Deceive Me
Also by Ella Sheridan
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Assassin's Game
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Only for the Night
Only for the Moment
Secrets To Hide
Unavailable
Undisclosed
Unshakable
Southern Nights
Teach Me
Trust Me
Take Me
Southern Nights Box Set
Southern Nights: Enigma
Come For Me
Deceive Me
Destroy Me
Deny Me
Watch for more at Ella Sheridan’s site.
Table of Contents
Also By Ella Sheridan
Deceive Me (Southern Nights: Enigma, #2)
Blurb
Copyright
Dedication
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
About the Author
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Deceive Me
Southern Nights: Enigma 2
Ella Sheridan
Blurb
She’s a lone wolf, raised to combat. But fighting him isn’t what she wants.
Elliot Smith has trained hard to live alone and work alone, even when it comes to her job as a security specialist for JCL Security. No relationships, no ties, except the one to the man who kidnapped and murdered her mother. She’ll do anything to kill Martin Diako, the untouchable South African pirate king. When Deacon Walsh walks into her office, she finally sees a chance to do just that.
Deacon went from soldier to mercenary warrior to stay-at-home dad, and now his past is back to haunt him. Martin Diako, the father of the terrorist Deacon killed two years ago, is coming for revenge, and he has his sight set on Deacon’s daughter. An heir for an heir. Deacon will do anything to protect her, even if it means asking for help. But the security team he’s hired comes with an added complication: the only woman to interest him since his wife died.
Deacon always leads his team, and Elliot protects hers. They might have one chance at their enemy—if they can work together. Will their hunger for each other pull them together, or push them apart?
Praise for Deceive Me
“Overwhelming emotion and heart-racing excitement. Deceive Me is something special. Ella Sheridan's best book yet!” — Blogging by Liza
“The suspense is riveting, the love scenes sizzling.” — TBQ Book Palace
“An edge of your seat thriller!” — Romantic Fanatic Blog
“Full of action and suspense. A well-written and exciting read.” — The Reading Cafe
Copyright
Southern Nights: Deceive Me
© March 2017 Ella Sheridan
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Cover Art Design by Mayhem Cover Creation
Editing by Deborah Nemeth
Published in the United States.
Dedication
To Deacon and Elliot.
My heart hurt for you from the very beginning. Here’s to your happy ending. Both of you deserve it so much.
Acknowledgments
Stephanie Boting, thank you for all your insight and patience in sharing your country and culture with me. Someday I’ll write a South African who isn’t a villain, I promise. I appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to answer question after question after question. Any mistakes regarding Africa are totally mine.
Heather Knight, I’m so glad you sent me that first e-mail. My life would be very different if we’d never met. Thank you for reading those first rough chapters and being honest about what they needed. Insight like that is invaluable, and you’ve shared yours graciously. Thank you, my friend.
Nikki Snider, my fabulous beta reader. Your encouragement and excitement every time I send you something makes my heart happy. Thank you for being willing to read, for being a cheerleader when I sorely need one, and for reminding me, over and over, that I have a gift readers enjoy. I appreciate you so much.
Dani Wade—critique partner, sister, partner in crime. I love you. I couldn’t have made this journey without your love and encouragement. You’ve stood beside me for TEN books (okay, more, but ten published books...). But even more, you’ve stood beside me for decades of life. Thank you for helping me find my voice and my feet these last few difficult years. Here’s to many more!
And finally, to my daughter, S. You’re patient when you don’t have to be, act interested when I’m rambling on about my characters, and celebrate with me when I accomplish my goals. I don’t know what I did to deserve such a kind, compassionate, smart, beautiful woman for a daughter. I’m looking forward to my vanilla Dr. Pepper on release day, hon. I love you.
Prologue
Two Years Earlier
Location: Namibia, Africa
Global First Security Team: Foxtrot
Mission Objectives:
- Rescue Senator Jeremy Ewing, wife, and twin daughters.
- Detain Andre Diako for questioning.
- Release human cargo.
- Incapacitate Diako’s ship.
Entry: 2100 hours local time
The dock in the middle of nowhere, Liberia, smelled of rotting fish, fetid water, and the open sewers lining the streets nearby. Deacon Walsh ignored the stench and cursed as he directed his NVGs at the deck of the freighter moored at the end of the dock. The ship wasn’t large, not as cargo ships went; that was how Martin “Mansa” Diako kept his operations under the radar. Every inch of space belowdeck would be crammed with illegal goods and human slaves, though.
Their target was a little higher end. Too bad Mansa wasn’t on board with the hostages instead of shipping the senator and his family with his son. Mansa believed in earning what you got, not having it handed to you. Andre Diako had moved up in his father’s organization if he had the privilege of “escorting” such high-profile prisoners.
The soldiers pacing the deck confirmed the senator’s location—regular cargo wouldn’t require that amount of guards, not in this out-of-the-way port
. In the dim lights thrown by the few unbroken lights peppering the nearby dock, Deacon counted easily twice as many fatigue-clad figures as their informant had claimed would be there. If not for the fact that the fucker was already dead, Deacon would snap his fucking neck. His team needed to get in and out with as little fuss as possible, and that wasn’t happening with thirty well-trained pirates between them and Senator Jeremy Ewing’s family.
“What’s the story, Deac?”
Lowering his goggles, he turned to his second in command, Fionn “Irish” McCullough. His best friend’s eyes shone especially white in his blackened face. If not for those eyes, even Deacon wouldn’t have been able to locate him—Irish’s specialty was infiltration.
As much as the command left a bitter taste in his mouth, Deacon knew what they had to do. “Abort.”
Trapper caught the command through their mics. His curse echoed in all their ears. They all agreed with the sentiment too, but Deacon wouldn’t risk his six-man team against that many soldiers with no backup. They’d call in Team Lima. Now they just had to pray Diako kept his father’s “cargo” presentable for the next twenty-four hours.
Except as Deacon swept the boat one last time, the light blinked on in the bridge. Andre Diako walked through the hatch, a sick grin of anticipation on his lips. Deacon saw why when the senator’s twin eighteen-year-old daughters stumbled in behind him, thick metal chains looped around their throats. Tears tracked down the girls’ dirty faces.
They were naked.
Shit.
Deacon allowed himself no more than a brief closing of his eyes, but deep inside, rage billowed. He knew what happened to women the Diakos—Senior or Junior—got their hands on, but watching it and not doing anything? Interference without the assurance of completing their objectives contradicted every minute of training he’d been given since he joined the military right out of high school. It risked himself and his team and everything they could accomplish.
Another glimpse through the binoculars had bile rising in the back of his throat.
Fuck objectives. Just fuck ’em.
“Scratch that,” he barked into the mic. “Diako, wheelhouse, twin hostages.”
Muttered curses from his team echoed through his earpiece, but not one objection. They were going in, risk be damned. Besides, no one had said they had to bring Diako in easy. Deacon would make sure they didn’t.
“Trapper, Inez, take point,” Deacon murmured. He lowered the binoculars, needing to focus. The two team members moved seamlessly along the wharf, keeping to the shadows, their bodies in sync with the ease of long practice. Their team had only been together four years, but Trapper and Inez had gone through Hell Week together, served their two terms as special forces together. They read each other’s minds, it seemed, just as Deacon and Irish did. Maybe their expertise would get them through tonight without getting dead, but if not, it was worth it to give those two girls a chance.
Li and Farley followed the pair into the dark. Irish trailed Farley toward midship, Deacon covering their six.
The slap of waves against the hull covered the whisper of cloth against cloth as the six men closed in on their destination. Despite nightfall, the heat had melded Deacon’s body armor to his skin with sweat. The air was thick with salt, scraping against any unprotected skin. Instant facial. He didn’t think it would go over well back home, though. He’d rather be in the jungle than on the coast, even with the heat, but he went where the prey was. That’s why he’d left the military, after all—why most of his team had left the military. The freedom to hunt bastards like Diako and his warlord father. And the freedom to make sure those same bastards never surfaced again.
Two guards stood at the gangway, their focus more on their cigarettes than their guns and possible intruders. Trapper and Inez had the two down before they ever knew a threat existed. Farley and Li dragged the bodies down to the dock and stuffed them out of sight while Deacon and Irish kept watch. Trapper and Inez were halfway to the lower deck passage before the rest of them hit the deck. At least the bastard informant had coughed up a map of the ship before he earned his broken neck.
“Go to stern, gentlemen,” Deacon murmured into the mic. The passageway at the rear of the boat intersected with Trapper and Inez’s near the cells the senator and his wife were likely still inside, frantic for their daughters. “Confirm.”
None of the urgency he felt filtered through his words. Urgency made you sloppy. They couldn’t rescue the hostages if they were dead.
“Confirmed,” Farley answered. He and his partner peeled off, headed aft. Irish and Deacon headed the opposite, toward the bridge access. Guard after guard felt the final shock of their life before a silent knife sliced their throat or strong hands jerked their heads in the wrong direction without warning. With the boat in a “friendly” port, the men were lax, preoccupied, off their guard. Team Foxtrot took full advantage.
An outside ladder near the bow would allow them to access the bridge. As they neared the area, Irish looked over his shoulder at Deacon, signaling eyes, forward. Trouble ahead. Deacon kept himself in line with his partner, trusting Irish to assess the threat while Deacon watched their flank.
“Moving in.” Farley. Deacon squelched the mic as Irish inched forward. Both men froze when a sudden shout from Farley and Li’s location brought the pounding of footsteps along the deck.
Melting into the shadows, Irish and Deac waited as a contingent of four guards swept past. A fifth, a massive ape of a man with dead eyes, came to an abrupt halt right in front of their position, his head swinging back and forth as he searched for whatever had piqued his instincts. They all had it, the ability to sense a threat, even one they couldn’t see. This man knew danger was at hand, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Then he made the mistake of turning his back to stare out toward the gangway.
In a sudden blur of motion Irish shot forward, crouched low to avoid alerting the target. His knife caught the guard across the backs of both ankles, slicing through the Achilles’ tendons. Deacon caught a glimpse of the guard’s gaping mouth and wide eyes as he fell. He hit the deck on his back, legs useless, but turned just in time to catch Irish’s follow-up attack. The man blocked the downswing of Irish’s knife with a meaty arm but left his torso unprotected. Deacon’s blade swept past his guard and found the man’s right lung a second later.
A strangled scream gurgled from the dying soldier’s mouth. At the same moment, a pain-filled feminine cry filtered down from the bridge. Deacon went cold at the sound. A quick jerk of his knife sliced through the guard’s vocal cords, cutting off any further sound or air. Deacon flicked the blood from his blade as he met Irish’s grim gaze.
Mouth tight, his partner nodded toward the ladder just past the bloody sprawl of the guard’s body. As he turned and stepped over the soldier like so much garbage, Deacon’s earpiece lit up with calls from the other members of their team.
“Two targets located.”
“Bastard—Li!”
“Farley, report!” Trapper.
Then Inez. “Senator and wife mobile. Deac, report.”
A second scream, this one ending in a horrible gurgling sound, came from inside the bridge.
Deacon squelched the mic again in lieu of a verbal report. The men knew what it meant. This close to the bridge, a word spoken at the wrong moment would alert Diako and anyone else he had with him. Deacon tried to ignore the chaos in his ear in favor of completing the mission.
The hatch at the top of the ladder was part glass, the large rectangle illuminated with bright light from within. Irish ducked beneath, taking the entry side. Deacon glanced in quickly as he joined his partner. What he saw seared his eyeballs long after he crouched next to Irish, breathing low but ragged.
One twin was chained to the far bulkhead. The girl’s face was red, tear-ravaged as she yanked on the hook her tether was attached to, so high up that she stretched just to keep her tiptoes on the deck. Diako was forcing the second twin toward a wide table at the back o
f the room. The child’s desperate eyes had faced the hatch Irish and Deacon were set to enter, searching for rescue, for escape. He heard a soft scream and the impact of skin on the tabletop.
Christ.
Deacon forced the blinding rage away. He needed a clear head to rescue both girls from the bastard. Mentally he assessed positions, assets, limitations, searching for the best way to accomplish their new objective.
He tapped Irish’s shoulder. When his partner’s gaze met his, he signaled silently, giving Irish the plan. With a nod, Irish grasped the hatch handle openhanded, his fingers closing on a silent countdown to entry.
The hatch opened with a slight squeak that was drowned out by Diako’s filthy play-by-play of his actions. Irish crept forward, staying low. Deacon followed, disgust curdling in his stomach in a way he couldn’t detach from as the bastard’s voice became more and more breathless, rough. A countdown to his death, whether he knew it or not. The knowledge allowed Deacon to focus—he wouldn’t fail these girls when they needed him most.
They’d made it halfway down the room when a hoarse shout left Diako’s mouth. Irish surged around the counter that hid them from sight, ready to tackle the fucker to the deck.
The second twin moved faster. Dangling chain now clasped in her fists, she rushed across the room, ready to swing the heavy metal at her sister’s attacker. Despite his preoccupation, Diako saw the threat coming.
Later Deacon tried to remember where the knife had been—not in the hand he could see, planted on the table next to the first twin’s head. The bastard might’ve had it in a sheath on his opposite hip, in his hidden hand, lying on the table. Wherever it was, it was close enough that Diako had time to raise it before the girl reached him. Flying chain and striking knife passed each other in the air, one slapping harmlessly across Diako’s back, the other digging deep into the girl’s belly. Irish shouted from directly behind their target, the angle of his raised gun lining Diako and the girl up, preventing his shot. Deacon jerked to the side, his approach giving him a clear shot of Diako’s sick brain. The silenced spit of the gunshot sounded soft in the chaos, but Diako’s head exploded anyway. Monster and child fell like empty puppets to the deck, their bodies settling mere inches away from each other.