by C. A. Szarek
Table of Contents
Legal Page
Title Page
Book Description
Dedication
Trademarks acknowledgement
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
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
New Excerpt
New Excerpt
Publisher Page
A Totally Bound Publication
Calculated Collision
ISBN # 978-1-78430-040-1
©Copyright C.A. Szarek 2014
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2014
Edited by Rebecca Douglas
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Sizzling and a Sexometer of 3.
Crossing Forces
CALCUATED COLLISION
C.A. Szarek
Book three in the Crossing Forces series
Special Agent Lee Dawson has secrets. Secrets that forced her from Dallas to New York City in disgrace two years ago.
Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Nate Crane visits New York and witnesses the brutal murder of a friend. When Lee is assigned to the investigation, her personal and professional life collide. She can’t avoid the man she ditched six months ago.
She’s the one Nate can’t stop thinking about. The one he let get away. He’s determined to get her back, no matter what she thinks she wants. Being a witness in her case puts them close—and Nate intends to keep it that way.
After Nate’s attacked at a safe house, Lee knows there’s a leak—a dirty FBI agent working with the human trafficker her unit has been hunting for years.
Can Lee protect her witness and resist the heat between them, or will she succumb to her desires and throw them both into danger?
Dedication
WOW! Book three! How did that happen? I am so grateful to so many people. Without them, this adventure never would have happened.
To my husband, Shane. Thanks for helping me with this series and letting me read it to you. Thanks for your input, too.
For this one, I need to thank my Judge, Mike. Thank you for all the help with the lawyerly stuff. Had I not been able to ask you questions, I would’ve been lost!
Thanks to Holly, once again, for your continued support, explanations and FBI stuff. I’m pretty sure since you were an NYC FBI there’s a little of you in Lee. She’s a tough chick like you!
Thanks, as always, to my critique group. Michelle, Jen, Clover, Gina. You’re made of awesome and you’ve made my writing stronger.
Thanks, Susie, for critiquing and reading for me at the drop of a hat. Your interest and help keep me going in this world.
Jo-Anna and JoAnna, you both know I love you to bits. Thanks for always being there for me, listening to me rant and whine about writing and helping me through the rough spots.
Carrie, thanks for letting me talk your ear off: you know audible plotting helps, and I always appreciate your input and patience. Love ya!
To my new friend/motivational writer buddy, Christine: you’re totally awesome. Thank you for the constant encouragement, check-ins and long chats! Thanks for the input, too! You keep me going, and as you know, sometimes I need that!
Thanks to my constant cheerleaders, Amee, Alanna, Toni, and Kerry! If I didn’t have you guys to be excited about new words, new scenes and new chapters, I don’t know what I’d do. Love you guys!
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Glock: Glock Ges.m.b.H.
iPhone: Apple, Inc
iPad: Apple, Inc
Whistle While You Work: Frank Churchill, The Walt Disney Company
Dodge Charger: Chrysler Group LLC
Honda Accord: Honda Motor Co. Ltd.
Nascar: National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc.
Jacuzzi: Apollo Global Management LLC
Beretta: Fabbrica D’ Armi Pietro Beretta S.p.A.
Cadillac Escalade: General Motors Company
Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Jack Daniel’s: Brown-Forman Corporation
McDonald’s: McDonald’s Corporation
Bowflex: Nautilus, Inc.
Starbucks: Starbucks Corporation
Mercedes: Mercedes-Benz, Daimler AG
Desert Eagle: Magnum Research, Inc.
Storage Wars: A&E Television Networks, LLC
Carhartt: Carhartt, Inc.
Macy’s: Macy’s, Inc.
Skype: Microsoft Corporation
Band-Aid: Johnson & Johnson
Learjet: Bombardier Aerospace
Monopoly: Hasbro, Inc
Chapter One
Sweat broke out on her brow and Lee gripped her Glock tighter instead of wiping the moisture away. She bit back a curse.
What’s taking so long?
They should’ve already heard shouts of “Federal agents!”
She hated being in the back. Being back-up.
Lee and her partner, Clint Downs, were the lead agents of their unit, and usually headed raids.
Not today.
Their boss, Special Agent Olivia Barnes, wanted them—Lee in particular—to take a breather from going hard and fast.
Nothing wrong with the passenger seat, right?
Maybe if she kept telling herself that, it’d sink in.
Hard and fast was all Lee knew. How she got the job done. But even her partner had reminded her there were twelve members of their human trafficking unit. They were all partners.
Ugh. She’d rather hang a ‘Doesn’t play well with others’ sign around her neck.
“You good?”
Her partner’s gravelly voice made Lee tense. “Yup.” She didn’t look his way.
“You seem
shaky.”
“I’m good.” Flexing her fingers on her gun’s grip, she inched forward. “Wanna get this done.”
Downs didn’t have a chance to answer. The battering ram exploded the door in front of them and wood splinters went flying.
Collective shouts of “Federal agents!” coupled with “FBI!” surrounded her and she rushed forward behind her teammates. In correct formation, head in the game.
We’re doing this.
Screams and whimpers greeted her ears. Her heart used to jump with the fears of the victims every time they did a raid, but not anymore. Instead it was steel, and her gut made of iron.
Lee was used to seeing tears, and hearing them cry. What she’d never get used to were the bruises and skimpy clothing on kids that were less than half her age.
Babies. They’re all babies.
Most weren’t even sixteen, yet in a lot of cases they’d been bought, sold and forced to have sex with more pieces of scum than she could count. The lucky ones got owners that didn’t beat them, but a sex-slave was still a sex-slave.
Bastards. They all needed to die.
The relief on the girls’ faces when they first realised they were being rescued was always a reward. Reminded Lee she was a good person—why she did the job. If only the sentiment lasted in her mind.
A shot rang out and her instincts kicked in. She dropped to the dingy carpet and rolled to the nearest cover—a dark-coloured couch.
Someone returned fire just as her partner crouched beside her. “Shit,” Downs spat. “It’s going south, fast.”
Lee smirked and raised her Glock. “Nah, we got this.” She popped up over the couch for a quick survey. A bullet whizzed overhead and her partner yanked her back down.
“Don’t be reckless.”
When he flashed his perma-scowl, she almost rolled her eyes. How many times had he said that?
Welllllllll, for today it’s probably the first time.
Orders to drop weapons went unheeded as more bangs made her ears ring. She risked another look over the couch. Other members of their unit had taken cover, but several were returning fire.
One of the girls screamed again and Lee’s gaze darted that way. Three—no, four—teens were huddled in a corner, arms wrapped around each other, but they were out of the line of fire.
Good.
Today’s group of fine, upstanding human traffickers was made up of illegals from Mexico. Lee and Downs had been after these guys for months. The fact they’d hooked up with Tony Caselli’s outfit was dumb luck.
The other object of today’s raid—Giovanni Nicci—was shooting a big .45. One of the assholes he was supposed to sell girls to lay in a pool of blood about five feet from him. Dead Mexican’s partner returned fire next to Nicci.
If—no, when—the FBI gained control of the situation, their unit would score double. According to the morning’s intel, Nicci was supposed to be meeting up with Russians. They’d have to find out why there’d been a change in plans later. It had to mean something.
Lee took a shot, hearing her partner curse next to her. She ignored him and pulled the trigger again.
Nicci shouted something in Italian and grabbed his arm. She’d hit the bastard, but it wasn’t mortal. He backed up quickly, retreating down the hallway.
“Least let me cover your ass,” Downs’ shout sounded behind her as Lee scooted around the couch to pursue Nicci.
Gunfire in the front room came to a halt as members of their unit fell in behind Lee and her partner. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Evan Roberts wrench the second Mexican’s arms behind his back to cuff him after kicking the guy’s forty away. The short and stocky man started cursing in Spanish. He gestured and told the FBI agent to lick his balls.
Lee smirked when Roberts answered the man’s insult with something appropriate in Spanish.
Mexican Two snapped his mouth shut.
Didn’t expect him to speak the language, huh, scum?
She kept moving, sensing her partner’s large frame at her back. He inched forward and they made eye contact for a split second. Downs nodded towards the master suite of the apartment and Lee moved beside him to the right.
Another one of the guys moved in to cover their asses and her partner kicked the door in. Nicci fired a shot even before the wood slammed into the wall. Lee didn’t hesitate. She pulled the trigger of her forty not once, but twice.
The Italian thug grunted and winced. He dropped the gun as members of her unit swamped the room. “Fuck me. All-fucking-right!”
“Hands up.” Lee smirked and gestured with her Glock. “C’mon, I don’t need an excuse to put another hole in you, Nicci.”
“I got witnesses, bitch.”
“Yeah, yeah. Shut it, Nicci,” Downs ordered.
Her partner holstered his Glock and Lee kicked Nicci’s weapon away. With the help of Agent Bobby Smythe, Downs hauled the injured piece of scum to his feet.
“Hey! I have rights.”
Lee laughed and holstered her gun after the click and slide of her partner’s cuffs shouted Nicci was secure. “Yeah, rights. Like those little girls out there. You’re real concerned about rights.”
“Fuck you.”
“Not in a million years.”
“Partner, I got this. Why don’t you see about the girls?” Downs asked, one dark eyebrow arched.
Lee narrowed her eyes, but nodded. Did he think she was going to attack the trafficker or something? “I’ll get the medics on the way for His Highness here.”
Smythe snorted.
She palmed her cell and turned on her heel, shaking her head. Lee made the call. Medics would be there in a few. She took one look at the four petrified teens huddled in the corner and swallowed back a curse. They should’ve let Nicci lie on the floor and bleed.
Lee sucked in a calming breath and approached the real victims of the raid.
* * * *
“The girls are all Mexican. Two are fourteen, one fifteen and the other is sixteen. They won’t tell me their last names, but they’re not legal. They were supposed to be absorbed into Caselli’s organisation.” Lee shook her head and met her partner’s crystal-blue gaze.
“Child Services are already on the way,” Downs said.
“Good. But that’s going to scare the shit out of them even more. They don’t speak English. Hope we get a bilingual caseworker, or I’ll have to ride down there with. Not on my list of fun things to do. Anyways, what did Nicci give you? Anything?”
“Some chatter about one of Caselli’s big deal attorneys getting kicked to the kerb, but nothing else.”
“Didn’t we already know that? Angelo Fiato or some shit?”
Clint nodded. “Right. But rumour is he’s hiding upstate now, and there’s a pretty heavy-duty purse on him.”
“Can we confirm it?”
“Roberts and Stewart are already on it.”
“Good deal. Hope the guy’s good at hiding. When Caselli takes out a hit on you, it’s nothing to play with. Did he say anything about the Russians?”
“Nope. Denied there was a meet scheduled.”
“Damn. Either we got bad intel or he’s a liar. I’m leaning towards liar. Maybe we’ll get it out of him later.” Lee studied her partner’s expression when he didn’t remark.
He sighed and ran his hand through his greying-brown crew cut. Clint Downs had about ten years on Lee’s thirty-six, but the ex-Marine wasn’t washed out. He was still as tall and muscled as the picture on his desk of him in fatigues from twenty years before. Broad-shouldered and handsome, he always wore a neatly trimmed moustache.
They worked well together—for the most part. But reckless and Lee in the same sentence were his two favourite words. Didn’t matter what order.
His silence shouted that he wanted—no, needed—to lay into her. It was a normal part of their after-raid debrief.
“Go for it,” Lee said.
His blue eyes flashed—she hadn’t missed her mark.
“One day you’
re gonna get killed. And it won’t be because you’re a shitty agent.”
Lee opened her mouth, but he put his hand up.
“You know what you’re doing. We both know that. But it’s really fucking amazing that after a year and a half, I do have to remind you I’m your partner.”
She stared. Words dissolved. Her proper, rule-following partner had dropped the F-bomb? Lee blinked. “Look, I’m—”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry, Special Agent Selena Dawson. Show me. Quit shitting on me.”
Jesus. Where the hell is this coming from?
“Just remember that you’re my responsibility, as much as I am yours,” Clint said when Lee still didn’t speak. “You put yourself in danger so I have to do the same to go after you. And you might live alone, but I have a wife and two kids who are pretty fond of me coming home at the end of the damn day.”
Yup. That about defined asshole and partner. Both suddenly synonymous with Lee Dawson. Succinct, even.
“I’d ask you what happened when you went to Texas to go after Marchetti, but you’d just tell me to go to hell, so I’ll just tell you to get over it and stop being a loner. It’s been six months.”
Damn straight. Six months, or six days, she wasn’t talking to anyone about Nate Crane.
“I don’t want to be forced to have a sit down with Barnes,” he said.
Ice raced down her spine. It wasn’t a threat her partner had made—it was a promise. A man of only necessary words, Downs never said anything lightly.
Normally she’d have cracked a joke, teased him, but as she looked into pale blue eyes that matched her frozen veins, Lee couldn’t utter a word.
It’s starting. Dallas all over again.
“I like working with you,” she managed.
His shoulders relaxed, that big chest heaving as he sucked in air. “I believe you. But you need to get it together before you get yourself hurt. Or worse.”
“Before I get you hurt, you mean.” Her throat was tight, painful as she forced her statement past her lips. Lee’s heart thundered, her temples throbbed.