The Reed Montgomery Series Box Set
Page 1
The Reed Montgomery Series
Books 1-3
Logan Ryles
Ryker Morgan Publishing
OVERWATCH
REED MONTGOMERY BOOK 1
Reed Montgomery made a deal with the devil: thirty kills. Thirty lives snuffed out. That was the price of his freedom.
Over the last three years, he’s made good on that bargain, executing mobsters and businessmen, politicians and diplomats—anyone who became a target of Reed’s ruthless employer. With each silenced heartbeat, Reed counts down the days until he can hang up the rifle and disappear forever, leaving behind the blood and carnage and losing himself in the masses. Maybe there will be a way to repay the cost of the slaughter.
With only one kill remaining, Reed accepts a contract to assassinate a Georgia state senator. It’s an easy job: one 745-yard shot, and he’s home free. But as the clock winds down on the hit, every practiced instinct from years of living outside the law warn him that this is anything but the end. He’s been set up, he’s running out of time, and the noose is tightening.
A cornered dog fights to the death.
HUNT TO KILL
REED MONTGOMERY BOOK 2
Reed Montgomery bought his freedom with blood. Thirty assassinations in exchange for liberty from death row—that was the deal. He delivered on twenty-nine of those kills before the kingpin of the hitman world turned on him. There’s no deal now, but the killing has just begun.
Only days after sidestepping a death trap in Atlanta, Reed is on the hunt for the man who betrayed him. It’s not about freedom anymore—it’s about justice, and maybe a taste of revenge. Far north of the city, amid the wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains, Reed will stop at nothing to balance the scales and leave his former mentor in a pool of frozen blood.
But as the frost sets in, a new player steps onto the stage. They call him The Wolf, and Reed has no idea who he’s working for. Only one thing is clear: He’s here to hunt. He’s here to kill.
He’s here for Reed.
TOTAL WAR
REED MONTGOMERY BOOK 3
He didn’t start this fight, but he’s going to end it.
Former Marine and professional assassin Reed Montgomery is facing the fallout of total betrayal. The shadowy organization he used to work for murdered one of his dearest friends, framed him for the assassination of a Georgia lawmaker, and destroyed the trust of the woman he loves.
Reed is now torn between a fight to rebuild that trust and a burning desire for vengeance. Every move feels like a step through a dark hallway littered with deathtraps. He doesn’t know who he’s fighting, he still doesn’t understand why he was framed, and for each answered question, two more are born.
As Reed traces the truth through a maze of lies, deceit, and decades-old secrets, he begins to understand that there are far greater forces at work than the criminals who wrote his paychecks. The real story behind Reed’s disastrous life began before he was born, and it strikes much closer to home than he could have ever imagined.
Copyright © 2019 by Logan Ryles
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
OVERWATCH, HUNT TO KILL, and TOTAL WAR are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Ryker Morgan Publishing, a Leonine Creative LLC imprint.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019913397
Cover design by German Creative
Author portrait by Anna King
Contents
The Reed Montgomery Series
Overwatch
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Hunt to Kill
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Total War
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
What Happened in Iraq?
Also by Logan Ryles
About the Author
End Page
The Reed Montgomery Series
Prequel: Sandbox, a short story (read for free at LoganRyles.com)
Book 1: Overwatch
Book 2: Hunt to Kill
Book 3: Total War
Book 4: Smoke & Mirrors (coming Winter, 2020)
Visit LoganRyles.com to receive a free copy of Sandbox.
Overwatch
Book 1 in the Reed Montgomery Series
For my darling Anna
Everything I ever wrote I wrote for you.
One
Jersey was cold. The first breath of impending winter blew down off the North Atlantic, whistling softly between the pilings and over the coarse sand of Cape May’s south beach. Reed stood at the waterline, feeling every breath of wind as it cut through his wetsuit like a knife, but he didn’t shiver. He stood perfectly still, and with a pair of Swarovski binoculars, he surveyed the mouth of the Delaware Bay.
Two-foot waves glimmered under the blaze of the full moon, and the water lapped against the barnacle-covered feet of pier pilings, washing back and forth across the rocky sand shore. Thirty miles to the northeast, the neon lights of Atlantic City glimmered on the horizon. In the opposite direction, the dark outline of Cape Henlopen State Park was barely visible, marked by half a dozen twinkling campfires. Red and green buoys guarded the entrance to the bay, and an occasional fish jumped into the moonlight, shining between the waves.
But it was the emptiness that hallmarked the night. It was an ideal opportunity to kill.
> Reed lowered the binoculars and breathed in the cold air. It stung his lungs like the prick of a million needles, but the salt breeze tasted fresh. He squinted toward the horizon, then raised the binoculars again and swept his gaze across the bay twice more. On the third pass, he paused over an irregularity in the water—a rolling wave that moved against the current, away from shore. Turning back to the left, he found the source of the disturbance—a thirty-foot yacht, running dark, without a hint of humanity on board.
He studied the boat, then crouched in the sand, depositing his binoculars into a backpack and withdrawing a small case. After snapping it open, he withdrew a Glock 27 subcompact pistol, loaded the weapon with a single magazine containing nine rounds of fragmenting hollow points, and racked the slide. Salt spray gleamed on the gun under the light of the moon. Every curve and edge of the weapon felt hard and cold, but familiar, like a favorite pair of shoes or a worn baseball cap.
With the gun tucked into the interior of his wetsuit, Reed pulled a pair of diver’s goggles over his face, and the air rushed from his lungs the moment he stepped into the chilled water. One breath, then another, both slow and measured against the chills that ripped up his spine. Then he waded out until the sandy bottom slipped from under his fins. The Jersey shoreline faded behind him as he cut through the waves, drawing occasional breaths between wide breaststrokes.
Ten minutes of powerful kicking brought Reed four hundred yards offshore, where he stopped to tread water and reposition on the yacht. As he anticipated, it now sat at anchor outside the mouth of the bay, bobbing in the rolling waves. The boat remained dark and silent, but Reed wasn’t perturbed. He floated upright in the water, treading between deep breaths as he continued to regulate his breathing. His heart thumped, but he didn’t feel as cold anymore. The water trapped between the wetsuit and his skin had warmed from the vigorous exercise and now served to insulate him from the frigid water. Five minutes passed before he detected the first sign of life on board the vessel. It came in the form of a muffled shout, followed by a dull thud.
One deep breath of damp air, then Reed slipped beneath the surface. Kicking out with both legs, he approached the boat underwater, clearing the last fifty yards in less than a minute. When he surfaced, he was bobbing feet from the yacht’s wide swim deck. He hoisted himself up and landed on the platform without a sound. Water drained off the wetsuit and back into the ocean as he sat, listening for any noise from inside the boat. Voices were barely audible, stifled by the thick fiberglass and teak trim of the expensive pleasure cruiser. Somewhere inside the cabin were at least two men. Both American. Both with Northeastern accents.
On the platform, he twisted and then unlatched his fins, depositing them and the mask onto the swim deck. He turned and flipped over the bulkhead, his bare feet landing on the deck without a sound.
The rear of the boat consisted of a row of luxury lounge chairs followed by a narrow stairwell to the cockpit and a door to the main salon. A visual sweep of the rear of the cockpit confirmed that all occupants of the boat were inside the salon.
He unzipped his wetsuit and withdrew the Glock, subconsciously performing a press check on the chamber. The glimmer of the brass casing in the dull moonlight assured him that the weapon was hot, and he proceeded to the door of the cabin. His heart continued to thump as a rush of adrenaline charged his blood with invisible lightning. His hands didn’t shake, but that was due to years of practice containing the anxiety and anticipation of an impending kill.
This is it. This is my moment.
The latch lifted without resistance, and the door swung inward. Lights shone from somewhere beyond the hallway. Something heavy scraped against the hardwood flooring, and the air reeked of cigarette smoke.
Stepping across the threshold, Reed raised his weapon and then rounded the corner into the lounge, where two men sat at a card table. One man was dark and slim and wore an expensive evening suit and designer eyeglasses. He sat against the far wall, leaning over the table and growling at his companion between clenched teeth.
The second man was short and broad, stuffed into a polo shirt that constricted around each layer of fat, making him look like a caterpillar fighting to break free of an undersized cocoon. He puffed on a cigarette as sweat streamed down his bold, Italian-American features.
Both men looked up when the stranger burst into the lounge. The short man with the cigarette choked and pushed himself away from the table, crashing to the floor, and gurgling something unintelligible. The man in the suit glared up at the intruder with wide, panicked eyes, and reached under his coat.
Reed didn’t hesitate. The muscles in his arms tensed, and his vision tunneled around the man in the suit. He raised the Glock, and his lungs froze around a half-breath. The silenced pistol twitched twice, and scarlet oozed from the folds of the man’s suit as he fell limp against the wall, his hand still caught beneath the jacket. His mouth flopped open, and a trail of blood ran down his chin.
The man on the floor screamed and wriggled his way backward, holding one hand out toward Reed.
“Hey! What do you want? Just chill, all right? I’ve got nothin’ to do wid him!”
The boat swayed over another wave as Reed stepped across the salon and trained the pistol on the chubby man. As he stared down at his victim, every part of him was alive with tension. He could feel it in his bones. In the thunder of blood rushing through his brain. In the weight of the gun clenched between his fingers.
But instead of pulling the trigger, he spoke in a calm, monotone voice.
“Where is the money?”
The chubby man frowned, swallowed, and blinked all at once. “What? The money? Look, man. I don’t know nothin’ about no money! I’m just his valet, okay? I don’t even know why I’m here!”
Reed squatted on the floor and leaned toward his cornered prey. He reached between the man’s legs and gripped the crotch of his khakis. Without a sound, Reed tightened his hold around the wadded pants, digging his fingers into the folds of the cloth, while keeping the pistol trained on the man’s face.
The stout man’s eyes grew wide, and his gut jiggled as he restrained a scream of pain. Tears streamed down his face.
“Man, please . . . let me go!”
Reed pressed the barrel of the gun against his victim’s left eye socket and laid his finger against the trigger. At the same moment, he clenched with his left hand and twisted.
“Last chance. Where’s the money?”
The chubby man screamed and fell against the wall, choking on his saliva as he attempted to pull away from the gun.
“All right! All right! It’s in the trunk of a taxi. New York. Medallion 7J59.”
Something in his eyes—maybe it was the fear, or the shadow of truth passing through those wide windows and into his terrified soul—whatever it was, Reed believed him. He released his hold around the pants and took half a step back.
The chubby man gasped and covered his crotch with both hands, sobbing as he leaned against the mahogany paneling. “I swear, it’s the truth. It’s all there!”
Reed rose to his feet and walked across the cabin to an emergency locker mounted midway up the wall. From an orange case, he withdrew a twelve-gauge flare gun and loaded a single waterproof cartridge into the chamber. He tucked the gun into his wetsuit, then zipped it back up.
Turning back to the man on the floor, he unscrewed the silencer from the end of the Glock.
“I believe you. It’s your lucky day.”
The man on the floor panted, his face still flooded with pain as he shielded his crotch.
“I swear to God, man. I wouldn’t lie.”
Why did the double-dipping swindlers always wait until their backs are against the wall before they tell the truth?
Reed walked to one of the salon’s big bay windows, pushed it open, and sucked in a fresh breath of air. With a quick flip of his hand, he tossed the silencer through the open window and into the depths of the water outside, then turned toward the liquor ca
binet. He withdrew a pint of Kentucky bourbon, twisted the cap off, and handed it to the man on the floor.
“Drink.”
“Huh?” Confusion flooded his wide eyes, and terror dug its way into his soul.
Reed pushed the pint into his hand and then raised the Glock again. “Drink,” he repeated.
The man on the floor raised the bottle and took a swig of the harsh liquor. He choked and tried to lower the bourbon, but he was stopped by the pressure of the Glock jammed into his ribcage.
“Keep going. All of it. Now.”