Page 1 of Ruthless Love

PROLOGUE

Austin

Six months ago

Caller ID clues me in to the butthead dialing my number at three in the morning. My thumb presses answer out of habit before I can reconsider.

My voice raspy, I growl out, “You have reached Austin’s voice mail. I can’t come to the phone right now because I’m too busy plotting the slow, drawn-out death of the dickhead who can’t take no for an answer. Instead of leaving a message, go fuck yourself. You’ll get further. Beep.”

“Cute.” Maverick’s voice is as cool as the icicles pumping blood through her lethal body.

Having seen the woman on both the giving and receiving ends of a Glock to the head, I know she’s got a set of brass balls bigger than her breasts. I’d expect nothing less from a seasoned puppet master.

“How about we skip the foreplay?” she asks. “We both know if anyone’s dying a slow, drawn-out death, it’s you. Of boredom.”

She’s not wrong.

“Get to the point,” I huff out.

“The point is, how’d you like to be the highest-paid consultant in history? You can keep your inconsequential existence in a housewife’s paradise, and still get in on the action. Minimum travel. We’ll come to you.”

I scoff. “Let’s not forget it was that ‘inconsequential existence’ of leading Army construction projects that led you to me in the first place. And what do you mean, you’ll come to me? Where? And who’s we?” I ask more questions than I should before the unsettling awareness hits me that we’re not on a secure line.

“The Five.”

I almost blurt out the Mommy Five, their unofficial code name, because no one, including me, thought they really existed. But I reel it in because now I know this barely qualifies as the tip of the iceberg of the secrets Maverick keeps. The legend goes that when five of the best-of-the-best female operatives wanted to settle down and lead semi-normal lives, the group was formed with Maverick’s blessing.

If you believe the rumors, their deal included premium pay, benefits, twice-a-year all-expenses-paid family trips to luxury locations like Barbados and Switzerland, with missions that give them the work/life balance of getting their secret spy high while still picking up the kids from school and cooking dinner.

My eyes close as I relax into the pillow, thinking it through. “So, now I’m a mommy.”

“You’re the one living the mommy-fabulous life. We won’t interfere with your day job with your cousin.” No need to ask how she knows that. The fucker knows everything. “The ladies will work around your schedule. They’ll deliver you a homework assignment, and you give us your solution. In forty-eight hours.”

“And if I don’t have a solution?”

Her chuckle is purely for effect. “You always have a solution. And there are wrong answers.” She gives me half a second to think it through. “Deal?”

Requesting a day or more to think it through is a waste of time. We both know it, so I don’t bother. “Starting when?”

Maverick pauses a second, and then my doorbell rings. “I’d better let you get that.”

“Smartass.”

The line disconnects. Not that I needed to prolong the conversation with pleasantries, but settling the finer details of payment would have been nice.

I find a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, pull them on, and head for the door. When I open it, my porch is pitch black. “Nikita” obviously unscrewed the light.

“Mr. Byrne?”

With a nod, I pull open the door wider and let the woman in. Beneath a cliché trench coat, she’s wearing fishnet stockings on slender legs that end in a pair of stilettos.

Rather than entertain small talk or pretend we’re remotely interested in each other’s lives, she hands me a large courier pouch before fishing out a chain tucked deep in her cleavage. A small key dangles from it.

My glance lingers a little longer than it should. Not because her double-Ds grab my interest—which they do—but because I know I’m being played.

Her hand smooths across mine as she unlocks the zipper. Once the pouch is unlocked, she twirls the chain in her hand. “Someone will be back in forty-eight hours, though I could stick around.”

Her eyebrow lifts suggestively as the tip of her tongue follows the line of her parted lips. I narrow my eyes on hers and open the door again so she can leave.

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