wasn’t an invitation to kill him,” Pri snaps. “I need him alive.”
“No one needs that bastard alive,” Savage grumbles, but he says, “Note to self: keep the piece of shit alive. Got it. What else?”
The alarm at the right side of the house sounds and I disconnect the call, launching myself to my feet while Pri, now covered in blood, smartly scrambles for her weapon.
“What’s happening?” she calls out, gripping it and scanning the rear of the cabin.
“We need to go,” I say. “That’s what’s happening.”
Pri hesitates on the “we.” It’s in her face, her body language, her damn energy. “Adrian—”
“I will pick you up and carry you out of here if I have to,” I promise her, not leaving room for her questions or contempt when I’m trying to save her life. “You decide.” Another alarm sounds and this one is trouble, this one tells me how close trouble runs, which is too close. There’s an explosion, a tripwire booby trap has been set off, which has Pri yelping while our enemy is waylaid at least for now. I grab her hand and start walking.
She doesn’t fight me, at least not now, but thanks to Deleon, I know she will.
Chapter Two
ADRIAN
Our destination is the cabin bedroom, where I yank up the rug by the bed and pull open a hidden door. All the while my mind is processing the situation at hand. Only a handful of close people knew about this cabin. Those people include family, and the Walker team, who I just told, and yet somehow, Deleon and Pitt knew. That doesn’t make me feel good about the tunnel we’re about to enter, but we really have no options.
There’s a crash at the front of the cabin, and Pri gasps and flattens against me. Certain that blast was the door being blown off, I pull her toward the steps leading
into the tunnel. “Go! Go! Go!” I order.
She rushes into the darkness and I follow. With a practiced effort, I shut the door and flip the rug so that it falls back into place. Pausing at the top of the wooden steps, I grab the flashlight lodged on a piece of wood in the dirt wall and turn it on. Pri is at the bottom of the steps and I join her, eager to get moving down the narrow path. The less time we’re in this hole, the better.
She grabs my arms. “I’m claustrophobic, very claustrophobic. I’m—bad. It’s bad.” She sways.
I catch her around the waist and mold her close. “Easy, sweetheart. Don’t go down on me now. We have to move.”
“I’m trying.” She buries her face in my chest. “I’m trying. I just—” She looks up at me. “I fell in a hole as a kid. I have triggers. They’re rare but—apparently,” she makes a choked sound, “another hole is one of them. I’m sorry. I hate that I’m this weak.”
I cup her face. “You are not weak and I understand, I do. But Pri—”
“I know,” she says. “We’re in a hole. We have to get out of the hole. I need to shake it off.”
And there she goes, proving me right: she’s not weak. “A half-mile,” I say. “That’s all you have to make it, but we have to go now. I don’t know how Deleon found us, but if he knew about the cabin, he could have known about the tunnel. Outside of me, and until I told Walker, Rafael was the only living person who knows about it.
“How did Deleon know?”
“That’s a question for later,” I say, when the truth is that I feel certain it was my older brother, the one Pri doesn’t know about. The one who is now dead. Alex, who was not only a dirty Fed, he became a Devil. “A half-mile,” I repeat. “You walk further to work every day.”
“I know,” she breathes out. “I know.” Without further ado, warrior princess that she is, she rotates forward.
One of my hand settles on the low ceiling and the other at her waist, letting her know I’m here, I’m at her back. I shine the flashlight over her shoulder, lighting our path and she starts walking.
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