THE FORGIVEN © 2018 by Piper Westbrook
Cover Design: Jay Aheer
Interior Formatting: Erik Gevers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law. Pirating intellectual property makes angels cry.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
About This Book
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Author’s Note
Books by Piper Westbrook
About The Author
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Hurting her was his ultimate sacrifice.
Sharpshooter. Criminal. Black hat. Men like Remy Malik aren’t designed for love—only destruction. Loving a woman had almost gotten her murdered. The memory of her blood stains his soul. The torture of wanting her knowing he cannot touch her is unforgiving.
But now someone poses a darker danger to narc Meg Reyes—someone who wants to watch her beg for the peace of death. Bringing down the king of Las Vegas made her a beautiful target. To save her life, Remy must emerge from the shadows. And to salvage his sanity, he must remind Meg that he still owns her…body, mind, and heart.
* * *
The Forgiven is the fifth and final book in the End Game series. The game begins in The Penalty.
Due to subject matter, the End Game series is recommended for readers 18 and older.
Chapter One
When it came to staging an ambush, the Greers were experts.
A husband and wife, united in every power play and business venture, they controlled elite society as effortlessly as a champion manipulated a novice in games of risk and didn’t respond well to the word no.
Meg Fuentes had considered herself doubly exempt from their exploitation—she was a retired DEA field agent and their daughter’s best friend. She had never before been their target. But she knew what they were capable of and this setup, schemed and executed to perfection, had their prints all over it.
¡Mierda!
Wrapped in a fitted pantsuit that had started out sexy but wilted in a graceless surrender to wrinkles and sweat and coffee stains, accessorized with waning makeup and a pissed-off sneer, she could loiter at the entrance to the Palazzo’s CUT steakhouse only so long before her presence summoned a tempest of unwanted attention. The curiosity in the hostess’s demeanor had already darkened to suspicion because her sociable, “Would you like to be seated?” remained unanswered. And Meg, trapped in a rush of hot indignation, was flustered. Caught unawares. Totally off her game.
It might be possible to counterattack and beat the Greers at their own wheeler-dealing. Was it even too late to turn and run? Or hobble, because her walking stick wasn’t a magician’s wand and could do only so much for her permanent limp.
J.T. and Joan had apparently recruited her supervisor to lay on the pressure, and the three of them sat in the exquisite ritzy glory of Meg’s favorite steakhouse sharing a round of drinks. Scotch, if her boss had his way.
A toast to the idiot, she thought, her mind whirring, blazing, as she imagined them raising their shot glasses in anticipation of cornering her. Blame them, she would—and did, vehemently. But she’d flown into the jar and let them twist on the lid. She could be at home stripping off her clothes and the workday if she hadn’t ignored her instincts. Since putting down stakes in this city, she’d become too soft, trusting, weak to manipulation. Perhaps it was a blessing that she was an inactive DEA agent, off field assignments, a Department of Justice researcher confined to a desk. No more than a civilian with a few valuable contacts and a firearm.
If she’d resisted her gut reaction to leap at the chance to eat a steak, if she’d at least had the sense to think past her celebrity crush on Wolfgang Puck, then she would’ve seen this dinner invitation for the ploy it was.
For one thing, her supe never singled out a team member. Whether someone screwed up or succeeded, the entire Las Vegas Office of Diversion Control knew about it.
For another, the Greers had responded uncharacteristically kindly when she’d flat-out denied the favor they’d asked of her. Divide her time between ODC and a roster of NFL players suspected of illegal drug use? She wouldn’t do it.
Couldn’t.
Logistically, it was virtually impossible. She was damaged, physically unqualified to babysit muscle-bound athletes and split open their secrets. What did they expect her to do, anyway? Go all Bad Cop and use her stick to whack confessions out of their men?
She didn’t exactly know what they expected because she hadn’t given them the opportunity to bog her down with specifics. She didn’t own the Las Vegas Villains; the Greers did. Maintaining a healthy roster was their responsibility, not hers. And she’d do herself one hell of a favor to keep away from that particular championship-winning, scandal-tainted team.
A fear-motivated attitude, but so what? She wasn’t invincible. The bullet fragments imbedded in her hip made that clear. The cane in her hand reminded her every day what a solitary gunshot had taken away.
“Ma’am. If you’re not dining here, would you mind…?” Lips drawn in a fake-pleasant smile, the hostess carved a hand through the air in a universal get the hell out of the way gesture. “We need to keep this area clear for customers.”
As if a five-three, one-hundred-twenty-pounds-soaking-wet woman was taking up too much space. Beside her, a group of folks thumbing smartphones and spewing conversation lazily assembled. Escaping now would be pathetically easy—just blend into the fray then slip out of the restaurant and disappear in the tide of luxury chasers pursuing The Shoppes at the Palazzo.
Except she wasn’t a coward. And someone owed her a fucking steak.
“I’m staying. Straight ahead there, passing around what’s probably one of your most expensive bottles of liquor?” Allowing the hostess a moment to sling her critical gaze from Meg’s hair—which the triple-digit summer heat was relentlessly bending to its will—to the party in question, she cleared her throat. “Yeah. They’re expecting me.”
“They are?” The woman faltered when J.T. Greer crooked two fingers at Meg. “Oh, so they are. I’ll escort you, and can I have a server bring you a drink? A chilled cocktail, perhaps?”
A seat in front of the wine wall and a fat slice of caramelized banana cream pie wouldn’t be so bad, but there was business to be done here. “Thanks, but I’ve got this.”
The pressure, the slick setups, they ended here—tonight. She should be more offended than she was, but she held her supervisor in the highest regard and loved the Greers as her own.
Grip tight on the walking stick, Meg did her best to barrel toward the main dining room. Modern, upscale elegance dripped from the chandeliers, reflected in the windows a
nd art, shimmered in the very ambience of the place. She caught the teeny pops of cell phone camera flashes as people photographed their entrées, and almost smiled despite how irked she was at the three people standing to greet her.
“No private table?”
“Waitstaff, photographers, they pay extra close attention to the private tables,” Ozzie Salvinski answered neutrally, resuming his seat. “You’re late.”
J.T. snagged her hand in a hard shake that spared no consideration for her size, then let his wife lean in to buss the air beside Meg’s cheeks. God forbid Joan Greer ruin her perfect lip color application by making contact with actual skin.
“And you lied to me,” Meg responded evenly. “What’s the payout for getting me here, Ozzie? Season tickets? Box seats?”
Ozzie was up again, springing off the chair like a jack-in-the-box in spite of his bulk and the usually calm, deliberate way he carried himself. Bladelike nose, grizzled jaw, muddy amber eyes—they formed an angry palette, confronting her dead-on. “You implying I can be bought? Don’t do it. Don’t make that mistake, damn it. I’ve been on the right side of the law longer than you’ve been alive.”
But Ozzie wasn’t a black-and-white, right-is-right-and-wrong-is-wrong kind of guy. She didn’t exactly doubt his heart rested on the side of justice, but in the four years since she’d given up DEA gigs in DC and taken up residence at Vegas’s ODC, she had observed her supervisor get a little creative with the rules to make things happen.
Not to mention Ozzie was a middle-class man with a minimalist blue-collar lifestyle, and Meg would wager her designer shoe collection the man wouldn’t be breaking bread with a pair of billionaires if they hadn’t sought him out for very exact reasons—reasons that had everything to do with coercing her to do a job for them.
“Here’s what I know, then. I get an invitation for steak, which ought’ve tipped me off, because you’ve never treated me to anything more extravagant than a street vendor hot dog. Imagine my thoughts when I walk in and find you with the Greers drinking—” she braced her weight on the stick and reached across the glass table to pick up their bottle “—Scotch. Of course. What am I supposed to be thinking, boss?”
“I think,” Joan intervened, dismissing Ozzie and settling a pair of unblemished porcelain-white hands on Meg’s face. Without question, she felt perspiration beneath her fingertips, but she didn’t recoil. The need to get a point across overtook the utter ick factor of encountering someone else’s sweat. “I think, Meg, that a tantrum is neither appropriate nor attractive for a woman your age. Keep frowning like that and ask yourself why you can’t hold a man’s interest with your clothes on.”
“Are you calling me a mattress? It’s not the wisest way to get a favor.” Fact was, guys rarely held her interest outside of sex. If sex was the sum of her connection with someone, she wouldn’t apologize for taking what she could.
“You’re insulted.” Joan looked puzzled.
“Because you insulted me.” No one understood the complications, strings, and catch-22s that came attached to Meg’s every attempt at a genuine romance. “Please don’t go there.”
“Well, it’s the same thing I’d tell my daughters.” Joan tried to tuck a few errant curls behind Meg’s ears but quickly gave up on the effort and took her seat with a dainty plop. She then none-too-discreetly began wiping her hands on a napkin. “Why don’t you try on a sweeter disposition sometime? It couldn’t hurt.”
“Thanks, Joan, but I already have parents.”
“Who are in Texas. Would you please sit down already? People are beginning to stare and this—” she ran a finger up and down to indicate Meg’s sweaty, wrinkled appearance “—likely isn’t the impression you want them to take away. Goodness knows, I wouldn’t appreciate an irate woman’s outburst wrecking my dining experience.”
And now I understand just why Waverly wanted to elope. The words were practically slamming against Meg’s teeth, demanding to be released, but she’d promised her best friend she’d lock the info away in the vault. Many months ago Waverly had mentioned she and her fiancé might marry in secret to sidestep their families’ Montague-Capulet drama. She’d abandoned the thought and was now planning a very traditional, very expensive August wedding. Still, the conflict rained fire and brimstone on them, and Meg regretted the minor—or not, depending on who you asked—role she played in it all.
Lowering onto a chair, propping the stick against the table, she addressed each of them with a stoic glance. “Boss,” she said to Ozzie, “how about you pour me a Scotch and tell me why you tricked me into coming here.”
“Tricked.” He spat the word, swinging up the bottle and turning a shot glass upright on a tray. “I said meet me here for a steak. So help me, you’re gonna leave here with steak in your goddamn belly.”
Meg accepted the drink, turning it up without pause. Welcoming the impact of the liquid saturating her taste buds, she signaled for another. “What do they want from me, exactly?”
“Ask them.”
“No.” She relaxed against her chair, sank the next drink. “I’m asking you, sir.”
“Somebody’s using. Cocaine, marijuana, meth. The team’s management put together a training camp drug prevention program. So running workshops, looking after the men, staying alert and making things look straight and narrow for the press. In the vein of the substance abuse prevention you dealt with at those schools back in the day.”
Not so far back, technically. In between Fed cases, she’d touted DARE and other drug education programs to K-12 institutions and universities as part of community outreach. But it felt as though a lifetime had passed since she’d been the agent—the woman—she once was.
“Yeah, I get the basic idea. J.T. and Joan pitched it to me before. I told them no, so why don’t you tell me why you can’t get DEA on this?” She shut up when a server appeared at their table with menus and a bottle of Pinot Noir. The Greers let the server fill two glasses and depart with the bottle, as both Meg and Ozzie were good with Scotch for now.
“We have something specific in mind for you,” J.T. said, settling his sharp blue gaze on her. As a child she’d been taught to study faces, and this mountain of a man had one of the most interesting ones she had ever seen. She liked to think of him as comprised of stones and rocks—bald head, prominent jaw, wide shoulders of a Texas cowboy—yet the ingredients of his personality could be found in the details of his facial features. The graying beard framed a scowling mouth; the hard-edged eyes seemed to always expose an unprovoked threat. Give me a reason to make you sorry you crossed me, they implored. But the creases etched deep into his tanned skin, especially the carvings between his brows and bracketing his mouth, revealed a man staggering under immense pressure…a man who worried.
A man who had taken a few brutal bumps and found out he wasn’t invincible. She could relate to that. Besides, in him she saw glimpses of her own father—someone she missed daily but spoke to only a fraction as often.
“What, J.T.? It’s impractical to think you can browbeat me into chasing your football players around training camp. My duties are to ODC. And there’s the drive. You’d be asking me to do a Vegas-Mount Charleston commute.”
“We’ll compensate you for the mileage,” Joan offered. “Or provide you with an entirely new vehicle.”
New, for Joan, probably meant showroom new. Not that Meg wasn’t loyal to her vintage Chevy Camaro, but a brand-new car was enticing—and stop. Concentrate. “Um…thank you, but no. I want to focus on the career I have and not this side narc gig. Waverly’s a trainer—does she know about this initiative?”
“Yes.” Joan sipped her Pinot Noir.
“What about the part you want me to play?”
“To a degree.”
Meg sighed, considering her empty shot glass. She wouldn’t fill it again until after she got some food down. “Why me, then? What is this really about? Spare me the charades and say what’s up.”
Ozzi
e raised his eyebrows at the Greers then splashed more Scotch into his glass and said nothing.
“We think of you as family,” Joan began. “You’re loyal, noble, intelligent—”
“Quit complimenting me. I’m not used to it.” She looked from wife to husband. “What’s the gig?”
J.T. leaned, spoke quietly. “To the media, you’ll be just another drug prevention leader. To the Villains, you’ll be a friend. They’ll want to loosen up, talk, get close.”
“Oh, I get what’s up.” She addressed Joan. “This is why you suggest I work on a sweeter disposition? To get your men hot under the uniform? Why you’d court that kind of distraction on your field, I don’t know.”
“No one’s advising you to have sex with them. Ask your friend Waverly how our organization responds to interoffice affairs.”
“Gosh. And here I was thinking the prospect of getting nailed by a football player might be a perk. Way to kill the dream.”
“I’m dead serious. Sex with our players is prohibited. Should you violate this stipulation, you’ll be pulled off the assignment. Ozzie can handle further disciplinary action as he sees appropriate.”
“So tease them?”
“Meg, you’re being facetious,” Joan accused, shifting her attention to the menu. “Were you this difficult when the feds put you on assignments? Or is this bitterness something that set in after you were shot?”
“Spare me the psychology trip, Joan. I’m ready to select my steak now.”
To her relief, the others relented—at least long enough to consult the menus and order appetizers and entrées. With conversation centered on food for the moment, Meg let herself absorb the cool air and the thick aroma of gourmet offerings.
Anticipating a sirloin with potatoes and paired with a burgundy, she observed the Greers. They had riches and power beyond her comprehension, yet she felt sorry for them. Because that was the thing with ultimate wealth and success—once you found it you spent an eternity struggling to defend it.
A basket of pretzel bread arrived, and Meg didn’t waste a moment dissecting a piece right along with the sparse info the Greers had shared. “Persuade the players to get chatty with me. That’s what you’re asking, hmm?”
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