by Becca Van
Elite Dragons 4
A Force of Three
Codi, Linton, and Bryden Healy are going undercover to crack the black market organ donor smuggling ring. They want to be able to finally retire.
When two more women are reported missing, they end up in Butte, Montana, and meet the beautiful Nyssa Mathis. Unbeknownst to Nyssa, she is working for one of the criminal doctors involved in the ring. The Healy brothers implore Nyssa to help them by being their eyes and ears at the clinic, but Dr. Jones is cunning and doesn’t give himself away.
The Healy brothers are frustrated and worried because they haven’t been able to find the missing women, but they are concerned that Nyssa’s life could be in danger.
Nyssa is abducted and smuggled across the Canadian border. It’s a race against time to save Nyssa and the other two women. Will the Elite Dragons be able to save the love of their life?
Note: There is no sexual relationship or touching for titillation between or among siblings.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Western/Cowboys
Length: 38,338 words
A FORCE OF THREE
Elite Dragons 4
Becca Van
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
A FORCE OF THREE
Copyright © 2013 by Becca Van
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-274-6
First E-book Publication: January 2013
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to you, the reader, for your continual words of praise and encouragement on Facebook and the e-mails you send me. You inspire me to keep writing.
And to my Editors and Diana at Siren-BookStrand for helping make my stories the best they can be.
Thank you all!
A FORCE OF THREE
Elite Dragons 4
BECCA VAN
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
“Ready?” Bryden asked.
“This is getting a little too James Bond for me.” Linton sighed.
“Quit complaining.” Bryden fitted a thin plastic tube to the end of the syringe. The table of the motel room had been cleared for Bryden to lay out the various pieces of their new transmitters. The usual clutter of laptops, printouts, and disassembled weaponry had all been moved to the bed.
Linton picked up one of the studs from the table and examined it. “So what does it do?”
“It’s an all-in-one tracking, listening, and transmitting device. State of the art.”
“That means it’s experimental,” Linton grumbled.
Bryden couldn’t argue with that. Like Linton, he was sick of being part of a long-running government experiment, but he was also used to it. “No one else in the military or government knows about them yet, but they’ve been extensively tested. Those studs are the transmitters.” He picked up a small plastic bag and tipped one of the tiny silver balls into the palm of his hand. “This is the receiver,” he said. “It’ll lodge against your eardrum.”
“How do I get it out?”
“You don’t.” He felt a knock on his mental shield a moment before he heard a keycard being slid into the lock. Recognizing that Codi had returned, Bryden didn’t break off from his work. He loaded the pinhead-size receiver into the plastic tube as Linton watched warily. “It’s safe,” Bryden assured him. “Wolf set me up with mine weeks ago.”
He pointed to his earlobe. Linton frowned. “I wondered why you’d gotten your ear pierced.”
“It’s not to impress the ladies,” Codi said as he locked the door again.
Bryden grunted. Unfortunately that was true. He and his brothers’ romantic prospects had been in the dumps for months.
He carefully inserted the tube into Linton’s ear. “Find the place?” he asked Codi.
“Yeah. I hung around outside, out of sight, but I didn’t see anyone go in or out. Jones is there, though. I could feel him. There haven’t been any alerts?”
“No.” Bryden pressed the plunger, sending the tiny receiver down the tube. When he removed it, Linton wagged his head side to side like he was trying to get water out of his ear. “Can you feel it?” Bryden asked.
“No.”
“Good. You shouldn’t know it’s there.”
As Bryden readied the ear-piercing gun, Linton asked Codi, “So Jones is here in Butte?”
They’d tracked one of the masterminds behind the black-market organ-smuggling ring to Montana. It finally seemed to Bryden like they were closing in on him. They had left their home in North Dakota a few days previously and had spent three days reconnoitering the small rural town. Not a moment too soon, as far as he was concerned. All three of them were long past ready to close down these fuckers and ensure they’d never again kidnap an innocent.
“The lease is in the code name Jones,” Codi said. He came around to the other side of the table and began disarming, checking his
weapons with practiced ease as he spoke. “He applied for phone service under the same name just over a week ago. It seems as though he opened his doors for business a matter of days ago.”
“Then we’re right on time,” Linton said.
“Hold still,” Bryden instructed.
Linton began, “When do we move—ow!” He put his hand over his ear as Bryden set down the gun. “You could have warned me,” Linton grouched.
“I want you to go in first,” Codi said in answer to Linton’s unfinished question. “Bryden stays here to monitor our equipment. I’ll provide backup from the outside.”
Bryden nodded. He had by far the most experience with their tracking software and was responsible for setting up systems to monitor suspicious behavior. If anyone this side of the Mississippi tried to open a medical practice under the aliases of “Smith” or “Jones,” the Healy brothers would know about it. They also kept a close eye on missing person reports, as those were often the first sign they got that the organ smugglers were active.
Finally it was paying off. The alerts had led them to Butte and to what appeared to be a new clinic. If the so-called Dr. Jones was one of the ringleaders, Marcus Keaton or John Golding, they were incredibly close.
Then they could go back to the stud farm and put their days of covert ops behind them.
“Explain to me why I can’t walk in the front door, ID Marcus Keaton, and shoot him,” Linton said.
“One, because we’re not certain yet that this Jones is Keaton,” Codi answered. “Two, because acting too soon will only drive the rest of the operation underground—again.”
“And three,” Bryden continued, “as far as the authorities are concerned, Keaton and Golding are squeaky clean. All our evidence is on their aliases. We need to see money changing hands. Otherwise we sit tight and play out the line.”
“It’s about time you learned to be patient anyway,” Codi said.
Linton flipped him the bird, but before he could retort, an alarm went off. Bryden recognized it as one of the alerts he’d set up on his laptop. He quickly skirted the table and began tapping away.
Fuck. He looked from the window on the screen to Linton and Codi, who waited for him to speak.
“Two women have been reported missing from here in Butte.”
“Does it say where?” Codi asked.
Bryden scrolled, reading quickly. “Last known whereabouts was about three miles north of the city center.”
“That’s awfully close to the clinic.” Codi was already rearming. “This is it. I want you in on this, Bryden. We have to find these women before these assholes can harm them. Otherwise the plan stays the same. Linton will go in undercover.”
“Does this mean I can just shoot Jones when I see him?” Linton asked.
“No!” Codi and Bryden answered simultaneously. Codi went on, “We’ll do everything in our power to get those women back safely, but this doesn’t change our mission. We find Keaton and Golding and we shut them down.”
He straightened up, armed and ready to go. “We’ll go to the sheriff’s department first and get all the information we can.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” Bryden said.
“What’s that?”
Bryden held up the ear-piercing gun and the syringe with the receiver in it. Snickering, Linton got out of the chair and began to check his own weapons.
With a sigh, Codi took his brother’s place.
* * * *
They reached the sheriff’s department in good time. While Codi drove and Bryden worked, trying to correlate all the information he could on the missing women, Linton had been in touch with Coulter. His team leader had contacted the local sheriff and given him a heads-up on him and his brothers’ arrival.
Codi let Linton deal with the local law, as he always managed to get what he wanted with a minimum of fuss. While Codi was the tallest of all three of them, standing at six foot seven, Linton was a couple of inches shorter than him and wasn’t as bulky, and Bryden was as brawny as Codi and an inch taller than Linton. All three of them seemed to intimidate most everyone, men and women alike, but sometimes local sheriff’s departments required a gentler touch. When Linton turned the charm on, it was hard to say no to him.
So Codi and Bryden waited outside at the truck. Codi kept his eyes peeled for signs of suspicious activity. He had lowered his mental shields as soon as he stepped outside and scanned the area surreptitiously. Butte was much larger than he expected with a population of over thirty-four thousand, and the sheriff’s department was located in the bustling downtown. The cacophony of emotions which assailed him was unpleasant.
At moments like these, he realized how tired he was. He thought with envy of his friends and comrades back at the stud farm. He and his brothers had spent the last few months watching each family of their team find the one woman they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with. Although he was happy for his teammates, it was hard for him and his siblings to watch as their brothers-in-arms courted and then captured the women of their dreams.
Codi had thought that they would have had a chance with Katlynn when she had first been rescued from the dungeon-like basement in Oxbow, Canada, but it had turned out he couldn’t trust his own instincts where his emotions were concerned. Katlynn had been in cahoots with the black-market organ-smuggling ring.
It never seems to end. Katlynn was imprisoned, and the Elite Dragons had put other smugglers behind bars or in their graves, but only now did they seem to be close to finishing off the smuggling ring.
Then they would return to the horse breeding farm. The operation had originally been set up as a cover. The civilian population had never suspected that the stud farm was a home base for elite government operatives. Once this final mission was complete, the stud would be just a stud. The Elite Dragons would be allowed to raise horses in peace.
The other men would raise families. The Thornells had Brooke, the Garmans had Janie, and the Tiltmans had Alicia. Codi tried to imagine a lifetime of hanging around the stud watching his commanders and the others go all lovey-dovey over their women. Not that he blamed them. He and his brothers wanted what they had, one woman to love and cherish, but it hadn’t come to pass.
Since he and his siblings were still unattached, it had seemed natural for them to volunteer for this mission. The work kept Codi from dwelling on the past. But Codi feared that he and his brothers would settle down as bachelors. After Katlynn, could he ever trust a woman with his heart?
“Hey.” Bryden elbowed him, and Codi looked around the other side of the truck. Linton descended the front steps holding some papers. He came straight over to the truck.
“These are the women, Natalie and Stephanie.” Linton spread out the pages on the hood of the truck. He unfolded a map of Butte and laid it out as well. “Both of them were last seen at a clinic here.” He tapped a spot on the map.
Codi nodded. “Jones’s clinic.” Dread boiled in his gut. The smugglers worked fast. He had hoped they could find and infiltrate their operation before anyone went missing, but it wasn’t too late to save those women. “Let’s go.”
They piled back in the truck. Codi and his brothers had been trained for this. He hoped that soon they would be calling on their comrades to help take all the assholes out. He knew without any doubt that his teammates would be at their sides when things were about to go down.
Chapter Two
Linton stood amongst some trees on the edge of a park across the road from the clinic. He lowered his mental shield once more and concentrated on sorting out all the emotions bombarding him. It took time to ascertain what he was feeling, but after a few minutes he was able to lock onto the feelings closest to him.
Linton glanced at his watch. Bryden appeared at the corner a moment later, and after giving his brother a nod, Linton crossed the street and entered the office. It looked nondescript, but he took in the entries and exits just to be on the safe side.
“Can I help you?”
Linton turned and took in the woman behind the counter. She was young, not more than in her early to midtwenties, and a pretty little thing. She had light-brown hair and the nicest green eyes he’d ever seen, and she couldn’t be more than five foot five. He took her in with a quick once-over, and his cock twitched with interest, but she was eyeing him suspiciously, obviously intimidated by his size. Even though she was on the thin side and her neat but baggy clothes hid her figure, she had a body to die for. Curves in all the right places.
“Yes, I wanted to see one of the doctors.”
“You’re in luck, mister…?”
“Wade,” Linton said. “Linton Wade.”
“Well, Mr. Wade, the clinic has only just opened, so if you want to take a seat, Dr. Jones will be able to see you in a few minutes.”
She stood and handed a clipboard over the counter. “Just fill out these forms, please. May I see your ID?”
Linton fished out his wallet and produced his driver’s license. He and his brothers had been sent on assignment with a full complement of false paperwork.
“Insurance?”
When her eyes met his, his mind went blank. Damn, she’s pretty. “What?”
“Do you have insurance, Mr. Wade?”
“Oh, no. I’ll pay cash.”
She nodded and gestured behind him. “Please have a seat.” Linton nodded and took one of the chairs. He filled out the paperwork, but he was constantly distracted by the woman behind the counter. Her every gesture captivated him. She came around the counter to return his ID, and he couldn’t help but watch her as she walked back.