Saving Grace (Misty Grove Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Blurb

  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

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  SAVING GRACE

  By Victoria Paige

  Copyright © 2017 Victoria Paige

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9906796-6-0

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, names, locations, events, organization, including law enforcement and judicial procedures, either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, places or locale is entire coincidental. The publisher is not responsible for any opinion regarding this work on any third-party website that is not affiliated with the publisher or author.

  Cover Design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc., http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  Edited by: Edit LLC, https://writeeditread.com

  Blurb:

  I awoke amidst chaos.

  With no memory or name and no one to trust.

  I held the key that could bring down a cartel kingpin.

  If only I could remember.

  I realized I was a known target to El Segador.

  “The Reaper.”

  The Mexican cartel’s deadliest hitman.

  He toyed with me and bided his time to kill me.

  But amnesia and an assassin weren’t the end of my problems.

  I was pregnant.

  Two men claimed to be the father.

  And as I started to remember, I questioned the type of men I had let into my body.

  One of them had an agenda.

  Despite the other’s current overprotectiveness and caring, my fractured memories revealed a contemptuous asshole.

  To save myself and my unborn child, I needed to put my faith in one of them.

  But which one?

  PROLOGUE

  Cries.

  Shouts.

  Screams.

  The smell of acrid smoke and burnt flesh.

  I struggled to open my eyes, wincing at the pounding in my head, yet my body felt numb and weighed by lead.

  I panicked. Was I paralyzed?

  The noise receded until all I heard was the pulsing in my ears.

  Was I in a dream?

  My surrounding was gray and even as I blinked, my eyes saw nothing.

  For the love of God, was I blind too?

  Not a dream.

  A nightmare.

  I saw a flicker cut through the billows of gray.

  Smoke.

  My lungs seized and I was wracked with coughing. Agonizing sensations stabbed my arms, legs, and back making me wished I remained numb.

  As I pushed up from an elbow and straightened to a sitting position, the chaos around me slammed into me like a freight train.

  Fire burned in fallen piles of debris causing an orange glow to lick against the edges of the spiraling smoke. But it was the bodies and torn limbs that gripped my heart in a vise of fear. A choked sob sent me into another coughing fit. It was either that or scream hysterically. Breathing hurt. Maybe I was dying.

  I stared dispassionately down my body. My jeans were torn and blood was seeping through.

  I noticed dark liquid pooling inches from where I sat, but it was not my blood.

  I commanded my eyes not to look, but human nature won this round. I lifted my gaze in dread to track the source.

  “Help me, ” a voice croaked in the upheaval of my mind before the cacophony of noises returned with a vengeance.

  Wails.

  Groans.

  Weeping.

  “Help me,” the voice repeated.

  It was coming from this face or what looked like a face, for the only recognizable feature was the white of its eyes. Everything else was covered in soot or blood or—my mind stopped processing because I dared not look past his chest because I’d caught a glimpse of something I’d rather bleach from my brain.

  I shook the haze from my head, tried not to vomit, and crawled toward the dying man. There was no question his injuries were fatal, and maybe so were mine, and I did not want to die alone.

  He reached toward me and I clasped his shaking hand. Both of us tried to ignore the hell around us: people running, the walking injured wandering aimlessly, and others crying over loved ones who may already be dead.

  Total hell.

  I returned my focus to the man before me. He was trying to tell me something.

  “I’m … sorry,” he whispered.

  What was he apologizing for?

  What should I do in situations like this?

  “Help is coming,” I lied. “What is your name?”

  He looked confused before he smiled sadly in resignation. “Not … not important.” He had already given up on living. Even so, his grip tightened around my fingers almost to the point of pain, his dark eyes pleading into mine. “Trust no one …” His fingers slackened as he fell back and closed his eyes.

  He was dead.

  But selfishly, his death was the farthest thing from my mind as I realized I had bigger problems when I asked him his name.

  I did not know mine.

  CHAPTER ONE

  36 hours earlier

  Matt

  “She’s here.”

  The roadhouse was packed and teeming with people, but Matt didn’t need to look up to know who his mechanic meant. He’d felt his body tense up as if sensing her presence, and there was only one woman who’d been occupying his headspace this past few months.

  Grace Levinson.

  The feisty DEA agent who had a body made for sin and a mouth that could drive a man crazy.

  And how he hated her.

  Because last night he finally tasted her. He’d finally felt how it was to have his fingers tangled in her hair, gripping it tight while he drove into her from behind. He’d finally fucked her and gotten her out of his system. Or so he thought. He shut her out brutally so he’d never have to go there again—heaven and hell. But she was here.

  “Looks like you have yourself a stage-five clinger,” Axe commented as he took a swig of his beer.

  God, he hoped not, Matt thought, because the urge to fuck Grace had escalated to alarming levels now that he’d had a taste. He’d promised himself that one time only, convincing himself it would satisfy a curiosity, but it had
backfired. Any willingness on her part and his resolve would crumble.

  Matt allowed his gaze to drift to the door. She looks amazing.

  Her dark hair hung around her shoulders in loose waves which reminded him just how he’d held it when he had her on her knees last night. His cock hardened at the memory.

  “I must say,” Axe continued his commentary with a low whistle, “those legs in those fuck-me boots, not to mention that excuse of a skirt that’s barely covering her ass.” Another gulp of his beer. “I bet you every dick in this room is thinking about hitting that.” His friend waggled his brows at him.

  A strange emotion clawed at Matt’s chest as he glared at his friend who immediately smirked.

  “Shut up, Axe,” he growled.

  His mechanic raised a brow in feigned innocence. “What? We’ve had conversations about chicks before.”

  Matt clamped his mouth shut and controlled the urge to hit his friend. He turned instead to the woman currently making her way to the bar. Their eyes met across the room and a frisson of awareness shot down his spine. She broke eye contact first, shrugged, and sat on a bar stool.

  “Well, looks like she’s waiting for you or someone else to pick her up,” Axe continued his play-by-play.

  “Didn’t I just tell you to shut up,” Matt muttered as he raised his own beer to mouth. He cursed to find his bottle empty.

  It was Saturday night at Mike’s Roadhouse, a popular bar for the citizens of Buckland County. It was located between Misty Grove where Matt resided and the county seat of Edington. The crowd was a mixed bunch. Although one would classify the roadhouse as a biker and blue collar hangout, college kids and other preppy clientele came in to walk on the wild side. They were easy to spot, though. But not Grace—her years undercover in the seedy underworld of mobs and cartels had honed her skill to blend in. But Matt knew how she looked underneath all that makeup. Her face was heartbreakingly beautiful and beguilingly innocent, yet those full lips and mesmerizing green eyes would tempt a saint to sin. He’d been enthralled all those years ago when they had bunked together for a covert assignment. How he’d ached for her then, wanting to explore that innocent façade and do dirty things to her.

  “I’m surprised you finally hooked up with her,” Axe said slyly. “I thought you hated her guts.”

  He did, but now it was for a different reason—one he refused to examine. Only a few people in Misty Grove knew Grace was DEA. Everyone else, including Axe, thought she was a blood-thirsty reporter hell-bent on getting the inside details of the “biker war” that exploded in their town a couple of months ago. “I did. Turned out her boss was a dick and I didn’t have all the facts.”

  This was partly true.

  “So, she didn’t sell you out after all? How come you never mentioned this to me?”

  Matt was getting irritated at his friend’s persistence. “No. And because it’s none of your business. Besides, she’s leaving Misty Grove on Monday for DC, and she has no plans of coming back.”

  Especially, after the way I left her this morning.

  “Okay.” His mechanic shrugged. “Then you don’t care if Romeo over there is trying to pick up your girl?”

  Matt whipped his head around so fast, he nearly tipped his beer bottle over. He scowled. Sure enough, some biker had sidled up to Grace and was leaning in a little too close for his liking. Before he realized what he was doing, he had risen from the booth and was halfway across the room heading straight for her.

  Her eyes widened when she saw him barreling over with murder on his face because that was exactly how he was feeling. She hopped off the bar stool and intercepted him, pressing a hand on his chest.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Grace hissed. His eyes flickered at her in annoyance before glaring over the top of her head at the biker who was surprised to see him there.

  “Problem here?” The man had a death wish asking that question.

  “Yes,” Matt growled. “Get lost.”

  The biker puffed up and was about to say something when he thought better of it. He raised both hands in surrender. “Didn’t know she was taken. You shouldn’t leave a prime piece like her sitting alone in a biker bar.”

  Grace expelled an irritated huff before digging her fingers into his tee and dragging him toward the restrooms. He enjoyed riling her up and loved her hands on him even more. When they reached the hallway that led to the restrooms, she released him with a push. Then she crowded him and tapped him on the chest. “What the hell was that, huh? What the hell were you trying to prove out there?”

  “I didn’t want you making a mistake with some random guy because of what happened this morning,” he fired back.

  She rolled her eyes. “How is this any different from our one-night-stand?”

  “You’ve known me for years.”

  “Does that give you a right to dictate who I sleep with?”

  Matt’s jaw tensed. “No. But I’d feel guilty if you picked up some psycho.”

  Her half-laugh dripped with sarcasm. “Been there, done that. You were the worst morning-after I’ve ever had.”

  He deserved that. “Yeah, it was shitty for me to leave you in a motel like that—”

  “When I suggested spending the weekend together, you didn’t have to react like I asked you to spend the rest of your life with me. You jumped out of bed like it was on fire, telling me you didn’t want any repeat while yanking on your clothes. Then you slammed out of that motel room while I was sitting up in the bed, naked and wondering what the hell just happened. You trampled on my pride. I was humiliated. Do you hate me or something? You were an asshole when I first arrived in Misty Grove and I was simply doing my job and covering your ass. And then last night you fucked my brains out as if you were pissed at me.”

  “Are you complaining?” Matt replied evenly. “You came on my mouth, my cock, and my fingers so it’s not like I left you wanting. Or did I? You think you can find someone here who can fuck you like I did? Sorry, babe, I’m a one-of-a-kind fuck. You want more? Fine, I think I can accommodate you one more night.”

  Say yes, gypsy eyes. Let me get you out of my system.

  “Oh, my God, you’ve got such an ego!” Grace whispered loudly. A couple of women exited the ladies room and eyed them, specifically him, with interest.

  Now, that was why he had an ego. Women came easy to him. Most women, except Grace.

  “You want the thrill, don’t you?” Matt stepped closer, cornering her curvy body against the wall, not giving a damn about the curiosity their exchange was attracting from the patrons traversing the hallway. “You want some bad boy to fuck the starch out of that all-business crap you insist on wearing during the day.”

  His eyes dropped to her lips, recalling how they’d wrapped around his cock as her green eyes stared up promising him more. Matt lowered his head, and fuck if he couldn’t get lost in those emerald orbs, cursing the dim lighting that dampened their brilliance. He pressed closer until he could feel her generous tits under that skimpy top that displayed a fair amount of cleavage. His hands swept under her short skirt and gripped the firm globes of her ass. His cock was painfully hard against his jeans.

  “Matt …” Her lips parted and her breath hitched. “Don’t …”

  “What? Don’t stop,” he mumbled against her lips. “You shouldn’t wear clothes like this, babe. All a man could think about right now is wrapping those sexy legs around him, so he can pound the fuck out of you.”

  “I think, Foster, you’re trespassing on my date,” an amused voice spoke from beside them.

  What the fuck?

  Matt knew that voice. He turned his head slowly while still keeping his palms firmly on Grace’s ass.

  Sure enough, there stood Troy deLamar—the leader of the Flaming Bricks motorcycle gang. Not affiliated with any motorcycle club, they were just a group of bikers with no set rules. They had their compound outside of Misty Grove, yet they claimed to be a part of Matt’s small town. They had no fixed structure. No Pres
ident or VP, but he knew Troy ran that outfit. Just as Matt knew the biker had deep connections with the Mexican cartels and the Dixie Mafia. The man had also saved his life once upon a time. That knowledge burned through him right then.

  Troy eyed Grace’s skirt. “Now would be a good time to remove your hands from her ass.”

  “And if I don’t?” Matt challenged.

  The other man narrowed his eyes. “Are we forgetting you owe me, Foster?”

  “Fantastic,” Grace muttered, shoving so hard against him, he didn’t have a choice but to let her go without leaving marks on her skin. “Last I checked, I wasn’t Matt’s to bargain with,” she added, walking up to the tall, blond, brawny biker even as Matt had the overwhelming desire to haul her back.

  “I didn’t think you were his, darlin’,” Troy drawled, pulling Grace close and kissing her on the cheek. “But I’m not above using the marker he owes me to get what I want.”

  Matt bristled at the claim the biker was putting on Grace, and the only reason he hadn’t pulled out his piece and blown the man’s brains out was because a) like the man said, Matt owed him his life, b) Grace was not exactly melting into Troy’s arms, and c) he actually liked the guy—present moment excluded.

  But he knew Troy enough to know that he had a way with women. Matt regretted introducing the biker to Grace, but that was part of her cover. Eyeing them both at the moment, he realized something was up. She’d been tight-lipped about what she needed from Troy, and Matt acted as the bridge to appease the powers that be at the DEA to leave him alone after what had gone down with the fabricated biker war.

  “I didn’t think you went for sloppy seconds, Troy.” The words were out before Matt could stop himself. A wounded gasp followed by a stinging slap against his cheek told him he’d gone too far. Grace was up in his face, her eyes shooting sparks of anger, hurt, and disappointment at him.

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t mean that,” she said with choked anger. “But you just don’t have a very good track record with me, do you, Matthew Foster? You want to fuck me, but you don’t respect me. You’ve proven to me time and again what exactly you think of me, and I’m so sick and tired of making excuses for how you treat me because of what happened in Mexico. I’m done.” She shook her head in regret. “So done. You won’t be seeing me again, and do me a favor as well.” She inhaled deeply. “Just stay away from me.”