350. Personal Business
351. Death And Deceit
352. Man Of Mystery
353. Sam The Man
354. Chaos
355. Strange Bedfellows
BOOK 9
356. The Problem Solver
357. A Man Of His Word
358. Rings A Bell
359. A Safe Place
360. Gathering And Scattering
361. The Man, The Myth
362. Memories Of Sophia
363. The Report
364. Old Friends And New Enemies
365. Baby Talk
366. There’s No Place Nicer
367. You Can’t Run, But You Can Hide
368. Pony
369. An Ally
370. The Sky’s The Limit
371. Boy Cody
372. A New Record
373. Missing In Action
374. Goodbye, Sophia
375. Take A Meeting
376. Who Watches The Watchers?
377. Don’t Just Stand There…
378. Woof!
379. The Right Woman
380. The Spy Who Loved Me
381. Betrayal
382. You Don’t Have To Thank Me
383. Sandoval
384. Red Meat
385. Delivered
386. Farewell, My Love
387. Payday
388. Enough Is Enough
389. Two Graves, One Heart
390. Revelations
BOOK 10
391. Surprise!
392. Job Openings
393. Inevitable
394. Closing In
395. Rag Doll
396. Survival
397. A Guarantee
398. The Four Horsemen Of The Ridiculous
399. He Has His Pride
400. Spenser Hawke
401. Huh, Now Will You Look At That
402. Gutless
403. Contact!
404. Alone At Last
405. Wounds, New And Old
406. Kindred Souls
407. Truth And Consequences
408. Friend Or Foe?
409. Essential Items
410. Respect For The Dead
411. With Friends Like Yours…
412. Take A Message
413. Goodbye Kiss
414. That’s Easy
415. Help Wanted – Must Be Willing To Kill
416. Meter Reader
417. Spilled Blood
418. Chess Moves
419. I See You
420. Trust
421. It’s A Blast
422. Tanner, My Tanner
423. Two
424. What Thing?
425. 3 Plus 1 Equals 4
426. One Tanner, Two Tanni?
BOOK 11
I. Allies & Enemies
1. Good
2. Seeds Of Betrayal
3. Break-In
4. Turn Around
5. Making Plans
6. Atrocity
7. Cheat Sheet
8. A Tanner Never Fails
9. The Book Of Tanner
10. Bang Bang
11. Wounded Heart
12. Once A Spy, Always A Spy
13. Off To Slay
14. You Can Almost Feel It
15. Welcome To Mexico
II. The Eve Of Destruction
16. Machinations
17. Hurry Up And Wait
18. Midnight Rendezvous
19. Chop Chop!
20. Tanner?
21. Time Is Running Out
22. Beauty To Die For
23. Truckin’
24. Burn Baby, Burn
25. Trapped
26. A Game Of Catch
27. Reunion
III. Sleight Of Hand
28. Love Lost, Money Gained
29. Special Delivery
30. So Far, So Good
31. Turning Tables
32. Let The Right Ones In
33. The End Of The Beginning
34. A New Day
IV. Aftermath
35. Tanner
TANNER RETURNS!
Afterword
Join My Inner Circle
Bibliography
Coming Soon
Make Contact
Introduction
THE TANNER SERIES – BOOKS 1-11
INEVITABLE I – TANNER – BOOK 1
KILL IN PLAIN SIGHT – TANNER BOOK 2
MAKING A KILLING ON WALL STREET – TANNER – BOOK 3
THE FIRST ONE TO DIE LOSES - A TANNER NOVEL - BOOK 4
THE LIFE & DEATH OF CODY PARKER - A TANNER NOVEL - BOOK 5
WAR - A TANNER NOVEL - BOOK 6
SUICIDE OR DEATH – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 7
TWO FOR THE KILL – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 8
BALLET OF DEATH – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 9
MORE DANGEROUS THAN MAN – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 10
TANNER TIMES TWO – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 11
Join My Inner Circle
REMINGTON KANE’S INNER CIRCLE
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Acknowledgments
I write for you.
—Remington Kane
BOOK 1
INEVITABLE I – A TANNER NOVEL – BOOK 1
Hired killer, Tanner, escapes from a Mexican prison and goes in search of revenge against the man who was to be his latest target.
Mobster Albert Rossetti thought he was safe after he framed Tanner for drug possession and had him locked away inside a Mexican prison—but Tanner broke out.
Rossetti’s made peace with the man who hired Tanner to kill him, and the contract was cancelled, but that means nothing to Tanner, who lives by his own rules.
Tanner is coming for Rossetti, despite the man’s hit squad, or the determined and troubled female FBI agent chasing him.
Tanner is coming, Tanner is deadly, and Tanner never fails.
1
Do You Want Fries With That?
When Tanner saw the crack beneath the door darken, he rolled off the bed while taking the sheets with him, and left the naked hooker to fend for herself.
He fell beside his shotgun, took hold of it, and crawled forward to take aim at the door. It burst open and two guys with guns stood in the threshold, gazing at the hooker.
Tanner fired both barrels of the shotgun, one after another, at an upward angle, hitting the big man in the gut and the short one in the balls. They both let out screams that rivaled the hooker’s and slid to the floor of the hotel hallway.
Tanner rushed over, gathered up their weapons and smashed them both in the forehead with the shotgun barrel. The short one raised a hand up to fend off the blow and wound up with four broken fingers besides.
Not that it mattered; they would both bleed out before an ambulance came.
The hooker had stopped screaming and was sitting back against the headboard with her eyes locked on the shotgun.
“I won’t hurt you. But don’t say shit to the cops.”
The blonde said nothing, and Tanner snapped his fingers at her.
“Did you hear me?”
She nodded, causing her breasts to jiggle. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Tanner was as naked as she was; however, her body was pale and soft, while his was hard, scarred, and baked brown from the weeks he’d recently spent beneath the Mexican sun. Tanner threw on his jeans, along with a black hoodie and tossed the hooker an extra hundred as he slipped into his boots.
Someone in the hall said, “Holy shit!” and Tanner fired two shots into a corner of the room. The bullets came from the Beretta he had taken from one of Rossetti’s thugs, causing the looky-loo and any other nosey types to run back to their rooms.
He didn’t know for certain how Rossetti had gotten onto his trail so soon, but he had an idea of how he did it. If he was right, that meant he would soon be going to war with the
Conglomerate.
Tanner had reloaded the shotgun and given the room a quick wipe down for prints when the first cop car pulled up out front.
He was on the third floor of the hotel and had to get away before more cops appeared. He had been out of prison for only two days and he sure as hell wasn’t going back.
There was a utility closet at the right rear of the hotel, beside it was a laundry chute.
Tanner flipped up the lid and peered down inside a narrow metal tube.
He nodded to himself. He would fit, for he was down to nothing but muscle and gristle.
Tanner was in Brownsville, Texas, inside the Victory Hotel, but he had spent the last ten weeks in a Mexican prison.
Tanner sent the shotgun down first, but only because it couldn’t be helped. He needed both hands free. The gun made a muffled sound as it hit bottom and he reasoned that there was a cart full of dirty sheets awaiting him.
Tanner leapt up, grabbed onto a cold-water pipe and slipped his legs into the chute. When he let go of the pipe, he slammed his shoulder against the edge of the chute as he went in. He knew he’d have a beauty of a bruise where it hit.
The chute was tighter than it looked, but it turned out to be a good thing as it slowed his descent. He hit bottom, landing in a cart full of soiled tablecloths, then saw that one of the laundry workers was holding his shotgun. The guy was gawking at it as if it were a piece of alien technology.
The man was a young Asian. The eyes behind his glasses widened in wonder as Tanner slid into view.
Tanner yanked the gun away from the man and shoved him backwards to the floor. When the other workers saw this, they scrambled away to safety, and Tanner headed toward the daylight streaming in from the loading dock.
The laundry was hot and humid and permeated with an odor that smelled like a mixture of soap, steam, and old socks.
Someone had been about to have lunch, because Tanner found a pristine Big Mac sitting in an open carton beside a bag of fries. He scooped up the food, walked out onto the loading dock, and smacked the driver of a linen truck in the back of the head with the butt of the shotgun.
The man groaned, dropped to his knees, and made feeble sounds of protest as Tanner walked through the open rear doors of the truck, past metal shelves and wheeled carts, and slid into the driver’s seat.
The keys were in the ignition, and Tanner started the truck and drove off. As he made a hard stop at the exit to let a car pass by, the back doors of the truck slammed shut on their own and Tanner was on his way.
He took his first bite of the Big Mac as he made the left onto a side street, while in the background, a chorus of sirens began.
2
Hold The Burka
NEW YORK CITY
FBI Special Agent Sara Blake read the memo her boss handed her and smiled.
The SAC, or Special Agent-in-Charge, Martin Brewer, also smiled, while letting his eyes roam over her body. Sara was standing before his desk in a dark, conservative women’s business suit. The suit was designed to be conservative, but Sara’s body ruined the effect. A burka couldn’t hide her curves.
Brewer was fifty-two, old enough to be Sara’s father, but not so old that he couldn’t appreciate her beauty.
Sara handed back the paper. “So, not only has Tanner escaped prison, but he’s back in the States and doing what he does best, killing.”
“Yeah,” Brewer said, while raising his gaze to meet hers. “However, it appears he killed those two men in self-defense.”
“Any ID on the dead men?”
“Oh yeah, they were two hard cases that worked for a thug out there. The local cops say these guys were probably loaned out for a hit, only they were the ones that got hit. I’ll email you all the pertinent facts, but right now I want you on a plane for Texas.”
“Good, this time I’m coming back with Tanner’s scalp. When do I leave?”
“You’re to meet Jake Garner at JFK Airport, and there will be a jet waiting.”
Sara made a face as she ran a hand through her long dark hair.
“Garner? Really Marty?”
“What’s wrong with Jake Garner? He’s a hell of an agent.”
“Maybe, but he also thinks he’s God’s gift to women. And he can’t go five seconds without staring at my breasts.”
Brewer chuckled. “Hell Sara, even I’m guilty of that. You’re a beautiful woman, one of my best agents, but still a beautiful woman. Take Garner, he’s someone you want at your six when things get heavy.”
Sara let out a long breath. Brewer was right. If things went bad, Garner was the agent she’d pick to watch her back. Still, the man could be annoying.
Jake Garner was so good-looking that he couldn’t understand why Sara wasn’t attracted to him, and he let it be known in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that he wanted her.
Sara wasn’t looking to start a relationship, or even have a one-night stand. There was only room for one man in her life and his name was Tanner. Once she dealt with him, then she could think about the future, about starting over, but until she found Tanner and paid him back for what he did to her, the rest of her life was on hold.
“I’ll take Garner, hell, I’ll work with anyone if it helps me capture Tanner.”
“One more thing, the Organized Crime Unit has gotten intel from an informant. There’s a mobster in Vegas named Albert Rossetti that wants Tanner dead. It’s likely that it was this Rossetti who sent the two thugs after Tanner at that hotel.”
“Rossetti? Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because of Johnny R, the head of the Giacconi Crime Family here in New York. The R stands for Rossetti.”
“Is he related to Albert Rossetti?”
“Albert is Johnny’s uncle, he moved out to Vegas years ago.”
“Why does Albert Rossetti want Tanner dead?”
“The informant didn’t know, but he did find out one interesting tidbit. It seems that Tanner was framed on the drug charge that landed him inside that Mexican prison, and it was Rossetti that framed him.”
Sara nibbled at her lower lip as she thought things over. “Rossetti must have been Tanner’s target when the Mexicans captured him. If so, now that he’s free, Tanner will be looking to carry out the contract.”
“Still, after all this time?”
“Tanner never gives up until he’s fulfilled his contract.”
Brewer tapped his desk with a fist. “We tried to get him transferred back here to face murder charges, but the Mexicans kept delaying because all our evidence was based on supposition, and now it’s too late.”
“We should have two agents from Vegas watch Rossetti. It will help to know where he is at all times.”
“Why should we keep tabs on him?”
“Because he’s Tanner’s next target and you can be sure that the bastard will go after him.”
3
And A Bottle Of Rum
Tanner wanted to kill Rossetti as soon as possible, but Rossetti would have to wait.
Tanner’s priority was to get transportation and money. He was on the prowl for both when he spotted a pimp backhanding one of his girls.
The pimp was white, his bodyguard black, and the girl was a child. Although, Tanner had to admit, with the makeup and high heels the girl could pass for thirteen.
The girl nodded in acquiescence and trod back toward her corner to search for more strangers to pleasure, as the pimp climbed in the back of his silver Mercedes. The bodyguard took the wheel.
Tanner followed. He was still driving the linen truck but knew he had to ditch it soon or else deal with the cops. He had already wiped the linen truck down, erasing his prints, and was wearing a pair of brown cotton gloves that had been lying atop the dashboard.
Tanner watched the pimp’s car make a right and head down an alley. When he drove past it, he saw that there was already a guy there in a yellow Honda Civic. He only caught a glimpse of the man, but the dude had drug dealer written all over him.
Tanner
pulled the truck to the curb, stuck the shotgun down inside an empty pillowcase and headed to the alley on foot. He knew that all he had on his side was the element of surprise; he intended to use it to its fullest advantage.
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 2