The Wrecked One (Falcon Falls Security #7)

Prologue

OLIVER

“Holy shit, Mya. This is . . .” I did a three-sixty in the small space at our headquarters where Mya had been holed up for three days. No wonder you didn’t want anyone to come in here. “You’ve, uh, redecorated, I see. Interesting choice in wallpaper.” Barely a square inch of empty space on the walls. Photos, notes, and newspaper articles were taped up everywhere, connected by different colors of string. “Feels a little serial killer-y, but I guess I dig it.”

She greeted my sarcasm with a hard thwack of the back of her hand to my chest. Typical. “More like an FBI agent chasing one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.”

I reached out to hold her, my hands going to her waist.

“I know this looks like a lot, but I’m preparing for the op. We need to be as informed as possible before I go under.” Damn that shoulder shrug. It was anything but innocent or casual.

“You used both ‘we’ and ‘I’ in that statement. There’s no ‘I’ when it comes to this next mission. I’m going with you. We both volunteered.” Don’t do this to me.

When she closed her eyes, my chills got chills. I swore Mya really did have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I was terrified that devil, even if it may have looked like a sexy vixen, would get her killed one day.

“No,” was all I could muster.

“I thought long and hard about this, and as you can tell by my research serving as wallpaper, I’m?—”

“No.” There it was again, that word Mya wasn’t so great at hearing, especially when it came to her doing something that’d place her in danger for the sake of a mission. The word also had her pulling free from my embrace and turning away.

She raked both hands through her brown hair. She’d dyed it back to its natural color the other day, claiming she didn’t have time to wait for it to grow out on its own before the mission started.

“We volunteered to go deep under to chase down this new lead on The Collective,” I reminded her.

After stopping The Collective from deploying an electromagnetic pulse weapon earlier this month on election day, we’d decided the best way to prevent the apparent puppet masters of the world from attempting a repeat performance was to take them out. Completely and irrevocably. But so far we’d barely scratched the surface at identifying who was sitting at this round, rectangular—fucking octagonal for all we knew—table.

Our team leader, Carter Dominick, had recently discovered new information after he’d interrogated a corrupt senator—the same man who’d been having an affair with his wife before she’d died years ago. I had no clue how Carter left that man alive. I mean, the guy couldn’t exactly talk anymore, and he’d lost his ability to walk without crutches, so at least there was that.

I waited for Mya to face me, knowing she’d chosen to lay this shit on me now because the rest of our team wasn’t there to have my back and talk her down from this madness. More specifically, Carter couldn’t shut her down since he was on a plane to visit his wife in Dubai.

“I sound like a tool saying this,” I began when I lost patience waiting for her to grant me both her voice and eyes, “but there really is no ‘I’ in team.”

Finally facing me, I grunted at her signature cute side-smirk that, frustratingly, always turned me on.

It was tough to go up against her in arguments, particularly in the last few weeks since we’d finally given in to desire. But it was the way she ended our arguments lately that always did me in. She’d come to my hotel room at night, quietly remove her clothes, and crawl into my bed naked.

I always followed her. No words needed to pass between us. I’d forget why we’d been arguing in the first place. I needed to be more like a protective Doberman and not the roll-over golden retriever I often became around her. I had to stop her from doing something that’d jeopardize her life.

“Why in God’s name would you want to go undercover alone?” If I was going to reason with her, I had to identify the root problem and start there.

She patted the sides of her jeaned legs, then worked her hands up over her bare arms, rubbing along her biceps as if she were cold. But I’d become an expert at seeing through her tells, recognizing when her nerves were about to slide into defensive territory.

Besides, if she really was freezing, her nipples would be poking through that ribbed tank top she had on. The one that made it painfully obvious she was braless. The heat was blasting in the room, which was why her hoodie—correction, my Army one she’d stolen from my hotel room the other night—was on the desk chair instead of on her.

Chills slipped down my back as I worried she was planning to do something reckless.

“Our target is the Soren family.”

“Yeah, that senator gave Carter the name during the interrogation.” Locking my arms over my chest, I waited for her to continue, to tell me something I didn’t know. “Billionaire family. The father, Stef, is Swiss. Mother’s American, but she passed away a few years ago. Most of their wealth comes from investments in the telecommunications industry.”

Mya lasered in on a collection of images on the wall. She’d circled one of the photos in red marker, an image of the three Soren men in suits at a wildlife fundraiser. “Stef’s in his mid-eighties, and given his age, we think he’s trying to decide which of his two sons he should pass the throne of his empire over to. You’d think the elder brother, Hugo, would win by default, but that may not be the case this time.” She pointed to one brother, slightly taller than the other. “Although Sylvester is the younger one, he’s married with kids. Has a home in Scottsdale. Stable.”

“Making him the safer choice for their old man?”

She nodded. “Hugo’s the loner billionaire type. Forty-six and, from what I could find, never in a long-term relationship. Always traveling. His favorite activities are skydiving, fast cars, and fighting. He’s personally trained with some of the best boxers in the world.”

I honed in on Hugo. He gave off circa nineties Jean-Claude Van Damme vibes. “You’re stalling, missy.” I arched a brow, stealing a look away from the man who could probably star in Bloodsport himself.

“Wellll.” Such a bad start. “Hugo’s recently been placed in charge of a company his father acquired seven years ago.”

“Is this his shit-or-get-off-the-pot moment? His chance to prove to his dad he should be in charge? Some kind of test?” Standing tall, I stared at the collection of images on the wall. “Are we in a Hallmark movie? Is he moving to a small town where he’ll fall in love?”

“Not exactly.” She leaned forward and dragged one black-painted fingernail across the bold printed words: FYVM Media Group.

“FYVM?” What a mouthful. “What does it stand for? Fuck You Very Much Media?”

Her light chuckle was sinfully sweet to my ears, and the sound itself had the audacity to distract me, sending a jolt of fuck-me-now straight to my dick. Dammit, I had to focus. She made it hard sometimes. Quite literally.

“FYVM has been in the news business for over a century,” she went on to explain, completely oblivious to my reaction. “They were a small Swiss company before the Sorens acquired them, and now they’ve become the leader in the industry. They garner the most views both on mainstream television as well as through their stories shared on the major social media platforms. FYVM breaks a story, and the other major news organizations follow suit. Hell, they all basically echo everything FYVM says. They have similar talking points. A few different adjectives is all.”

“You think this is how the Sorens are tied to The Collective?” The senator Carter had questioned hadn’t shared how or why the Sorens were involved, only that they were.

“For sure.” She removed an article from the wall, and I caught her sniffing the ink, as if remembering her reporter days. This had to be a blast from the past for her. “After the President outed The Collective a few weeks ago, there was an explosion of major stories all around the world that quickly distracted everyone from what POTUS had shared about the secret group.” She flicked the paper before handing it to me. “Like this story suggesting war was about to break out between these two oil-rich nations.”

I handed her back the article, understanding where she was about to go with this. I had to come up with a better defense than the word “no,” and quickly, in order to shoot down the plan I damn well didn’t want to hear from her.

She set aside the article and placed her manicured nails on my chest, flashing me a sultry, innocent look I’d come to know well. But when it came to her safety, she could get naked, and I’d never change my mind about allowing her to risk her life.

“I’m going to get a job at FYVM as a journalist. I’ll go deep undercover as myself. With Hugo stepping in to personally run the company and win over his place as head of the family empire, this is our?—”

“You realize going undercover means going as someone else. Are you hearing yourself?” I did my best to keep my voice level and refrain from blowing a fucking gasket.

“FYVM tried recruiting me years ago, back when they first became number one in the industry. They wanted me to be one of their investigative reporters who traveled the globe.”

“Of course they wanted you. You were the best. But you quit to chase bad guys. And now you’re suggesting you should work for the enemy? And by yourself?” I faked a laugh, close to snapping. Because to hell with this plan.

“The best cover story is for me to go as myself. No one knows what I’ve been up to the last few years. I could say I was deep undercover for a human trafficking piece, and now that it’s over, I’m a free agent again. I could easily leave the breadcrumbs I want them to discover that would convince them of that story.”

Before teaming up with Falcon, Mya had assisted a group of Marines, which included her former friend with benefits, Mason Matthews, in hunting down sex traffickers. So, I supposed that story would be believable.

Her hands were still glued to my chest, so she had to feel my heart thrashing hard. All I wanted to do was take her over my shoulder and haul her somewhere safe.

“If I embed myself deep enough at this company and gain their trust, I think I can get Hugo’s attention. With a lot on the line for him, he’ll want the best of the best reporting directly to him. If I get close to him and?—”

“Get close to him how? You’re not the girl he falls for in this Hallmark movie situation, are you?”

“This isn’t a movie, especially not a Hallmark.”

She lowered her hands and glared at me, and I slapped the side of my neck, feeling the vein bulging there. I bit back a groan, because of course I’d used my bad arm. Apparently the GSW I’d taken in the shoulder during our last op against The Collective wasn’t quite one hundred percent healed yet.

“Hugo may be a lifelong bachelor, but he loves smart, successful women. Particularly brunettes.” She continued to state her case, moving a bit farther from my reach. “I’m slightly outside his preferred age bracket of under thirty, but if he’s trying to win over his old man, maybe he’ll?—”

“Enough.” I was going to be ill. She whipped her head around to stare at me, and I nearly growled like some character in the romance novels Griffin Andrew’s wife read (and now wrote).

Griffin would have had a field day with that. Fortunately, he was away from the team at the moment, currently in Alabama taking care of his new baby with his wife while waiting for next steps.

Most of our other teammates were also currently home with their families, which was why Mya and I had volunteered to go under in the first place. Unhitched and without kids, we were the logical choices anyway.

Giving her my back, she came up and rested her hand there, and my spine straightened as she said, “It’s for the sake of taking down the enemy.”

Mya and I had only begun sleeping together a few weeks earlier. No one knew about us yet, but if it were up to me, I’d happily stamp the word TAKEN on my forehead. How can I watch you seduce another man and not kill him? I’d snap, for sure. Ten out of ten, all bets on the table, lose my cool and my head, and strangle the life from Mr. Bloodsport wannabe himself.

I’d been great at keeping my shit together over the years, regardless of what was thrown at me, but I also knew it’d destroy me to watch her with someone else. She made me crazy, but this was Mya. And Mya was already fucking everything to me, even if I’d yet to tell her that.

“I would never sleep with Hugo, you know that. And it could take months to even get a meeting with him, let alone?—”

“Stop.” My shoulders broke forward from the weight of everything. There had to be a way I could convince her to find a new undercover angle. That, or I’d have to suck up my feelings and score a position with her at this media group.

“There’s a quote I remember from studying communications at Syracuse.” Her voice was wistful, washing over me from behind, nearly a whisper. “Journalism is the protection between the people and any sort of totalitarian rule.” She paused to let those words have the impact she knew they would. “Now, it’s very possible The Collective is, in effect, weaponizing the media to hurt and control people. We have to stop this and take them down.”

I whirled around, and her hands dropped to her sides. “And we will, but you’re not going without me. Under any circumstances.” Her gorgeous eyes roped me in, and I reached for her waist to tug her against me.

Unable to stop myself, I slanted my lips over hers, and she moaned against my mouth in response. I swallowed the delicious sound, seeking to elicit another with my tongue, and we both lost ourselves to the moment.

“Mmm . . . we shouldn’t.” Her words hummed against my lips, but needing more of her, my tongue caressed her mouth back open.

There was one thing we did much better than argue, and it was this. Well, and have sex. But the art of a good kiss was highly underrated. And when it came to Mya, kissing her was like being on drugs without the dangerous side effects. Cloud. Fucking. Nine.

“We really shouldn’t.” There it was again. Why was she saying that?

I supposed I had to pull away for answers even if I didn’t want to. “Why not?” I held the sides of her bare arms, then smoothed my hands up and down. She always held all of her tension there, and I’d learned the gentle strokes helped relax her.

Her eyes fell between us, pointed on my chest. Another heavy blow was coming if she couldn’t look at my face. “I have to be single on this op. I can’t be mentally or physically taken if I want to sell this role. I’m not the best actress. Research and questioning people are more my expertise.” Her strained voice, full of emotions I wasn’t used to hearing from her, had my hands going dead still.

I closed my eyes, visions of this billionaire douchebag going near her assaulting my mind. Rage I wasn’t accustomed to feeling boiled up inside me at the very idea.

“I don’t think it’s fair to put you in that kind of position, either. Having to see me do that and . . .”

I tried not to read too much between the lines there. It almost sounded like she was worried about my feelings. We never discussed feelings, unless you counted our fake hate for each other that wouldn’t exactly win us any Oscars.

“Well, fuck fair,” I finally forced out in reply, opening my eyes. “Screw everything if you’re not safe.” I shook my head. “Where you go, I go.” What movie was that line from? Right, that new action flick, The Wanted One. More my speed than Hallmark.

She linked her wrists behind my head and drew herself closer to me. “Oliver.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t give me those eyes.”

“They’re the only eyes I have.” Her lips tipped into a slight smile.

“No, give me your happy ones. Or your fuck-me ones. Not these.” I won’t bow down when it comes to your safety. “Listen, if I have to act like a priest to keep an eye on you, I will, got it?” I stepped away, and her hands slipped down my chest before falling to her sides.

It was now me clawing at my hair, which was only a slightly darker shade of brown than hers.

“This, uh, thing between us just started,” she whispered. “So, a little pause for the sake of the mission should be fine.”

My body tensed up all over again, worried she was secretly scared of this “thing” between us more than she was going undercover as Mya, aka Lois Lane, Vanzetti. “What if I go as CK?” I proposed. “You know, a writer, too? The Clark Kent to your Lois? I know you don’t need a Superman, but?—”

“You know how to write?” There wasn’t sarcasm there, I knew she meant journalistically, but she also had to know the answer would be a no.

My hands landed on my hips as my mind raced. Lifting my gaze to the messy wall, I zeroed in on a photo connected to a news article about a brand of electric vehicles spontaneously combusting. “I’ll be your Jimmy Olsen,” I said on a sigh. “If this company wants you badly enough, then make part of the negotiation with them that you only work with the team you want, and you have your own photographer you’ll travel with.”

“That could work,” she said once our eyes met. “How are your camera skills? I know your nickname in the Army was Kodak, but that was because of your nearly photographic memory, not your love of taking photos, right?”

“Yeah, but I have an idea.” The pieces were starting to come together. Even if I didn’t like any of this, it was better than her going alone. “Julia Maddox Finnegan.”

Mya’s lips parted in understanding.

My friend Julia had sought Mya out for help back when I’d been wrongly accused of committing murder, and I’d had my head on the chopping block. Between Julia’s fierce belief in my innocence, her Navy SEAL friends, and Mya’s research skills, they’d all saved my head from becoming permanently detached from the rest of my body.

“Julia gave up her love of photography when . . .”

Not an easy sentence to finish. “When my brother died, yeah.” On autopilot, I reached for the chain around my neck, pulled my brother’s dog tags out from beneath my black shirt, and clasped them.

Julia had dated my brother, Tucker, with plans to marry him. But after my brother left the military, he wound up taking comfort in the form of a bottle and a drunk driving accident stole his life. I’d only been in the military for two years at that point, as a paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne Division, and I was granted a short amount of time off to handle the funeral.

Julia and my mother had been a disaster, and helping them keep it together had somehow prevented me from spiraling. The war I had to go back to after had also proved distracting. Killing bad guys in combat probably wasn’t the best coping mechanism to handle his death, but . . .

“Julia, um, she picked up photography again when she fell in love with Finn,” I went on, needing to get back to the point and out of my head. “She can teach me what to do before I apply for the job.”

Mya slowly approached me, eyes softening. “How do you do it?”

I angled my head, letting go of the tags I’d once had to force Julia to stop wearing so she could move on. I’d taken the baton and now carried Tucker with me everywhere instead.

Mya palmed my cheek, and I did my best not to revel in this woman’s touch since I’d soon be going without it for an unknown amount of time. “You’ve been through so much. Your dad walking out on you all, your brother dying, then the loss of your mom. Not to mention you sitting in a prison about to be executed not that long ago . . . and yet, you always smile, joke, and never seem to let anything get to you.”

At the mention of my mother and my father, my stomach turned. Old, unhealed wounds tried to punch through and attack, but I punched right back, sending the pain to the past where it belonged and needed to stay. Fuck time travel. “Well, when you bullet-point the mess of my life like that?—”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Her eyes widened with regret, and I captured her wrist, not wanting her to feel guilty.

I brought the inside of her hand to my lips and kissed her there. “I’m okay, promise,” I lied since I’d become so good at it over the years. I’d bet a psychology department at a university could make a case study out of me. “I may soon be playing the role of Jimmy Olsen to your Lois Lane, but secretly, I am made of steel. Can’t fly, and apparently can’t dodge bullets, but I’m tough.” I winked and smiled, attempting to hide the scars that felt like they’d been carved into my soul with a machete. Scars that were invisible to the eye. “No worries.” I lowered her arm back to her side, letting go of her hand.

“You can be honest with me, Oliver. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to pretend. I know I’m not great at feelings-conversations myself, but I’m a wonderful listener.”

“Ha. Just not when it comes to the word no. That word flies right over your head.” I despised the tight band of pressure in my chest and the past pain now leaching into my veins like poison. “Anyway, I thought playing make-believe is exactly what I need to do. You’ll go as yourself, and I’ll pretend not to have feelings for you as your sidekick photographer.”

“You have feelings for me?” Her question effectively cut a hole through my heart. Did that possibility scare her? “What’s been happening between us, is it more than sex for you?”

Well, hello, conversation we’d yet to have out loud.

Fuck.

Mya had commitment issues, that much was obvious. What I didn’t know was why. And I wasn’t even sure if she knew, to be honest.

I swiped my hand up and down the back of my head as I tried to think through how to handle this woman, staring at me like she was about to pull a Julia Roberts from Runaway Bride and take off. And yes, I saw that movie twice because an ex-girlfriend forced me to watch it. In hindsight, maybe she was sending me a don’t-get-attached message. It had worked, hence the ex-girlfriend qualification.

But there was one woman I could never handle that message from, and she was standing before me now.

“I, uh, well, it’s too early between us to know anything, right? So, if you think we can’t be together in private because it’ll mess up our covers in public, then so be it. After the mission, we can figure this thing out between us.” And the Academy goes to . . . Damn, I was a worse actor than Mya.

She relented with a nod and a quick, “Okay.”

But that word felt as fragile as my mental state should have been back in that prison in Dubai before I almost lost my head. Oddly, I don’t remember being that messed up about it. I’d had nothing to live for then. I’d accepted my fate. Now, on this team, and with Mya in my life, I had everything to live for. And it felt damn good.

Taking her hand, I promised, “I’ll impress this Fuck You Very Much Media Group with my photography skills, and you’ll create a legendary cover story for me so they’ll hire me as your sidekick.”

She smiled, and when she squeezed my bad bicep, I hid a snarl from the pain so she wouldn’t realize she’d grabbed the wrong arm.

“But are you sure we can’t be together up until we leave for the mission, at least?” I couldn’t help but light the match and hope a fire sparked when it came to this woman. I’d gone too long faking how I felt to reverse course now.

Mya’s dark lashes fluttered as she lowered her gaze down my chest to my belt, then she let go of my arm, wordlessly peeled off her tank top, and tossed it atop my hoodie.

I stared at her beautiful breasts. “In here?” I smirked. “You sure? In your serial killer lair?”

She stepped forward and fisted my shirt. “I don’t care where I am. The world melts away and becomes quiet when I’m with you.”

It took me a moment to process what she’d admitted. She’d never said anything like that to me before, and it gave me a bit of hope.

Seizing her cheeks between my hands, I forgot all about the bad-juju energy around us the second my tongue slid between her lips.

My cock was painfully stiff in my jeans, and she began shimmying against me, searching for relief.

“I hate you for making me horny like this all the time,” she murmured between kisses, and I reached around and squeezed her ass cheek.

“Sure you do, buttercup,” I rasped before picking her up and carrying her over to the desk. “Just remember, no one is here to hear you.”

I set her down, and she playfully lifted her brows as I unbuttoned her jeans. “Mmm. Plan on making me moan, do you?”

“No. I plan on making you scream.”

I dragged her jeans down in one fast movement, then placed my hoodie on the desk for padding. This wasn’t our first time hooking up in here, but our first not needing to be quiet. I planned on taking full advantage of that.

I retrieved a condom from my wallet. Never knew when temptation would strike between us (which was often), so I always had a few on me.

Not taking my eyes off the gorgeous woman in front of me, I lowered my jeans and briefs, stroked my cock a few times, and rolled the rubber over my hard length.

“A quickie here, then much longer at your hotel room later.” I dropped to my knees and hooked her legs over my shoulders, gently pressing her back against the desk. Mya wouldn’t be able to get off fast from sex alone, but when it came to my tongue, she barely made it a minute, then she liked to ride out her orgasm on my dick.

The second I went down on her, she cried out my name and fisted my hair. She was right, though, the world did disappear when it was just us. The chaos in my head stopped.

“Now,” she panted out a few minutes later, beautifully flushed after coming. “I need you inside me. Please,” she whimpered while bucking against my face.

I shifted her legs down and stood. Bracing against the desk, I leaned forward and brought my cock to her center. The moment our eyes met, I pushed inside her, and her tits lifted as she gasped. I quietly stared at her, unexpected emotion placing me in some kind of choke hold while I thrusted in and out.

Holy fuck, I didn’t just have feelings for her.

My body tensed and my heart beat out of control as the realization barreled through me. I was already in love.

At that revelation, I now knew there was only one thing that could truly wreck me when nothing else had ever been able to do it before. What if this woman was one day incapable of loving me back?