Brazen (B-Squad #1)

I
couldn’t have written
Brazen if it wasn’t for the awesomeness of Kelli Collins, Robin Covington, Kimberly Kincaid, Tricia Zerbe, Carla Krissinger, and The Flynnbots. Y’all talked me off ledges, cleaned up my messes and sent me pictures of hot men. Seriously, even if you’d figured out how to send Oreos through the internet, I couldn’t love you more. Thank you! Also, a huge hug goes out to the ladies who said yes to the crazy idea of doing an anthology about one family: Robin Covington (again, stop stalking me!), Kelly Jamieson, Terri Osburn, Alison Bliss, Shyla Colt, Abby Niles, Julie Particka, Joya Ryan and Naima Simone. Y’all are made of awesome!

A
nd as always
, I couldn’t have done this without the Fab Mr. Flynn and the Flynn kids who love me even when I’m under deadline and make hangry look like sweetness and light. Love y’all. xoxo

F
alling
in love is the easy part, staying together…now that’s the biggest challenge of all.

E
verything is finally working
out for Bianca Sutherland and Taz Hazard. They’re in love and running B-Squad Security and Investigations. They’ve planned the perfect operation to take down the dangerous drug kingpin who’s kidnapped one of Bianca’s best friends. Then Taz’s wife—who was supposed to be his ex-wife—shows up on the eve of the big rescue mission and threatens to blow up his and Bianca’s happily ever after.

T
he last thing
Bianca wants after the revelation that Taz might still be married is to have to spend time with her former live-in boyfriend who never told her he’d ever been married in the first place. But it’s too late to change plans. To save her friend, she has to swallow her hurt and go undercover with Taz as a newlywed couple at an exclusive resort. The only thing Taz wants is Bianca and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to win her back. But when it’s his life on the line, will it be too late for him to show her that his past is over and she’s the only woman for his future…

B
razen is
a stand alone novel and the first full novel in the B-Squad series. However, if you want to find out how Taz and Bianca met, check out
Bulletproof,
a novella set in Liliana Hart’s MacKenzie Security world.

F
rom her spot
in the back of the cramped van outfitted to look like a cable utility truck, Bianca Sutherland could see the target on the other side of the dark-tinted windows. It looked like any McMansion in suburbia, but she knew better.

The asshole who’d kidnapped Gidget Harms had picked the house as one of his latest testing grounds for Genie’s Wish. If half of what the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had in their files about the powerful hallucinogen was true, they were in a world of shit if it ever hit the streets.

Containing the drug was the DEA’s objective; the more important one for Bianca was finding Gidget Harms. She’d been searching for her missing friend for six months and still coming up short at every turn—as if the kidnapping drug kingpin was toying with her and the rest of the B-Squad Security and Investigations team.

The comm device in her ear let out a soft beep.

“B, the scan is complete,” Elisa Sharp said from her position in the mobile tactical unit parked three blocks away. “Infrared isn’t picking up anything inside or outside the house.”

“Fuck.” She tightened her fists, the edges of her fingernails biting into her palms. The asshole had given them the slip again. “Are you kidding me?”

“Am I telling you that shiny satin is flattering? No,” Elisa deadpanned. “Therefore, I’m not kidding.”

Bianca looked around at the five men who’d just heard Elisa’s report on their comm devices. Each man topped out at more than six feet and had enough muscle and firepower to follow through on the trouble their bodies promised. Her gaze locked with a pair of sympathetic mossy-green eyes. Taz. As her second in command and boyfriend, he knew just how much another dead end stung.

Her comm beeped again.

“Just tapped into the bank’s ATM video camera a few blocks away,” said Lexie, the sound of her pounding away at her keyboard coming in clear over the comm, despite her being back at the rented house they’d been using as their headquarters since leaving their office at the Devil’s Dip Gym in Ft. Worth. “It’s showing a current-year SUV Arizona license plate X52GL4 passing by four hours ago, according to the time stamp.” More clicking. “The same tag is logged into the books of a private airport twenty miles out.” More fast fingers followed by a heavy sigh. “According to their records, luggage was loaded onto a private jet which took off shortly after. The flight plan of which mysteriously disappeared.”

Of course it had.
Bianca closed her eyes and let the back of her head thunk against the van’s window. “I’m fucking shocked.”

“I’ll let my DEA contact know,” Vivi Yang said from her spot in the driver’s seat as she pulled her encrypted cell phone out of the glove box.

None of the men crowded into the back of the van with Bianca moved. They looked to her as the point person to make the next call. It would have rankled some guys to be led by a woman. Not them. Taz’s brothers, as he called them even though they weren’t related, saw her and the other female B-Squad agents as fellow agents, not damsels in distress. The hesitation in their eyes now had nothing to do with her gender and everything with wondering what she’d do next.

The B-Squad’s unofficial and very under-the-carpet partnership with the DEA on the Genie’s Wish case put certain restrictions on the team’s standard operating procedure of getting the job done no matter what, even if that meant crossing lines that the people with badges couldn’t. She’d had to promise they wouldn’t do that on this case.

She glanced at Taz. He gave her his best former juvenile delinquent turned badass boxer cocky grin. Yep. Her thoughts exactly.

“Kill the call, Vivi,” she said. “We’re going in anyway.”

The former DEA operative arched a perfectly waxed eyebrow. “You know the feds will want to be on site for that.”

“And since when do you play by the rules?” Bianca asked.

Vivi smirked and tossed her phone back in the glove box. “Good point.”

She surveyed the team and activated her comm device so Lexie and Elisa would hear as well. “We don’t know how he got the jump on us, but he did. We missed him by hours not days or weeks like at the other targets. That means he had to skedaddle out of there in a hurry and probably left some things behind. We’re looking for any information on Gidget’s whereabouts and anything that could lead us to the chemists working on the latest iteration of Genie’s Wish. You don’t have to go in there with me. God knows the DEA is going to be pissed, but I’m not giving that drug-dealing asshole any more of a head start while we sit here and cool our heals waiting for the feds.”

With one last look out the van window at the McMansion, Bianca threw open the doors and exited into the desert heat. The entire team piled out behind her, Lexie and Elisa calling out their ETAs, as Bianca led the charge toward the house.

* * *

The trap was laid. Bianca Sutherland just had to take the bait. Then that bitch would finally get what was coming to her.

Yasmin Romanow sat back in her chair and took another sip from the divine 2006 Vieux Chateau Certan Bordeaux as she watched Bianca and her B-Squad Security and Investigations team search the Phoenix house. The guys with the big biceps and the bad-boy attitudes were make-you-bite-your-bottom-lip hot. Sitting in her office a state away from the scene being live-streamed onto her laptop, Yasmin raised her wine glass in a mocking toast. That bitch Bianca knew how to surround herself with some dangerous-looking, well-built studs—each of whom had an ass you could bounce a quarter off of and get back perfect change. 

Yasmin’s research into the newly formed B-Squad Security and Investigations had given her full background workups on the team—even the members she already knew. In addition to Bianca’s besties Vivian Yang, a former DEA agent with anger issues, Lexie Porter, a hacker with a very gray view of legalities, and Elisa Sharp, a straight-up con artist, the team had five male agents. She consulted her notes. Marko Pike, Lash Finch, Duke Trino and Keir Locke were all former elite military. The nonconformist of the group, Taz Hazard, was a retired boxer, still in fighting shape judging by the way his black T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. Yasmin would bet money that underneath that cotton she’d find an eight-pack. He was also Bianca’s live-in love.

“You always were a lucky bitch, Bianca,” Yasmin muttered.

Not that being in the middle of all that delicious testosterone was going to save Bianca, Vivi, Lexie and Elisa. They were finally going to get what they deserved.  Yasmin had worked too hard, for too long to finally get her revenge on the people who’d brought the feds’ attention to St. Bernadette’s Academy for Young Ladies and had gotten her father killed. Not surprisingly, the Russian mob wasn’t so forgiving when their to-be-cleaned millions ended up getting seized by the government. 

That was the past though. Nothing would get in her way now—thanks to Genie’s Wish. 

It was amazing how a perfect set of tits, a devious mind and one totally unethical chemist could combine to create one of the most powerful recreational drugs known to man.

Whether they wanted passion, power or an adrenaline rush, Genie’s Wish gave users the night of their dreams—and it gave her total control over that blissed out human beings. Byron Ward, her lead chemist with a boob obsession, had found a way to chemically access the users’ IDs. Whatever their deepest, most base desire at that moment when they inhaled Genie’s Wish, they were suddenly empowered to make it come true. Of course there was a catch. Genie’s Wish put them in a highly suggestive trancelike frame of mind so they could be easily controlled. That meant that with only a little effort on her part, Yasmin could document an orgy-fueled scandal that could be used for blackmail to knock the most powerful from their perches, watch as the richest heiresses gamble away their entire fortunes in one night, or sit back and observe as the power hungry ripped their enemies to shreds—literally.

At least that was the plan. They were almost there. A few more rounds of testing and the new formula would be set. And that thought led her back to the screen, where she watched as the men and women of the B-Squad searched the house in Phoenix that she’d had to vacate a little sooner than expected, thanks to Bianca’s snooping. Yet another mark against the poor little rich bitch playing private investigator. 

“Aren’t you concerned they’ll find some information to track us down?” Byron asked from behind her as he downed yet another Mountain Dew while watching the screen.

“I’m hoping they do,” she said.

He nearly choked on his soda. “Why in the hell would you want that?” 

Closing her eyes, Yasmin exhaled a slow, calming breath. For a man who was a certified chemistry genius, he had a head full of rocks when it came to anything that didn’t have to do with drug formulas.

“So they can rescue their friend.” She opened her eyes and glanced across the room at the redheaded woman flipping through an old copy of
Soldier of Fortune
. “Gidget, honey, are you ready to see your old friends from St. B’s again?”

Gidget Harms looked up, her green eyes wonderfully vacant, the pupils dilated. “If you say so.” She smiled as sweetly as a child currying favor.

 “Yes, I think it is time. But we can’t make it too easy or Bianca won’t ever bite down on that hook.” Yasmin’s fingers flew across her keyboard as she executed a series of commands that opened a military-grade software program that allowed long-distance remote detonations. She stopped one keystroke away from setting off the bomb hidden in the Phoenix house. “Gidget, why don’t you come over here and press this?” She pointed to a button on her laptop keyboard.

The redhead got up and strolled across the room, stopping next to Yasmin. “What will it do?” she asked as she watched the screen. Recognition flickered in her eyes. 

Now comes the fun part.
“It’ll blow up the house we’re watching.”  

Gidget gasped. “But Bianca, Vivi, Lexi and Elisa are in there.”

Gidget’s hand shook. She hesitated over the keyboard. Byron forgot the Mountain Dew he’d been guzzling and reached for the little notepad he always kept in his front pocket along with a ballpoint pen and breath mints. He scrawled some notes on the pad, no doubt to be entered into his case study about the drug’s effect on human will. 

Most of the test subjects had lost their individuality within a few weeks. Gidget, however, still had moments of resistance. Even after six months of almost constant Genie’s Wish doses, she continued to have some fight in her. It almost made Yasmin admire her—almost.

“Press the button, Gidget,” her voice was soft but firm. Yelling rarely got any results other than to have her little Genie’s Wish zombies pee themselves.

A look of horror twisting her face, Gidget did as she was told.

A set of beeps sounded in the Phoenix house and the bomb hidden in the fireplace began to count down.

* * *

The three quick beeps weren’t loud, but they were enough to make the hairs on the back of Taz’s neck stand up. After years on the street and in the ring, he’d learned to listen to that sixth sense that told him shit was about to go pear shaped.

He held up his right hand. The rest of the team went still.

Beep.

There is was again. On his left.

Beep.

He pivoted until he faced the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that went across the living room’s back wall. Books packed each shelf except the middle column, where glass-doored cabinets were; below that was a built-in brick fireplace. He took a step closer.

Beep.

“It’s in the fireplace.” Where, he had no fucking clue. The damn thing looked like every other unnecessary decorative fireplace in a house with central heat.

Bianca was at his side in an instant, running her hands over the bricks lining the top of the fireplace, looking for anomalies. While what he wanted to do was get her the hell out of here before everything went boom, he knew that wasn’t going to happen. As stubborn as she was sexy and smart, his girl didn’t give up when things went hinky. It was one of the things that had made him fall in love with her. So instead of hauling her ass out of here like he wanted, he focused on the bricks lining the sides of the fireplace.