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  Masked

  Honor Bound: Book Seven

  Angel Payne

  This book is an original publication of Angel Payne.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

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  Copyright © 2018 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design by Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Photographs: Shutterstock

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  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For my Thomas…who loves my dark side.

  Contents

  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

  Continue the Honor Bound Series with Book Eight

  Excerpt from Mastered: Honor Bound Book Eight

  Acknowledgments

  A Special Bonus!

  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

  Epilogue

  Continue the Secrets of Stone Series with Book Two

  Excerpt from No More Masquerade: Secrets of Stone Book Two

  Also by Angel Payne

  About Angel Payne

  Chapter One

  It was going to be a breathtaking fall sunset in Red Rock Canyon. The birds still sang in a cloudless sky. Awakened by recent rains, the wind was still redolent with desert lilies, poppies, agave, and cholla blossoms. The air was cool but not cold. On a ranch in the valley below, a band played “Can’t Help Falling in Love” for the crowd at a wedding reception in full swing. Appropriate, given that the lights of the Las Vegas Strip had just started to glitter in the distance.

  “Good night to be alive. But an even better one to be dead, I reckon.”

  Daniel Colton glanced toward the source of the comment. His buddy, Special Ops Master Sergeant Tait Bommer, added a cheerful whistle to it while sharpening a wicked battle knife. The last rays of the day’s sun glinted off the steel as Bommer checked the blade, flashing the dying rays of the sun into the eyes of the man who was bound and gagged in the dirt at their feet.

  Dan grunted. “Wouldn’t know the difference.”

  Tait nodded. Though he added a quick frown, he kept the expression to himself. Dan didn’t need the guy’s goddamn empathy, pity, attempt at understanding, or whatever the fuck they wanted to call it. His face was a freak show, end of discussion. He refused to process anything further than that. Didn’t want to rehash the mission in which he’d “selflessly saved a woman’s life” in a fire that should’ve killed her and him. Didn’t want to talk about the months of burn therapy that made him wish he really had died—or the face that caused most people to think he was already half a corpse.

  Best to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  And looking forward to moments like this.

  The sole advantage to being half Freddy Krueger was that a guy could go anywhere he wanted and do even more. Eyeballs on the guest roster at a Mexican Riviera resort known for its high security? No problem. The Ken doll side of his face, flashed at the right angle, charmed the front desk agent enough to turn it over. Getting past the guards at Cameron Stock’s suite? Presto magico. Out came the burned monster, long enough to remind the assholes what they’d look like as worm food, allowing him to slip in with two hired goons and make off with Stock before anyone noticed.

  By the time Stock’s henchmen realized their boss was gone, Dan had the ass-wad drugged, tied, and loaded onto a private transport helo, charted for a direct flight here. The timing was advantageous. Tait was already out in the canyon, playing best man at his brother Shay’s wedding at Spring Mountain Ranch. Dan threw a stare over at the lights of the celebration, where the Elvis tune was followed by the “Cha Cha Slide.” He imagined the faces of so many friends in that glow, happy and smiling—and very relieved they didn’t have to look at him, the burned husk serving as a reminder of the off-books operation that had nearly killed them all.

  Due in part to the man now whimpering at Tait’s feet.

  “You ready to do this, spook man?”

  Dan bristled. The nickname irked. He hadn’t been a real spook for a while. Though he was still on the CIA’s payroll, his indefinite medical leave wouldn’t be lifted until he received clearance from one of their “approved” head shrinks—and he’d be damned if anyone was going to crack open his psyche for a guided tour anytime soon. Nevertheless, he let the label slide. There was more important work to focus on.

  “You know it,” he uttered back.

  “Music to my ears.” Tait chuckled while watching Stock’s eyes widen before the man trickled a scream past the edges of a dirty cloth gag. “But that doesn’t suck either, Stock. You sing all you want, because I’ve been waiting a long damn time for this—namely, from the moment I had to bury the woman I loved thanks to your terrorism.” He ran the knife over the sharpening stone again. “Learning that you extorted my mom for years, keeping her from my brother and me, really wasn’t helpful to your case either, man. And oh yeah…the bit about my sweet little old lady neighbor secretly being your minion, assigned to kill Shay and me if Mom ever tried to contact us? So a big winner in the karma department.” He grunted. “Guess it’s a good thing you got some points back when Shay and I found Mom last year.”

  Dan pivoted and planted a boot on Stock’s chest, his face directly in Stock’s line of vision. “Let’s not forget his unique monster-making talent, either. Maybe I’ll just stand here and remind you, asshole.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic idea,” Tait growled. “Nice little preview of hell.”

  “Bingo.”

  “You’re so damn sweet, Colton.”

  “Right? That’s me. Mr. Giver.”

  “That frees me up to be Mr. Karma.” The tension rolled thicker off Tait, pretty much as Dan expected—but he still slid a questioning stare at his friend. Something was suddenly off about the guy. Tait had anticipated this day for a long damn time, twice as long as Dan. So why was there a palpable conflict in the man?

  “Well?” Dan demanded. “You ready?”

  Tait rolled his shoulders then nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” But after he took two steps over, he paused—then returned Dan’s stare with just as much determination. “No, Dan.” He shook his head. “Not okay. Damn it, I’m sorry, but…”

  Dan glared. Let his jaw plummet. “You’re…what?”

  A corner of his mouth jerked up. “Dude, sometimes…you just have to let love win.”

  “You have to do what?”

  “I know, I know. Sounds like a sappy song, right?”
<
br />   “No, goddamnit. Sounds like pussy-whipped walking.”

  “Maybe.” Tait tossed the knife to the ground and then rolled his shoulders again. “Okay, probably.”

  Dan glared at the weapon. Again at his friend. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not. This time, love’s the winner for me, man. The lightning bolt that just keeps hitting. I watched my brother declare the same truth for his life today. My mom was on one side of me, Lani on the other…lightning bolts number two and three, the loves I never thought life would give me, let alone in such abundance. And I’ve got a feeling that Lani, Kell, and I will be working on number four in a while too. Life is good, and I’m not going to blow it this time.”

  Rage pounded Dan’s chest. Every mottled inch of skin on the right side of his face burned with it too. Logically, he knew the pain was only memory. Didn’t matter when memories were as true as reality. And sure as hell didn’t matter when the fury seeped so deep, he longed to strangle Tait before driving the knife into Stock.

  Life is good?

  Love’s the winner?

  What. The. Fuck?

  “Well, isn’t that the most precious thing?” He couldn’t spit it viciously enough. “So glad to know things worked out for you, dude. That traveling all the way to Mexico, finding this ass-nozzle, flying him out, and bringing him right to your feet was so worth my fucking time!”

  Tait’s face—still so surfer-god attractive, he’d left at least a dozen women panting in his wake during Shay’s bachelor party at Gilley’s the other night—tightened. “Calm the hell down. Nobody asked you to play Dog the Bounty Hunter and traipse down to Mexico on a vendetta.”

  “Shut up,” Dan snarled. He grabbed the knife and stomped over, thrusting the handle back out at the guy. “Shut the fuck up, Tait, and send this bastard to his maker now—or I will!”

  * * *

  “We’re really going to hell for this.” Tait’s hands were matching loops of white around the steering wheel of his rented Escalade, even in the fading twilight. “You know that, right?”

  A groan came from the back seat, laced with rickety agony—sounding a lot like a bastard with a knife in his scrotum. Dan glanced over his shoulder at Stock’s prone form in the back seat. Well, imagine that. The guy did have a Bowie Hilt hard-on. The sack they’d tossed over Stock’s head in Mexico now made for an improvised dressing around the wound, and a heap of hotel towels—God knew why Tait had the things in the car—were swaddled around the bastard, warding off a little of the encroaching shock. Even so, Stock’s continued consciousness was surprising. He was either one of the most tenacious scumbags Dan had ever encountered or he’d really made a deal with the devil—a pact Dan would already be delivering on right now, if Bommer the magical Hallmark card hadn’t stopped him.

  Damn it.

  At least he’d gotten in the satisfaction of going Benihana on the dickwad’s scrotum. And yeah, he hated admitting it, but watching Stock in agony was maybe a bit more fun than gazing at his corpse. Now, he was determined to enjoy every moment of the show.

  “Awww, Cameron,” he drawled. “Is that a knife in your balls, or are you just happy to see me?”

  “Fuh you!”

  He snorted Tait’s way. “Funny how that one always translates.”

  Tait added his glower to the mix. “You heard what I said, right? We’re dragging that asshole, bleeding crotch and all, back to my little brother’s wedding reception.”

  “And that’s my fault…why?”

  Tait huffed. “Did you stop to think about the date of your little toodle-loo South of the Border, billionaire boy? You RSVP’d to the wedding too.”

  “No. Brynn RSVP’d for both of us.”

  “Because the woman’s good that way. Really good. You know she’s probably the best thing that ever happened to you, including your pre-asshole days, right?”

  “You mean pre-Quasimodo days?”

  “I mean pre-asshole.”

  “Sheez. I sent Zo and Shay a present.”

  “You sent them a whole game room.”

  “They didn’t like it?”

  The guy stabbed a hand through hair that resembled a tsunami, due to all the product coating the strands. “For a second, just one, try to wrap your mind around how stressed we all were today. About you. When you didn’t show up at the church, we all thought—” He stopped, clearly editing himself, though the damage was already done. Dan knew damn well what they’d all thought. “Well, we were worried. So when you texted in the middle of dinner with that urgent, you gotta come now shit…”

  “Sorry to have disappointed,” Dan drawled. “I know hand-delivering Stock wasn’t as exciting as talking me down off the top of the Cosmopolitan. Shit, we could’ve topped off the night with foo-foo drinks in the Chandelier Bar too. What was I thinking?”

  Bommer shook his head. “You know, asshole, I’m five seconds away from taking out your teeth with my fist. You want to devalue your life like that, I’m past fighting the issue. But stop dragging the rest of us into your goddamn hole.”

  Silence was the best response to that one. Even rounding the corner on his twenty-sixth sleepless hour, jacked on fury and adrenaline, the wisdom prevailed. Wouldn’t do him any good to point out the “hole” wasn’t his to begin with, dug deeper by the two off-books ops that the band of merry men known to the outside world as Operational Detachment Alpha, First Special Forces Group, had gotten themselves into. Wouldn’t be a valid point, anyway. He’d been a willing accomplice to both the wild boys on both rides, including his decision to dive into that burning building in the north Nevada wilderness.

  In the doing, he’d saved a nurse’s life and lived through the ordeal himself, a miracle that should’ve brought more comfort than it did. But that was the thing about monkeys on a guy’s back, especially the species known as bitterness—especially if it lived in the eyes of the mangled man in the mirror.

  These days, it was simply easier to match the inside to the outside.

  “Fuck,” Tait groused. “I’ve been gone an hour and a half.”

  “Boohoo,” Dan volleyed. “I’m sure Lani and Kell kept your seat warm.” In more interesting ways than he wanted to imagine.

  “You remember I’m the best man at this thing, right? The first toast guy? The keep-everything-moving guy?”

  “And you would’ve been back to your duties much sooner than this, if—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. If I’d let you go hara-kiri on fuckhead?”

  “Technically, hari-kari is an act of suicide, but I’ll let it slide. You’ve been under some stress.”

  Tait snorted. “Well, shit. You are Mr. Giver.”

  “Not too late for me to take your place as Mr. Karma.” He glanced again at Stock, whose eyes widened in understanding of the intent. “Knife’s still in the perfect position, man. More or less.”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re no fucking fun.”

  “And you’re no fucking—” Tait gripped the wheel harder. “I really don’t know how to finish that.” The air in the car filled with the smoky edge of twilight before he murmured, “What the hell happened to you, Colton?”

  Best to let that one descend into a long silence. Maybe another. “That was rhetorical, right?”

  Another question that provided its own answer. As if Bommer were serious about a single damn word. As if Dan didn’t have the right rearview mirror to remind him of it. One glance that way, into the slab of mottled flesh from his temple to chin and cheekbone to ear, was proof enough of exactly what had “happened” to him.

  “What’s rhetoric got to do with this?” Tait snapped. “And stop answering me by moping at yourself in the mirror. You think anyone notices that shit but you?”

  “Says one of the guys who used to call me CIA Ken because of this shit?”

  “Yeah. So? We also called you Woofie the magical G-dog.”

  “The fuck?”

  “Own it, man. If Uncle Sam threw
a Frisbee, you’d kill yourself to catch it.” A knowing smirk twisted Tait’s lips. “Now you just have the badge of honor to prove it. On the books or off, you were always the get-it-right guy.”

  Dan’s fingers dug into the dust coating the vehicle’s roof. Beat the hell out of pulling his hand back inside, where it would’ve driven into the bastard’s face. Badge of honor? Was he kidding? “Not amusing, Bommer. Not in anyone’s fucking universe. That”—he jabbed his chin at the burn scar on the inside of Tait’s right arm—“isn’t your permission slip to spout about this.” Flicking a finger at his face took care of that obviousness.

  “Right. Because you don’t let it define every damn move you make, right?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Who the hell did Bommer think he was? Tait’s burn could be easily hidden by a long-sleeved shirt, but even without the cover, somebody would have to be looking to see his “badge.” Big fucking difference between that and walking around like something out of a circus sideshow. Bommer had no damn idea what this was like. None of them did.

  “Fine,” Tait finally muttered. “I’ll give you the point. But do you really think any of us defined your work—which was damn good shit, by the way—based on your looking like a plastic doll minus the good parts?”

  “Were you paying that much attention to my ‘good parts’?”