Empire Blue, 7
Ava Larsen has spent her adult life trying to outrun the shadow of the girl she used to be: a bully whose mistake cost her sister’s life, and one who pushed away a boy they both loved. But her redemption is cut short when her latest investigation into a high-profile money laundering ring turns deadly.
After surviving a brutal kidnapping, Ava’s only hope for survival is Michael Gonzalez, a Secret Service Agent fueled by a decade of bitterness. Mike doesn’t believe Ava has changed, and he certainly hasn’t forgiven her for the accident that killed his first love. But with a corrupt government official determined to silence her, Mike is ordered to protect her at all costs.
From the streets of New York to the corridors of power in Washinton D.C., the two are hunted by an enemy that will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried. As the investigation reaches a breaking point, Mike and Ava must navigate a minefield of political betrayal and personal trauma. In a race against time, they’ll have to trust each other to survive—or let the sins of their past bury them both.
Excerpt:
“Get to the point. What’s up?”
She sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.” The watch on her wrist buzzed with a notification. She checked it, and her mouth tightened into a thin line. “This case looks to be seriously fucked up. Not a whole lot to tell you right now other than there were several, and I mean we’re talking numbers in the teens, bodies found in this old house. Owner is this guy everyone said was super quiet, always kept his yard clean, etcetera, etcetera. From what the neighbors are saying, no one would have thought any of the horrors we’ve found were happening in this house. Talking victims, all women, completely cut up. Sometimes methodically so. As if he had all the time in the world to do the perfect job.”
Mike grimaced. “This is why I do protection and white-collar fraud. I could never sit through those forensic shows you and Dwayne used to watch.”
Charlie threw him a saucy smile, then went serious again. “Early this morning, a woman actually got out of the house. Naked as the day she was born. Ran a few houses down and collapsed on the porch but not before she rang the doorbell.”
The mental image she painted had him wincing. “Jesus. Is she okay?”
Charlie took a deep breath and let it out super slow as if she was preparing for something. He braced, suddenly feeling a sense of foreboding. Whatever she was about to say was going to mess him up entirely. That’s why she’d been taking for-fucking-ever to get to the point. It’s why she was here in person instead of calling him on the phone. It’s why Dwayne had sent her. She’d always had ways of calming Mike down, even under the tensest of situations.
Except for that one time. He shook his head, refusing to think about that now. It’d been years since he’d seen her.
“Who was the woman?” he asked, his voice rough. But he knew. The answer was written all over Charlie’s face, from the grimace to the pity stamped across her faery features.
“The woman was Ava.”
Her name spoken was like someone socked him in the gut. He let out a rush of air, expelling oxygen immediately, as if it needed a place to escape. Kind of like his body was fighting to do, too. It was amazing how one’s body reacted to news or the presence of someone who’d made part of their life hell. That whole fight-or-flight response was true, and as he thought of the Ava of his childhood, and both the sister and the murderer of the first woman he loved, his body was warring with itself, trying to figure out which response it wanted to go with.
The urge to flee was so strong, he actually took a step back. Charlie’s knowing gaze sharpened on him, and she sighed, the sound coming out with a lot of pity he didn’t need. It only served to piss him off.
“Look, maybe we can find someone else,” Charlie said, shaking her head, then did a double take at something over his shoulder and tossed a glare at the women still admiring them from afar. “Those fucking women…”
It was at that moment his mother decided to make an appearance and came storming out of the house having found her shoes. His normally very demure mom looked spitting mad, her red face a mask of irritation and anger.
“Shit,” he said.
Charlie chuckled low, following the path his Ma took to the garden hose, who then bent and turned the water on.
“Shit,” he said again, ignoring Charlie’s outright laughter now. He started toward Ma, intent on intercepting her before she could open the hose up on the neighbors. He knew her plan almost as if she’d put an announcement in the paper. “You could help, you know,” he said to Charlie.
She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “Not a chance. This is the best entertainment I’ve had in ages. Come on, don’t be a spoilsport. Let Karen teach those hens a lesson.”
He picked up his pace to a jog as his Ma started across the lawn, her intent now screamingly clear. That the ladies hadn’t moved and were still watching on with faces of various bemusement was baffling. “Ma,” he called. “Come on now, don’t.”
“Michael James,” she said, and he winced. “Go put a shirt on. I’m about to teach the girls some manners.”
Standing behind her in the doorway was his father in a similar pose as Charlie had been, crossed arms and a smile stamped across his face.
“Pops, come on,” he called. “Don’t just stand there.”
Daniel Gonzalez shook his head, his chest moving with a chuckle Mike couldn’t hear. “I’m not getting in the middle of this. Anyone want some popcorn?”
He reached his mother just as she lifted the hose and pointed, then squeezed the handle, causing a spray of what had to be icy cold water shoot out and over the women sitting along the edge of the lawn. Shrieks and screams lit up the neighborhood before he could grab the nozzle and push it down. The smile on his mother’s face was the loudest of them all.
“That should teach them,” she said, and he sighed.
Approximately thirty minutes later, Mike took a deep breath, calling on patience and strength, the confidence he’d grown as he went through weeks of training at FLETC and the Secret Service Training Academy. His hands were sweating like they normally did when he did any kind of public speaking, something he’d been struggling for years to overcome. If he’d been in the gym he normally went to, he’d be able to put some chalk on his hands to soak up the moisture, but as it was, all he could do was rub them on his light-wash 501s.
After his mother had doused the neighborhood watch ladies with water earlier, he’d gone inside to change and had put on jeans and a pale baby-blue button-down. He was by no means wanting to impress the woman on the other side of the door, but he couldn’t escape the feeling driving inside of him. The one that told him he wasn’t a young teen able to be pushed around anymore. That he couldn’t care less what she thought of him.
But all of that was a lie, and he knew it. He just refused to admit it.
Ava Larsen had an impact on his life and who he’d grown to become.
He was here at the hospital at his brother’s request to consult on a case, apparently. There was nothing saying he had to spend any length of time with her at all. He’d listen to what his brother had to say, would hear her version of events, then he’d make a recommendation for what they should do next. That was it.
With another deep, calling-on-calm breath, he pushed and held the door open for Charlie, keeping his eyes downcast as she entered. He blew out a breath through pursed lips, then stepped inside and lifted his gaze to meet the sky-blue ones of his childhood bully.
- Series:
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