“Jessica Clare and Jen Frederick are a force to be reckoned with!”*
Praise for
LAST BREATH
“Clare and Frederick have penned a sexy, thrilling romantic suspense with a strong heroine and a to-die-for hero. Romance readers won’t want to miss their latest.”
—Smexy Books
“Dark, gritty, but filled with hope . . . an action-packed, emotionally driven story that will have you reading the pages quicker than you can turn them . . . dial[s] up the action to an almost breakneck speed.”
—*A Love Affair with Books
“Interesting and wonderful characters . . . I’m happy to report that Clare and Frederick knocked this one out of the park for me.”
—The Book Pushers
“Far exceeded my expectations. It appears as if there is nothing these ladies can’t write about, and I anxiously await to see what they will do.”
—The Muses’ Circle
“I’m seriously at a loss for words to describe to you how good this book is. It has everything you could ask for. There’s tons of action and suspense. But somehow there are tons of sweet and sexy moments in this and it just all works together so well . . . I cannot stress enough how much I think you should read this series and particularly this book. It’s one of a kind and you won’t regret it.”
—All Romance Reviews
“Crazy hot.”
—TheBookHookUp.com
“Very intense book with a good mix of sex [and] action.”
—TheFlirtyReader.com
“From the first page to the last I was hooked . . . definitely a unique read.”
—ReadLoveLust.com
Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Jessica Clare
“Blazing hot.”
—USA Today
“Sexy.”
—Smexy Books
“Sizzling! Jessica Clare gets everything right in this erotic and sexy romance . . . You need to read this book!”
—Romance Junkies
Praise for the novels of USA Today bestselling author Jen Frederick
“Sexy and sinful.”
—New York Times bestselling author Katy Evans
“I love these strong characters.”
—Sizzling Pages Romance Reviews
“Wonderful . . . I wholly recommend you read it.”
—Nocturnal Book Reviews
TITLES BY JESSICA CLARE AND JEN FREDERICK
THE HITMAN SERIES
Last Hit
Last Breath
Last Kiss
Last Hope
Last Hit: Reloaded
(Intermix)
OTHER TITLES BY JESSICA CLARE
THE BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB
Stranded with a Billionaire
Beauty and the Billionaire
The Wrong Billionaire’s Bed
Once Upon a Billionaire
Romancing the Billionaire
One Night with the Billionaire
BILLIONAIRES AND BRIDESMAIDS
The Billionaire and the Virgin
Taming of the Billionaire
THE BLUEBONNET NOVELS
The Girl’s Guide to (Man) Hunting
The Care and Feeding of an Alpha Male
The Expert’s Guide to Driving a Man Wild
The Virgin’s Guide to Misbehaving
OTHER TITLES BY JEN FREDERICK
WOODLANDS SERIES
Undeclared
Undressed in the anthology Snow Kissed
Unspoken
Unraveled
JACKSON BOYS
The Charlotte Chronicles
KERR CHRONICLES
Losing Control
Taking Control
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Clare and Jen Frederick.
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY® and the “B” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19682-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clare, Jessica.
Last hope / Jessica Clare and Jen Frederick.—Berkley trade paperback edition.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-425-28153-6
I. Frederick, Jen. II. Title.
PS3603.L353L372 2015
813'.6—dc23
2015018839
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / September 2015
Cover photo by ImageBrief.
Cover design by Meljean Brook.
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 have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Version_1
To Mick,
who is the best.
We would be lost without you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We want to thank all those bloggers who came together at the last minute and posted about Last Kiss. We *heart* you so much.
A Beautiful Book Blog
A Dirty Book Affair
A Love Affair With Books
AalyandTheBooks
All Romance Reviews
Booklover4lifeblog
Ariella’s Bookshelf
Book Hooked
Books to Breathe
Charlie & Mel’s Book Reviews
Escape Into A Book
Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents
I LOVE STORY TIME
Jacqueline’s Reads
Lindy Lu Book Review
Maine Book Momma
Nic’s Novel Idea
Ogitchida Kwe’s Book Blog
Radical Reads Book Blog
Read It Woman
Read-Love-Blog
Reading in Pajamas
Recommended Romance
Seeing Night Book Reviews
She Hearts Books
Sugar & Spice, Smutty & Nice Book Reviews
The Book Fairy Reviews
The Book Goddess
The Reading Ruth
Twin Sisters Rockin’ Book Reviews
Two Book Pushers
Written Revelry
2 Girls a Book & a Glass of Wine
A Reader Who Reads
Angie’s Lil Neck of da Author World
Confessions of a Y.A. and N.A. Book Addict
Ellesea Loves Reading
Erotic Romance Book Blog With Sandy
Four Chicks Flipping Pages
Kimmy Loves to Read
Lina’s Reviews: A Book Blog
Naughty Book Eden
Nicely Phrased
Not Another Damn Blog-Blog
Prone to Crushes on Boys in Books
Reading Is Sexy
Red Moon (Silence Is Read)
Reviews by Tammy and Kim
Sassy Moms Say Read Romance
Sinamen Reads Romance
Susan’s Books I Like
The Book Blog
The Flare Up Book Blog
Thoughts of an Avid Reader
T
reat Yourself with Books
Turner’s Antics
Twisted Sisters’ Book Reviews
Valley of the Book Doll
The Bad Ass Book Blog
Best of Both Worlds: Books & Naughtiness
BestSellers & BestStellars
Book Loving Pixies
Book Musings & Wine Pairings
ByoBook Club
Cat’s Guilty Pleasure
Collector of book boyfriends
Diary of a Book Addict
Fictional Rendezvous Book Blog
Hot Guys in Books
Jo&Isalovebooks
Jodie’s W.I.N.E. List
Marebare’s Book Shelf
Margay Leah Justice
Momma’s Secret Book Obsession
My Favorite Things
Nerdy Chic
Nerdy Soul
Obsessive Reading Disorder
OldVictorianQuill
Reading Drinking and Relaxing
Ripe For Reader
Sexy Bibliophiles
Sexy Vixen Reader
Smut and Bon Bons
Smut Book Junkie Book Reviews
Sogni di Marzapane
Straight Shootin’ Book Reviews
Sultry, Steamy Reading
Summer’s Book Blog
Sweet & Spicy Tales
Tantalizing Reviews
The Ultimate Fan Blog
Travels n Reads
Vera Is Reading
Warrior Woman Winmill
Wicked Women Book Blog
Wild and Dirty Book Blog
Shout-out to the Chroniclers Facebook Group and the Games, Billionaires & More Facebook Group. Thanks for making every day a bright one.
CONTENTS
Praise for Jessica Clare and Jen Frederick
Titles by Jessica Clare and Jen Frederick
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
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
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
RAFAEL
“How come it’s always the pretty ones that end up working for these fuckups?” Bennito Vasquez is twenty-five years old. He has a head full of dark curls and no problems with the ladies but he still takes it as a personal insult when there is a beautiful woman out of his reach, and they don’t get more inaccessible than Ava Samson.
“Because they’re dumb.” This conclusion is from Rodrigo. At thirty-two he’s practically the old man of our group. But they all look up to me, which makes me feel far older than my thirty-five years of age.
“She’s not dumb,” Garcia mutters. He’s my right-hand man. We’ve been through hell and more hell together.
Heaven is always two steps ahead of us and just out of reach. Miss Ava is heaven and sex wrapped up into one tempting package. Any man with a pulse has thought about what it would be like to climb into bed with Ava and get lost in her big eyes and tangled up in her dark brown hair.
“If she had any brains, she’d have stayed away from Louis Duval and his crew. Instead, she’s sitting in a hotel in Lima with an ugly purse in her lap. That spells dumber than a box of rocks,” Bennito declares.
Garcia shakes his head in disagreement. “She’s smart. Look at how she acts. She knows she’s being watched because she undresses under the covers. She sleeps close to an escape route but has her head toward the door to watch for intruders. Those are better preservation instincts than ninety-five percent of the population.”
“Why doesn’t she ditch the bag? I’d pitch that sucker and be out of that room in a heartbeat.”
“It’s clear there’s something important there and she can’t,” Garcia replies with annoyance.
Garcia is right. Ava’s smart. When she arrived at the hotel, she looked for listening devices, cameras, sensors. She found a couple of them but not all. Devices are so tiny these days that it takes an electronic sweep to discover all of them and even then some can be missed.
“Still . . . why’d she even come here with Duval?” Bennito asks sourly. He knows it all—or at least thinks he does.
“Because of Rose.” I break my silence with a concept that Bennito can understand. “She’s there because of her friend . . . her family.”
The lightbulb turns on for him. Bennito’s research for this current mission resulted in thousands of pictures of Rose Waverly aka Rose Wastkowski. Currently a middle-tier runway model, Rose has social media accounts filled with photos of her lying on the beach, out in nightclubs, and more recently, on the arm of Louis Duval. Duval is a French businessman who makes most of his money on the black market selling information. He has a fondness for blond models and Burgundy wine. His one true love is money.
Of Ava, Bennito found almost nothing. At the age of eighteen, she moved to New York City with Rose. There are no Internet hits with pictures of Ava, and her background check revealed a shared lease with Rose, two credit cards with low balances, and a modest checking account. Her parents are still alive but their connection seems tenuous. There are no phone calls or emails or text messages exchanged between them.
After reading the one-page dossier on Ava that Bennito had compiled, it was clear to me that Rose is not only her friend, but the only person in the world Ava has to call her own.
All of us standing in this room can understand Ava’s desire to save her friend because that’s why we’re here. One of our own is being held as ransom. Our charge is to steal whatever it is that Louis Duval is trying to sell to various criminal factions. If we do that, we get Davidson back. If we fail, Davidson dies.
“Every one of us would strap dynamite to our bodies if we thought it’d save Davidson,” I say quietly. “Stupid or not, we’d do it just like Ava’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep Rose safe.”
Chastened, Bennito returns to his duties. Despite his brash words and lack of thinking, he’s a good kid with a gift for coding and computers. He has a feel for it that can’t be taught. I pulled him out from under a prosecution in the United States after he’d hacked into a big computer website to impress a girl. Now he does more productive things that are far more dangerous.
But we back him.
Because that’s how family works. Bennito is part of our brotherhood, the one Davidson, Garcia, and I formed when we realized that only by relying on each other would we survive the hell that the army was putting us through.
The smart thing for Ava to do would have been to walk away. When she came home with her arms full of groceries and saw Duval and one of his goons sitting in her small apartment instead of Rose, she should have dropped her bags and ran. Instead, she marched in and placed her bags on the counter and demanded to know what was going on.
Duval told her, quietly, that she was to help Rose carry out a task or Rose would be hurt. Ava resisted at first. Which is smart.
But then Duval pulled out his phone, swiped his finger through a few pictures that our secretly place
d cameras couldn’t pick up, and things got real quiet. Next thing we knew, Duval was telling Ava that she needed to fly to Lima. And Ava?
Ava packed her bag and went.
• • •
In the seven days she’s been here in Lima, she’s had one visitor—Redoine Fouquet. Fouquet is rumored to be Louis Duval’s younger brother. Whatever family resemblance there once was has been eliminated by countless plastic surgeries as both Duval and Fouquet attempt to evade the law.
No, Ava wasn’t dumb. Whatever her mistakes are, I don’t think lack of intelligence is one of them. She’s beautiful. That can often be a problem. Maybe she’s too trusting or too kind but not dumb.
I walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows in our hotel and look across the way at Ava’s room. Clad in a tank top and yoga pants, she climbs into bed. The other men crowd around the table of monitors to watch. I fist my hands in my pocket.
I hate that they watch her.
I hate that she’s in danger.
And most of all I hate that I care.
When Norse, the fifth man of my detail arrives, I tear myself away from the window and from Ava. “What’s happening?”
“The object, whatever it is, is up for auction. It will close in forty-eight hours.” Norse runs a hand over his shorn hair. It’s winter in Lima, which in most places means cold. Here it means wet, humid, and foggy. Norse’s cotton shirt is plastered against his chest. As he unbuttons it, Garcia throws him a replacement T-shirt.
Garcia was a sergeant in the army, responsible for making sure that the troops were all properly outfitted and armed. A good sergeant can mean the difference between everyone getting out with all their limbs attached and some newbie losing his toes to gangrene. Garcia was the best that there was. Now he’s mine because the army doesn’t handle its toys well.
They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training them, making them into cold, unfeeling machines, but they lose interest in the older soldiers because they have this never-ending flood of new recruits. The nonstop supply makes us all disposable. Use them up and toss them out was the unstated motto. I’ve been gathering up the army’s trash for the last ten years or so. Norse, Garcia, Davidson—all army discards. We take our skills and guns and hire them out. Ironically, the U.S. government is one of our best customers.
Except this time, our payment for a completed mission is Davidson.
“Do we know who the buyers are?”
“Two bids—one from North Korea and one from Libya.”