Tomas’s Trials Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  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

  Epilogue

  About Carson’s Choice

  Excerpt from Ryland’s Reach

  Excerpt from Damon’s Deal

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  Tomas is excited about this new direction in his life. Working for Levi allows him to use his vast array of skills in new and varied ways. He doesn’t expect to be sent undercover in a supremacy group, loaded with weapons. Yet what he finds is much more complicated than that.

  Amber had joined the group to help get her friend away from the members, only to find out her friend is dead, and no one will talk about it. The group is in the middle of a coup from within, as the leader barely maintains control. It’s a dangerous place to be, but she is not leaving without answers. Needing help, she contacts an old friend. Tomas isn’t what she expects.

  Still, as long as he will help her do what she needs to do—before she gets into further trouble—he is fine with her. Except it doesn’t take long for both of them to realize that the danger is escalating to the point where it is possible that neither of them will leave the compound—at least not alive.

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  Prologue

  Back at Legendary Security HQ, Levi walked into the massive dining room. “What do you think about this guy?” he asked Ice, dropping a file in front of her.

  She flipped it open, looked at it. “Tomas. I brought up his name last year.”

  “Why didn’t we go with him then?”

  “Just after I talked to him, he got hurt.”

  “What’s his status now?”

  “Let me see.” She pulled out her phone and called him. “Tomas, how are you doing?” A strong male voice came through her cell, and she turned on Speaker.

  “I’m doing well,” he replied. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing fine, and Levi’s on here with me. We’re looking for some more men.”

  “Oh, hell. I figured I would be out of the running for good after last time.”

  “What happened?” Levi interjected.

  *

  Tomas stared at the phone. “I was shot on a mission. A revenge scenario,” he explained.

  “Fully recovered?”

  “No. Well, as recovered as I’ll be,” he noted, not pulling any punches. “I’ll always walk with a bit of a limp.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Nope,” Levi stated. “If it’s just a limp, I’m good with that. Are you still a weapons specialist?”

  “For anything I’ve had a chance to work on, yes,” he agreed, “but I’ve been out of touch for the last six—make that eight—months.”

  “That’s fine,” Levi replied. “We’re looking for somebody to take over. One of our people who handles some ops for us is pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” Tomas shook his head at that. “You have a female field agent there?”

  “Several actually, but Kai is pregnant, so we’re changing her duties temporarily, so we’ve got her in charge of the arsenal for a bit.”

  “Makes sense to me. Is this a full-time or part-time gig for me?” he asked. “I never expected to take over for someone on maternity leave.”

  Levi burst out laughing. “You should be honored in this case, if you get the opportunity.”

  “So, what do I need to do? Try out or something?”

  “Not so sure about that, but we do have a job opening. If you want to come on as a spare,” Levi offered, “we’ll see how it works out.”

  “I can do that,” Tomas replied.

  “Are you on any medication?” Ice asked.

  “Nope, I came off the last of them a couple weeks ago.”

  “And what were they for?”

  “Blood thinners. I was having clotting issues early on.”

  “Interesting,” she murmured. “But, as long as you’re healthy enough, and you think you’re ready to give it a go, we’re more than ready to give you a shot.”

  “Perfect. What’s the job?”

  Levi and Ice both hesitated, then Levi looked over at her, shrugged, and said, “We might as well tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” Tomas asked curiously. “I don’t like going into things without knowing at least a little about what I’m dealing with.”

  “That’s fair,” Ice agreed. “We have news of a militia group that’s collecting weapons and possibly women.”

  “Where?”

  “Just outside of Houston here,” Levi noted. “We don’t get too many local jobs, and we have a lot of people who want to do this one. So, while we do have men available, we just thought it might be an opportunity to see how you handle things.”

  “If you say so,” he stated, “I’m totally up for it.”

  “Whereabouts are you right now?”

  “Dallas,” he replied, “so I can be in Houston in just a few hours.”

  “Good. I’ll set you up at a hotel with an alias to check in.”

  “A hotel?”

  “Yep, you’ll be joining the group as a friend of a woman who’s already inside. Amber contacted us a couple days ago. She wanted in to help free her friend from it, but that friend is now dead, so Amber’s looking for help. Not just to get herself out but to burn the group to the ground.”

  “Ah, undercover then. That’s perfect. You got a story for me?”

  “Yep, I do.” Levi chuckled. “It’s a doozy. If you’re in, I’ll send you the details in a minute.”

  “I am definitely in,” Tomas replied, “particularly for bringing down something like this.”

  “Absolutely. Way too much of this shit happening in town right now.”

  “Send me the details. I’m packing already.” And, with that, Tomas hung up, a broad smile on his face.

  When Ice had called him before his injury, he’d been thrilled. Only two months out of the navy, he was at loose ends, figuring out what to do next, when she had contacted him. But, sure as hell, he’d been called back in because somebody had a grudge to settle, and Tomas had ended up in the middle and got shot. Now, here he was with the potential for a second chance. He felt good about that, particularly in this case.

  He smiled a happy smile. Who the hell knew where this job would take him? Wherever that may be, he was more than ready for the journey. He’d had his fill of the last several months of nothing but rehab and physical therapy and just wanted back in the action. As he walked around his small apartment, his to-go bag in his hand, he took one final look.

  If things worked out, he may never live here again.

  And, with that thought, he walked out with a huge smile on his face.

  Chapter 1

  Tomas swiped the card key and stepped into his hotel room. It was empty, as expected. He quickly locked it behind him, dropped his bag, and sent a text to Levi. I’m in.

  Levi’s thumbs-up was a quick acknowledgment, followed by an incoming text. Company coming your way in two minutes.

  Knowing this intel came from Levi, Tomas expected two minutes to be right on schedule. He stood in the middle of the room, mentally listening for the sound of footsteps coming in his direction.

  Sure enough, wi
thin two minutes, a knock came on the door.

  He quickly stepped behind the door and pulled it open. In walked Saul and Dezi, both men Tomas knew. He looked down the hallway, then closed the door behind them. He smiled. “Now these are faces that I haven’t seen in a very long time.”

  They greeted each other, as always. Tomas had met these men in the line of duty and had served with them on multiple occasions. He was even happier to see them now. “Damn,” Tomas muttered. “It’s really good to see you guys.”

  “Same,” Saul agreed, looking at him. “So how much experience do you have with the prepper world?”

  “Not a whole lot.” He shrugged. “And yet in a way, … far too much.”

  “You’ll have to explain that one,” Dezi stated calmly, as he looked around the small room and sauntered over to sit in the single chair beside the only bed. “We’ll need to know everything about whatever experience you do have.”

  “Any prepper experience I have,” he explained, “comes from an older brother who got involved with a really heavy militia group.” He winced. “He never joined the navy, like we did, and had no interest in anything to do with the government. Therefore, I was quite surprised that he ended up in civilian militia, until I realized it branched into all kinds of anti-movements.”

  “Like?”

  “Anti-government, anti-authority, anti-everything it seems. It made more sense as I heard more about the group. It was right up his alley, and I knew he was hooked.”

  “Yeah, a lot of those are out there, aren’t they?” Saul nodded.

  “Too many, honestly,” Tomas murmured.

  “So what is your brother up to now?”

  “He’s dead,” Tomas noted quietly. “Things got a little ugly at one of their meetings, and the cops came in heavy. Somebody started shooting, and the group returned fire, and the gunfight was on. He ended up taking a bullet, which nicked an artery, and he didn’t make it.”

  “Wow,” Dezi replied, fascinated. “You could definitely be the right person for the job then.”

  “It depends.” Tomas frowned.

  “On what?”

  “On what you have in mind.”

  “Tell us everything you can. First, would you be recognized?”

  Tomas sighed wearily. “I don’t know anybody in those groups. My brother’s death does give me some backstory and maybe a little bit of an edge on anybody who doesn’t have any experience or knowledge of groups like these at all. I definitely had a lot of back-and-forth with my brother, as I tried to convince him to get the hell out. He wasn’t having it though.” His voice took on a note of sorrow, mixed with anger.

  “He wanted nothing to do with the government or paying his damn taxes, but that was just the start of it. He definitely wouldn’t serve his country,” he murmured. “Honestly, my father really struggled with Torres’s choices. Then, after my brother died, things just got worse. It certainly was harder for my father to deal with his loss because it was such a senseless death,” he added quietly. “I mean, not that any death is ever good or makes sense, but, in this case, it just didn’t need to happen. He didn’t need to be involved with those people at all.”

  “No,” Dezi murmured softly. “I agree with you there. Too often that’s exactly what does happen though. You really try hard to keep everything normal. However, when one of the family goes off like that …”

  “What are you even supposed to do?” Tomas asked, his voice riddled with memories.

  “Sometimes you can’t do anything,” Dezi replied.

  “It broke my mother’s heart. And my dad took it really hard. I mean, losing a child isn’t easy at any time, but in a deal like this? … Just makes it all the uglier.”

  “Did you have any contact with the group after that?”

  “No, none at all,” he confirmed. “Are we thinking it’s the same group?”

  “No, I don’t think so. My guess is that Ice has already run into this intel and has taken a deep look into what group your brother was in and where that was, so I would think that connection would be a long shot at this point.”

  “You’ve certainly got my attention,” Tomas noted. “Can you fill me in a bit?”

  “In this case,” Dezi began, “Amber joined the group, hoping to get her friend out, but found out the friend was already dead by the time she was let in. Details are sketchy at this point, but what we do know is that Amber can’t get out.”

  “So is she the one who contacted Levi and Ice?”

  “Yes, some of her message was unclear. We’re not sure, but maybe she can’t get out safely, or maybe she thinks her friend was shot by somebody within the group. Either way, our job is to get her out.”

  “So you suspect the friend was murdered then,” Tomas remarked quietly.

  At that, Dezi nodded. “Yes. So it’s not just Amber we’re after. We’re also trying to figure out just how far and wide the rot inside this group has gone.”

  Tomas stared at them, as he slowly sank onto the side of the bed. “That’s interesting.” He paused. “You know what? That angle never once occurred to me. I knew that my brother’s life was in danger, but I never considered the idea of betrayal coming from within his own group.”

  Saul pointed out, “We’re in an odd scenario here where it seems like a possibility. Who knows? Maybe something like that is what happened to your brother too, although the truth would be hard to find now.”

  “Wow.” Tomas gave his head a shake and returned his attention to them. “It’s too late for my brother but not for Amber,” he stated. “If they are anything like my brother’s group, I’m pretty sure something’s seriously wrong with them. Anytime I talked to him, he seemed pretty strongly affected by the groupthink and was always spouting off about how the US needed to go back to the way it was and how he was part of a crew strong enough to make it happen.” Tomas shook his head. “You know—that cult brainwashed stuff.”

  “We do, but, at the same time,” Saul asked, “did he say anything specific that would give us something to go on or an angle to pursue?”

  “Not that I know of, or maybe I just haven’t thought of it much,” he admitted. “Honestly we didn’t know anything much about it until he was killed and only then what the cops told us. Supposedly he died in the middle of a gunfight, and he was on the wrong team, more or less. Obviously they didn’t say it in those words, but the cops did ask us back then if we had any information about his associates. I wasn’t even in the country at the time,” he murmured. “So I had no answers for them.”

  “No, of course not. When you came back, did you look into it?” Dezi asked. “Sorry, I know this is painful and not the thing you want to be dealing with right now, but you must have had some inkling.”

  “I did. Absolutely.” He got lost in his thoughts for a moment. “But I also knew that he was either bad news or somehow caught up in trouble all the time. I don’t have any illusions about my brother, so let me make that clear. If anybody was looking for trouble and looking to get himself into something likely to blow up in his face, that would be Torres. Regarding the group and the cause, he was a die-hard believer, and it seemed almost a religion, cultish to me. I don’t think he was a leader type, so always the follower.”

  Tomas stopped, then thought about it and shook his head. “No, I can’t see him as a leader in the group at all. I see him as somebody who got caught up in it as a fervent follower. He’s been dead a few years …” He stopped for a moment, making mental calculations, then added, “Four years, I guess. I lost track of time in the service and later with my injury and rehab, but I think it’s been four years. So, not all that long. It just seems a lot longer.”

  “It also seems like a long time because you’ve been superbusy dealing with your own life.”

  “Absolutely.” He nodded. “It feels strange to even think about it that way, but …” He shrugged. “My parents buried him, and we moved on.”

  “What else can you do?” Saul asked. “You carry on because th
at’s what you’ve been left with.”

  Tomas smiled at them. “Exactly. Accept the facts. Move on. That’s all there is to do with my brother’s death.”

  At that, both men nodded. Just then the door burst open, and a tall lean woman with a long auburn braid stepped inside, closing the door quickly behind her. Saul opened his arms, and she raced into them.

  “Oh my God,” she murmured, “I’m so glad to see you.”

  Saul chuckled and turned to introduce her. “Tomas, this is Amber.” Saul pointed his finger back and forth by way of introduction. “Amber Billings. An old friend.”

  Tomas looked at her in surprise. “I thought you couldn’t get out.” He walked over to shake her hand, with a welcoming smile.

  She looked at him carefully. “Believe me. I’m definitely not out, and, if I want my life back, it’ll take a whole lot more than slipping free of the noose,” she noted. “As it is, I have to be back before someone notices that I’m missing.” She handed something to Saul, and her gaze shifted to Tomas. “We’ll talk later. I don’t know you.”

  “I don’t know you either,” Tomas repeated calmly.

  She studied him, and then a narrow cunning look appeared in her gaze. “So I dropped the hint that I might want to bring in new blood. A friend. A special friend.”

  “Why would you do that?” Saul asked her.

  “Because I’m getting some heat from some of the guys,” she replied calmly. “I needed an excuse to keep them at bay, … like away from me.”

  “Like arm’s distance away? Like physical touching distance?” Tomas asked curiously.

  “Something like that,” she murmured. She looked at the other men and continued. “The guys all have a code, but unfortunately some of these men tend to be on the raunchy side. In many ways, they are like a biker gang, and some believe women should be locked up and held tight. Otherwise the women are pretty free for anyone to use.”

  “I can certainly be your special friend, if you need me to be,” Tomas stated, surprising them all, his mind racing at what she was dealing with.

  It was apparently something she hadn’t anticipated either, and she laughed. “You must be prepped to fight for me.” She stared at him, smiling broadly.