Redeeming Read online

  Other Titles

  By

  Calle J. Brookes

  Paranormal

  The Blood King

  Awakening the Demon’s Queen

  The Healer’s Heart

  Once Wolf Bitten

  Live or Die

  The Seer’s Strength

  The Warrior’s Woman

  The Wolf’s Redemption

  A Warrior’s Quest

  The Wolf God & His Mate

  Out of the Darkness (Dardanos)

  Romantic Suspense

  Watching

  Wanting

  Second Chances

  Hunting

  Running

  Redeeming

  Coming Soon

  A Warrior Blind (Dardanos)

  Confessing (PAVAD)

  Calle J. Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.

  REDEEMING

  Calle J. Brookes

  Springs Valley, Indiana

  The Lost River Literary name and imprint are the sole properties of independent publishers Calle J. Brookes and B.G. Lashbrooks. They cannot be reproduced or used in any manner; nor can any of their publications or designs be used without expressed written permission.

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

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Copyright © 2012 Calle J. Brookes

  Cover by B.G. Lashbrooks

  All rights reserved.

  REDEEMING

  A PAVAD NOVEL

  Prologue

  He would never understand the men who could look at a child and see a commodity, a means to a profit, nothing. And he would do whatever he had to in order to protect the children that he could.

  This one was younger than those he usually rescued. She was small, vulnerable, beautiful. She reminded him of the first girl he’d ever rescued from a life of slavery. That girl’s eyes had been as dark as his own, while this one’s were as pure green as he had ever seen.

  She clung to his neck, shivering in the cold rain. From rain, from cold, from shock and fear.

  She had been what they’d demanded as debt collateral. Because they were the kind of men who bought and sold innocence. She had watched her parents murdered over a few dollars’ debt, then been taken by the killers.

  She wasn’t even school-aged, yet. At least he didn’t think so. What did he know about such things?

  What was he supposed to do with her? Her parents were illegal immigrants from some former soviet country that was so in turmoil he could never send her back there. Her older sister was lost somewhere in the world of sexual slavery, and he doubted he’d ever find her. The little girl had no one but him. Poor kid.

  He couldn’t keep her himself. There would be too many questions, and he was too much in the public eye. And what if the men who had taken her had had friends who knew about her? One photo on the internet or in the tabloids and she could be a target again.

  No, he couldn’t risk it. Not at all.

  He needed someone who could love her, who could protect her. And who owed him one hell of a favor. And someone he could trust completely.

  He tucked the child’s head against his shoulder, whispering reassurances to her. It would be alright for her. Someday. Would she even remember the parents who’d raised her?

  “I will find you a home with a new momma. She will take care of you and love you forever. I promise.” He just hoped the woman he had in mind would agree.

  He carried the little girl up the stairs to the third floor apartment. It wasn’t a big apartment, but it was clean and in a nice neighborhood. The little girl should be safe there. And she would be loved by the woman inside; he didn’t doubt that. The woman inside was a federal agent. She could protect the child the way she needed to. And he’d protect them both with the money he’d been given—money that he’d never run out of.

  He knocked and waited.

  A beautiful, sleepy-eyed woman answered the door. “What on earth?” She stepped back and he carried his burden inside.

  “Get some blankets and dry clothes for her of some sort. She’s traumatized.”

  “She should go to the hospital. Is she hurt? Is it her blood?” He’d always admired her calm in situations of stress.

  “No… I have a great favor to ask you…” What he was asking would change her life forever; he understood that. And if he hadn’t known her as well as he did, he never would have even considered it.

  “Anything. You know it.”

  And that was exactly what he had been counting on.

  Chapter One

  Davis Lucas lived in a fortress, something straight from Batman or some other dark comic book. Dark. Scary. No doubt he played on that. He was dark; she’d seen photos of him in newspapers nearly every week. He was black-haired, and dark-eyed, and some said dark souled.

  She’d gotten a close up look at him four months ago when he’d stood guard over her best friend in the hospital.

  It was on behalf of that best friend that she stood on the doorstep of St. Louis’s wealthiest bachelor at fifteen minutes past midnight on the first Wednesday night in March.

  Thunder rumbled and Payton squeaked and shivered. Clichéd, Payton. Clichéd. She almost turned around and ran back to her car. Instead, she held her breath and rapped her knuckles against the steel door.

  No one answered.

  Maybe he wasn’t home? As the thunder built, she tried one more time.

  ***

  He’d sent his security detail to bed for the night, though he knew someone was monitoring him at all times. Luc paid them to be obsessive over his safety, and he paid extremely well. And he had their loyalty. He’d pulled the two German shepherds who normally roamed the property at night in the house with him. Not that he had any particular attachment to the animals, but he wouldn’t leave any beast to face the bitch that was Mother Nature.

  He’d spent too many nights himself out in the lightning and thunder to subject anyone else—man or beast—to a surprise pre-Spring thunderstorm. Any loss of life was a waste. And he would not have his people, or the dogs, in the line of fire.

  The dogs slept nearby, stretched out on rugs next to his chair. The house was dark, with only the light from the security monitor to illuminate the room. He had a monitor in every room on the property. Manny, the man who’d taken him in when he’d been fourteen, had lived by a very definite code of rules. At the top of the list was keep your eye on your land. Luc lived by that same code now, even though Manny had been gone close to ten years.

  Luc had been buzzed by one of his night security team asking for permission to let his midnight visitor in.

  He never got unexpected visitors. At least, not of the welcome kind. He had a few gold-diggers show up at his property every couple of months, but his security team knew how to deal with those women. This wasn’t one of those visits.

  He hadn’t expected the person on his doorstep to be a little blonde waif who was apparently afraid of the dark... and the thunder.

  He knew who she was, and everything about her. He recognized her from the backgrounds he had compiled on all the members of her team and from his own observations of her particular social group. He’d met her once or twice.

  Dr. Payton
Asher, a forensic scientist with the St. Louis FBI, who specialized in questionable documents. A handwriting expert. Blonde hair, freckles, and glasses, if he recalled correctly.

  He couldn’t think of anything more boring.

  What was such a wholesomely dull little creature doing on his doorstep tonight of all nights? This was the first night St. Louis had been under a tornado warning in the New Year; what was so important to bring her out in it? Or did she just not know any better?

  Insatiable curiosity had him buzzing the door open. Luc laughed aloud when the girl jumped. Would she have the courage to step into the darkened house? He could guarantee she’d be safer with him tonight than out in the storm.

  He wasn’t aware he held his breath until she took the first step inside. Then another. He exhaled. Ren, the largest of the dogs, raised his head and sniffed.

  “Not now, my friend. This little trespasser is for me.” He doubted she was there to throw herself at him, though he’d had a few memorable nights when that had happened.

  He’d always found money-grubbing desperation a major turn-off, and he’d made damn sure the women who’d tried it with him knew that.

  But this woman was different. He doubted Payton Asher had ever thrown herself at a man, especially a wealthy one. She was too shy for that. All anyone had to do was look at her to see that.

  Too pure, unless that Mayberry exterior hid the dark soul of kink or something. He was almost in the mood for a night like that, even with a woman who was a friend of a friend.

  Were it only so. But Davis Lucas, known mostly to the world as Lucifer, knew the truth. A woman like her—clean, good, normal—didn’t belong with creatures like him. It would be best if he simply dealt with whatever had brought her to him, let her wait out the storm with him, then chase her off for good.

  ***

  His house was weird, and it took Payton a few moments to put it all together. His fortress was made from shipping containers. She’d read that he strongly believed in recycling and had used over fifty of the steel containers to build his five story fortress. And wasn’t that what his main company did? Recycling? Hadn’t it made him filthy rich?

  There were no main windows except for the front entry way’s forty-foot expanse of glass, just cold steel. Payton shivered again. While she definitely admired his ‘go green’ claim, could some effort have been made to make the place look like a real house? Like someone actually lived there? Instead of a cold steel fortress?

  What was she supposed to do now? She’d stepped inside when the door had opened, but there was still no light and no clear path for her to enter the house. Who had let her in? Had the storm knocked out his power? Shouldn’t a place like this have backups, or something? Where was he?

  She wished she had told someone where she was going. Just in case. His security man knew she was here, but would that make much difference?

  Why had she been so stupid?

  “I won’t resort to clichés.” The voice was disembodied, from behind her, and had her squeaking and jumping again.

  “Mr-r-r. Lucas?”

  “Hello, Dr. Asher, what brings you here so late?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you...” She still couldn’t see him, but she knew it was the man she sought. There was something about the man the tabloids called Lucifer that made him so distinctive. And so very frightening.

  “Then why have you?” His tone was bored, rude. But how could she blame him? People probably bothered him all the time, asking and wanting things from him. Hadn’t Cody said something about that once?

  Cody. Her friend, and the main reason she was there. Cody and a little girl with frightened eyes. Thoughts of her friend gave her the courage she needed. She’d help her friend in any way that she could.

  “Because... because... I have some questions for you.” Payton squinted toward the voice, wishing he’d turn on a dang lamp so she could see him. Lightning flashed behind her, the windows so large she almost felt she was still outside in the path of the storm.

  Lightning flashed again, and she just got a glance of a tall, dark man leaning casually against a wall. He had two dark shapes next to him; huge, muscled animals. Fear had her turning back toward the door, toward her little sedan waiting just outside.

  “Come away from the glass, if you’re scared, then. Questions about what?”

  Payton shivered again, feeling stupid for not waiting. But morning would have been too late. She needed her answers long before then. Cody was filing the papers with the court at nine in the morning.

  “I have questions about these forms.” Payton pulled her courage around her. “These guardianship papers you gave Cody—they are fake. Signed by only one person. You, Mr. Lucas. What have you gotten Cody involved in? Why would you do this?”

  Chapter Two

  Damn. The little waif was too smart for her own good. “Interesting. So what did you base this idea on?”

  “You signed your legal name on one line. Cody asked me to sign as witness, as well. I noticed anomalies. Forms that were signed by three different people, when there should have been five.” Her voice strengthened, but he had no difficulty hearing the fear she still so obviously felt. Foolishly brave, confronting him in his own home so late. “I want to know what you’re trying to involve Cody and Lucy in. I know you’re the one who brought her Lucy, in the first place. Is it legal?”

  “It’s nothing you need to be concerned about.”

  Luc stepped out of the shadowed foyer and approached his guest. He towered over her. He was close to six-foot-six, and most women were dwarfed by him. She was probably a good ten or eleven inches shorter and built thin and athletic. She was in the light, directly in front of him now, and he took a good look at the woman Cody had said was her best friend.

  She had big blue eyes, pale blonde hair, slightly crooked teeth, and freckles. If she’d braided her hair into two pigtails it wouldn’t have surprised him at all.

  She had down-on-the-farm-wholesome written all over her.

  She was the kind of woman men like him stayed far, far away from. And he was the kind of man she should have known better than to confront. Didn’t she have more self-preservation than that?

  Didn’t she know what could happen to pretty, blue-eyed blondes in this world? Especially out this late at night.

  Why had she thought to interrogate a man she didn’t know about something that she had to know was illegal? Was she lacking basic common sense?

  He didn’t have time to ask her those questions. The dogs began barking and growling, lunging toward the glass just behind the girl. She squealed when Rath rushed past her toward the window. Something—someone—was out there. And his security agent either hadn’t seen it… or was incapable of doing something about it. Luc pulled his gun free, from where he always wore it.

  A dark shadow ran across the front of his entryway, on the sidewalk between her car and the front door.

  Luc saw a spark that he knew wasn’t lightning, saw a small bit of a flame and he reacted. Had it been just him, he’d have met the threat head-on, with his gun. But… he wasn’t alone. And that made all the difference.

  This girl was important to Cody; his decision was made.

  He grabbed her arm and yanked her behind him. “Run!”

  Chapter Three

  Payton didn’t know what to think. He’d rushed her through his fortress of a house, the dogs on his heels, and down into what she could only call a bunker. He slammed the door behind the dogs and typed some code into the small panel next to the steel door. He yanked on a light. “Might as well make yourself comfortable. We’re not getting out of here for a good long while.”

  She could hear the sounds of something exploding above them. Loud, terrifying, and just like when her lab at work had ignited around her. Even more fear filled her. “What’s happening? Tornado?”

  He looked at her. “Security breach. Probably a pipe bomb or other explosive. Didn’t you see the guy by your car?”

  “No…�
�� Had someone been there? She’d seen something when they’d been standing by the window, but had no idea what it was…And the bunker they were in confused her. It had a big bed on one end, a fridge, even a television and computer. An old pinball machine was in one corner, and the rest of the space was lined with shelves full of books and canned food. Had he spent much time down here? “And this room? It’s safe, like a panic room or something?”

  “It’s two hundred feet away from the main house, sweetheart. Even with a tornado or Armageddon going on up there, you will be safe. I promise.”

  He didn’t seem concerned at all. “Aren’t you worried about your house?”

  “It’s damned near indestructible. Glass will need replaced, most likely. Paint and flooring in the front. That’s about it. I built it that way on purpose. I have some artwork and things upstairs, but they are deliberately reproductions. Remember this—everything of value, especially material possessions, is temporary.”

  “But what are they doing up there?”

  “Let’s take a look.” There was one chair in front of the computer and he sat. “Electronics and surveillance are a hobby of mine.”

  She knew that was an understatement. Hadn’t some of his fortune been made on finding newer, cleaner ways of building electronic components?

  “Shouldn’t you call the police or something?” She slipped her hand into her pocket, where her phone rested. Should she call someone? Cody? Paige? Josh or some of the others? They were all exhausted after the hunt for Alessandra and Carrie, who were still missing. Should she…? “I can call my friends, they can come…”