1) A Tainted Mind (Vivienne & Ian)
2) These Sorrows We See (Matty & Dash)
3) What Echos Render (Jesse & David)
4) The Frailty of Things (Kit & Garret)
5) An Inarticulate Sea (Carly & Drew)
6) A Darkness Black (Caleb & Cate)
7) Through The Night (Naomi & Jay)
8) Into The Dawn (Brian & Lucy)
Also available in Box Sets!
The Tildas Island Series
1) A Fiery Whisper (Charlotte & Damian)
2) Night Deception (Alexis & Isiah)
Interested in a free book?
Sign up to my newsletter and receive the prequel to the Windsor Series THE PUPPETEER as a welcome gift!
Sign up here!
Extract of
A Fiery Whisper
#1 Tildas Island
When murder is just the beginning
FBI agent Damian Rodriguez never thought he’d see his former lover, Charlotte Lareaux, again—they’d gone down in flames over a year ago and now lived oceans apart. But when she shows up on his doorstep on Tildas Island in the Caribbean, bleeding and nearly dead, the distance between them suddenly feels trivial.
Charlotte has no idea why anyone would want to kill her or her friends, and relying on Damian and his teammates to find those answers is the right thing to do—even if it isn’t easy. But when they discover that a single, simple question set off the events that left her and a friend fighting for their lives, no one believes that’s the end of the story.
In fact, they all know it’s just a whisper of things to come.
Prologue
DR. SUNITA SHAH sat in a sunken leather chair across the desk from where FBI Special Agent in Charge, Ronald Lawler, looked down on her. She was quite certain he’d swapped out furniture before her arrival for just that purpose. Passive-aggressive tantrums were his specialty, and Ron Lawler was not a man to miss an opportunity to put her in her place. But the other thing Ron Lawler was not, was a man worth spending any time thinking about.
“So, Tildas Island?” he asked. He was drumming his fingers on the top of the five files she’d handed him. “Nice gig if you can get it.” The scent of stale coffee and bad breath wafted toward her.
“It’s a task force, not a holiday,” she responded, nodding to the files. He regarded her for a moment, then picked up the first.
Tildas Island, a US Territory in the Caribbean, had recently been selected by the governing body of the Organization of World Leaders as the location for their first-ever World Summit. In eighteen months, presidents, prime ministers, shahs, kings, queens, and other world leaders would be gathering on the island approximately half the size of Omaha, Nebraska.
With the sudden spotlight on the region, just about every alphabet agency in DC had realized their intelligence on the area—and hence the government’s ability to protect against any threats—was woefully lacking. So, two weeks ago, she’d been tapped to lead the task force that would spend the next eighteen months in the region gathering every bit of intel possible so that by the time of the conference, security would be locked down tighter than a nurse swaddling a newborn babe.
“You want Damian Rodriguez?” Ron asked, looking up from the file he held in his hands. “He just ran an unsanctioned investigation that included all but deputizing a journalist.”
Sunita shifted her gaze from the window that she’d been staring out of to Ron. She smiled but remained silent. She didn’t have to justify her decisions to him, or to anyone for that matter. A condition of her taking the role as the supervisory director of the task force had been complete control over the team and how it functioned. Lawler’s sign-off was nothing but red-tape.
Of course, another reason behind her smile was because she knew, at this moment, that Agent Rodriguez was talking to the very same journalist Lawler referred to about the very same unsanctioned investigation. The young agent was no doubt sinking his career on a matter of principle—having promised the journalist the story in exchange for her help—and Sunita admired the hell out of him for it. That he’d also been an Army Ranger and a top field agent, before his recent activities, didn’t hurt.
Lawler picked up another file and held it up as he fixed his gaze on her. “Dominic Burel has been on probation three times since he joined the Bureau two years ago.” Ron was too seasoned of an agent to think she’d simply made a bad choice. But he wasn’t smart enough to figure out why she’d chosen whom she’d chosen. She’d give him a little leeway on Burel, though because his record was a little sketchy. But, she had access to files on the former pararescuer that only a handful of people even knew existed.
“And Alexis Wright? Seriously, Sunita? FBI Barbie?” he said, slapping Burel’s file down and picking up the third.
Sunita cocked her head. “Making derogatory comments on people’s looks, Ron? You know what they say, glasshouses and all.”
His eyes narrowed on her.
She didn’t mind letting him question an agent’s ability, but she’d damn well draw the line when he crossed it. It was true, Alexis Wright was stunning. The daughter of a famous R&B singer and a Swedish supermodel, Alexis wasn’t just gorgeous, she was loaded, too. A fact that seemed to get more attention than her stellar scores at the academy and her impeccable record in the field. The only legitimate complaint had come from her supervisor who’d said the agent had been distracted a bit lately. Sunita gave that observation little weight, though, as she knew that Wright had just defended her Ph.D. four days ago, having completed her course of study without ever mentioning it to any of her colleagues. To say Agent Wright had a penchant for extreme privacy would be an understatement.
“Jake McMullen is a cowboy, and you want to take him to the land of fun and sun?” Lawler asked, holding up the fourth file. Tildas Island was famous for being a getaway for the rich and famous with all the trappings of luxury that came with that.
“I’ll sign off on him, but he’s not allowed to drive any government vehicles,” Lawler said, setting the file down. In her mind, Sunita rolled her eyes. It was a childish response, but then again, so was Ron’s illusion that he had any control over whom she picked or how she ran her task force.
Jake McMullen was a cowboy, but he was a cowboy who had been a professional surfer before an injury had ended his career at age twenty-four. He brought that same daring streak that drove him to ride twenty-plus-foot waves to his job with the FBI. And no one in the Bureau knew the ocean like Agent McMullen—a handy trait to have when they’d be surrounded by water.
“And Benita Ricca? Really? That woman has a chip on her shoulder the size of Long Island,” Lawler said, holding the fifth and last file.
At least he hadn’t commented on her appearance. And again, to be fair, Ricci did have a bit of a chip on her shoulder. But unlike Ron’s negative impression, Sunita believed Beni—as she was known to her colleagues—to be tough as nails and one of the best no-nonsense agents she’d seen in recent years. Ricci wasn’t nice, but she was damn good at her job. In fact, while Sunita was planning to let the dynamics play themselves out, she fully anticipated Rodriguez and Ricci would become the de facto leaders of the team. All five members were strong agents, and each had a little extra something she knew would contribute to the success of the task force, but Ricci and Rodriguez also had that elusive, unnamable quality that made people want to follow them.
“I don’t know where you pulled these names from, Sunita, but it’s like you looked for every misfit in the Bureau. Are you sure you don’t want to take Agent Webster or Agent Kapinski?” Ron asked.
Sarah Webster and Stanley Kapinski were two of Ron’s pet agents. Loyalty in the Bureau was important if an agent was interested in playing the politics game, and no one was more loyal to Ron than Webster and Kapinski. Which was exactly why she hadn’t even thought of considering the two.
Instead of answering, Sunita rose from her seat to her full height of five feet, one and three-quarters inches, swiped a pen from Lawler’s desk, an
d handed it to him.
“Sign the transfer papers, Ron. I have agents I need to round up and a task force to get off the ground.”
Read on with Kindle Unlimited!
Night Deception Page 25