Maximus Read online

  Maximus (Special Forces: Operation Alpha)

  Gold Team Book 4

  Riley Edwards

  Contents

  Foreword

  BEFORE YOU BEGIN

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  About the Author

  Other Books by Riley Edwards

  More Special Forces: Operation Alpha World Books

  Books by Susan Stoker

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2020 ACES PRESS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Dear Readers,

  Welcome to the Special Forces: Operation Alpha Fan-Fiction world!

  If you are new to this amazing world, in a nutshell the author wrote a story using one or more of my characters in it. Sometimes that character has a major role in the story, and other times they are only mentioned briefly. This is perfectly legal and allowable because they are going through Aces Press to publish the story.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I might have assisted with brainstorming and other ideas about which of my characters to use, I didn’t have any part in the process or writing or editing the story.

  I’m proud and excited that so many authors loved my characters enough that they wanted to write them into their own story. Thank you for supporting them, and me!

  READ ON!

  Xoxo

  Susan Stoker

  BEFORE YOU BEGIN

  Thank you for purchasing Maximus. I’m beyond thrilled to once again write in Susan Stoker’s Special Forces: Operation Alpha universe. I’ve been a fan of Susan’s for many years and have read every book she’s published (multiple times.) While I’ve tried my hardest to stay true to her original characters (because, hello, they are already awesome) I am not Susan, I wrote them as I, the reader, experienced them.

  I want fans of Susan to feel like they’re visiting old friends when they see her beloved characters. I hope I’ve done them justice. But please remember, I’ve taken some liberties.

  In Maximus, I use Susan’s characters from her new Legacy SEAL series: Rocco, Ace, Gumby, Phantom, Bubba, and Rex. I’ve also borrowed plot elements from Securing Zoey. You can certainly read Maximus as a standalone but I recommend reading Securing Zoey first.

  And of course, The King of All Things Cyber, John “Tex” Keegan makes an appearance.

  I hope you enjoy the world I’ve created for you as much as I loved writing it.

  For Susan.

  Thank you for giving us, your adoring readers, such wonderful characters.

  And a very special Thank You to Dana Smith our resident Texpert. I hope I did your beloved justice.

  About the book

  What happens when a woman who’s done the unthinkable needs protection—can a man who’s lost his belief in humanity keep her safe?

  Max Brown doesn’t trust anyone but his team. The former SEAL learned early in life that people let you down—they lie, they steal, and they lie some more. Love is a word that is used to manipulate. Family is meaningless. Max is an island and he prefers it that way.

  A woman who needs a safe harbor—but is undeserving.

  Cyber genius, John “Tex” Keegan rescued Eva Dawson, a single mother who was forced to do something inconceivable to save her children. Tex somehow sees the good in her when no one else does. She is redeemable. Now, just when she’s getting her life back together someone wants her dead. Tex calls in the Gold Team to help—specifically Max Brown, the man with a past that mirrors that of Eva’s.

  A past that clouds the present.

  Tex has a plan—he always does. But neither the protector nor woman who’s been marked for death make it easy. Neither of them trust and both will fight to stay in control. If Tex can keep them both alive long enough, he knows the duo is the perfect pair—each of them will be what the other needs to heal the sins of the past.

  Prologue

  There she was.

  Eva Dawson.

  Also known as Eva Dawkins. Or, as Mark “Bubba” Wright and Zoey Knight knew her—Eve Dane the pilot from hell. The woman who’d faked engine trouble, dumped them in a remote part of Alaska, and left them for dead.

  That was who Tex had sent me down to Florida to grab. Actually, the man wanted me to protect her.

  What the fuck?

  I’d read the reports, I knew Eva had a shit life but as far as I was concerned what she’d done was inexcusable. The woman had nearly killed Bubba and Zoey. Why Tex was helping her was beyond me, and why Zoey and Bubba had let her off the hook, I couldn’t understand.

  Everyone had trauma in their past, didn’t mean they got a free pass.

  I watched as the woman in question came out of the grocery store where she worked as a checkout girl. A job Tex had gotten her. He’d also given her a fresh start, relocated her and her two sons, and given them new identities.

  Something she didn’t deserve.

  She wore her long, mousy brown hair in a ponytail and from a distance she looked like your average, everyday woman. But when you got close and caught sight of her incredible yellow-green eyes, there was nothing average about her. The eyes made all the difference—they looked fake, and for a moment as I stared at her from the checkout line, I wondered if they were contacts.

  The uniform she wore did her no favors. Her pants hung on her like they were two sizes too big, and the oxford shirt looked like a child’s small. Though I doubted the ugly, green top was made for a child the way her breasts filled it out.

  My first order of business when I finally spoke to her was to have a come-to-Jesus talk with the woman. After going through her line, I stood by my SUV in the parking lot and waited for her shift to end. When it did, she walked out of the store looking down at the ground instead of paying attention to her surroundings.

  I could snatch her up and have her in my SUV before she even realizes what’s happening.

  Stupid.

  A blonde woman juggling one of those infant carriers caught my attention. She stumbled, nearly losing her grip on the three bags dangling from her fingers while trying to negotiate her keys. In the meantime, she dropped her wallet on the way to he
r car without even knowing it. Christ, what was wrong with people? Didn’t anyone pay attention? Bad shit happened in parking lots.

  I was getting ready to step forward to quietly tell the mother she’d dropped her wallet, when Eva picked it up.

  With no option other than giving away my presence, which I wasn’t ready to do, I clenched my jaw in an attempt to remain silent.

  Fucking hell! Eva was going to steal the poor…

  “Hey! Wait!” Eva’s voice rang out. The mother’s head jerked in Eva’s direction. “Here, you dropped this.”

  “Crap. Thank you so much.” The mom tried to reach out to take her wallet from Eva and the bags started to slip again.

  “I got it.” Eva eased a bag from the other woman and smiled. “I have two.” Eva nodded toward the infant. “I remember what that’s like.”

  “First one. Still trying to get the hang of it.”

  “It’ll get easier. Let me help you to your car.”

  “Thanks.” The haggard new mom blew out a breath.

  Jesus. Neither woman had noticed him. And the mother was far too trusting—Eva could’ve been a psycho murderer for all she knew, out to kidnap her child.

  Situational awareness.

  Both women were severely lacking in that department.

  “You’ve been down there watching her for three days. I need you to make contact.” I could hear Tex’s irritation, hell, I practically felt it rolling off him over the phone as I sat in my SUV.

  And there she was, the woman in question—Eva.

  And once fucking again, she wasn’t paying attention as she came out of work. Christ, the need to shake some sense into her became harder and harder to control the more I watched her.

  “She has tomorrow off,” I told him something he knew—after all, it was Tex who’d given me her schedule. “Call her tonight and tell her I’ll be at her place tomorrow at ten.”

  Tex’s exaggerated sigh came over the phone. “Fine.”

  My attention went back to Eva as she loaded some groceries into the trunk of her car. Nothing fancy, an older model sedan, likely courtesy of Tex.

  “While you’ve been watching, have you seen any sign of a—”

  “Threat? No. Are you ready to explain why you want me playing bodyguard to a woman who nearly killed Bubba and Zoey?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do Zoey and Bubba know you bankrolled the woman—”

  “Yes,” he huffed. “They were given the option to press charges. Both declined and they understand why I helped her.”

  “She’s on the move. Call her and I’ll check in after I meet with her.”

  “Keep her safe.”

  My grip on the steering wheel tightened. Tex sounded almost… desperate. Very unlike the man. He didn’t get anxious—he was cool, calm, calculating. He saw the problem and solved it.

  What the fuck is going on?

  Five minutes later, Eva pulled in front of a crappy house that was not hers and parked. I sat in my SUV and watched. The more I followed her without her knowledge—something else we would be discussing because Eva should’ve seen me, I wasn’t trying to hide—the more I felt like a stalker.

  Hunting and watching my prey was something I was used to, something I was good at. But Eva wasn’t my prey, she was my… fuck, I didn’t know what she was because Tex was being vague.

  I had no clue who or what the threat was and I was beginning to think the cyber genius didn’t, either. Which might’ve been the reason he was so worried.

  Eva knocked on the door with the grocery bags looped over her forearms. She was not looking around. If she had, she would’ve seen me sitting across the street, watching.

  Goddammit. The woman had a death wish.

  An older woman answered the door and smiled brightly. She said something before Eva leaned forward, kissed her cheek, and then both women went inside.

  Thirty minutes later, Eva came out sans the bags and tromped to her car.

  You guessed it, not paying a lick of fucking attention.

  Shoulders hunched, sadness burned her features, sorrow clear as day.

  And for the briefest moment, I felt sorry for Eva.

  Chapter 1

  “Tex, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. More than you know.”

  He couldn’t know, and not because I hadn’t thanked him a hundred times, not because I hadn’t broken down and poured my heart out to him, but because there were no words strong enough to express what his help meant to me.

  Tex had saved me. What’s more, he saved my boys.

  He rescued them from a vile, evil man—my ex-husband.

  Jay Dawkins—liar, abuser, drug-dealer extraordinaire. The devil himself.

  “Eva—”

  “But I think you’re overreacting. We’re fine. You made sure of it.”

  Tex made sure of it, all right. One day I was desperate, destitute, and out of options. Jay had taken my boys, hidden them from me, and threatened to do heinous things to them—some of which he carried out.

  Then Tex happened.

  I’d never seen him, didn’t know his last name, where he lived, who he was, but he was my savior. I was forever indebted to him even if he didn’t see it that way.

  “No debt. You’re free and clear. Take care of your kids and don’t look back.” That was what Tex had told me when two men dressed in black delivered my kids to me in a shitty pay-by-the-night motel room. Then he’d explained just what he’d done, all the ways he’d truly saved me.

  Now we were living in a small two-bedroom bungalow in Florida. We had new identities, and we lived simple. I had the perfect life. Me and my boys, an honest day’s work, clean. We were finally clean. Out from under the filth and scum that had surrounded our lives, thanks to Jay.

  No, that wasn’t right—thanks to me. Everything that had happened was my fault, I take responsibility. I chose Jay. I was so stupid—again—I didn’t see him for who he truly was until it was too late. And, boy, did I pay. All three of us did.

  Tex’s voice brought me back to the present. “I sent a friend of mine, Max Brown, down to check on you. He’s a former SEAL who now works in the private sector. He’s the best of the best. He’s coming this morning to have a word. I’d like you to go up to Maryland with him. There’s a safehouse—”

  “No! My job. I can’t lose it.”

  The first splinter on my façade cracked. I’d worked so damn hard to give my boys stability. They were happy, I couldn’t rip it all away from them. Not again.

  “You’re in danger.”

  “What kind of danger? Jay is—”

  “You are in danger.” Tex enunciated each word as ice infused my veins.

  No! Not again.

  Before I could ask him to explain, there was a knock at the door.

  “Make sure you ask who it is before you answer.”

  “Right. I don’t know what this guy even looks like.”

  “Blond. Blue eyes. Six-foot two. He’ll be wearing a frown.”

  “A frown?”

  “Max is… unreadable. He’ll also protect you with his life.”

  “Why would he do that? He doesn’t know me.”

  “Because I’ve asked him to. Because while he doesn’t know you, and just to note, he doesn’t trust you, he knows me.”

  Welp, my day off just took a turn to Shitsville.

  “Who is it?” I called out once I made it to the door.

  “Max Brown.”

  Deep, rough, rumbly.

  Nice.

  “How do I know it’s really you?”

  “Good girl.” Tex chuckled.

  “Tex sent me.”

  “What do you look like?”

  “You trying to piss me off?” Max returned.

  “No, of course not. I don’t know you. A girl can never be too safe.”

  “Right. Is that why you leave work with your head bent looking at the pavement instead of your surroundings? Is that why you help mothers load groceries into their cars
, uncaring it could be a ploy to kidnap you? Or, maybe you’re being safe when you don’t notice a man following you to an old woman’s house and he sits across the street and waits for you to leave for thirty minutes, and you still don’t notice. Yeah, Eva, you can never be too safe.”

  “Forgot to tell you, he’s been in town a few days shadowing you.”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  A chill ran down my spine. Tex wouldn’t go through all this trouble unless he was seriously worried.

  “You on the phone with Tex?” Max asked from behind the still-closed door.

  “Yes.”

  “He tell you why I’m here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then open up.”

  “I don’t think I want to. You don’t sound very nice and you kinda scare me.”

  “Lady, this is me being nice. I’m here to protect you, not play fucking games. Open the damn door.”

  “Now I really don’t want to.”

  “Eva, open the door. Max doesn’t have a lot of patience,” Tex said in my ear.

  “Great,” I hissed.

  I unhappily unbolted the door and opened it.

  Then my breath caught, my body tingled, and awareness seared through me.