by Cindy Gerard
WITH NO REMORSE is
“An edgy, sexy thrill ride you won’t want to miss. I look
forward to her every release.”
—Christine Feehan, #1 New York Times bestselling author
More praise for CINDY GERARD and her
New York Times bestselling
BLACK OPS, INC. series
“Romantic suspense at its best!”
—Kay Hooper, New York Times bestselling author
“Gerard’s deadly Black Ops series kicks romantic adventure into high gear.”
—Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author
“Excellent . . . straightforward, immediately engaging writing style.”
—Robert Browne, author of The Paradise Prophecy
“Gerard artfully reveals the secret previously known only to wives, girlfriends, and lovers of our military special-operations warriors: These men are as wildly passionate and loving as they are watchful and stealthy. Her stories are richly colored and textured, drawing you in from page one, and not simply behind the scenes of warrior life, but into its very heart and soul.”—William Dean A. Garner, former U.S. Army airborne ranger and New York Times bestselling ghostwriter and editor
RISK NO SECRETS
“Gerard dishes thrills, heartbreak, and sizzling love scenes in rapid-fire succession. . . . Brace for a hot, winding ride and a glorious ending.”
—Winter Haven News Chief (FL)
“A swift-moving, sizzling, romantic suspense [that] will steal your breath away.”
—SingleTitles
“An explosive, sexy, wonderful read from beginning to end!”
—Kwips and Kritiques
“Keeps you on the edge of your seat . . . [Gerard is] one of the best in the business.”
—A Romance Review
FEEL THE HEAT
“Edge-of-your-seat perfection!”
—Romantic Times, Top Pick
“A tightly knit plot, heart-stopping action scenes, and smoldering hot chemistry. . . . Fans of romantic suspense can’t go wrong when they pick up a book by Cindy Gerard.”
—Romance Junkies
“Grippingly enthralling.”
—SingleTitles
“Exciting, pulse-pounding adventure . . . Another extraordinary book in her addicting Black Ops, Inc. series. This story is sizzling hot so handle with care!”
—Fallen Angel Reviews
WHISPER NO LIES
“An incredible love story . . . Hot, sexy, tender, it will steal your breath.”
—Her Voice Magazine (Winter Haven, FL)
“Excellent stuff!”
—Romantic Times
“Heart-stopping, electrifying.”
—Fresh Fiction
TAKE NO PRISONERS
“Keeps the danger quotient high and the revenge motivations boiling . . . This author has truly found her niche!”
—Romantic Times
“Another fast-paced tale of romance amid flying bullets . . . Gerard’s polished prose and zippy plotting will continue to satisfy her many fans.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A spicy, stirring romance . . . I found myself racing through the pages, nearly as captivated by the action-packed story as I was by the sizzling romance.”
—Library Journal
SHOW NO MERCY
“Cindy Gerard just keeps getting better and better.”
—Romance Junkies
“Clever . . . Gerard excels at creating wounded individuals with an inner core of steel, and these new characters are battle-scarred and dangerous. With bullets, bombs, and knives flying, this book is action-packed from beginning to end!”
—Romantic Times
“Fast-paced, dangerous, and sexy.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Cindy Gerard’s roller-coaster ride of action and passion grabs you from page one.”
—Karen Rose, New York Times bestselling author
These titles are also available as eBooks
Also by Cindy Gerard
Show No Mercy
Take No Prisoners
Whisper No Lies
Feel the Heat
Risk No Secrets
Pocket Star Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Cindy Gerard
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Pocket Star Books paperback edition August 2011
POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Cover design by Lisa Litwack
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 978-1-4516-0681-2
ISBN 978-1-4516-0685-0 (ebook)
There is no other choice. This book, like the books before it, first and foremost is dedicated to the brave and valiant men and women of the United States military. I am forever grateful for their unfailing dedication to duty, to country, to honor, and to defending the American way. You are a continuing source of inspiration for the characters I create.
Also to Micki Nuding—amazing editor—for making this story sing and dance! Thank you so much for the wonderful edit.
Finally, to my wonderful, loyal, enthusiastic readers who spend their hard-earned money on my books, who write to me and tell me how much they love them, and who fuel my fire to deliver stories worthy of their praise. Thank you so much!
Contents
Acknowledgments
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Last Man Standing
Acknowledgments
It feels like we’re heading into broken-record territory here, but I have to acknowledge some of the same very important and special people who have held my hand, critiqued, and supplied vital information in the writing of this book. Susan Connell, Joe Collins, Glenna McReynolds—I don’t know how I could have done it without you. Gail Barrett, brilliant author, thank you so much for sharing photographs and information from your trip to Peru. Because of you, I almost felt like I had been there.
And Tommy—you are the bedrock that keeps my foundation solid. Without you, my world would fall apart around me. I love you, honey.
&nbs
p; Author’s Note:
I had so much fun researching this novel. Peru is a magical and mystical country and I fell in love with everything about it during the writing of this book. While I attempted to be as accurate as possible with geography, for the sake of the storyline I “enhanced” some of the topography and “created” a new railroad line with a midnight run to Cuzco. In my humble opinion, there should be one anyway.
Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.
—General Douglas MacArthur
1
Luke Colter’s number one rule of self-preservation: Don’t ignore the itch.
The last time he’d blown off the warning, he’d ended up gut-shot and on life support in a San Salvador hospital. So when he felt that first tickle of unease skitter along the back of his neck, he shot straight to attention.
Nothing looked out of sync inside the gently rocking train as it ate up the miles across the Peruvian Andes in the middle of the quiet June night. Still, his heart had kicked up like that of a marathon runner on his last leg, so he methodically scanned for signs of trouble from his seat in the middle of the dimly lit passenger car.
Everything looked status quo, a bunch of tired people making the best of the overnight ride on the hard, narrow seats. Everything smelled status quo, too: the damp wool of the Quechua farmers’ ponchos, stale tobacco smoke, the faint aroma of llama dung on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and the moldy, musty scent that always seemed to permeate enclosed spaces in the Andes.
Had he misread the sensation? At this elevation, the air was so thin that even the locals chewed coca leaves to keep light-headedness and a slew of other altitude sickness issues at bay. And God knew, at three a.m., after two weeks of lugging his medical kit through the mountains from one Quechua village to another, he could be a little off his game.
Face it, Colter. You’ve been off your game since El Salvador.
His hand moved involuntarily to his side. Close to a year later, he still felt the occasional twinge of pain. But it wasn’t the pain that bothered him. More and more lately, he woke up in the night drenched in sweat, reliving the shooting yet again.
Enough, already. He was so not going there tonight, because too easily and way too often he let himself get dragged into that sucking pit of quicksand. A sure way to get killed in his line of work was to think about dying. About almost dying. About being so scared you were gonna die that you made promises you knew you could never keep. Promises to God. Promises to the devil.
Promises to your mom.
At what point is enough, enough, Luke?
Yeah. Quicksand.
He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw and glanced around the train again. The half-full car held a few mestizos, a few misfits like himself, but most on board were Quechua, the indigenous people of Peru. And most of them were asleep, including the teenage boy curled up on the bench seat across the aisle.
The kid, who’d boarded the train several stops back, was out cold, using his backpack for a pillow and his poncho as a blanket. Mildly curious, because he was as bored as he as weary, Luke had been trying to figure the kid out. Nothing about him quite fit in a neat little package. Number one, even though a quick glimpse of the little he could see of the boy’s face told Luke he clearly had Latino blood running through his veins, he was not mestizo. Couldn’t be Quechua, either. He was too tall, too slim, and although his striped wool poncho looked like local goods, the cut and fit of his faded jeans screamed money and American made. Number two, he seemed a little young to be traveling alone in South America, especially this time of night. And number three, the way he wore his navy blue watch cap, so low over his brow that it met the ridiculously huge aviators parked over his eyes—in the dark, no less—smacked of hiding out, like maybe he was trying to conceal his identity.
Or maybe it was just the latest fashion statement of some rich man’s kid who was on a great, indulgent adventure and one day he’d be hitting on girls at the tennis club, retelling tales of his travels through the wildness of Peru. Whatever. Luke was beyond trying to figure the logic of a teenager’s mind, and didn’t care enough to ask.
God, he was tired. Dog dead tired. He could use another week off, but tomorrow it was back to Buenos Aires. Back to the trenches. He swallowed the acid taste of dread.
Suck it up, nancy boy. It’s not like you’ve got a lot of options.
The military and then Black Ops, Inc. had been his life for years. The life he’d always wanted. Yet since San Salvador . . . well. Since San Salvador, his backbone seemed to have gone the way of the dodo bird.
Was his mother right? Had he given enough? Had he had enough? Was that what this erosion of his nerve was trying to tell him?
Bleary-eyed, he stared at the large dust- and fingerprint-smeared windows and pushed back the memory of his mother’s heart-wrenching tears.
Outside, the night scrolled by, star-studded and black. Iron wheels on iron rails rumbled and clacked in a rhythmic static of endless white noise. In front of him, someone snored. Other than that, it was all quiet on the western front.
So . . . back to the itch. False alarm? Short circuit? Too many celebratory pisco sours at the medical team’s farewell party last night? Or was he merely feeling the tension as he headed back into bad-guy-and-bullet-look-out mode after his annual two-week leave from Black Ops, Inc.?
He could use some more time to get his shit back together. Time where his biggest fear wasn’t of dying, but of causing a five-year-old Quechua girl to cry when she saw the needle and syringe containing the vaccine that could save her life.
On a huge yawn, he settled his stained, brown leather fedora lower over his forehead, determined to catch a few z’s before the train hit Cuzco. That’s where he’d catch his flight back to Buenos Aires and return to life in the kill zone. Crossing his arms over his chest and his battered boots at his ankles, he slumped further down on the hard bench seat and closed his eyes.
He was almost asleep when he felt the itch again.
His eyes snapped open.
Luke Colter’s second rule of self-preservation: Don’t second-guess rule number one.
A split second later, the interior lights blared on like strobes. The brakes engaged, metal screamed against metal, and one hundred fifty tons of iron on steroids waged immediate and full-scale war against the law of inertia.
The car erupted in a cacophony of startled shrieks and yelps as shocked passengers jerked awake, battling a g-force determined to wrench them out of their seats, and damn near tossed Luke off his own perch. He caught himself before he went airborne. The boy across the aisle wasn’t as lucky. He rolled off the bench, slammed against the seat in front of him, and dropped with a thud to the floor.
Luke was about to lean across the aisle to help him up and check for broken bones, when the train ground to a screeching stop.
The screams rose even higher at the front of the car. When Luke glanced up he saw the reason why. Two rifle-wielding banditos had burst inside.
“Manos arribas. Ahora!” Hands in the air. Now!
The gunman’s Spanish was lost on the Quechuas, but he got his point across by aiming a state-of-the-art assault rifle toward the ceiling and firing off several rounds.
“Well, hell.” Luke’s disbelief was outdistanced only by his disgust with these assholes, who were probably going to make him do something he didn’t want to do. And disgust with himself because Mr. Cool-Under-Fire Colter was feeling a little too much like diving out an open window and letting someone else play hero.
At what point is enough, enough?
When there was world peace, he thought sourly. When guns didn’t kill people, and he and Osama Bin Laden sat around a camp fire holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.”
Shit. He’d morphed into Miss Frickin’ America.
Get a fucking grip!
Pissed at himself for even thinking about bailing, pissed that his ears were going to be ringing for a week from
the close-quarters rifle fire, and royally pissed that he was probably going to have to deal with these yahoos, he reached for the SIG Sauer P238 he always carried on his hip . . . and swore when he came up empty.
Luke Colter’s third rule of self-preservation: Never, ever go anywhere without a gun.
Helluva time to break rule number three.
“Stay down,” he ordered in a strained whisper when he saw that the kid had levered himself up off the floor.
“What . . . what’s happening?” the frightened boy whispered back in English as he gripped the seat in front of him and peeked up over it.
“Nothin’ good.” Never taking his eyes off the action in the front of the car, Luke reached across the aisle, planted his hand on top of the kid’s wool cap, and pushed him back down. “Stay the hell down.”
Keeping his own profile low, Luke locked on to the gunmen as they systematically worked their way down the aisle demanding cash and jewelry. Slowly, so he wouldn’t draw their attention, he unsnapped the sheath of the Leatherman multi-tool attached to his belt. His frickin’ hand was shaking as he worked his way past the pliers, screwdriver, scissors, and bottle opener, finally locating the three-inch blade folded inside the housing.
Okay, fine. Adrenaline had kicked in, accounting for his unsteady hand. It didn’t mean he couldn’t get on top of this. Didn’t mean he’d totally lost his nerve.
It did mean he had to get his act together. They had two damn big guns, he had a three-inch knife made to cut leather and rope. And since bullets trumped blades any day of the week, he had to figure out some kind of force equalizer.