Antihero (Imperfect Heroes Book 1) Read online

  I plucked some more grass and threw it angrily onto the ground. Then I looked back at the cold, gray engraved stone. “What do I do? Please, just tell me.” I sobbed into my hands, feeling lost, and almost crazy.

  “You choose love,” a voice said from behind me.

  I turned around to see Ellis standing there, all smugness and cockiness gone from his face. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans and the black Wounded Warrior Foundation T-shirt fit snugly over his chest. His face was a mixture of curiosity and warmth, and my knees went weak.

  “How…” I asked, the words trapped in my throat as I stared at his beautiful figure. He was a vision, gorgeous and breathtaking, and I was powerless to resist him.

  But then I thought—why and how had he thought to look here of all places? I couldn’t ever recall telling him where my mom had been laid to rest, but maybe one time I’d had? There had been a few nights where the wine had been flowing and perhaps my loose lips had gotten the better of me. Regardless—he was here now, so what was I going to say to him?

  So I swiped at another tear but stayed sitting. “How long have you been standing there?”

  A serious countenance darkened his face, and his jaw ticked. “Long enough.”

  I sucked in a breath and let it out. “That’s not an answer.”

  “I don’t give two fucks, sweetheart,” he whispered, gliding over to me and offering a hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I didn’t move, but stared up at him incredulously. “Just like that? You just want me to leave with you after hearing all that?”

  He smiled a little. “Yes, leave with me. Be with me. Stay with me. Live with me. Marry me. I’ll take care of you. I can be everything you were confessing to your mom and more. I’ve made peace with my past, and I think you should, too.” He nodded to the tombstone and looked back to me. “Talia, I’m going to be the man you need. To be the man I want to be. The man who’s going to be a daddy to our baby.”

  He stared down at me, his hand still outstretched. I forgot to breathe as I looked up at him. “How… how did you know?”

  Without breaking eye contact, he pulled out my pregnancy test stick from his pants pocket and held it up, smiling. “I went looking for you. You didn’t lock your apartment door, T. You should be more careful. This caught my eye in the bathroom.”

  A single tear dripped down my face, and I looked up at him. “Do you mean all that stuff you just said?”

  Nodding, he smiled a little, pulling me to stand. He reached his hand up to my face, his thumb swiping away my sadness. “Of course. I love you, Talia. I always have. You just couldn’t see it because I was too selfish and stupid to tell you, to show you. And for that I’m sorry.”

  His fingers brushed slightly over my belly and his eyes shifted down to it. “I love you. I’m gonna marry you, and we’re gonna give that kid a great life, better than the ones we had. You in, sweetheart?”

  I smiled through my tears. “Yeah, baby. I’m in. For life."

  The End

  Partial proceeds of this series are donated to Honor the Sacrifice. You can donate, too, by clicking here!

  Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes, Book 2)

  Meet Special Agent Duke Hawthorne

  Click here to meet Duke

  Click here to read the first 2 chapters of Above Protection FREE!

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  Zero – Chris Brown

  Rage – Hyper Crush

  The Man I Want To Be – Chris Young

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  Faction 02 – Celldweller

  Monster – Skillet

  Shameless – Garth Brooks

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  Hell On An Angel – Brantley Gilbert

  Cold – Aqualung & Lucy Schwartz

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  Tryin’ To Love Me – Jason Aldean

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  Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes, Book 2)

  Beneath Broken (Imperfect Heroes, Book 3)

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C.J. is a USA Today Bestselling author living in Colorado. Lover of red wine, wearer of fabulous shoes, and a die-hard Niner fan, she’s also an editor at heart. She’s written over a dozen books and short stories that contain both contemporary/new adult and paranormal romance that are a little bit badass, a little heart-wrenching, and sorta funny (to her, anyway). Almost all of her books usually contain law enforcement or military undertones, since strong, brave, alpha men and women are her weaknesses. When she’s not writing, she can be found working at a very strange day job, which may or may not have some mild influences on her gripping stories—so strange, in fact, she may just write a book about it one day.

  She’s also a proud member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA).

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  Please enjoy the first chapter of “Above Protection” (Imperfect Heroes, Book 2)

  Chapter 1

  Duke

  Three wrong turns aren’t going to get you anywhere. They’re going to bring you right back to where you started.

  Intense, wise, brown eyes narrowed at me through the reflection of his glasses then back down to the report he was reading. His desk was litt
ered with papers, manila folders, a clunky government phone, and a scuffed Blackberry that looked as if it had been dropped too many times. His entire office was just as dull as he was.

  I didn’t want to admit being nervous, so I discreetly wiped the palms of my hands on my slacks and waited for my boss to say something—anything.

  “This is the third one, Hawthorne,” he finally said, yanking his reading glasses off and fixing me with his beady stare. He pinched the bridge of his nose and continued, “What am I supposed to do with you?”

  I threw him a cocky smirk. “You could let me off with a couple unpaid days of leave. I could use some beach time.”

  “Not funny,” he growled, letting out a huff. He reached up and hooked a finger into his tie at this throat, loosening it.

  “A guy’s gotta try,” I replied, trying to sound cooler than I felt.

  He shook his head, closed my file, and then folded his hands on top of it. “Three counts of excessive force and you think Headquarters is gonna be satisfied with a few days of unpaid leave? Yeah, no. Not gonna fly.”

  “It wasn’t that excessive,” I muttered, shaking my head.

  “Three strikes, Duke. This is serious.”

  “Whatever,” I snarked, waving a dismissive hand.

  Lifting an eyebrow at me, my boss, Jeffery Howard, turned toward his laptop, hit a few buttons, and then turned it around to face me. On the screen was a cleverly constructed montage of my not-so-excessive force charges, filmed by, of course, bystanders who would rather record cops doing their jobs from their cell phones than actually help people, or, God forbid, support law enforcement.

  My jaw clenched hard as I tried to keep my face impassive while he showed me the first clip of my knee digging into the back of a suspect on the ground. The shitbag was drunk and resisting arrest after rear-ending a school bus full of kids on an Indian reservation. I was just a tad pissed off. So what if I broke his wrist? He shouldn’t have been resisting—or drinking and driving. Screamed like a little bitch, too, that one. I bit back a grin at the memory.

  The second clip was of a guy convulsing from my Taser. I really didn’t understand the issue with this one. We had a warrant to search his house, and the result was about six kilos of cocaine, thirty grand in cash, and a bunch of pipes and other drug paraphernalia. He didn’t want to go to prison, I get it, but he took a swing at me. With a knife. I pulled out the Taser and let him have it. So what if I didn’t exactly pull the Taser prongs out in a timely fashion? The asshole had taken a swing at me! With a knife! He had stopped convulsing eventually. Did he die? No. Geez.

  The last clip was the worst. We’d responded to an armed robbery at a local bank. Banks were federally insured, therefore, the cases always belonged to the FBI instead of the local police, and honestly? I really hated those types of calls. But my partner and I had been the first responders, and I had seen the suspect speed away on a motorcycle. Hopping in my government ride, I’d given chase. The dumbass crashed into a guardrail on the freeway during rush hour, and when I stopped the car and got out to arrest his ass, I jumped on him before he could get up from his bike. Except he pulled a gun from the bag where the stolen money was kept. He pointed it in my face, and seeing the gun, I’d completely snapped. Snatching it out of his hand, I tossed it to the ground and… I may or may not have smashed his face into the pavement more times than maybe was necessary. He sort of needed facial reconstruction on his cheekbones and nose after that.

  I snorted out loud, trying not to smile. I didn’t mean to. Jeffery shot me a warning look and I straightened up, putting my eyes back on the screen, my lips pursed.

  Some shithead had filmed that one from their car while traffic had been stopped on the bridge due to our scuffle. The greedy dick had even tried to sell it to the local news before so kindly turning it into the local P.D., who then forwarded it to the FBI.

  “That last one was the worst, Duke,” my boss said.

  I shook my head and stroked a hand over my beard, replying, “I don’t care who you are, you pull a gun on a cop, it’s gonna end badly for you.”

  He nodded. “While I agree with that, you and I both know that once you disarmed him, the threat was gone. The face bashing was excessive…”

  I cut him off. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just dole out the punishment so I can get the hell out of here.”

  His face got red and he pounded a fist on his desk. “First off, you aren’t running anything here, so just shut up and let me speak!”

  I gave him the briefest of nods while I kept my narrowed eyes on him, my lips clamped in a firm line, my jaw pulsing in annoyance.

  “You’re a good agent, Hawthorne, but you’re a loose fucking cannon. The government is cracking down on excessive force, especially in light of the news lately of police in the funny papers. Ferguson, Baltimore, you get the picture. The FBI needs to maintain its squeaky clean reputation.”

  I snorted at that. He glared at me, but continued. “Because you’ve been a valuable asset to this department for,” he paused, looking at my record, “three years, I am gonna give you two choices. Either this goes to Internal Affairs for a full investigation, which could take up to a year, or you go on WITSEC duty.”

  My blue eyes bulged in their sockets and I shot up out of my chair. “A year! How is that even a choice?”

  Fucking bastard! Nobody wants to catch an I.A. case. Nobody. It’s a mixed bag of horrendous questions and incessant visits to the government psych and, I shudder, anger management classes, combined with motherfucking desk duty the whole time. No thanks. But WITSEC? That’s a glorified babysitting position. You’re stuck watching over people who have cooperated with the government and now have a very hefty price tag on their heads for being a “snitch” and sending people, like big-time drug lords, to prison for all sort of hideous crimes ranging from massive drug deals to first-degree murder. Nobody wanted to be stuck on WITSEC detail.

  “You’re kidding me with these choices,” I growled.

  He looked at me, incredulousness dancing across his face. “Sit down. And you’ve got to be shitting me with that comment. You’re getting off easy. You don’t even want to know what others in your position have been sanctioned with. Some have been fired, Duke.”

  “Others in my position?” I snapped. I pointed at his laptop. “None of that was excessive force. Those pieces of shit deserved every ounce of what they got, and you know it, Jeff!”

  He shook his head. “Calling them ‘pieces of shit’ is your first mistake. You can’t do that. You just can’t, Hawthorne.” He sighed. “Look, when I started with the bureau twenty years ago, this type of stuff happened all the time. But thanks to technology, we’ve become the KGB… the ‘kinder, gentler bureau’ – there’s no way of escaping your sins. They’re being recorded by every cell phone and traffic camera. You’re gonna have to decide which of these sanctions you want, or I’m going to decide for you.”

  I sat back down, huffing as I leaned back in the squeaky chair. I raked a hand through my too-long hair. “So one WITSEC assignment, and I’m done, is that right? No matter how long – or short – the assignment lasts?”

  He nodded.

  “Then let’s just get on with it,” I groaned.

  He smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Good choice.”

  “Fuck me,” I murmured.

  Chapter 2

  Rayanne

  If you run from danger, you’ll just die tired. So what happens when you run toward it?

  I stared at the subpoena in my hand and chewed on my thumbnail. I’d seen a million subpoenas before, being in my line of work, but never had any of them had my name on them.

  What was I going to do? I couldn’t testify against my bosses. I just couldn’t, but it seemed the government was going to force me. My bosses had been good to me, and I loved my job. The paper began to blur behind unshed tears. I set it down and took a sip of my wine. I’d been a paralegal in the Watson Law Firm for five years. They had been the first ones to hir
e me after I had finished my paralegal schooling, and I truly loved my job. I couldn’t believe the Watson brothers would even be involved in something like this. I read over the subpoena again.

  “The United States of America vs. George Edgar Watson and Elmo Gerald Watson.”

  I shook my head.

  “Two counts of Murder-For-Hire. One count failure to pay corporate taxes in excess of one million dollars.”

  Murder-for-hire?

  These were old, experienced guys. Like, legit attorneys. Okay, they were in their fifties, but I couldn’t believe George and Elmo would ever do anything like this. Sure, they sometimes took on some shady clients, but I did not peg them to be capable of anything even close to this.

  And why was I being dragged into this?

  I took another sip of my Malbec. Damn, this stuff was bitter and dry. I rarely drank wine, even though I had a bunch of it in my condo. My sister worked at a winery and was always bringing me bottles to try. I would sample it to appease her, but mostly, wine gave me a headache, and really, who has time for headaches? Tonight, though, I needed something numbing—relaxing. Anything to help me to calm the hell down, and her wine was all I had.

  I sighed and set the legal documents down on top of the envelope which had been delivered by some random stranger. She’d rung my doorbell two hours ago to serve them to me and made me sign for the certified documents. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Murder-for-hire…

  Who did they murder? Not once, in five years, had I seen anything like that. As far as I knew, neither of them had even so much as a speeding ticket. And they certainly weren’t violent. I recall once when one of their criminal gang member clients had come in for a consult, George had secretly hired security to stay in his office with him.