Discarded by Fate

by Morgan Kelley

  “That’s arson! I’ll tell the…”

  “You messed with my family, Bly. You crossed the wrong people. You’re not going to regular prison.”

  Heath laughed as he buckled her into her seatbelt, hands cuffed behind he back.

  “The plane and then Gitmo, boss?”

  Ethan smiled.

  “NO! HELP! I’m being abducted!” she screamed, as she watched her home burn to the ground.

  Ethan ignored her.

  “Gitmo, Heath. Step on it.”

  The man drove it like he stole it.

  Was Bly really going there?

  Maybe.

  Ethan’s mind was not made up.

  His father’s reputation was saved, and now it was time for them to be a family.

  In peace.

  In love.

  And without this constant pain in their asses popping up.

  Bly was done.

  And Ethan was protecting what was his.

  His family.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Fort Whitefox-Blackhawk

  The deal was done.

  While Callen wanted to head out with his brother, he had to take care of a couple little things. He’d just signed the papers for his present for his wife.

  He bought her some trinkets to make her happy.

  As he was planning their wedding, he wanted to give her something she’d never forget.

  This was part of it.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, holding TJ in her arms. He was napping, and she was rocking him.

  “I just bought you a house.”

  She stopped moving.

  “What?”

  “A house. You know. Where you go, sleep, and have lots of hot, raunchy sex with the men you love.”

  “I know what a house is, Callen James. Why do I need a new one?”

  “We need a place to go to share our love, and have down time.”

  “Where is this elusive place that will give me peace?” she teased.

  “New Orleans right off the French Quarter. It’s this sexy little house that will rock my wife’s world.”

  He showed her the pictures.

  “Holy shit! That had to be…”

  Then she saw the price tag.

  She nearly fell over.

  “How much was your advance for your book?”

  He slid the check over, and she stared at it.

  “Is that six zeros after that eleven?” she asked. “That can’t be six zeros. That would make you…”

  “Yeah, a millionaire.”

  He waited for her to freak out.

  “I wanted a place to go and write one day, when I’m too old to do this. We can rent it out for now, and one day…”

  She got up and headed toward the door.

  “Wait!”

  She turned around.

  “Are you mad? Why are you leaving?”

  “I’m going to go put TJ down.”

  “Then?”

  “I’m going to go to our bedroom, get naked, and wait for my husband to come up there and rock my world. Twice.”

  He laughed.

  “So you’re not upset?”

  “Callen, you work hard. We all do. I almost lost Ethan, and I’m not willing to lose you. I have to accept that this is you now. Like I did, you morphed.”

  “For the better?” he asked.

  “Well, money aside, yeah. You’re smart, you’re sexy, and Jackson James can fuck me any day.”

  He dropped his pen and followed her out.

  “It’s a good thing he’s my other wicked self.”

  He slapped her on her ass.

  “Yeah, it’s a damn good thing.”

  He chased her up the stairs as she carried the baby, and the entire time he was grinning.

  This was nothing.

  He was going to romance his wife.

  Valentine’s Day.

  They were getting married and taking their honeymoon. He already had it planned out.

  Elizabeth Blackhawk hadn’t seen anything yet.

  She was about to be swept off her feet.

  Callen Whitefox style.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Mount Vernon

  Iowa

  One Week Later

  They didn’t fly.

  While Ivan could have done that, he wanted to spend the time in a vehicle with Blue. It was a way to get closer to her, and learn even more about her.

  When he saw her house, he nearly shit himself.

  As he pulled up in his redone vintage truck, riding low to the ground, and something from the forties, he was ill.

  She.

  Lived.

  In.

  A.

  Mansion.

  Well, holy bloody hell.

  As soon as he beeped, she came running down the sidewalk, her suitcase behind her. She tossed it in the back beside his, and hopped into his ride.

  Then she kissed him.

  She was wearing as sunny blue dress, and it was actually vintage.

  It made his heart skip.

  She fit into his world. He was driving an old truck from the same era, and here she was.

  The one thing that made him forget her house?

  She slid to the middle of the bench seat, buckled in, and planned to ride there the entire way to Iowa.

  And she did.

  In the two days it took them, she held his coffee, played with the radio, and never once took her phone out of her purse.

  She stole his heart all over again.

  As they pulled down a dusty road, they were close. Soon, they would be at his parent’s farm.

  It was something out of ‘The Wizard of Oz’. Dorothy would have fit in just fine.

  “I’m nervous,” she said, as his GPS chirped out the arrival time. “What if they don’t like me?” she asked, wearing a green dress and sexy shoes.

  He was worried about the same thing.

  “They will. I promise.”

  She took his free hand in hers, and twined their fingers into one loving knot.

  His heart skipped.

  As he rolled down that long driveway, there was a bark.

  “That’s Leo. He’s my dog.”

  The dog was running beside them, and Blue actually unbuckled her seatbelt and slid to the door to hang out and touch the dog as they drove.

  “Leo! In!” he shouted, as he slowed down enough for the dog to jump in the back.

  Blue giggled in glee.

  “You have a dog! I’m so jealous!” she said, beaming at him.

  It was that moment.

  He knew.

  One day, she was going to be his wife.

  Screw what she thought about where he grew up. The woman was excited about his old mangy dog.

  That was love.

  “Here we are,” he said, as he stopped the truck and helped her out.

  Across the yard, he saw his mother hanging laundry on the line.

  “You have this,” he said, as the dog tore past her toward the woman heading his way.

  The aging woman ran at Ivan, and he hugged her, picking her up off the ground.

  “Oh, Ivan,” she said, touching his cheeks.

  Then she looked over.

  “Mom, this is Blue Garrick. She’s a doctor and special agent with the FBI.”

  Ivan waited.

  As his mom held out her hand, Blue ignored it. Instead, she hugged the woman.

  “Thank you for raising an incredible man. Ivan is so special,” she said.

  Mary Bennet hugged her back.

  “Let’s go in and sit a spell. I made cookies. Chocolate chip. I hope you like them.”

  “Those are my favorite.”

  Leo was jumping up and trying to get her attention. She crouched down and let him lick her face.

  “I think I love Iowa.”

  Mary held out her hand. “Let’s go talk about you, Blue. That’s a different name. Does it stand for
something?”

  “The color,” she said. “That’s all. It’s nothing fancy.”

  Ivan followed, carrying their bags. At the door, his father was standing there.

  Blue hugged him too.

  Then they disappeared inside.

  Ivan’s father stopped him.

  “When are you marrying her, son?” he asked.

  Ivan grinned.

  “As soon as I can, Dad. As soon as I can.”

  And it was the truth.

  Seeing her there, he could tell. He’d found the woman he was supposed to marry.

  And he would.

  Life was looking up.

  Finally.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Fort Whitefox-Blackhawk

  When he got the call, they were all in their room, ready to sleep. Elizabeth was painting her toenails, Callen was brushing his hair, and Ethan was getting changed for bed.

  When he answered, it was Marcus Hunter.

  “Hey, about that favor?”

  Ethan took it off speaker and listened.

  Callen and his wife watched, and they couldn’t tell anything by the look on his face.

  “We’ll be there. We have a location you can use.”

  He hung up.

  “What?”

  “Dakota has been causing trouble.”

  “I AM NOT killing him,” Elizabeth said.

  “It’s a sad testament that’s where your head went,” he said, relaxing marginally.

  “Marcus needs our help, and you don’t have to kill anyone, but we need Callen’s new house.”

  “I haven’t even christened it yet,” he said.

  “Get dressed. I’ll tell you about it on the flight.”

  “We’re really heading to New Orleans?”

  He pulled on his dress pants.

  “Yeah, the situation has to be handled….”

  They didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded serious. Neither asked questions.

  Instead, they trusted their husband.

  It looked like Dakota Rakin was going to be getting a visit. He was never going to see this coming.

  Not in a million years.

  Find out what happens next:

  Here’s an excerpt from the first book in the Hunter trilogy…

  Atonement

  Book One in the Hunter Mercenary Series.

  Copyright © 2018 Morgan Kelley LLC

  All rights reserved. Without limiting rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, introduced into a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including without limitation photocopying, recording, or other electronic or technical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  The scanning, uploading, and/or distribution of this document via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and is punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. For permission requests, email author.m.kelley@gmail.com.

  Content Advisory: This book is intended for mature audiences and contains, explicit sexual activity between various couples. This is considered an erotic thriller. If you are offended by sex or prefer no sexual details, you should stop reading now.

  Prologue

  New Orleans

  T hey call it ‘The Big Easy’, but in actuality, it’s anything but that. New Orleans is one hell of a hot bed of activity, and not just from the people who arrive there in droves to celebrate. The criminal element also thrives in a city that never sleeps. They creep among the tourists, gleefully making one hell of a mess.

  How did he know?

  That was easy.

  For the last six months, he was creeping himself and watching it all go down.

  He was a shadow.

  Dakota Rakin was a man with no home, a sketchy past, and no decent chance at a future.

  He’d been a soldier, he’d been a US Marshal, and now he was aimlessly wandering around to find the one who got away.

  He was on a mission.

  It wouldn’t end well for him, and he knew it. Still, he kept hunting for that criminal who destroyed his world.

  With every law man—from cop to Fed, there was that one case that he couldn’t solve. He was no different. That one screw-up had made him into the man he was, and it was driving him over the edge and into insanity.

  He was hunting for Bonnie. She was a homicidal killer who had no cares in the world. Basically, with her wickedness, she’d destroyed his life.

  To make it worse, she’d kicked the shit out of his soul.

  When he ran into her, as her case crossed his desk, he’d been naïve enough to believe that she could be stopped. He’d been foolish enough to believe that he’d be the one to bring her in.

  He’d been wrong.

  Because of that, his US Marshal partner had died, his life had been turned upside down, and he’d had to walk away from everything.

  His job.

  His last chance at love.

  His life.

  At that moment, he was chasing a ghost, and it didn’t look good for him. In his life, he’d chased quite a few of them. This was just one more to add to his list.

  It was ever-growing, and he was falling behind—a victim to the wicked in the world.

  He had sold his soul to his career, and in a way, it had destroyed him.

  Here was his proof.

  He was obsessed.

  Like now.

  For some reason, he couldn’t rest unless he put Bonnie in her grave.

  Hell!

  Any grave would do, at this point, as long as it wasn’t his. Dakota knew that this was a suicide mission, but he had no choice. He was willing to die to end this maniac.

  Everyone thought he was crazy, and they didn’t think he had a snowball’s chance in Hell to find her. They were betting on his failure.

  Well, when he did locate that crazy bitch, he was going to prove them all wrong. He was going to put Bonnie, aka Lottie Tipton, in the ground and stand on her grave.

  Hell! After all she’d done, he might just piss on her headstone. Her wickedness deserved it.

  She was a murdering, evil witch, and someone had to put her down.

  That ‘someone’ was him.

  Dakota was going to win.

  He was not going to fail.

  So, his prey brought him there to ‘The Big Easy’. He was living out of a hotel room in the French Quarter, and so far, Bonnie hadn’t popped up.

  She was hiding out, and he was getting frustrated.

  It was like she knew he was there.

  If he didn’t figure out something, and fast, he was going to start to get edgy.

  A hunter had to hunt.

  It was as simple as that.

  If he wasn’t out tracking, hunting, and searching, he was a mired mess of craziness.

  Dakota had been that tracker in the military, that pursuer as a US Marshal, and now was no different.

  It was his destiny to chase.

  Heading back into his cheap hotel room, he flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Bonnie wasn’t the only person he was thinking about.

  No, it wasn’t his brother, the sheriff of the small town he’d come from.

  Nor was it the friends he’d left behind to continue this ever-exhausting vendetta.

  No.

  He was thinking about her.

  Sarah.

  She was the one his heart craved.

  Granted, Sarah was almost two decades younger than him, but he still missed her. Dakota longed for her touch, her mouth on his body, and the sexy smile that brightened his soul.

  She was his light.

  He was her dark.

  And she was back in DC.

  Al
one.

  Because of his obsession with hunting down Bonnie, he’d had to leave her behind. He’d had to kiss her goodbye until he found the killer who turned his life upside down.

  It had been hard.

  Before Sarah entered his well-organized life, he never thought he’d love again.

  He’d thought he’d found the woman he was meant to be with so many years ago, and he’d been wrong. He’d proposed to Elizabeth LaRue, thinking they were perfectly matched, and she’d turned him down in public.

  She’d decimated him with one word.

  NO.

  Granted, Dakota didn’t blame her.

  They’d been dating three months, trying to weave something out of nothing, and he’d been so desperate not to be alone that he had been grasping at straws.

  When he dropped to his knee, asked for her hand in marriage, she handed him his ring back, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and said goodbye.

  On that day, his rushing to find love had only broken him inside.

  And he’d carried that for years.

  YEARS.

  Then he’d been given a probational trainee—one he really didn’t want. He had no business teaching anyone to do their job. Hunters were isolated, miserable, and surly.

  Then he was giving his polar opposite by Marcus Hunter. It was like the man knew.

  Oh, Dakota thought Sarah was going to be a pain in his ass, but he wanted to keep her at arm’s length for one reason.

  Dakota Rakin was the last person who should be training anyone. He didn’t want to be responsible for another human being. It was why he didn’t have pets or kids.

  There were days where he wasn’t fit to be a Fed let alone a role model.

  Then he met her.

  Sarah Valley had been different.

  She was sweet.

  She was gentle.

  She was kind.

  In all honesty, she was a breath of fresh air—and then like everything good in his life, he tainted her.

  He’d crossed the line.

  Dakota slept with her. They’d bedded down, and he’d sworn it was a huge mistake.