by Elise Faber
Riding The Edge
KTS #1
Elise Faber
RIDING THE EDGE
BY ELISE FABER
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
RIDING THE EDGE
Copyright © 2020 Elise Faber
Print ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-84-5
Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-83-8
Cover Art by Jena Brignola
Contents
KTS
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
Epilogue
Epilogue
Crossing The Line
KTS
Also by Elise Faber
About the Author
KTS
ICE (Hurt Anthology) #0.5
Riding The Edge #1
Crossing The Line #2
Prologue
San Francisco, California, USA
06:34hrs local time
Dan
Wedding bells and bakery smells.
If that didn’t encapsulate this day, then I didn’t know what did.
But that wasn’t the most important thing about the day.
I had more work to do.
And it did not involve downing more of the delicious confections that were created in this building.
For one, they weren’t good for my waistline. I had put on a good five pounds since I’d begun this protection and investigation detail. For another, it was time I remove myself and the complication of KTS from the blissful couple’s lives.
Their part in this shitshow was done.
They’d sacrificed, risked their lives, and now they deserved a peaceful future.
Which meant I needed to circle back to work.
I slipped out the back of the bakery on a sigh, relieved this part of the mission was finally complete. I’d only come because my presence at this informal wedding had been requested by two people I respected beyond measure.
Jackson and Molly, the couple I’d been protecting, hadn’t gone to a big church or invested in the puffy dress. Not this time.
Today they were just two people in love getting a second chance.
People who had missed their first chance because we couldn’t get our shit done. Two people who’d nearly missed their second chance because of the same, because KTS had failed them.
Some agent, huh?
“Fuck,” I muttered, part of my mind making sure the door closed, the rest scanning the surrounding area for threats. But deep down, I was so damned tired of the guilt, even as a part of me knew it was just part of the job. When I’d been cherry-picked from the FBI a few years before and folded into the private sector, I had already been well-familiar with the failures that were common in this line of work.
Not every case was solved.
Not everyone came out alive.
Not every ending was happy.
I got that. I . . . just hadn’t expected to find it so fucking depressing to be working for an agency with a bigger reach, who took on bigger bad guys from around the world.
Because despite the larger budget and greater access to resources, sometimes the bad guys still won.
And the only thing I hated more than the bad guys winning was when it was my fault.
“I knew you’d be here.”
I didn’t react. I might feel like a failure when it came to taking down the Mikhailova clan, but I was damned good at being aware of my surroundings, of keeping myself alive.
So, I knew Laila was there, had slipped out the back door of the bakery, same as me. Knew she’d come to the wedding for the same reason as me—she’d gotten close to the couple, felt the same connection with Molly and Jackson as me.
And we both wanted to see the couple happy.
Because happy didn’t happen often enough in this industry.
But just as I knew Laila had emerged from inside, even though I’d hardly made a sound when opening that heavy metal door, I also knew that Ava had come out behind her.
Ava.
Peaches. Humid summer days. Whiskey and lemonade and—
Fuck. Ava.
She strode over to me, curves in a compact body, shining brown hair swept up into a ponytail that swung behind her shoulders as she moved, strength and confidence . . . and so many painful memories.
Her eyes looked right through me, minimizing everything that had happened between us two years ago.
Then those eyes narrowed, focused on me, seared straight into my soul.
“We found the hard drives.”
A beat as Laila came forward and crossed her arms, expression furious.
“And we know what’s on them.”
One
Munich, Germany
21:32hrs local time
Dan
I was dead.
I knew that the moment I saw the shadow shift out of the corner of my eye.
Knew it even as I burst into motion, moving in what would prove to be a vain attempt to avoid a speeding bullet.
Pain exploded in my chest as I dove behind a wall, hitting the ground hard.
My lungs struggled to work, but I clamped down on the gasp of agony before it could escape.
Shot.
Not for the first time. Probably not for the last.
That thought gave me a blip of clarity, allowed me to take a moment to catalog the injury. Blood seeped out of the wound on both my chest and back. The first was a problem. The second gave me hope the bullet had been a through and through.
“Report.”
That voice in my ear had the fog that was encroaching on the edges of my vision dissipating. It rolled down my spine like honey, brought the memory of that secret week two years ago to the forefront of my brain.
We’d pretended nothing had happened for two years. Or Ava had pretended. We’d gone back to work, and it was like nothing had changed for her.
Except, everything had changed for me and—
Focus.
“Took one,” I gritted out, locking down the pain, the memories. I’d had plenty of practice at that. Inhaling sharply, I pushed to my knees. I wore a bulletproof vest, though, of course, Murphy’s Law would dictate the shot had hit one of the few spots on my torso with no protection. “But I have the package and heading to the extraction point.”
“Negative,” Ava said. “Stay put. I’ve got eyes on the target.”
It went against my every instinct to listen. I might not be the leader of this team, but I’d made it a point to be the first in and the last out when it came to the missions.
But . . . something was really wrong here.
This was supposed to be a simple pickup of information.
And within minutes, it had devolved into something that was absolutely FUBAR. Our informant had shown up bleeding, staggering into the abandoned warehouse that was the meeting point. Gunshots had rung out moments later, and I’d covered the informant with my body as I’d yanked him to the side.
But even with that intervention, the man had barely taken two more breaths before he’d gone into the afterlife.
Leaving me to pick through the dead man’s pockets like a fucking graverobber for the USB with the files my employer needed.
KTS was a private military operation, unofficially sanctioned by the U.S., British, and German governments, but not technically under the purview of any of them. We operated on the fringes, our edict simple.
Erase the really fucking bad guys.
Which wouldn’t have a chance of happening unless the USB in my pocket made it safely to headquarters.
Plus, if I died, I’d never get another chance with Ava.
“Agent?” came the crisp voice. “Stay down. Do you copy?”
I blinked, yanked my mind into focus. It was wandering, shifting to unimportant things because of the injury, the blood loss, the pain. Grinding my teeth and pressing my free hand to the wound on my chest, I hissed out a breath then said, “Copy.”
All went quiet.
And I was silently bleeding out on a cold concrete floor.
Two
Munich, Germany
21:35hrs local time
Ava
This was bullshit.
The whole op was a complete and utter disaster.
Starting with the late arrival of our contact—a bleeding and now dead contact—and ending with the agent I was supposed to be covering getting shot. And if I knew anything about Dan, it was that he tended to overestimate his ability and underestimate his injury level.
Not that he wasn’t a talented member of the KTS team.
It was just that he was a man.
A slice of masculine deliciousness I’d tasted every inch of two years before—which so wasn’t the point. Because it wasn’t just that we’d scratched an itch together.
I liked him. Respected him.
Pretended to hate him when all I wanted to do was dive into his arms and have a repeat of that glorious week.
Dan was a male who didn’t subscribe to the notion of the Man Cold, wouldn’t be found moping in bed over some sniffles. He was a person I’d seen take serious internal damage and keep going until the mission was complete.
Some might say it was reckless.
And, I supposed, it probably was.
But I was right there with him, had pushed through instances when the circumstances had surpassed dangerous and moved into deadly, ignored times when I should have stopped or retreated. Dan had been there, at my back, had in fact pulled me out of several close scrapes . . . even though I’d hurt him.
I knew I had.
But I’d had to. There was no other choice, not with Dan.
He was too good for me to drag him into my special circle of Hell.
Still, that one week in Georgia haunted me.
It had started as a break between missions in the middle of summer, when he’d offered to show me part of the U.S. I hadn’t seen before. We’d driven through tiny towns, stopping at Dan’s small cabin set on a peach orchard, the air unbearably humid and rainstorms coming out of nowhere, drenching us in sheet after sheet of precipitation. It had stretched into us spending a week there, eating ripe peaches off the trees, juice dripping down our chins, getting drunk on whiskey and lemonade, and learning every inch of each other’s bodies.
For a full week, it had been bliss.
And then it had ended when my past had reminded me that I wasn’t good for him.
I was seriously fucked up, parts of me permanently broken, never to be reformed, and so . . . I’d made it crystal clear there could be no future.
I’d pretended nothing had changed between us.
Even though everything had changed.
After reality struck, I’d rebuffed him at every opportunity, pushed him away until he’d retreated. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d perfected locking down every soft feeling. And . . . we worked together. It was either get along, pretend there wasn’t anything between us, or move to a different team at KTS.
It was only after I’d threatened the last that he’d stopped pushing.
So, here we were.
On a mission, me pretending so hard to hate him, it almost seemed like reality. Except, of course, for the memories that wouldn’t stay locked away, the way my body remembered his, wanted him.
“Enough, Ava,” I whispered.
He’d saved my ass more than once, so I was going to return the favor. Maybe I wouldn’t ever be the type of woman who would hug him or tend to his boo-boos.
But I knew something about loyalty.
How important it was. How much it hurt when it wasn’t there.
I might not be a normal woman, had been shattered into too many pieces inside to ever have any hope of that, but I could be a good agent.
And I was a damned good sniper.
No shaking hands. No targets missed.
I sighted. I squeezed the trigger. They went down—
There.
I caught the flicker of movement, trained my sights on the target through my scope—it wouldn’t do to take out an innocent—and maybe it should have worried me, how detached I’d become to the killing that I barely gave the thought a consideration—and only a cavalier one at that—but I had a job to do that was more important than gentle emotions and civilian worries.
Get out alive.
Get Dan out alive.
Get the files back to headquarters.
Movement in the shadows. Closing in on Dan. Fuck. I wasn’t in a great position myself, had moved to get eyes on him, and now I was potentially exposed.
But my partner in this was a fucking sitting duck.
One that I’d told to stay there.
I had to take care of this.
Kneeling, I rested my rifle on a ledge on the upper story of the abandoned building. It was falling apart, didn’t offer much protection. But it was in the shadows, and I had a clear sight line.
I adjusted my glasses, the ones I despised having to wear, but the ones that also made it so I could site the enemy through my scope as he stepped closer to Dan, and my finger went to the trigger of my rifle, rested on the curved piece of metal.
A glint as the man extracted a weapon.
Another layer of FUBAR because I knew there were more bad guys around but hadn’t been able to pinpoint their locations.
The man took another step, and—
No more time.
Ready. Set. Squeezing the trigger slowly and steadily so as not to be surprised by the gun firing.
Pop.
“Move,” I hissed to myself the second the bullet was away.
My shot hit its target, and the man collapsed. But it was dark, and the moment I’d taken the shot, the flash of light emanating from the barrel of my rifle meant my position was compromised.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The bullets collided with the wall behind me, ricocheting off the steel siding, sending tiny arrows of metal exploding into the air.
One sliced across my cheek, a slight burn of pain I barely felt.
Because I was flying.
Jumping down from my perch, landing on the ground in a crouch that both saved my knees from injury and made me a smaller target. Footsteps clattered on the concrete, closing in on me, but I’d spent years training for exactly these kinds of missions. I burst into movement, my rifle spun to rest on my back, a knife from the holster strapped to my calf already in my hand, and burst to my feet, erupting in a flurry of violence toward the first enemy to approach.
Not expecting a frontal attack, he stumbled back a step before engaging me in hand-to-hand combat.
But I’d already taken
advantage of the opening my assault had given me.
A precise slice to the thigh had the man dropping to his knees. A strike to the back of his head knocked him unconscious.
I heard rather than saw him collapse because I was still moving.
Thunk.
My knife sunk into a throat as I dodged a blow from the left, reaching behind me at the same time and getting off two quick shots that bought me some time and space to assess.
Three more targets, and who the fuck knew if there were more in the warehouse. One thing was absolutely clear.
I needed to move.
I struck out—kicked and jabbed as frequently as I blocked and dodged.
And within thirty seconds, I’d dispatched the first two. But I struggled with the third, who was bigger and stronger and too damned quick. A blow to my ribs had me biting back a gasp of pain, and another to my cheek was less glancing than bruise-inducing.
It wasn’t, however, consciousness-stealing as I’d managed to dart back, to prevent it from hitting my temple.
My glasses clattered to the concrete, but luckily they were for distance rather than up close, so I kicked them to the side and retreated a few steps. Then ribs burning, breaths coming in controlled bursts, I gripped my rifle like a baseball bat and treated my pride and joy as I had always promised I wouldn’t . . .
“Sorry, Luna,” I apologized to my steadfast companion.