Series: Blood Ties #3
Publication date: March 2nd, 2021
Synopsis:
In my line of work, I know where the bodies are buried. This time, that knowledge has delivered danger to my doorstep.
After a cartel member goes missing, his disappearance is somehow traced back to me. That's when Montoya--my brother's business partner--bursts back into my life, vowing to protect me.
But I want nothing from him.
I watched my brother lose himself to the demands of the cartel, and I'll be damned if I'm going to get swept up in the same web. In my younger days I fantasized about Montoya's lips on mine. Now, I'm a grown woman who knows the price of giving in to those desires.
Unable to deter him, I find myself locked down with Montoya steadfast by my side. Can we escape the noose of danger tightening around my throat? Or will our magnetic attraction provide the nearing enemy with a weapon to wield against us?
**This is a Dark Mafia Billionaire Romance series containing mature themes, adult situations, and graphic violence. If you are not prepared to deal with this, please pass on the opportunity.
**The story starts with Stealing Iris, continues with Saving Bonnie, and ends in Seducing Mattie.
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Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Mattie
"You've been a bad boy," I whisper to the man whose body is laid out on the table before me. "A very bad boy." I adjust the surgical light over the wound. "I know you're in there." I set my teeth on the tip of my tongue, as if doing so would help me concentrate, then find something solid. Squeezing the finger rings on the stainless-steel forceps, I grasp the fragment. "Gotcha." With a steady hand, I extract the piece and study it under the added light. Bullet fragment. I don't need to irrigate to know for sure. I release it into a nearby kidney tray with the other pieces. Metal hits metal with a satisfying ping.
"You should have been a surgeon." Father Martinez, or the man currently known as Father Martinez, nods in approval from nearby. He's tall, well-built, and muscular. A man who would look more at home in an undergrond fighting ring than he does on the pulpit. Though he's managed to take a make a name for himself. Even with glasses and a mask covering half his face, he's managed to move than doubled the size of the congregation.
I straighten my back, rolling my shoulders to work the stiff muscles. My satisfaction fades as I gaze down the table. "The best surgeon in the world wouldn't have been able to help this guy."
"With those wounds, he wasn't meant to be saved by anyone but our Lord." He makes a sign of the cross. "Don't worry yourself over them, hija," Father says in a sympathetic tone. "These men live a life of violence and anger. They expect to die in a similar manner."
"He's all yours," I say, removing my face shield.
"You're doing an excellent job." Father steps forward, making the sign of the cross.
I stand to one side, absorbed in my own thoughts so I don't disturb the ritual. Whether the deceased was religious or not, I'm spiritual and a big believer in karma. Someday it'll be my body laid out on a table, and I hope to have a peaceful afterlife.
I've often wondered what goes through these men's mind at the end. When I was a child I thought most killed with no regard for their own humanity. My perception changed when my brother was taken hostage by the cartel. I thought we'd lost him forever, but he came back. Though he came back different. Gone was the little boy who used to kick around a soccer ball with his friends and get in trouble in school. He was tortured and starved and thrown in to fight for his life. He learned to kill in order to survive. Then they taught him to kill for their own benefit.
It was the biggest mistake those people ever made.
I saw something different in him the night he met Bonnie. The simple fact she was alive raised a flag. Then he called me in while she was there to witness the cleaning. Tension was in the air, her life had been on the line, and her future was uncertain. While I hoped he wouldn't turn his back on her, I didn't expect for things to move along so well. My interference may or may not have had a hand in what happened, but Bonnie's a smart girl. She found the man beneath the killer and reeled him in like a prize catch. I call that karma.
The thought of him finding someone seems so foreign. He's always been my big brother. The guy who goes all-in with no regard for his own life. I suddenly realized he might actually have a heart, and she might be the one holding it.
I've always been alone, but I've never been lonely... until now. I've been hit with a longing I've never experienced. Despite swearing I would never give him a single thought, my mind turns to the man who befriended me when I was young. The one who shunned me when I was of age. The one who broke my heart. Montoya.
Sahara Roberts caught the writing bug early in life. She enjoys writing Dark Romance and Romantic Suspense. Her days are filled with international trade issues (the legal kind) and her evenings writing steamy romance.
She is currently working on Blood Ties, a Dark Mafia Romance series, along with a Contemporary Romance series due out in 2021.
When she's not at her usual hangout, Savvy Authors, she enjoys socializing on Facebook and Instagram or watching The Blacklist, Pure, and My Hero Academia.
Sahara lives in South Texas with her beloved husband and their three furry overlords. She enjoys cooking, baking, and cake decorating, but she would certainly prefer to have someone else do the dishes.
