Daring Summer (Colombian Cartel Book 5) Read online

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  ©Daring Summer

  ©Colombian Cartel Series

  Copyright © 2018 Suzanne Steele

  Published by Suzanne Steele

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of Fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales, are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All other characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. The author acknowledges the trademark status of various products and locales referenced in this fictional work, which have been used without permission. The use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. All rights reserved. No part of this book can be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover photo © Dollar Photo Club

  Cover Copyright © Suzanne Steele

  Edited by Eda Price Editing

  Cover Design by Mayhem Cover Creations

  Formatting by Suzanne Steele

  Thank you for downloading this e-book.

  Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

  All content herein is protected under copyright law.

  This e-book is Rated 17+

  Note from author: Daisy is not the same Daisy as the character from my Dauntless MC Series. Different chick, same name;)

  To the reader

  The men I write about are Alpha males in every sense of the word. They are the men society warns us about. They are dominant males with controlling tendencies who often harbor an obsession for the woman they love. They are the men you know you should stay away from and yet are drawn to like a moth to a flame. If you are looking for a sweet romance, you won't find it here. What you will find is dark, consuming passion.

  Each character I create has demanded his or her voice be heard. I have been true to that calling. I have stayed true to the personal qualities and beliefs that drive the choices they make, with which the reader may not always agree. The world my characters occupy is dark and some people might consider their love dysfunctional but, nonetheless, their stories must be told.

  Stalk Me…

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  Table of Contents

  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

  Prologue

  “Harley Davidson, get the fuck in here and explain this! Right now!”

  Harley put down the book she’d been reading and ventured down the hall to her bedroom where her mother stood in the doorway waiting for her. Harley’s mom wasn’t your typical mom: she was rocking cutoff jean shorts and a tight t-shirt with no bra. A cigarette dangled between two fingers -- well, actually one and a half, or one and a nub. Harley’s father had cut Jewel’s finger off years ago, at the governor’s direction…but that was another story. Her name was Julia but she started going by ‘Jewel’ after she hooked up with her biker husband, Roderick -- Harley’s dad.

  “What is this shit?” Jewel jabbed a finger toward her little girl’s room. Harley poked her head into the room and looked around. She didn’t see anything amiss. In fact, it was perfectly clean. Tidy. There was no clutter anywhere because everything was in its proper place, just the way Harley liked it. She smiled at the orderly room that was a source of such pride to her. As far as Harley was concerned, her room had to be under control because nothing else in her life was.

  “Oh, hell, leave the child alone,” Roderick groused as he sauntered around the corner to join them. As he peered over Jewel’s shoulder, Harley beamed up at the most beautiful man in her world. He was tall and leanly muscled. Long brown hair flowed halfway down his back. He wore jeans and a form-fitting black t-shirt with a weathered leather jacket. He winked and smiled down at his little girl before tilting his beer back and downing what little was left.

  Her mother huffed and shook her head, even more frustrated now that the argument had become two against one. She shouldn’t have been surprised, though; it was how things usually went. “It ain’t normal.” She ventured over to Harley’s princess makeup table, and with a sly glance back toward the door she deliberately moved a bottle of sparkly pink nail polish. Harley shrieked, and Jewel dropped the tiny bottle like it had burnt her hand. “See?” Jewel spread her arms wide as she glared at her husband.

  “Kid probably needs order somewhere in her life, she sure don’t get it with us. A clean room ain’t anything to get worked up about, woman. You should be happy she does well in school and don’t get in trouble.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. No kid growing up around a bunch of bikers should be this damn clean! They shouldn’t do good in school either—”

  “’Well’,” Harley said, looking up at her mother with her big, innocent blue eyes.

  “Well, what?!?” Her mother closed her eyes for a long moment on an exasperated sigh, her hands on her hips.

  “It’s ‘they shouldn’t do well in school’. ‘Good’ is grammatically incorrect.” There was no sign of rebellion or sarcasm in the child’s matter-of-fact demeanor as she looked up at her mother sincerely.

  Roderick roared with laughter, rubbing his hand over Harley’s head and tousling her hair, which earned him another devoted grin from his little princess. “See? The kid’s normal. She knows how to be a smartass and backtalk her mama – and be grammatically correct while she does it.” Though he was deliberately appearing to misread his daughter’s intentions, he couldn’t help but yank Jewel’s chain. It was too much of a temptation for him to pass up.

  Harley frowned and shook her head. “But I wasn’t backtalking, Daddy. I was just trying to help Mama.”

  Jewel’s eyes narrowed irritably. “--as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted,” she said slowly.

  “Sorry, Mama.” Harley reached over to hug her mother’s leg which caused the woman’s hard heart to
melt just a little.

  “You’re a biker kid. You should be fighting or cussing.” Now it was Jewel’s face that held an element of sincerity as she tried to make the child see things her way—her twisted, warped, dysfunctional way.

  “But I don’t like fighting, Mama. I do like the fighting lessons Daddy gives me, though.” Her smile lit up the room as she nodded. The girl was the light of their lives and the only good thing in their chaotic world. It seemed mayhem always had a way of rearing its ugly head, and drama followed them like a shunned woman who just wouldn’t let go.

  “Probably better the kid ain’t fightin’. She’d hurt somebody.” He looked down at Harley, squaring his jaw sternly. “Anybody fucks with you or tries to touch you, you beat their ass, baby.”

  “I will, Daddy.” There was that look of easy innocence again.

  Roderick glanced up at Jewel. “See? She’s got some sour to go with her sweet, just like her mama.” He strolled over toward his wife, waggling his brows at her mischievously and smacking her ass as he passed by. He chuckled smugly, knowing that he had the advantage at this point in the conversation.

  Outrage rolled through Harley’s mother when Roderick laughed. As he turned to leave the room, he didn’t see the bottle of nail polish until it clocked him on the side of his head. She must have picked up two. Who’d have known? He stopped in his tracks and rubbed his head. His chin dipped as he tracked the bottle’s progress as it rolled across the floor. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to convey a silent message of displeasure to his wife.

  Harley dove onto her bed as Jewel took off running with Roderick chasing after her and bellowing about all the ways he could kill her. Harley waited to shut the door until they were gone. As she straightened up the mess her mother had made, she couldn’t help but wonder why she couldn’t have been born into a normal family. Maybe she was adopted. After all, she was nothing like these people. She was just glad that bottle of nail polish hadn’t broken. What a mess that would have made.

  Oh, well. She’d stay here until she was a big girl and then she would pursue her dream of being a nurse and get as far away from this place and these people as she could. She would live a normal, respectable life. But she’d stay in touch with her daddy, of course.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t love her parents; she just worried about them and what would happen if they got in trouble for selling pot or fighting or whatever else they did when they partied with their biker friends. She’d heard the horror stories about foster care. She went to school with some of the bikers’ kids. One little boy, Zander, had been taken away from his parents when they got caught cooking meth. He was never the same even after they got him back. He was mad all the time and barely talked to anyone—except her. Maybe it was because she did better healing people, not hurting them.

  Chapter One

  Those. Stupid. Fuckers.

  It really was kind of funny the way things had worked out. True…in the beginning Stan’s plan had involved only Valentina Vargas, one of the world’s most popular Telenovela starlets. Stalking her had consumed his life and gotten one of her co-stars killed, but now he had more ambitious, lucrative intentions.

  It had been almost too easy to let Valentina’s manager, Luis Jimenez, take the fall for being Valentina’s stalker. The circumstantial evidence had played out beautifully for what Stan decided to do after the cartel got involved. One of the cartel’s bigwigs, Ricardo Ramirez, had had an exotic animal refuge built to please his wife. Ramirez’s personal zookeeper, a guy named King, had walked right into that hospital in broad daylight and executed the hit on Luis. Luis had been brutally beaten already – that was why he was there -- so no one had suspected a thing.

  With Luis out of the way, Stan’s options were wide open. No one knew he even existed; he could move about freely without looking over his shoulder. The body was barely cold, and the Ramirez brothers were busy patting each other on the back for eliminating Valentina’s stalker. It would be so easy to catch them off guard now, while their defenses were down.

  Stan had been looked down on all his life and he was tired of it. He’d grown up poor. Adulthood hadn’t been any kinder to him as he’d gone from menial job to menial job and endured the dismissive attitudes of the people he worked with. He had hoped Valentina would finally see him for the devoted soulmate he was, but nothing he did ever mattered to her. Flowers in her dressing room? Nothing. Butcher her only real competition? Nada. Follow her to the U.S.? Nope. And now she was fucking Victor Ramirez, beloved son of Ricardo Ramirez. She was forever sullied. What a waste.

  Well, fuck her. Why should he waste any more time following her around? By virtue of the cartel’s own ineptitude, he had incriminating information about Luis’ murder that could bring down the cartel’s whole fucking U.S. operation if he wanted to. At the very least, he intended to score some serious extortion cash out of the whole thing.

  The Ramirez brothers wouldn’t know what hit them. They didn’t even know he existed, but he knew all about them and how they staged Luis’ murder to look like a medical complication. But they had left a witness. A very pretty witness: a nurse named Harley. He was looking forward to getting to know Harley. Fate had put her in his path. She was a woman of substance, so much better than Valentina. He’d make sure this one didn’t get away.

  With a pretty, new target firmly in his sights, Stan finally had the chance for the score of a lifetime. After all, information was power. He may not have gone to a fancy school, but he knew he was smarter than most. All he had to do was get his hands on that nurse and he’d have the means to blackmail the Ramirez family for the murder of Luis Jimenez. A simple extortion scheme would land him and Harley on a tropical island with no worries, but his plan would take time to execute. His first order of business was to get close to Harley and learn her routine. He was also considering starting a little side business, one that would help him establish himself as a force to be reckoned with among Louisville’s less savory criminal element. If he moved discreetly among the vermin, they’d be less likely to cause him problems.

  Yes…things were looking up for the man who had once been content to be a mere stalker. Valentina had been child’s play, a disappointing fantasy. She would never have been enough for him anyway; he knew that now. He intended to live a life far, far bigger than that. By the time he was done with the Ramirez brothers, he would be the slayer of an organized crime dynasty, the man who brought down an empire.

  Harley opened her eyes and sat up as she took a cautious look around. She wasn’t dreaming; she had spent the night with King. A murderer. A hitman of sorts for a cartel – in Kentucky?! You just can’t make this stuff up, she thought to herself. She had gotten precious little rest since King had confronted her in the hospital parking lot last night. He had kissed her to within an inch of her life and insisted that she go home with him. She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to something like that so soon after meeting him. Harley covered her face with her hands. Her cheeks heated at the memory of the hard-driving sex that had kept her up all night. He had been mighty persuasive.

  It was too much to take in without caffeine. She jumped up and threw on the scrubs she’d had on the night before. She wished she had something else to put on, but it would have to do for now.

  She looked around the bedroom. It was decorated in a rustic style that somehow fit the man. The house was an old country farmhouse that had been refurbished and filled with antiques. Oddly enough the large bedroom gave her the feeling of being at home. Even the bed was covered with handsewn quilts. She blushed again as she thought about the bedding.

  The sight of the folksy squares sewn together brought to mind her own need for security and stability. She’d sought both during her childhood, but they had eluded her like sand through her fingers. Much of her childhood had been spent filled with dread, just waiting for the bottom to drop out. The bikers she had grown up with were protective, but they weren’t magic men. They couldn’t make evil disappear like it had never exis
ted; no one could do that.

  As she padded down the stairs, she trailed her fingertip along the banister, tracing the intricate carvings that wound around in the form of a snake. She smiled to herself and wondered if the hands of the man who’d brought her so much pleasure the night before had made it.

  She didn’t have to look hard to find the massive country kitchen. It exuded the same rustic, welcoming quality found throughout the house, but was kitted out with restaurant quality, stainless steel appliances.

  She’d never been a fan of country furnishings, but this house was done with such taste and personality that she couldn’t help but love it. Her father’s idea of home décor had been a Harley he was working on parked in the middle of the living room, so King’s sense of style was refreshing.

  She headed toward the coffee pot and thought back on the previous night. King definitely knew his way around the female anatomy and that was something else she wasn’t used to. She hadn’t been with that many men but her sexual experiences so far had been little more than fumbling teenagers in the back of a car. King had taken his time and stripped away layers to forge a connection with her that went far beyond physical intimacy; he’d ventured into unchartered territory by managing to get her emotions involved. Again, none of it made a damn bit of sense.

  “Well, look at you. Good mornin’, darlin’. Coffee’s on.” The low, sultry voice wrapped itself around her as King tilted his chin toward the coffee pot. She had known King was around here somewhere, of course, but she was still unnerved to find him leaning against the doorframe watching her. He obviously enjoyed her discomfort, his smile growing until a dimple winked at her from deep in his cheek. His twinkling blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he sipped from a mug.

  “Could you give me some kind of warning before you just sneak up on me, please?” she huffed as she somewhat nervously tucked a strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear.

  He strode over to stand behind her, placing his mug on the counter. He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck as she poured steaming liquid into the mug he had put out for her. There was a lazy, confident ease about him that she found incredibly sexy. This was a man comfortable in his own skin. She turned around in his arms and studied him.