Total Bravery (True Heroes Book 4) Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Piper J. Drake

  Excerpt from Absolute Trust © 2016 by Piper J. Drake

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner Stokes

  Cover illustration by Michael Heath

  Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: April 2018

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  ISBN 978-1-5387-5953-0 (mass market)

  ISBN 978-1-5387-5954-7 (ebook)

  E3-20170314-DANF

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Praise for Piper J. Drake

  Dedication

  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

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Piper J. Drake

  An Excerpt from Absolute Trust

  Chapter One

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  PRAISE FOR PIPER J. DRAKE

  “4 Stars! With an action-filled plot riddled with suspense and tension, Drake’s latest in her True Heroes series is the best one yet. Steady pacing, engaging storytelling and genuine, vulnerable characters (coupled with the endearing heroic dogs that protect and love them) make this romance shine.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Absolute Trust

  “The central romance was very strong, and I definitely count Absolute Trust in the win column.”

  —DearAuthor.com

  “This whole series is a great concept. If you’re an animal lover and want a hero story, this book is for you.”

  —WritingPearls.com on Absolute Trust

  “Top pick! I’m not sure what I can read next that will compare to Ultimate Courage!”

  —HarlequinJunkie.com

  “If you’re looking for something sexy, strong, yet sweet at the same time, then Ultimate Courage will not disappoint.”

  —HeroesandHeartbreakers.com

  “I didn’t want to stop reading…I thought the characters, storyline, and tension were just about perfect. I give Ultimate Courage an A.”

  —TheBookPushers.com

  “Drake’s sharp storytelling shines with an engaging plot that’s thick with tension…”

  —RT Book Reviews on Extreme Honor

  “Extreme Honor by Piper J. Drake is one sexy-as-hell romance novel. Readers won’t be able to stay away from this juicy yet well-written plot.”

  —Romancing-the-Book.com

  “Overall, if you want a fast-paced romantic suspense with a military hottie who trains dogs and a heroine who is likable, this is a great choice. I am really looking forward to book 2!”

  —TheBookDisciple.com on Extreme Honor

  Dedicated to my coworkers and colleagues, in both my careers. Because team means everything.

  Chapter One

  Tomorrow, I get coffee first.” Raul Sá fumbled with the keys he’d been given to the team house. “Some of us need caffeine to face the morning, even in paradise.”

  Taz, Raul’s new canine partner, dropped his jaw and let his tongue loll out in a doggie grin.

  “Yeah, I figured I wasn’t going to get much sympathy from you.”

  First day reporting in to the new Search and Protect Corporation and he’d taken Taz out for a run immediately, before the tropical morning got too hot for the German Shepherd Dog, or GSD for short. Back and ready to get to the more onerous duties, he stared at the duty board on the wall. He was on kennel duty. All week. Great.

  Well, he and Taz were the newest additions. He’d spent some time on the East Coast, training with Taz prior to finalizing the acquisition of the highly trained canine. And damn, the men at Hope’s Crossing Kennels trained some fine dogs. Now they’d both arrived ready to get to know their new team.

  This time, he was going to build the most positive impression possible. This time, he wanted to be part of the team and not just a temporary extension of it.

  “We’ll both get to know the dogs first,” Raul murmured to Taz. “Then we’ll do our best with the humans.”

  Taz tilted his head up to regard Raul with a calm, dark-eyed gaze. After a moment, Taz uttered a quiet woof.

  “Yeah, I like dogs better, too.” Raul headed for the stairs. Before he reached them, the smartphone he’d been issued sounded an incoming call alert. He pulled it out of his back pocket and swiped the screen with his thumb to answer. “Sá.”

  “Who are you?” A woman’s voice was on the other end of the line, strained and wary.

  “Raul Sá.” He pulled the phone away from his ear to glance at the screen. No traceable caller ID.

  “I was calling the Search and Protect Organization.” The woman hesitated. “I’m looking for Arin Siri.”

  She spoke his teammate’s name with the proper pronunciation, even getting the soft r that sounded more like an r and an l than the rolling r some Spanish or Latino speakers fell into. She’d added a lilting, tonal quality to Arin’s name, too—something Raul had learned to hear but had never managed to pronounce even after years of practice, even though he considered Arin his best friend and had put a lot of effort into getting her name right. So this person had been speaking Arin’s name a long time. “She’s working right now. Must’ve forwarded her calls to my line.”

  Arin had known he’d arrived late last night.

  “You’re a…coworker?” There was hope in that voice, but still a thread of fear.

  “Yeah.” Raul considered for a minute. “And a friend. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her.”

  “A friend?” Suspicion remained.

  He was losing patience. Honestly, he had work to do, and no matter how menial it was, it was the next step in making a good impression. But somethi
ng about the strain in the voice on the line made him offer one more reassurance. “The kind of friend who knows the origin of Arin’s last name, her full last name.”

  Arin Siri was first-generation American, like him. His family had come from Portugal. Her parents had come from Thailand. Thai names weren’t often so short and easy to pronounce, especially not the surnames. Upon coming to the United States, Arin’s parents had made the choice to shorten their surname to something more easily accepted by English speakers. Still, many cultures placed deep meaning in names. Arin’s was derived from an older dialect and carried meaning that continued to have value to her, so she had always held her full surname close. It wasn’t something she shared with any but very close, trusted friends.

  He was one. The person on the other end of the connection might be, too.

  There was a long pause. “This is Mali, Arin’s sister. Please help me.”

  Chapter Two

  How can I help you?” The man on the other end of the call didn’t laugh or crack a joke in response to Mali’s request for help. Honestly, it’d come out as a plea, and she’d been half expecting him to dismiss it. He didn’t ridicule her or tell her he’d get her sister to call her back when she returned.

  He was paying attention, and he was absolutely serious.

  She swallowed against a fear-parched throat, relief and hope trickling in past the constriction in her chest. “There’s someone—several people—chasing me. I think I lost them in the crowds at the big shopping center.”

  “Are you safe where you are?” His tone was calm but managed to convey urgency, too, and it helped her focus.

  She glanced around her. “Maybe? Probably not. I walked fast, but I walked, didn’t run. So they might not have seen me leave the mall area. I tried to blend in with the tourists.”

  The moment she’d seen her pursuers, a childhood memory of her sister’s voice played through her head, telling her to never run from immortals—or predators in the real world—because running attracted their attention. So she hadn’t. Random, maybe, but here she was with a chance to evade some very scary people. She’d take advice in whatever form it came.

  “Can you get to the Search and Protect office building?”

  She laughed, the sound harsh to her own hearing. “That’s why I was near the Ala Moana Shopping Center. I was trying to get there.”

  God, had she even said the name of the place right? She was so not a local. This guy didn’t sound like one either. Would he even know how to find her?

  Taking a deep breath, she fought for calm. “I took a taxi there first, trying to get close to the office building. But then I spotted the people chasing me waiting nearby and left.”

  They hadn’t been standing right out in the open, but they’d been dressed in suits. In the heat of the day, not even the office workers actually wore full suits as far as she knew. Not on Oahu or any of the other Hawaiian islands. It’d set off alarms in her head, and she’d veered off, falling into step with tourists headed from the mall to the other shopping areas.

  “Okay.” His calm acceptance helped her settle. “If you walked away from the mall and stayed with the crowds, are you near the beaches now?”

  “Yes.” Hurry. They both needed to communicate faster. “Around the big hotels. I figured there’d be more security near them.”

  “It’s mid-morning, still cool out. Good time for shopping until people get hungry and start looking for places to eat lunch.” His words were coming quicker, too. “There’s always catamarans over there, launching from the beach for a sail out to deeper water. Vendors sell tickets to tourists all up and down the streets. They go out for an hour, maybe two. Do you see any signs for those? You can buy tickets right on the beach.”

  “Yes.” Once he’d told her to look, she spotted one or two right away. “There’s one right between two of the big hotels with boardwalks.”

  “Good. I know where that is.” His tone took on a crisp quality, full of confidence. “Get on one of the catamarans. Don’t drink much but do what you need to, to not stand out. That’ll take you out of reach until I can get to you. I’m headed there now. When you get off the cruise, I’ll be at the ticket booth waiting for you.”

  “How will I know it’s you?” She’d never seen any of her sister’s friends, not from the military or whatever Arin did now.

  “Look for the guy with the service dog. I’ve got a GSD.”

  “A what?” Even as she asked, she hurried toward the ticket booth and fumbled for her tiny change purse where she kept her cash, one credit card, and ID. She struggled to juggle it and her phone while she tried to keep aware of her surroundings. The thing was cute but it was a pain in the ass to get what she needed out of and back into it.

  There was a sigh on the other end. “German Shepherd Dog. He’s big, black and tan, a lot like Arin’s partner. We probably won’t blend in with the crowd.”

  That was okay though, right? Once he came to get her, she’d be safe. No one was going to just grab her with some badass mercenary.

  “It’ll be okay. Get on the catamaran.” His voice was soothing and sounded so good. She wanted to know what his lips looked like shaping those words.

  “I’ll get a ticket.” And maybe she could take the time on the waves to reassemble her scattered mind.

  “Go ahead, Mali. I’ll be there as fast as I can.” He ended the call.

  She tucked the phone into the back pocket of her shorts. When she reached the small booth, her heart plummeted. The catamarans went out at the top of the hour. She had at least a forty-minute wait. Buying a ticket and a floppy hat to protect her dark hair from the sun’s heat, she tucked the ticket into her change purse and tried to maintain a casual attitude as she scanned the area around her.

  Suddenly, being between the big hotels didn’t seem like such a good idea. The streets between them were more like alleyways, shadowed by palm trees, with lots of random doors and archways to get pulled into. There was nowhere to run on the narrow boardwalks, and it wouldn’t be easy to jump over the waist-high walls into the private pool areas. Maybe a hot action movie star could vault those retainer walls and sprint across the hotel grounds to lose his pursuers, but she was a skinny postdoc who could at best be described as vertically challenged.

  She’d left the sidewalks along the street thinking it’d be harder to grab her and stuff her into a car, but was the beachfront area so close to the hotels much better?

  Every man walking past her seemed to be staring at her through his sunglasses. Every woman seemed to be looking the other way. The women who did look in her direction could’ve just as easily been after her, too.

  She rubbed her palms together. It was the beach, though. She’d spot suits a mile…

  Cold fear washed through her, and her stomach twisted hard as the distinctive black fabric of men wearing ridiculously hot suits appeared at the far end of the boardwalk. They were so far away that they were barely more than dots but they stood out in stark contrast to the sane people wearing light colors and airy warm weather wear.

  They were still trying to find her. They had to be. They couldn’t know exactly where she was because they’d have made more of an effort to sneak up on her. Wouldn’t they? If she could see them coming so easily, she still had a chance to fade away before they spotted her.

  Time to walk in the opposite direction. Removing her light-colored hat so it wouldn’t catch the eye as she moved, she held it close at her side. She forced herself to move at the pace of the people in front of her, only passing tourists on the narrow boardwalk when others were. There were the occasional picture takers halting to capture a memory here and there. She slipped around them and counted each as one more obstacle between her pursuers and her.

  Her heart raced as she tried to catch sight of the people behind her in any reflective surface. Suddenly, every person wearing sunglasses was a rearview mirror. She didn’t dare bring attention to herself by looking over her shoulder.

  Her memory o
f her big sister’s advice came back to her again, echoing in her ears over the harsh sound of her own breathing. She even remembered the childhood movie that’d inspired her sister. The lesson had been simple. There’d been two things to remember. Don’t run. Don’t look back. These weren’t immortals and she wasn’t a unicorn, but they were definitely predators, and she didn’t want to attract their attention if they hadn’t spotted her yet.

  The boardwalk ended, and the beach spread out in front of her. Too many people stood idle on the path ahead. Her thoughts crystallized almost painfully as it occurred to her that the men behind her could be dressed so conspicuously to drive her into an ambush ahead of her. It’d been a miracle no one had grabbed her yet.

  She couldn’t keep walking. They might have others ready to meet her where the path led back to the street. Getting shoved into a car would end her chances of being rescued by Raul Sá and his GS— whatever.

  He’d told her to do what was needed to keep from standing out.

  Her gaze passed over the beach dotted in sunbathers. The awesome thing about Waikiki was the way some people came prepared with towels and beach bags, but others just showed up on a whim and laid out on the sand using nothing but their shirts.

  She began unbuttoning hers.

  In moments, she’d slipped up close to a scattered collection of local girls, all laying out. Some had shirts, some didn’t. They were all gorgeous. The best Mali could do was be thankful she’d always tanned easily and had been on the island long enough to develop summer color. Her Southeast Asian heritage gave her dark brown skin with golden undertones, not quite the same but similar to the local islanders. She wouldn’t stand out as tourist-pale among them.

  Wearing a bikini under her clothes had been a regular thing for the last several days as she and her fellow postdocs took advantage of the locale to enjoy the beaches every bit as much as their research. She was leveraging the habit to hide in plain sight.

  Dropping her shorts, she laid them out and spread her shirt over the sand. She stretched out on her belly quickly, hiding her dark hair under the floppy hat, and watched the feet of passersby. Hopefully, people couldn’t see her trembling.