Add to your TBR List!

Excerpt

Prologue

Rico

A few months ago.

So this was it.

Mountain Grove.

I’d been here for a few days but other than leaving my hotel room to meet up with my brother Gabriel “Gabe,” I hadn’t left my dinky hotel room. I was used to the hustle and bustle of Atlanta, Georgia, with all the sights and sounds of big city living without being jam-packed with people, like New York City. So the idea of moving our business, Quattro Security, to the small mountain town in Western Maryland made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Wait. Let me backtrack a bit.

My brothers, Gabriel, Luciano, Allesandro, and I started Quattro Security a few years ago after Gabe had been injured on a mission for the Army. Our company not only provided physical security, we trained various police forces in hand-to-hand combat, had a gun range at our facility designed for special weapons training, and were known for our information gathering and article retrieval abilities. While I was proficient in all of the above, my niche was cyber security.

I’d been recruited into the FBI as a hacker almost straight out of high school, while each of my brother’s had followed in our father’s footsteps by enlisting into various branches of the military. We now used our different skill sets to aid in both the private sector, as well as the occasional government contract we took on. Separately, we were dangerous, but together, we were lethal.

Gabe had taken a call a few weeks back which altered the course of his life, and as it turned out…ours. One of his oldest friends, Caleb Matthews, who was also the chief of police in Mountain Grove, had met the love of his life. They were having some issues with her ex and asked for Gabe’s assistance.

Next thing I knew, Gabe was buying a house and before long, we’d be packing up our company and moving almost seven hundred miles north because, like Caleb, he’d fallen in love. I had no idea what the fuck was in the water in Maryland, but there wasn’t a chance in hell you’d catch me drinking it. I’d take the bottled stuff from here on out, thank you very much.

The strangest part of the entire situation was discovering that the pregnant woman I’d helped get a new identity, almost a year ago, was the one who’d captured his heart. Cate had been on the run and at the time I had no clue what or who she’d been hiding from. Turned out, she’d been engaged to a mafia capo with a penchant for murder. Which was why I was currently playing bodyguard.

Ma and Pop, along with my brothers, Alec and Luc, decided to show up unexpectedly on Gabe’s doorstep over the weekend. Those two fuckers knew we had a situation brewing but did nothing to stop my parents from jumping on a plane to come meet their future daughter-in-law and grandson.

While Gabe and Alec had a meeting at the police station, Cate wanted to give the rest of us a tour of the town. We’d finished lunch and the women decided they wanted to take a stroll down Main Street to check out some of the stores. They stopped in front of a shop called To A Tea and after a brief discussion, walked through the front door.

“Welcome.” A melodic voice called from behind the counter. “I’m River. The owner and maker of all things tea related.”

I looked up after I finished sending a text to Alec and stopped dead in my tracks. Thank God I’d handed Miller, Cate’s son, to Pop before we came in because I’m afraid I may have dropped him. It was like I’d been struck by lightning, not that I knew first-hand exactly how it felt, but electricity coursed through my body. The hair on my arms stood at attention and my cock twitched behind the zipper of my jeans. I’d never had a reaction like this to a woman before, but I had a feeling the little pixie behind the counter wasn’t just any other woman.

She was tiny, barely over five feet, with long, dark brown hair pulled back into a braid. When she stepped around the counter to greet us, I nearly chocked on a laugh. It had nothing to do with the rainbow-colored T-shirt or the pale-yellow floor-length skirt she was wearing, but everything to do with the fact she was barefoot. In the middle of winter. This girl had flare and an obvious “I don’t give a fuck” attitude, which I loved.

Whoa. Loved?

I’d been staring at the little beauty for far too long, which became obvious when Luc nudged me in the ribs with his elbow. I listened with rapt attention as River explained the contents of her store to the girls.

“Yes, ma’am. I grew up in a commune of sorts, where we had to make everything from scratch. When I, er-left, I decided to start fresh and make a business out of something that came naturally to me.”

“I bet I could make you come naturally,” I muttered under my breath.

Obviously, I hadn’t been as quiet as I thought because the next thing I knew, Ma smacked me upside the head and yelled at me in Italian to “watch my mouth,” and “apologize.”

“I’m very sorry, my ‘River of Dreams’. I just can’t seem to help myself around you.”

My smile grew as she rolled her beautiful hazel eyes.

“Did you seriously just quote a Billy Joel song while apologizing?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Would you be my ‘Uptown Girl’?”

She ignored me and went on to take everyone’s order. I was already trying to think of a way to stay behind and chat with my new obsession when the glass door to her shop exploded. Luc tackled Cate to the ground and my blood turned to ice as my years of training kicked in.

Knowing my father and brother would protect them with their lives, I pulled my Glock from the holster on my hip and carefully exited through the shattered door, looking in the only direction the shot could have come from. There was a building about two hundred yards away with the perfect angle for a sniper to take aim, but I couldn’t see anyone there now. I called Gabe and headed back into the store to assess the damage.

“All clear. Cops and ambulance are on the way,” I said.

Glancing around, I saw two feet sticking out from behind a table which had been knocked over in the melee. I ran to her side and dropped to my knees.

“Shit, River, open your eyes,” I shouted.

“For God’s sake, keep your voice down,” she groaned.

“Christ. I thought you were dead.”

“Don’t you know, Enrico? ‘Only The Good Die Young.’”

I didn’t know it at the time, but meeting River that day would change the trajectory of my life. It would alter my entire sense of purpose until the only thing I saw was her.

Pre-order Link

Giveaway

One of Five eARC's for Limitless

a Rafflecopter Giveaway

Connect with C.B. Noy

Website: https://cbnoyauthor.wixsite.com/cbnoy

Newsletter: https://bit.ly/41Jlyne

Facebook Author Page: https://bit.ly/3Oh0TDZ

Facebook Reader Group: https://bit.ly/3Bycfw0

Goodreads Author Page: https://bit.ly/3pJhKVY

Instagram: https://bit.ly/3o04dZP

Tiktok: https://bit.ly/3Oh1NAn

Amazon Author Page: https://bit.ly/42HYN4C

Bookbub Page: https://bit.ly/3MxeYvM