Revenge (A Lawless Novel, Band 3) - Softcover

Buch 3 von 3: Lawless

Blake, Lexi

 
9780425283592: Revenge (A Lawless Novel, Band 3)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0425283593 ISBN 13: 9780425283592
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Passion and danger collide in the this contemporary romance featuring the Lawless siblings—from New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake.

When Drew Lawless discovers a fatal flaw in his plan to avenge his parents’ deaths, he turns to the one woman he promised he wouldn't touch. He offers her a deal, one that will bring her into his investigation, his life, and his bed. 

Investigative reporter Shelby Gates never dreamed how twisted the case would become—or how fascinated she would be with Drew. Every day they spend together binds them. And every night brings her closer to realizing he might be the man for her. 

As Drew's feelings for Shelby grow, so does the danger. From the streets of Dallas to Austin’s high-tech business world, Drew and Shelby play a game begun twenty years before—a game they will win, or die trying.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lexi Blake is the New York Times bestselling author of the Lawless novels as well as the Masters and Mercenaries series. She is also coauthor with Shayla Black of the Perfect Gentlemen series and the Masters of Ménage series. She lives in North Texas with her family.

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Chapter One

This is a mistake."

Like he hadn't heard that before. Andrew Lawless tried to remember that Bill Hatchard was simply worried, and rightly so. Drew was worried, too. It was precisely why he'd decided on the course of action he was about to take. He turned to look out his office windows. All of Austin was laid out before him, the lights of the buildings around him coming on as the sun set over the Colorado River. He could remember the first time he'd looked out these windows ten years before. It had been the first time he felt successful and knew everything he'd worked for would finally come to fruition. He'd known that he would find the three people responsible for his parents' deaths.

If only there hadn't turned out to be a fourth . . .

"I told you I wasn't sharing the information with anyone." He glanced at the clock. Only another half hour to wait. He'd set the meeting after hours in order to keep things quiet. Perhaps he should have had the meeting at his house, but he never knew when his brothers or sister and their spouses would show up. They were getting ready to celebrate Riley and Ellie's marriage with a blowout reception, and he didn't want to tip them off until his plan was firmly in place.

He could hear Hatch moving, and knew exactly where he would go. There was the sound of a cork popping. Naturally Hatch went for the expensive Scotch. "You're wrong about this."

"So you've said." About a million times since that terrible night when they'd discovered who the real villain was.

"Fine." Hatch's tone was short. "Explain it to me."

How could he get Hatch to understand? He turned and looked to the man who had been his mentor his entire adult life. "Mia's pregnant."

That should suffice. It made sense to Drew. Mia was pregnant, and that meant he kept his mouth shut.

Hatch frowned. "What does that have to do with anything? That was inevitable the way she goes at it with that cowboy of hers. A pregnancy makes things worse. Now she's even more vulnerable."

Hatch wasn't a sunny-side-of-life person, but then neither was Drew.

"Yes, she is, but I suspect she'll be safe enough. She's going to try her hand at fiction for a while instead of wandering the globe looking for trouble." His sister was a reporter and a ball of chaos. Rather like the woman he was about to meet. "Case and the rest of the Taggarts will look out for her."

"And the Taggarts would be invaluable in finding our target," Hatch insisted.

McKay-Taggart was the premier security and investigative company in the country. Drew knew he wouldn't have taken down Steven Castalano and Patricia Cain without them. But he couldn't hire them for this job, and Mia was the reason why. He couldn't ask family to put up walls, to risk relationships for his revenge.

"Do you know what Mia said to me when she told me she was having a baby?"

"Hopefully she said, 'Do everything in your power to ensure no one kills me or my baby because there's a psychotic bitch running around out there who wants to do just that,'" Hatch insisted. "If she didn't say that, then she missed the point."

"She told me she wished our mother was here. She told me she wished she could hold our mom's hand and ask for her advice. She cried because her mother is dead." It had ripped his heart out. He couldn't explain to her that the mother she longed for was alive and well and had killed at least five people.

The mother Mia missed had tried to kill them all.

Hatch came up beside him, holding out one of two crystal tumblers. "You don't want Mia to know that Iris is alive and posing as Francine Wells. I get that. It's no reason to cut out Taggart."

"Ian Taggart would feel the need to tell his brother." It was why he hadn't already brought the man in. "He would tell Case and inevitably Case would tell his wife, and Mia would find out. Once Mia knows, she'll start to research Iris herself."

He couldn't bring himself to call that woman mother. Not ever again.

"So tell her not to."

"Have you met my sister?"

Hatch knocked back his Scotch in one long swallow before turning dark eyes on Drew. "You can't allow Iris to walk around like nothing happened."

"I have no intention of doing that, but she was quite clear in her instructions to Carly. She told us to back off or she would finish what she started all those years ago." When she'd murdered their father and his apparent mistress, then locked all the doors and set the house on fire with her four children inside.

Was it any wonder he didn't want to tell Mia the truth? She needed to think about her baby. Riley and Bran needed to concentrate on the future and their partners.

He'd promised them they would be free after they'd taken down Stratton, Castalano, and Cain. He meant to honor that promise. He would handle Iris Lawless on his own.

"Do you honestly believe she'll leave them alone?"

He had to. "She has for years. Twenty, to be precise. And I believe she'll leave Mia alone for the simple fact that she married into a vengeful barbarian horde. She won't want to start a war with the Taggarts. She can't win that one."

"But you think she can beat you?"

"I don't intend to announce the fact that we're involved in a skirmish at all," he replied. "I've ensured that there are no records of that sketch in the police file. I've also investigated the police computer systems. There were no attempts to hack in before I scrubbed the file."

"But after?"

"I almost missed it," Drew admitted. "It was subtle, but someone downloaded the report the police made the night of Patricia Cain's overdose."

"She was murdered." Hatch could definitely state the obvious at times.

"I know that. You know that. The police in LA are calling it an accidental overdose."

Hatch shook his head. "Why won't they investigate?"

"Because I don't want them to. Because I wrote a large check to ensure that they don't." Oh, it wasn't anything so gauche as a bribe. It was simply the offer of a man grateful to the police for keeping his brother out of the limelight surrounding America's most famous style maker's rather scandalous death. It wasn't anything new to the Los Angeles PD. They'd been happy to ensure Bran's name had been kept out of the press and to quickly close the investigation. The tabloids had gone insane for a few days and then the reporters had moved on to different scandals.

All except one. And he intended to take care of her tonight.

Hatch swore under his breath. "I wondered about that. So if you're not going to allow her to get away with it and you're not going to use the police or your McKay-Taggart resources, I assume you're going to do this all by yourself."

"Not at all. I'm hiring an investigator, but one I can control." One he also wanted to get into bed with, but then that was all a part of his plan.

"Another agency?"

"No, an individual." There was a reason he hadn't gone over this with Hatch, but if all went well, in a few hours he would know anyway. There was zero chance of Hatch buying the story he was going to sell to his family.

"So you hired a private investigator? I hope he's also a bodyguard."

"I intend to ensure that she's discreet."

Hatch went still beside him. "She? You hired a female PI?"

"She's actually a...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2017
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0425283593
ISBN 13 
9780425283592
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

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