Mayhem's Desire: Operation Mayhem Read online

  Mayhem’s Desire

  Operation Mayhem, book 2

  Lindsay Cross

  Cypress Bend Publishing, LLC

  Contents

  Your Free Book is Waiting…

  Prologue

  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

  Before you go…

  Also by Lindsay Cross

  Introduction

  Acknowledgments

  YOUR FREE BOOK IS WAITING:

  Get a FREE copy of the Award Winning Men of Mercy Redemption River when you sign up for my newsletter, tons of exclusive content/excerpts and entry into my monthly $50 gift card drawing. Click here to get your FREE book: Redemption River: Men of Mercy

  Hunter James didn’t want or need redemption.

  Until one mission turns his world upside down.

  He left Mercy to fight for his country and escape a broken heart. Years later, he is hard. Cold. A man without mercy. Part of an elite Task Force, he tracks a brutal terrorist to his home town. And runs into the woman who betrayed him…

  Evangeline Videl was destroyed when Hunter left. Determined to move on, she finds another man, but discovers too late the monster hidden beneath his smooth smile. Struggling to find the conviction to live, Evie finds her life spinning out of control.

  Then Hunter returns…

  Forced to band together to find the terrorist before its too late, Hunter and Evie must learn to forgive or risk losing the promise of redemption and their lives…

  Copyright © 2017 by Lindsay Cross

  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.

  Prologue

  Doors. He hated doors. Giant, unbreakable doors that trapped him inside his bedroom with the monsters that came out at night.

  And sometimes during the day.

  Christopher Higginbotham, dubbed Hicks by his best friend, DeShawn, dropped to his hands and knees on his bedroom floor, toeing the moldy, leftover macaroni and cheese farther away. A roach crawled across his fingers, but he didn’t pay any attention to it. He’d come to think of them as pets. Besides, his focus wasn’t on the filthy floor, but on jimmying the lock on his bedroom door. He’d been practicing every day.

  DeShawn’s dad taught Hicks how to pick locks, and now he had one of his mama’s hair pins from her bathroom stuck in the lock, praying it would work.

  Eyes squeezed tight he twisted the pin until the lock made a little click. Hope soared like a giant paper airplane in his chest. He opened his eyes to see the lock fall to the floor and crash onto the plastic tiles. The entire room seemed to shake. His heart dropped into his knees. Please don’t let mama hear. Please don’t let mama hear.

  Hicks scrambled underneath his bed and tucked his head into his arms, fear taking hold. If mama thought he’d tried to get away, she’d beat him worse than last time.

  After what seemed like forever, his heart stopped swooshing in his ears, and he heard the man in his mama’s bedroom making those gross noises.

  Hicks struggled to breathe, crawled back to the door, and turned the knob. The hinges creaked, and he winced, sure they’d hear the massive screech.

  Deep grunts and groans echoed down the short hallway. There was still time to make himself scarce before the man came back out.

  He ducked his head and tried not to think about the last time the man with the tattoo was here. About how he’d been laying in his bed, rereading one of the books the sweet old lady, Mrs. Edwards, down the hall had given him, when the tattooed man had opened his door.

  He’d screamed for help, but none came.

  His mama had been real nice to him the next day, crowing about what a good boy he’d been. He’d cried and begged her not to let the man come back, but she’d knocked him to the ground and screamed at him for being ungrateful.

  He’d been ashamed to disappoint her. He tried to be good. She was the only person who loved him, and he wanted to make her happy, but he couldn’t do what that man wanted. Not ever again.

  The next time his mom went to the liquor store he filled a plastic sack with as many belongings as he could and tied it in a knot. Was gonna be hard leaving mom but then she hadn’t been herself these days. He stared at his book laying on his mattress. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Some of the words didn’t make sense, but there’d been pictures, and he really liked pictures. Liked to imagine going on great adventures too. Tonight, it was his turn to be Tom Sawyer, to go down to the river and build himself a raft. DeShawn was gonna come with him.

  Hicks tied the bag to his belt loop and balanced it on his back. His mother’s moans had him cringing as he eased through the door, his legs quivering beneath his weight.

  It was as if they weren’t strong enough to hold him up, but he kept going. He took his first step in the kitchen when the man shouted.

  Hicks’ hammering pulse accelerated and he took off running.

  There was the tiny table next to the kitchen door. The one he’d have to climb to slide the chain lock open.

  He climbed onto the table top when his mama’s bedroom went silent. He focused on the lock in front of him, barely managing to get it open and grab the knob.

  “Christopher,” came his mother’s singsong voice, the same one she’d used on him that next day.

  His fingers slipped. He couldn’t breathe. He had to get out now.

  “Christopher!” The sweetness was gone, and by the sound of her voice, he pictured her standing there naked in the hallway, headed toward his bedroom.

  Using all his strength, he wrenched on the rusty handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Please, please, open.

  He yanked the doorknob and it turned a little bit more.

  “Christopher! Jed, he’s getting away!”

  The tattooed man stumbled into the hallway, his gaze landing on Hicks.

  Hicks moaned and yanked with all his strength.

  “Help! Please, help me!”

  Maybe DeShawn’s daddy would hear him if he kept screaming. Heavy footsteps rattled the floor.

  “Help!”

  Seconds passed.

  Hicks squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable when pain exploded in his head and he went flying across the kitchen. His ears rang so loud he couldn’t hear over them. And then his mama was there, yanking him back toward his bedroom. “No!”

  “Sherita, get that needle ready. I want to relax when I’m done. I brought you the good stuff this time.”

  Hicks fought, but his mama dug her nails in deep. “Now you be good like I told you. I’ll get you something nice tomorrow.”

  She threw him in his room. And then the man was there, locking the door.

  And he was thrust back into his worst nightmare.

  1

  “Hicks, my man, you comin’? Diggs thinks he’s gonna whip your ass in training tonight.” Juarez stood in his bedroom door, having opened it without knocking.

  Some of his teammates respected his privacy, Juarez and Diggs seemed to be lacking that featu
re though. “Five minutes.”

  Juarez’s short curly black hair glinted in the light, his training gear on, looking completely out of place in the thick, deep red carpeted room with polished mahogany wainscoting lining the walls. “My money is on you; don’t give him too much time to plan his strategy.”

  But then, Hicks looked as out of place in this mansion as Juarez did, maybe more. “We both know I’m going to kick his ass.”

  “Right on, brother.” Juarez gave him a two-fingered salute and disappeared down the hall. He had the brother part right. Juarez and the others were his family now.

  Hicks turned to the massive desk perched in front of a fireplace he never lit and pulled out the top right drawer. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer lay nestled inside, dirty and torn. Today would have been Mrs. Edwards’ 99th birthday, if she were still alive. After joining special operations, he’d tracked the old lady down to a crumbling nursing home about six blocks down from their old apartment. He’d left the city and never looked back, until hearing Mrs. Edwards lay near death. He’d had to go back. He sat by her side and held her hand when she took her last breath, even though she’d been too out of it to know he’d been there. She was the one person who’d been kind to him and he’d needed to repay that kindness.

  He could easily read all the words in the book now, but he hadn’t turned a page in years. That book held the past, a past he liked to keep shut tight. He eased the door shut and sucked in a deep cleansing breath. It was the best way to fight off the seeping dread that always came when he thought about his life before the team made him.

  He circled the desk to a walk-in closet, big enough to be a bedroom on its own, and pulled out one of his extra-large training shirts and slipped it over his head. The material pulled tight around his shoulders and chest and he worked his arms, stretching it out as much as he could. If he went up any size larger, he’d have his shirts custom made.

  Hicks grabbed his water bottle and hit the lights; closing the door just enough to leave a small crack before heading down the carpeted hallway. In his black shit kickers and workout pants, he looked like he belonged here just as much as Juarez.

  The expensive paintings, vases, and statues littering the hallways made him uneasy at first, but now he just ignored the distractions. They were nothing but a cover.

  He hit the stairs and took them two at a time, making his way down to the bottom floor and around the back of the mansion, his boots echoing on the marble floors. Everyone else must be below, waiting.

  And they could wait a couple of more minutes. Diggs had been challenging him for nearly a month now, and after all that nagging, Hicks had finally given in and accepted. It seemed like everyone in the compound knew he would kick Diggs’ ass, but Diggs.

  Hicks hooked a left behind the staircase. The hallways were smaller back here, less adorned. The previous owners had housed the servants back here, apparently not wasting any extra cash or space.

  He placed his hand in the middle of a common paneled wall, palm flat. A neon green light emanated from the wall, scanning from the top of his fingers to the bottom of his palm. There was a slight hiss and then the section of wall in front of him slid back into the side, revealing a dark staircase that descended into the bowels of the earth.

  Hicks made it down a couple of steps before the door behind him slid shut and the airlock hissed into place. He immediately broke out into a sweat. There were 30 steps down to the landing and exit; 30 steps of the clawing nauseating fear etched into his very DNA. All his training hadn’t managed to abolish the weakness, but it had taught him to control his reactions. He didn’t go into a full-out panic anymore.

  He took one step at a time, focusing on keeping his heart rate slow until he hit the panel at the bottom and the solid 4-inch steel door opened into the bright, almost blinding, light of the laboratory.

  Sounds and smells assaulted his frayed senses. The hallway that stretched in front of him now held glass walls and open doors, allowing him to see the empty rooms as he passed by and hearing the constant beep, beep, beep of various computers and monitors filling up every square inch of the space.

  He liked it down here. Everything was cold and sterile. The white surfaces were only broken up by silver instruments and technology to assess data. Dr. Averton, the woman in charge of trying to figure out the weaknesses in him, ran a tight ship. But right now, she was nowhere to be seen.

  The distant sound of grunts from the training center in the back of the lab drifted down the empty halls and he picked up his pace, eager to work off some of his edginess.

  A few seconds later, he busted through the double doors and into the training center, closing his eyes for a brief second as the smell of sweat and rubber mats welcomed him home.

  Blue mats covered half the floor, with another quarter covered in weights and dumbbells, and then the rest held rowing machines and assault bikes. After going through Project Mayhem, and the permanent enhancements as a result, his body produced enough energy to keep him going non-stop, 24 hours a day. He had to come down here two hours per day minimum simply to wear himself down to an average operating level. Three hours if he wanted to sleep any at night.

  “I was beginning to think you chickened out.” Diggs stood with the rest of the team, the smallest one out of the group next to Juarez.

  Hicks padded across the mats on the other side of the gym, pulling his shirt off as he moved. “I was just giving you plenty of time to come to your senses and back out.”

  Diggs bared his teeth and gave a feral smile. “It’s not going to be me crying out for Mommy.”

  Hicks embraced the friendly banter, rolling his head on his shoulders to loosen up his tight muscles. “Juarez put a 50 on me. At least I can make some money on this waste of time.”

  “That’s 4 to 1 odds, Diggs, my man. If you manage to pull off a win, you’re going to be about 500 richer.” Juarez fanned a small stack of cash and leaned against the nearest weight rack.

  Diggs fought a grin that slipped for the merest second and then stretched firmly back into place. Being the underdog of the group didn’t put a dent in his stride as he stepped onto the mat and gave Hicks a motion to join him. “Looks like I’m eating steak tonight, boys.”

  Hicks got within 5 feet and Diggs sprinted forward, his movements fast, he slid down into a sweep, trying to knock Hicks’ feet out from underneath him. Hicks jumped, missing his foot easily. “Not even close.”

  Diggs tucked and rolled and came up behind him. Hicks listened for the thud of feet near him, ducked and felt the air swish over the back of his head as Diggs barely missed taking him down. He straightened slowly, waiting on his teammate to regain his feet. “That’s two.”

  Diggs’ grin was gone, and now his laughing blue eyes had turned dull and flat.

  “It’s about to get real,” King muttered.

  Diggs was outmatched, as he had been every time he’d squared off against Hicks, but it wasn’t because he wasn’t a good fighter. He was a kick-ass soldier, razor-sharp intelligence, with incredible speed and agility. But more than that, he was normally one step ahead during a fight. So, his surprise attacks were unexpected.

  Hicks braced for another attack but none came. Diggs had decided to play it smart and wait on him to make a move. Hicks obliged with pleasure, stalking forward, and ready to pounce.

  All he had to do was get his hands on his teammate and the matter would be over.

  Hicks feinted right then dove left, but Diggs had already countered his move as if he’d read his intentions and spun around, landing a stunning chop across his back. Hicks stumbled forward and quickly gained his balance.

  Hicks clicked his heels together and saluted, “That’s one.”

  “I was beginning to think you were going easy,” Hicks said.

  “I was.” In a blur of movement, Diggs ran for him, head lowered. His shoulder connected with a thick stomach.

  The air inside of Hicks’s lungs expelled in a swish. He gripped Diggs’ waist as
he doubled over.

  Diggs tried to duck away, but Hicks held on despite the pain. He flipped his teammate over and lifted him overhead, holding him without strain.

  “Now comes the fun part,” he said.

  “Hicks! Time for labs!” Dr. Melissa Averton poked her dark-haired head through the gym door; her equally dark eyes narrowed behind her glasses. Hicks paused mid-throw.

  “Come on, Doc,” Juarez said, “let him finish.”

  Dr. Averton stepped fully into the room, her lab coat swooshing around her slacks. “Why, so you can take his money?”

  “It isn’t stealing in a legitimate bet.”

  But Dr. Averton had already dismissed him, instead her dark gaze focused on Hicks. “Put him down, please.”

  Hicks tilted his head back and frowned up at Diggs, who still struggled to break his hold. “You got off lucky this time.”

  2

  If Whitney were smart, she’d be sitting in her air-conditioned apartment, sipping a cool glass of lemonade—not strolling through the lobby of Hotel La Discrète, Washington D.C.’s most exclusive hotel, hiding her leather bustier and fishnet stockings under a Perry Mason-style trench coat. She certainly wouldn’t step onto the plate-glass elevator that would take her up to the penthouse suite where a United States Senator awaited her.

  And yet she did.

  If she were even the slightest bit worried about the way she looked, she would have checked out her reflection to ensure the skintight bun hadn’t allowed a single dark brown hair free or that the threat of sweat hadn’t caused her scarlet red lipstick to smudge.

  But she wasn’t worried. Not even remotely. Queen Elizabeth herself would look hot in this lingerie.

  The elevator slowed to a stop on the 42nd floor and the door slid open into a suite that made other penthouses look like trailers in comparison.