Relentless

by Sybil Bartel

  Copyright © 2019 by Sybil Bartel

  Cover art by: CT Cover Creations

  Cover Photo by: Michael Stokes

  Cover Model: Attila Toth

  Edited by: Hot Tree Editing

  Formatting by: Champagne Book Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Warning: This book contains offensive language, alpha males and sexual situations. Mature audiences only. 18+

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Books by Sybil Bartel

  Relentless

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Epilogue

  Shameless

  Scandalous

  Merciless

  Reckless

  Ruthless

  Fearless

  Callous

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Sybil Bartel

  The Alpha Bodyguard Series

  SCANDALOUS

  MERCILESS

  RECKLESS

  RUTHLESS

  FEARLESS

  CALLOUS

  RELENTLESS

  SHAMELESS

  The Uncompromising Series

  TALON

  NEIL

  ANDRÉ

  BENNETT

  CALLAN

  The Alpha Escort Series

  THRUST

  ROUGH

  GRIND

  The Alpha Antihero Series

  HARD LIMIT

  HARD JUSTICE

  HARD SIN

  The Unchecked Series

  IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE

  IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE

  IMPOSSIBLE END

  The Rock Harder Series

  NO APOLOGIES

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  RELENTLESS

  Resourceful.

  Resolute.

  Bodyguard.

  A single diagnosis and I wasn’t good enough—not for college ball, not for my family, and not for the Marines. Medically discharged before I finished basic training, I was determined to prove myself.

  Landing a job as a bodyguard for the best security firm in the business was a second chance. It should’ve been my focus, but a sophisticated blonde walked through the lobby and dismissed me with a single glance.

  Now she was going to find out how relentless a bodyguard could be.

  For my son, who inspires me every day to be a better person.

  “OH MY GOD, FALLON, YOU keep it, like, fifty thousand degrees in here,” Summer complained as she breezed into the house in a yellow thong bikini and nothing else. “Turn the AC down. You can afford it.”

  About to pour myself an orange juice, I stood at the kitchen counter. “The AC is plenty cool enough.”

  My stepdaughter waved her hand in front of her face as she clutched a vintage logo Versace tote with the other. “Ah, hello. No, it’s not. It’s Bikram yoga hot in here. Jesus. Sweat much?” She shoved her Ray-Ban Aviators to the top of her head.

  It wasn’t hot. She was on something. Again. “What are you doing here? It’s Saturday.” I poured myself the juice. “You usually only show up on Sunday for dinner.” And only because I was pretty sure her father had told her if she didn’t, he’d cut her off financially. Which was yet another way he tried to make his daughter my problem, by enforcing weekly dinners between the two of us when he himself made no such commitment. I didn’t even know why I still kept up the charade of Sunday dinners with her. Probably because I’d feel guilty if I stopped being the one constant she had in her life besides money.

  “What?” Her face, more gaunt than last month, scrunched up. “I can’t come visit?”

  “Are you?” I took a sip of the juice. “Visiting?” She’d left the front door wide open.

  “Well, duh, yeah.” She glanced around like she was looking for something.

  I raised an eyebrow. “With the front door open and your car running?”

  “Sheesh, what’s your problem? Can’t I visit my dear old mom?” She said the last word like she always said it, sarcastically.

  Not that she ever actually called me Mom. Not even when she was little. Her father had discouraged it. And once upon a time, she’d lived to please the man who’d made her but paid no attention to her. So she’d never gotten in the habit of referring to me as anything other than my given name. Never mind the fact I was the one who stayed up nights when she was sick, or that I was the one who drove her to school and made her lunches and braided her hair. I was also the one who praised her when, on the rare occasion, she got a good mark in school.

  I’d essentially been her only parent. By proxy.

  Something I’d never imagined my life to be.

  When I was a child, my head had been filled with dreams of a rambling house on acres of land with wildflower-covered hills and the laughter of five or six children filling my days. But then I’d gotten my first modeling job at twelve and shot to supermodel stardom within a short couple of years. Nothing had turned out like I’d expected.

  I’d wanted so much more in life, but so much less materialistically.

  I wasn’t ungrateful, but I’d made one poor decision after another. Not having children with Summer’s father was the first of two things I’d done right in my life. The second was divorcing him, albeit a decade too late.

  Live and learn.

  “Would you like some orange juice?” I casually ask
ed my ex-husband’s only child.

  “Nope, don’t have time.” She scampered around the living room in her bikini and flip-flops, looking behind furniture, opening a cupboard door in the entertainment center, glancing under a side table. “But, ah, thanks anyway,” she added conciliatorily.

  Watching her flit about, I could sum up my stepdaughter in two descriptions—erratic behavior and nervous energy. The former was new, about a year new. The latter was, unfortunately, something since childhood. If I was stillness, she was movement. We’d always been opposite, until now. She’d had a privileged upbringing but still turned out screwed up. And I’d come from nothing and worked my way to the top, only to land on my ass as a rich, emotional mess at the ripe age of thirty-six. At least I hadn’t turned to drugs like Summer. She continued to spiral deeper into addiction, and every attempt her father and I had made to get her help had failed. I blamed myself as much as I blamed her father for the way she’d turned out.

  Or didn’t turn out.

  I’d been too young myself to stand up to her father and his lack of parenting where it counted and heavy-handedness where it wasn’t necessary. So now I had an unemployed, eighteen-year-old stepdaughter who lived on her own in an oceanfront penthouse, drove a Maserati, and had a bottomless bank account.

  She was the perfect recipe for disaster.

  Her father seemingly didn’t care, just like he hadn’t cared about me, unless either of us caused tabloid headlines. Then he called someone to handle it.

  She opened the top of one of the storage footstools by the end of the couch.

  Waiting for the storm that was all Summer to pass, I sipped my juice. “What are you looking for?”

  “Perfect.” She nodded to herself, then stuffed her bag into the small storage space where I kept an extra throw blanket and slammed the top down. Her hands went to her hips. “Yep, that’ll work.”

  “Summer.” Putting authority into my tone, I waited until she looked at me.

  Her dilated eyes met mine. “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Putting my shit away, duh.” She smirked. “It’s not like you won’t have a hissy fit if I leave one tiny fucking thing out.” She brushed past me to the still open front door through which I could see her idling Maserati sitting ostentatiously on the driveway. “And you think I’m the one who’s high-strung.” She made a derisive sound.

  “Why are you leaving your bag here?” I demanded, suddenly concerned about what kind of contraband she’d brought into my house.

  She rolled her eyes. “So I can have something to do tomorrow at dinner.”

  “Summer,” I warned. “There better not be anything illegal in that tote bag.”

  “Really?” Her hands went to her hips defiantly.

  I didn’t budge. “Yes, really.”

  “Oh my God. Good to know you think so little of me. On that note, I’m out of here.” Throwing her hands up, she walked toward the door.

  “One more step, and I will throw out what’s in that bag the second you leave.”

  Spinning around in a fury of eighteen-year-old attitude, she glared at me. “It’s a fucking laptop, Fallon. Relax yourself. I think you can handle one fucking computer in your house for a couple days, don’t you? Or is that too much to ask of my dear old mom?” She spat venom with her last word.

  After years of this, I’d learned not to feed into it. But I didn’t let it slide. Not yet. “Whose laptop is it?” If it were hers, she wouldn’t have hid it. “Did you steal it?”

  “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “Get over yourself. I have.” She turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Not that I could stop her from doing anything now that she was legal.

  “Ultimate Music Festival with friends. But don’t worry, I’ll be here in time for dinner tomorrow night.”

  A glutton for punishment, I followed her out the front door. “Don’t you think you should put a pair of shorts on?” Modesty wasn’t in her vocabulary, not since she was thirteen years old, but I tried anyway.

  “And cover the perfect wax job I suffered through yesterday?” She laughed. “Not happening. But thanks for the vote of confidence on my ass.”

  “You know I’m not saying anything about your figure.” I wasn’t her father. I had never, and would never, make any reference to her body. And I certainly wouldn’t tell her, like her father had, to maintain a perfect bikini body. I’d never put the pressure on her that I experienced as a model.

  “Whatever.” Sliding her sunglasses back down, she got behind the wheel. “I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner.” Closing her door, she reversed too fast and then pulled down the driveway even faster. As she hit the street, two black motorcycles came out of nowhere and followed close behind her.

  I made a mental note to call her father. As far as I knew, the security firm Leo employed drove black Escalades, not motorcycles. But maybe things had changed since Summer had gotten more difficult to control.

  After her Maserati and the motorcycles disappeared out of sight, I went straight to the footstool and opened her bag. Besides a laptop, there was nothing inside the tote.

  I exhaled.

  SHIFTING THE MASERATI, I TOOK a corner too fast.

  “Gee,” she said sarcastically from the passenger seat. “Enjoying my ride much?”

  I fumed. Silently.

  She laughed, but then she held her side. “Let me guess, you’re still bent about being outsmarted by a girl.”

  “I wouldn’t call you a girl, ma’am.” This client was a fucking pain in the ass.

  “Right,” she scoffed, before mocking me. “‘Ma’am’s’ your choice of address.” Shifting in her seat, she winced, but then she pretended to check me out for the hundredth time. “Bet I can graduate to woman by the end of the night. What do you say? A little one-on-one time when we get back to my daddy’s mansion prison?”

  Apparently getting shot twice last night at the Ultimate Music Festival hadn’t slowed down Summer Amherst. She’d been relentlessly hitting on me since my boss had assigned me as her detail last night. My first damn assignment out of the office with Luna and Associates, and I get the spoiled only daughter of Leo Amherst, the owner of the single biggest record label in the music industry. Not only was Summer Amherst his daughter, she was also Fallon Amherst’s daughter.

  Supermodel Fallon Amherst.

  I shook my head.

  Fallon was the most beautiful woman in the world. I’d laid eyes on her in person exactly once eleven years ago, but I’d never forgotten it.

  Now the universe had put me in charge of her insufferable daughter.

  The daughter who was putting her hand on my leg for the tenth time.

  I grasped her wrist and put her hand back on her lap. “Repeating myself, again. Not interested, ma’am.”

  She sighed and reached for her purse. “Don’t tell me, you like guys?” She pointedly looked at my junk before digging through her purse. “Because that would be a crying shame with the heat you’re packing.”

  Fucking hell. “Ignoring the fact that you were shot twice yesterday at Ultimate Music Festival….” I paused to glance at her. “Actually, no, we’re not going to ignore that. End of conversation, Miss Amherst.” I had no sympathy for her. She’d fallen in with the wrong damn crowd in the worst way possible. She was lucky one of my coworkers happened to be at the music festival last night and intervened. If Preston hadn’t been there, she’d be a hell of a lot worse off than two bullet holes that’d missed all major organs. She’d be dead.

  “Miss Amherst.” Summer snorted as she pulled a small bottle of pills out of her bag. “You can chill the fuck out and call me Summer. I’m not your client.” Opening the bottle, she shook three into her hand.

  Fuck my life.

  “You are exactly my client.” I didn’t give a damn about semantics. Her rich-as-fuck dad was paying for a service, and I had a job to do. Holding the steering wheel with one hand, I grabbed her wrist with my free hand, ca
tching her just as she started to toss the pills into her mouth.

  The white tablets went flying as I pulled the Maserati to the curb.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she shrieked.

  “You took Vicodin an hour ago.” I grabbed the bottle out of her hand and glanced at it. “You don’t need Percocet. Where the hell did you get this?” Neither drug had been prescribed to her. “This shit’ll kill you.” Couldn’t say I’d ever been shot in the arm or back, but I knew pain, and I knew the draw of painkillers.

  “Fuck you.” She tried to snatch the bottle.

  I held my arm back. “What else are you on?” Less than twenty-four hours in her presence and I’d seen her take Vicodin five times, Advil four, and she’d downed about nine drinks before falling asleep for exactly three hours. None of the drugs or booze had had any effect on her disposition, which told me this wasn’t the first time she’d done this, or even the fiftieth. But the Percocet was new, and mixing the two wasn’t gonna lead to a damn thing except trouble. “Do I need to search your purse for any other shit you got in there?” No way in hell was she OD’ing on my watch.

  “What the fuck? Are you the narc police?” she asked, incredulous. “Give me my fucking pills back.”

  I hit the button for the window, and humid Florida night air rushed in.

  “Oh no, you fucking don’t!” Freaking the hell out, she made a grab for her purse.

  Quicker than I ever would’ve given her credit for, she came away with a small-caliber gun and aimed it at my chest.

  Her hands shaking, she glared at me. “Give me my goddamn pills or else.”

  I’d been working for André Luna for one month. Admittedly, I’d come in green. So damn green, it was laughable. But for the past four weeks, Luna and some of the other men who worked for him had taken the time to train me. Weapons, hand-to-hand combat, protocols, sweeps, tactical driving, observation, even hostage negotiation. I had blisters on my hands from being at the shooting range every day, but my aim was now dead-on. I’d learned more in the past month from André Luna and the former Force Recon Marines he had working for him than I had in twenty-three years of living.