Ace of Spades (Aces & Eights Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

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  ALSO BY SANDRA OWENS Aces & Eights Jack of Hearts King of Clubs K2 Team Series Crazy for Her Someone Like Her Falling for Her Lost in Her Only Her Regencies The Duke’s Obsession The Training of a Marquess The Letter

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Text copyright © 2018 by Sandra Owens All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781503948990 ISBN-10: 1503948994 Cover design by Letitia Hasser

  This book is dedicated to the best cheerleaders in the world, the Sandra’s Book Salon gang. Ladies, your friendship and support, along with the fun we have in our group, means the world to me. You haven’t been at all patient in waiting for Nate’s book, and I love that you’ve been dying to see Nate get his happily ever after. So here you go, my friends. Enjoy!

  CONTENTS PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE CHAPTER THIRTY EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE “Take us with you, Mama,” Nate Gentry said. She couldn’t just walk away and leave them with the old man. He would blame them when he found her gone, and that meant a beating. She put her hand—rough from hard work—on his cheek. “This is the hardest day of my life. If I take you, he will find us and kill us all. This he has sworn to do if I dared such a thing. There is a reason I must go, but you are strong boys, and you will grow up to be men I can be proud of.” She kissed each of them as tears streamed down her face. “Nathan, you will see that you and your brothers study hard and get good grades. Court, you will help your older brother protect Alex.” She knelt. “My baby. This will be the hardest for you, but be brave and strong for your brothers. Can you do that, Alex?” Seven-year-old Alex burst into tears. Nate fisted his hands, hating that their mother was making his baby brother cry. Even Court’s lips were trembling, but for some reason he refused to look at her. There was

  CHAPTER ONE Nate Gentry sat in his car, studying the small house on the other side of the street. Harmon Baker had left Ocala, disappearing the same time Nate’s mother had. Back then, it had only reinforced Nate’s belief they’d run away together. Now he questioned his young self’s conclusion, and the time had come to find out the truth. He’d tracked Harmon to this run-down house in Dunnellon, a mere thirty-minute drive from Ocala, where Nate had grown up. When he’d run a search for Harmon Baker, he’d been surprised to learn the man had never married. Was his mother in there? Ever since his middle brother had shared the secret he’d kept since the day their mother had walked away from them, Nate didn’t know what to think anymore. According to Court, their mother had been pregnant and had run away because their bastard of a father had tried to beat the baby out of her. The revelation had shaken Nate to his core. He opened the car door, getting out. Had he been wrong about her all these ye

  CHAPTER TWO The man changing a tire that hadn’t needed changing ducked his head when the car with the female FBI agent inside drove by. He’d parked on the side of the road, far enough away from the crime scene so as not to draw attention. With binoculars, he’d been able to see her up close and personal. She was beautiful, with her sun-kissed blonde hair and pale skin. It had been hard to see the color of her eyes, but he already knew they were blue. His first two angels had been found almost immediately. One by a man needing to make a pit stop and the other by a photographer who’d set out to get pictures of the Everglades and its slithery inhabitants. The man chuckled at thinking how surprised the photographer must have been. When his latest angel’s body hadn’t been found after two days, he’d called in a tip from a burner phone. He’d done his research and knew the FBI would take over with this one. He wasn’t afraid of the FBI. After all, he was smarter than they were. Everything he’d d

  CHAPTER THREE “No rumblings from any of the biker gangs about this?” Rothmire asked, after they’d taken seats in the conference room. Nate shook his head. “Not even a hint, and I don’t recall her ever making an appearance at Aces and Eights with Ramirez.” Aces & Eights was the biker bar he and his brothers owned. It was also a cover for their covert operations. No one suspected that the owners of a biker bar were FBI agents. Although that might change with Rothmire’s decision to make him the lead on this case. “Well, if she was his”—Taylor made air quotes as her lips curled in distaste—“‘old lady,’ why didn’t he report her missing?” “I’ll see what I can tease out of him next time he comes in,” Nate said. “In the meantime, you and Rand need to pay him a visit. Find out what he has to say about her.” According to the report from the detective on the case, the first prostitute, twenty-seven-year-old Alana Gilmore, had been an on-and-off girlfriend of Hector Ramirez, a.k.a. Stud. A member

  CHAPTER FOUR After Nate arrived with his brother, he walked over to Taylor. She was standing ramrod straight, and when she glanced at him, he didn’t like the apprehensive look in her eyes. Her gaze skittered away from him, focusing on the building across the street. Stopping next to her, he put a hand on her shoulder. “That building?” He didn’t miss that as she leaned into his touch, the tense muscles under his palm relaxed a little. “Yeah. Peaches was the working name for Linda Harding, and that was what she called home.” She shuddered. “I hate rats. I can remember hearing them scurrying around on the floor at night and being afraid they’d climb in my bed.” So her trepidation was because of childhood memories. Had she lived in places like that? “Hope the thing doesn’t fall down on our heads,” Alex muttered as he and Josh joined them. The place did look like it might fall in on itself at any moment. Why hadn’t the city condemned it and torn it down? At some point in the past, there had

  CHAPTER FIVE Nate loved Taylor’s foster mother. He didn’t want to think about how Taylor’s life would have turned out without Rosie. He opened his arms for the hug Rosie would give him, whether he liked it or not. He did. “You naughty boy. Avoiding your Rosie,” she said, lifting her hands to their maximum reach to pinch his cheeks. “Never,” he said, meaning it. The woman was a tiny spitfire. The thing he liked the most about her was that she never saw him as a threat. Sometimes—most times—the people he came in contact with shied away. He cultivated a menacing persona, needed to be a mean-assed sonofabitch to keep the biker gangs frequenting Aces & Eights in line. But Rosie? She’d seen through him from day one. He just hoped she never told Taylor he was a softie. Against his will, his gaze slid to Taylor, who was currently on her back on the floor, buried by six giggling girls, ranging in ages from two to nine years old. Girls who would be lost in the system without Taylor and Rosie. Hi

  CHAPTER SIX “What did that bag do to make you want to kill it?” Nate kept punching the heavy bag. Maybe if he ignored his annoying baby brother, Alex would go away. “What’s got your panties in a twist?” Apparently not. “Go find someone else to bother.” He punched his way to the opposite side of the bag, out of sight of Alex. He’d been at it for a little over
an hour. Doing his best to kill the bag, as Alex put it, usually worked to calm him down, but not so much this time. The thought of Taylor standing on a street corner waiting for a psycho to pick her up made him crazy. Yes, she was highly trained, and yes, she’d be armed, and yes, a team would be watching over her from various places, but all those yesses could go screw themselves. As soon as he could think rationally again, he’d make a list of all the reasons it was a bad idea. She was a smart woman and would agree. “It’s Taylor, isn’t it?” Alex said, poking his head around the bag. “You should just admit you’re hot for her and st

  CHAPTER SEVEN “He claims he hasn’t seen her for three or four months,” Taylor said. “When we told him she was dead, his reaction seemed legit. He was shocked, and then his eyes teared up.” Josh shrugged. “I’m leaning toward believing him.” Nate hadn’t thought Hector Ramirez was their killer. Not that the man would hesitate to kill someone who did him wrong—even if he only thought they had—but he was a look-you-in-the-face-while-he-put-a-bullet-between-your-eyes type. He glanced around the conference-room table where he, Taylor, Alex, Rand, Josh, and Rothmire were seated. The team assigned to this case was, in his opinion, the best of the best. The only one missing was Court. Besides being a wizard on a computer, he also had a talent for seeing patterns. Court and his bride would be back home Sunday night, and as soon as he was available, Nate would get him started on doing his magic. Alex’s strength was his ability to understand a killer’s mind. His baby brother felt things too hard. N

  CHAPTER EIGHT Tonight belonged to the Cubanos Motorcycle Club. Nate sat at the Aces & Eights bar, nursing a beer while listening to the rumble of a few dozen bikes pulling into the parking lot. He hoped Hector Ramirez was with them. As he waited for them to come in, he read the text from Taylor for about the tenth time. Alex invited me to go riding with you guys on Sunday. Sounds like fun. What time should I come over? Damn his matchmaking brother for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Unless it was raining or too cold, every Sunday he, his brothers, and their wives would ride somewhere for lunch. Court and Lauren wouldn’t be home until Sunday evening, so Nate hadn’t planned to go, giving Alex and Madison a day alone. Taylor had hinted in the past that she’d love to go with them sometime, but he’d never invited her. There wasn’t any question in his mind that he’d like having her ride behind him too much. Better to just avoid the temptation. Now Alex had gone and taken that decis

  CHAPTER NINE Whoa! Nate stopped in his tracks, his gaze traveling over Taylor. She stood next to his bike, talking to Madison and Alex. Because she hadn’t noticed him, he took the time to appreciate how sexy she looked in a pair of white jeans that hugged her hips and long legs before disappearing into a pair of mid-calf-length red boots. His eyes roamed back up her body to the red silk camisole, the length of which stopped about an inch above the waist of her low-riding jeans, showing a tantalizing hint of skin. And was that silver flash a belly ring? He’d always thought her sexy, even in her plain blouses, loose black pants, and sensible shoes, but eff him. This Taylor was mouthwateringly hot, and his mouth was definitely watering. She held a plastic cup containing her favorite drink, an iced mocha coffee piled high with whipped cream. Arousal stirred as he watched her suck on the straw, which sent his mind straight into the gutter. He very much feared he was going to spend an extrem

  CHAPTER TEN “I talked to Rothmire this morning,” Taylor said. “As soon as we get a better idea of who we’re looking for, I’ll be going undercover. We need to get some kind of description of our man and one of his car, otherwise it’s a no-go.” Nate squeezed his fingers around the pen in his hand. His team, with the addition of Court—back from his honeymoon, looking tanned and absurdly happy—sat around the conference-room table early Monday morning. The day after his first and last date with Taylor. She glanced at his hand. “You’re going to break that in half if you squeeze it any harder.” He’d like to break Rothmire in half for agreeing to the undercover plan, but at least the boss had qualified his approval. “Alex and Josh will be out on the streets tonight, looking for any witnesses who might have seen someone suspicious or a description of a car that caught their attention.” Alex was decent at disguising himself, and since the case against Madison’s uncle was closed, he was getting a

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Nate was nervous as hell, which was stupid. Taylor was his best friend. He’d spent more hours with her than he could count, so why was his heart beating as if it might go into cardiac arrest as he walked up to her door? He hadn’t lied when he said he’d never been on a date. No proms or school dances, as there had never been extra money for nice clothes and other date-related expenses. Then he’d held down two part-time jobs through college, and what spare time he had was dedicated to studying and raising his brothers. Sometimes he’d been jealous of his classmates when hearing them talk of their dates for football games or other school events, but he’d shaken the envy off by burying his nose deeper into his textbooks. After graduating, he’d managed to achieve his goal, landing a job with the FBI. His experience with women consisted of hooking up for a few hours of pleasure. Now here was Taylor, shaking up his world. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. A part of him was

  CHAPTER TWELVE “I see the wheels spinning,” Nate said. “Stop thinking.” He backed Taylor up to the wall, cradled her cheeks with his hands, and lowered his mouth to hers, nibbling his way across her lips. They were delicious lips, full, soft, and sweet tasting. He might never get his fill of her. On the ride back, he’d come to his senses, but now he’d lost them again. This was not a good idea. A relationship wasn’t in the cards. The rage burning deep inside of him was his alone to bear. Although he’d learned to control it, it was always there, threatening to erupt under the right—or, more accurately, wrong—circumstances. If he doubted that could happen, he only had to remind himself that he’d once almost killed his father. He would have if Court hadn’t pulled him off the bastard. But he wanted her, apparently too much, since it didn’t appear he was going to do the right thing and walk away. She’d said she wouldn’t let whatever happened between them ruin their friendship, and he was goi

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Nate wanted to punch something. The rage that lived inside him burned hot, threatening to consume him. From the moment he’d seen that Polaroid, it had been bubbling like molten lava, ready to spew. He walked away, not wanting to give Taylor even a glimpse of what he was capable of. On the pretense of getting a glass of water, he sought calm. Using a trick that sometimes worked, he imagined the rage was a ball of fire in his stomach. Then he visualized it traveling up, past his chest and into his throat. He opened his mouth, giving it an escape hatch. He let out a sharp breath, and the fire with it, and then took several calming breaths. Once he was sure he was in control again, he drank the water. At the sound of her footsteps coming up behind him, he inhaled one more deep breath before facing her. “Please, Nate. Don’t do this.” She steepled her hands, touching her fingers to her lips as if begging him. He leaned back on the counter, and as much as he wanted to give he

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Nate hated how Taylor had closed in on herself, hated even more that he was the cause. Her face was a blank page, not a hint of emotion showing. But she’d let the situation affect her judgment, and he couldn’t allow that to pass. This would have been easier to deal with before last night. Now all he wanted to do was drag her onto his lap and hold her close, giving her whatever she wanted. There was a wall between them that had never existed before, and that was his greatest regret. He’d lost his best friend. Although too late in coming where she was concerned, lesson learned. Never let his desires come before the job. She was a fellow agent, and he should have never given into temptation. It might be different if something could come of it, but he had nothing to offer her, even though the idea of a life with her sent a longing through his heart that he was having trouble ignoring. “Tell me something,” he said. “And be honest. If you were the lead on an investigation an

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Nate ey
ed the two men from K2 Special Services. They were big and intimidating. The dudes were going to scare the hell out of the girls. After introducing Jamie Turner and Ryan O’Connor, Rothmire had left for a meeting, leaving Nate alone with them while they waited for Taylor and Rosie to arrive. “Did my boss tell you that you’ll be babysitting six girls, ages two to nine?” “Yeah. Scariest assignment ever,” the green-eyed one said. “You’re O’Connor?” Nate asked the man sporting a grin. “Yeah, but the team calls me Doc.” He pointed a thumb at his friend. “We call him Saint, and trust me when I say the moniker suits.” “Just try not to scare the hell out of the girls, okay?” The one called Saint cracked a smile. “We’re teddy bears at heart.” “You should know that these girls come from homes where they were either neglected or abused. They’re afraid of men.” Both men frowned. “Don’t like hearing that,” Doc said. “No one will hurt them under our care, I promise you.” “If I

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN “What?” Nate shifted his gaze to his brother. “Where the hell’s your mind?” Court sighed. “You haven’t heard a word I said.” His mind was on Taylor. Where else would it be after having her stare into his eyes, asking if she was allowed to notice them? After experiencing his first-ever streak of jealousy—an emotion he’d never expected to feel in his lifetime—because she apparently had it in her to appreciate a man, or men in this case, who wasn’t him. They were surrounded daily by men, other agents, and she’d never once indicated that she thought their eyes were sexy. Court snapped his fingers in front of Nate’s face. “Yo, dude, what’s wrong with you? You’re spacey. You’re never spacey.” “You think my eyes are sexy?” Hell! Did that really come out of his mouth? “You say one word right now, I’m going to put you on your ass.” His douchebag brother’s lips twitched, then furiously twitched. Then laughter burst out of his mouth. He laughed so hard that his face turned red and