Lost in You (Masters and Mercenaries: The Forgotten Book 3) Read online

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  Lost in You

  Masters and Mercenaries: The Forgotten, Book 3

  Lexi Blake

  Lost in You

  Masters and Mercenaries: The Forgotten, Book 3

  Lexi Blake

  Published by DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Copyright 2019 DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Edited by Chloe Vale

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-942297-11-6

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

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

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  Acknowledgments

  The last year has been one of change and I want to thank everyone who helped me get through it. If you even spoke to me in the last year, wrote or emailed me, waved at me on social media, thank you for being part of this transition. I’m in a different place than I was at this time last year and continue to grow and change—hopefully for the better. Thanks to my whole team who helped get this book ready. Thanks to Kim Guidroz, Maria Monroy, Margarita Coale, my son, and my husband who round out the team who has to work with me on a daily basis. Thanks to Jillian Stein who heroically tries to teach me how to work social media and Liz Berry who always lets me bounce ideas off her. Thanks to my beta team who worked their butts off to make sure I got this right – Kori Smith, Sara Buell, Stormy Pate, and Jennifer Zeffer. Thanks to Jennifer Watson and Social Butterfly for all the PR help and to all the book bloggers who work tirelessly to lift our genre up. A special thank you to my amazing audiobook narrator, the superlative Ryan West. He’s been the voice of McKay-Taggart since the beginning and I now hear his voice when I write. And thanks to the readers. The ride is at the top of the roller coaster. It’s time to see what’s on the other side…

  This book is dedicated to Lila Dubois without whom it wouldn’t have gotten done on time. Thank you for your friendship, your counsel, your never-ending dirty mind. I was down and you lifted me up. I couldn’t find words and you showed me the way. I love you, my friend.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  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

  Author’s Note

  Lost Dreams, Coming February 4, 2020

  Back in Bliss, Coming September 17, 2020

  An excerpt from San Francisco Longing by Lila DuBois

  About Lexi Blake

  Other Books by Lexi Blake

  Prologue

  Paris, France

  One Year before

  Ariel Adisa looked down over the Place Vendôme and sighed. This job was taking longer than she’d thought and she absolutely had to make it back to London by tomorrow. She’d told her boss that she would be back in two days, and she wasn’t about to push his patience. It had been pushed enough lately. And there was the fact that she was supposed to meet with Robert to discuss the progress of a few of his teammates.

  Robert. Even his name sent a thrill through her, and that was dangerous as hell because he was a patient. She was supposed to think about how she could help him, not how good it would feel to have his big, strong hands on her body.

  It wasn’t professional but she couldn’t get him out of her head.

  “Okay, who are you thinking about? You’ve got your ‘should I sleep with him or shouldn’t I’ face on.”

  She glanced to her left, back toward the bed where the reason she’d taken the train from her home in London to Paris currently lay on her side, her head propped up in her hand. Kimberly Solomon was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt she managed to make look chic with black Louboutin flats and a simple Chanel necklace she’d probably bought at the store across the circle from the hotel. If anyone looked at her, they would see another pretty tourist enjoying the glorious Paris day in one of the most expensive parts of the city.

  They wouldn’t see the CIA operative at work, and that was one of the reasons Kim was good at her job. She didn’t look like a lady who regularly got blood on her hands.

  “I have that face? I was completely unaware,” Ariel replied. She had met the woman most people called Solo many years ago, in a life far, far away. It was good to see her again, but Kim’s reappearance and the favor she’d asked her to perform were reminders of why she’d gotten out of the spy game in the first place.

  Not that she’d gotten far. When she’d realized she couldn’t go out in the field again, she’d found herself on Damon Knight’s doorstep. He was the former MI6 legend who now ran a security and investigative firm called McKay-Taggart and Knight. She was finally using her ridiculously expensive education for what it had been meant for—to help people. Oh, she was sure many of her fellow operatives would say taking down terrorists had certainly helped, but there was so much gray in that world. Gray that often bled to black and blood red.

  Kim sat up, shifting her body with the ease of an athlete. “You definitely have that face. Remember when you weren’t sure if you should sleep with that incredibly hot guy in Shanghai? The one at the club we spent time in.”

  She winced. Kim had often been her Agency contact when Britain and the States decided to work together. She rather thought the higher-ups enjoyed putting two younger women together and seeing what they could do—and who would underestimate them. “I was smart to not sleep with him since he turned out to be working for the North Koreans and nearly gutted me with a sword. Who uses swords these days? That was utterly ridiculous.”

  Kim simply smiled. “Yeah, I saved you with a frying pan. Good times. Are you sure you’re out? Like totally out?”

  Well she would be if Kim didn’t stop pulling her back in. “I’m absolutely out, and this has to be the last favor I do.”

  The smile on Kim’s face turned upside down and she seemed a bit lost. “It’s all different now. I hate change. The chick who took your place at MI6 is boring. ‘No, Solo, we can’t get mani-pedis while we’re stalking a traitor. No, Solo, you can’t assassinate that Ukranian mobster just because he’s offensive and has BO.’ She doesn’t even do GNOs. She’s all about the job. Boring. She doesn’t even gossip. I have no idea what happened between Velma the analyst and Dick Face John.”

  Kim always made her laugh. Often when they worked together they spent long hours watching and reporting on their targets. She’d wiled away the hours by sharing some good gossip. “Velma and John married two weeks ago, and I’m fairly certain he’s already cheating on her. But I can’t be sure. I’m getting everything secondhand since I left.”

  She looked back to the plaza. It was quieter during the week than it would be this weekend, but it was never empty. The Vendôme Column rose from the center of the thoroughfare, the oxidized bronze making a brilliant contrast to the bright blue of the sky. It was a gorgeous Paris day, and she wondered how it would feel to walk around the parks with Robert’s hand in hers. They could stroll through the Tuileries Garden and enjoy the day. Maybe if they were away from London, they could be normal. Maybe they could pretend he hadn’t had his memory ripped away by a mad woman and she could pretend she’d never…

  A Mercedes circled into the lane in front of the hotel. Not the one she was looking for. She forced a deep, calming breath.

  “I miss getting to spend time with you,” Kim said wistfully. “Like I said, it’s all changing just as I’d started to find a rhythm again.”

  Ariel knew what she was talking about. She’d met Kim right before she’d gotten a divorce from her fellow CIA agent husband. The divorce hadn’t been Kim’s idea.

  Should she say something about the man who’d shown up at The Garden? The truth was Kim probably already knew. “I met your ex-husband.”

  She wasn’t sure what to call the CIA operative since he wasn’t going by his legal name. Damon had introduced the man as Ezra Fain, but she knew that wasn’t what Kim called him.

  Kim nodded. “Yes, I heard Beck was going to interview a few of the men Taggart picked up when he was rescuing his brother. How is that going? I assume you’re the one working with them. Do they really call themselves the Lost Boys?”

  Ian Taggart was an American and sort of her boss, though she worked directly for Damon. She rather liked the big man. He’d been a Green Beret and a CIA operative, but he’d gotten out for many of the reasons Ariel had. Now he ran his company a bit like the Army, though he was an indulgent general. And he never left a man behind, not even ones who didn’t belong to him. When his youngest brother had been taken, he’d gone after him. When he’d found a whole group of men who’d been treated the same way Theo Taggart had, he’d freed them and set them up in London under Damon’s watchful eye.

  That was how she’d met Robert.

  They weren’t really boys, but they were definitely lost. “The nickname is something Kay came up with. You know she’s quite cheeky, that one.”

  Kim stared at her with intelligent eyes. “What are they like? Has Tag made any progress on finding out who they used to be?”

  This was the fine line she always walked when she was with Kim Solomon. She liked the woman, truly cared about her, but it wouldn’t do to forget that she was still a working spy. “Are you asking because you’re curious or as an operative wanting to gain intelligence?”

  “Can’t I be a curious operative?” Kim asked before sighing. “All right, I’m asking because I don’t think Beck knows what he’s getting involved in. He offered to be the liaison because of his relationship with McKay-Taggart. I know him. He thinks he’s doing good.”

  She kept her eyes on the plaza, watching for the right car. “I don’t see a problem with that. He was good with them. The lads can be difficult, but Ezra handled them well. He made them comfortable.”

  “Beck,” Kim insisted. “His name is Beckett. I know he’s good at his job and he’ll actually give a damn about them, but there’s far more on the line than figuring out the identities of a small group of men.”

  Perhaps there was something to be learned here. Though she’d left the business, she still knew how to play the game. “You’re talking about McDonald’s research.”

  Hope McDonald, the wicked witch of the pharmaceutical industry. She’d developed a drug that helped her build a small army of soldiers who were completely enslaved by her. She’d wiped their memories and tortured them into compliance.

  She’d done all of that to Robert. He still bore the scars of his time in her company.

  It should have been over when Taggart had liberated the men and taken down McDonald, but now the race was on to see who could get her research first.

  “Yes,” Kim agreed. “You should know that I believe there’s a faction in the Agency who will try to gain that intelligence and use it to quietly restart some research a lot of us think is better off left buried.”

  Kim wasn’t telling her anything her team didn’t already know. “What makes you believe that?”

  “Levi is slowly maneuvering himself into a position where he can potentially take over the case.”

  Kim had a long history with the CIA operative known as Levi Green, and it all played into her relationship with her ex-husband. Ariel had met Levi briefly, and Beckett Kent not at all before he’d walked through the doors of The Garden and presented himself as Ezra Fain.

  It was all confusing and made her happy for her staid and not at all messy love life.

  “And that worries you? I know you have history with the man, but I haven’t heard that he’s dirty.”

  Kim stood and started to pace. “He’s never been dirty before, but Levi can be…opportunistic. And he hates Beck for some reason. I’m worried, but naturally I can’t contact him. He wouldn’t pick up the phone for me.”

  Because that divorce hadn’t been an amicable one. That was precisely why she couldn’t take Kim’s worries too seriously. She would take them to Damon, of course, but Kim couldn’t think rationally w hen it came to her ex. “The Lost Boys aren’t a group you should worry about. The outside factions might be dangerous but the men themselves seem solid. They’re just trying to feel their way through all of this. They’re actually quite likable, most of them. Given the trauma they’ve gone through, they’re surprisingly well adjusted.”

  If one excused the fact that a couple of them were walking time bombs.

  “You like them.” Kim’s blue eyes turned shrewd.

  “They’re my patients, but you know it’s completely impossible to keep all emotion out it when you’re working this closely. Of course I’ve come to have opinions of them.” Some of them more strongly than others. She glanced down at her watch. “He’s more than an hour late.”

  Kim waved that off. “I told you I thought he would go off schedule. He’s got a mistress here in Paris. He’ll return sometime this afternoon. I promise. Now back to the real stuff. It’s one of them, isn’t it? The man you’re thinking about sleeping with, but it’s not just sleeping, is it? You like him. You like like him.”

  She hated the fact that she felt a blush go through her system. It was Robert McClellan’s fault. He made her feel like a schoolgirl with her first crush. It was ridiculous. She was a trained operative with a doctorate in psychology. She didn’t go gooey over a boy. Still, it wasn’t like she could talk about this with anyone else. She certainly wasn’t going to her boss to tell him she had some nasty sexual thoughts about one of the “lads,” as he called them. “They’re all lovely men and it’s been a long time for me.”

  She hadn’t had a regular man in her life for years. She’d had a couple of flings, but nothing serious. Now even though one of the perks of her job was a membership to a BDSM club called The Garden, she still hadn’t dated or even found a casual partner to sleep with. It should have been an excellent way to burn off her stress. She should have found a hot Dominant partner and indulged. But no. She’d met Robert and couldn’t do much more than play a bit. No sex. No affection. None because they couldn’t come from the man she wanted.