Black OutHOT Heroes for Hire: Mercenaries: A Black’s Bandits Novel
Lynn Raye Harris
Contents
About This Book
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
Chapter 23
Books by Lynn Raye Harris
Who’s HOT?
About the Author
About This Book
Angelica Turner’s life is in danger. If she wants to survive, she’ll have to turn to a man with violence in his eyes and death in his soul. A man she desires, yet desperately needs to resist if she doesn’t want her heart shattered again.
Hardened mercenary Colton Duchaine has wanted Angie since he first laid eyes on her, but he knows he’s the wrong kind of man for an innocent woman like her. His life is too dangerous, too unpredictable. He can never settle down.
But when someone wants Angie silenced, Colt will do whatever it takes to keep her alive. And when she’s safe, he’ll get out of her life for good.
Turns out that walking away is easier said than done. Angie is his—and Colt will stop at nothing to claim her for his own.
HOT Heroes For Hire: Mercenaries, aka Black’s Bandits
Black Out: Colt & Angie
© 2020 by Lynn Raye Harris
Find me:
Lynn on Facebook
Lynn on Twitter
HOT Readers and Fans Group on Facebook
Sign up for Lynn’s VIP Reader List
Lynn’s Website
Prologue
They were onto him. Nobody had said so, but he knew it nonetheless. They were coming for him.
He rushed through his house, throwing clothes into a case, grabbing his laptop and passport.
Panicking.
“Think,” he told himself through gritted teeth.
He flung himself down in his desk chair and logged onto his computer. He’d kept records. He’d been careful, but it didn’t matter now. He opened up the accounting firm’s secure login portal. Once he was in, he deposited the spreadsheet he’d been keeping. It was separate from the official records and they didn’t know he had it.
Or hadn’t known. Maybe they did now.
It had everything in it.
But if he got caught while trying to escape, he wouldn’t be caught with it. He could deny he knew anything.
Who was he kidding? They wouldn’t believe him—but he could try.
If the worst happened, it was still there. Someone at Barton, Barnes and Blake would figure it out.
He hoped. God, he hoped.
He’d point them to it when it was safe to make contact. Until then, he planned to disappear. He had enough money.
Hopefully he had enough of a head start.
He heard the slamming of car doors. The neighbor’s dog started to bark.
Time to disappear.
Chapter One
The numbers weren’t right. Angelica Turner—Angie to her friends—stared at the spreadsheet on the screen in front of her. It wasn’t syncing with the client account’s statements, and it annoyed her.
It shouldn’t be her job to figure this one out. But one day last week, Charles Martinelli didn’t show up to work. He quit, or so the official story said. She wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t been fired, especially if all his accounts were this screwed up. Not that she’d heard anything that suggested he’d been fired, and she wasn’t about to ask.
Whatever the case, the shit job of cleaning up this particular mess fell to her. She almost didn’t see the spreadsheet in his files, because he’d labeled it oddly, but once she’d opened it, it bore the Cardinal Group name. They were a small venture capital firm, investing in local businesses for a pool of anonymous investors. It was a nice idea and good for the local economy. But if she couldn’t figure out Charles’s work, she was going to have to start over. Re-enter all the company’s statements, redo all their deposits and expenses. She didn’t relish that idea at all, especially since she had other accounts to take care of.
The life of an accountant began to get a little insane at the start of a new year. Corporate tax returns due March fifteenth and personal ones due April fifteenth. It was a lot of work. She’d been with Barton, Barnes, and Blake for almost two years now, and while she couldn’t say she hated it, she didn’t love it. With the exception of this particular account, the job wasn’t as challenging as she might like.
She loved some of her coworkers though. Liam Wood was a great guy. They’d been hired on the same day, so she felt a certain affinity with him. He’d been the one who’d clued her in months ago when her best friend started seeing Jace Kaiser. Liam had seen them in a restaurant and told Angie all about it. Maddy had to confess after that.
Thoughts of Maddy and Jace inevitably led to the man she didn’t want to think about. Colton Duchaine. Colt was one of Jace’s coworkers, and he made her stupid heart want to give him a chance in spite of the fact she knew it wouldn’t work out.
Colt lived a dangerous life. He and Jace were spies. At least that’s what she thought they were. There was certainly no doubt they were involved in a high-risk profession. She’d gotten a firsthand look at that when Jace’s sister had kidnapped her at gunpoint.
Angie shivered. She still had nightmares sometimes, though mostly she was fine. Jace had saved her and Maddy both. When Angie’d found out that Colt had been shot, she’d been devastated. She knew it was her fault because she’d led Natasha straight to him.
No matter that he told her it wasn’t, she couldn’t help but think if she’d been a stronger person when Natasha abducted her, she might have thought of a way to escape instead of leading the assassin to Maddy and Colt.
That wasn’t the only reason she couldn’t get involved with Colt. She’d had more than enough experience with dynamic, handsome men, thank you very much.
Men who looked like Colt had far too many temptations in life. She’d been there, done that with her ex. She wasn’t doing it again.
No matter how
