Happy #TeaserTuesday!!
As promised when I revealed the first chapter of Hot Pursuit (read it here!), this week's teaser is the entire second chapter! Woohoo!!
The book alternates between Jo and Nate's POVs, so this'll be a nice look into our leading man's world! Hint: There are a lot more rules and regulations than in Jo's ;)
Who else is counting down to August 27th?!?! I know I am!! If you want to pre-order Hot Pursuit for the special price of $0.99, there's only a few more weeks to do so!
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FYI - The final manuscript is currently being proofread, so there may be some grammatical errors! Sorry in advance!
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- 2 -
Nate
“Do you think we’re getting a little close?” Nate
called over his shoulder, eyes locked on the shoreline rapidly approaching.
Thump.
“Ow!” A yelp sounded below
deck, followed by the rapid slap of feet on steps. Leo, his partner, emerged
from the tight staircase rubbing his forehead and wincing. “Shit, man. Sorry.”
He ran back to the wheel and
kicked the engine into high gear. The water at the back of the boat bubbled as
they fought the current pulling them toward the island.
Nate grinned. “I told you
that jerk chicken looked questionable.”
He didn’t have to see his
partner’s eye-roll to know it was there. “I was hungry. I grew up on chicken
shawarma and tacos from the food trucks down the block. I thought I could
survive anything.”
Nate snorted and shook his
head.
“We didn’t all grow up in Pleasantville,
Parker,” Leo half joked, half groaned.
His partner had a point. Leo
had grown up in a crime-riddled area of Houston, the oldest of two boys, raised
by a single mom. His only way out had been to enlist in the Army Reserve, using
an ROTC scholarship to pay for college. Nate, on the other hand, had been
groomed for the FBI since the day he was born. His father had been a
high-ranking agent, they’d lived in a cushy suburb outside of Washington, DC,
and he’d received the best education the nation had to offer. But that didn’t
mean his childhood had been all roses. There’d been hard times too.
Impossible times…
A smile. A wave. Then pop! pop! pop! The
screech of tires. A scream. The burning heat at the back of his throat. A ruby
patch spreading wider and wider across the freshly mowed lawn, spilling into
the driveway, a red river flowing down, down, down to the drain. The stark
stains on his fingers as he tried to hold it in, the wet heat beneath his
palms, growing colder and colder and colder.
Nate’s chest pinched.
He shoved the memory of that
dark day back into the farthest reaches of his mind, locking it away like he
always did, burying it. His lips smoothed to the focused line they’d been in
moments before as he swallowed the emotions back and turned to his work for
solace, grabbing the binoculars from the table. Nate lifted them to his eyes
and searched for movement through the tinted windows.
He caught motion. The shadowy
form of a body paced inside the house—tall and thin. He couldn’t make out
anything else, but he had his suspicions about who it might be. They’d been
tracking Robert Carter for months, and there was very little Nate didn’t know
about his target’s personal or professional lives. The figure inside had to be
his daughter—Jolene Carter.
Auburn hair.
Jade eyes.
Expert hacker.
And trouble with a capital T.
“Any update from the onshore
team?” Nate asked, dropping the binoculars away to rub at the bridge of his
nose, frowning.
“Carter and Ryder landed at
the airport in Nassau about twenty minutes ago. They’re on his private boat
now. He had a black briefcase with him, but no confirmation of what’s inside.
We lost the satellite feed for about an hour when they were in Cuba meeting
with the Russians. By the time it was back up, the deal was done.”
Slippery bastard, Nate silently cursed.
The bureau had been close to
catching him so many times—so close!—and
this operation could be their last chance. Rumors were circling with Nate’s
informants that Carter was thinking about retiring from the business of crime
after this one final trick he’d been planning for months. Some people said he’d
been grooming his protégé, Thaddeus Ryder, to take over the business. Others
said he just wanted to lie low for a few years, something to do with his
health. More said the rumor was a joke, and there was no chance a man like
Robert Carter would ever change his ways. But Nate had learned a long time ago
to never believe the gossip—listen to it, take note of it, and then leave all
the options open.
He and Leo had only been
assigned to the Carter case for a few months. Neither of them worked for the
art crime unit, but over the past few years, Carter’s business had taken a
decidedly darker turn—one that made him a person of interest to the organized
crime unit where Nate and Leo worked. They tracked a branch of the Russian
mafia operating mainly in illegal arms deals for almost two years before even
coming across the name Robert Carter. One of their undercover agents had let
slip that the mafia was using a stolen painting as collateral against a deal—a
stolen painting that had been attributed to the great Robert Carter, infamous
art thief since the seventies. Once Nate and Leo started digging, they couldn’t
believe all the threads they found tying the two seemingly separate criminal
enterprises together. No proof, of course. Life wasn’t that easy. But
counterfeit money and forged bank bonds with Carter’s signature style, as well
as a refined selection of stolen art discovered during a raid, were enough to
pique the bureau’s interest.
And Nate’s.
Because to him, this wasn’t
just business.
It was personal.
Personal enough his
application for the organized crime unit had almost been denied. Personal
enough he’d had to argue his way onto this case. Personal enough he’d caught
the way the boss’s attention had lingered for a few minutes before he’d given
them this assignment, the question if Nate could control himself circling in
those wise, hazel eyes.
But he could.
He would.
“Parker, you seeing what I’m
seeing?”
Nate blinked at the sound of
Leo’s voice, clearing his vision and turning his attention back to the house.
He nearly fell out of his
chair.
“What the…” His voice trailed
off as he snatched the binoculars from the table and lifted them to his eyes.
“Is she coming over here?”
Leo asked, flabbergasted. “Should we do something? Should we move?”
“No, hold steady,” Nate said,
blinking rapidly, unable to quite believe what he was seeing.
Jolene Carter.
In a bikini—a red string
bikini.
Riding a jet ski.
Headed straight for their
boat.
With…
Nate squinted.
Is that a Ziploc bag of cookies in her hand?
He shook his head, stifling a
smile at the sheer audacity of this woman. And then he dropped the binoculars
away and squared his shoulders, trying not to focus on the fact that the grainy
pictures in his files definitely hadn’t done Jolene Carter justice.
Not even a little bit.
Not even at all.
***
Thanks for reading!
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