Submission Impossible (Masters and Mercenaries: Reloaded Book 1) Read online

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  Submission Impossible

  Masters and Mercenaries: Reloaded, Book 1

  Lexi Blake

  Submission Impossible

  Masters and Mercenaries: Reloaded, Book 1

  Lexi Blake

  Published by DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Copyright 2021 DLZ Entertainment LLC

  Edited by Chloe Vale

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-942297-42-0

  McKay-Taggart logo design by Charity Hendry

  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

  This is a brand new chapter in the series that has been the center of my career for over a decade now. I’m having a blast looking at these characters in different ways. The younger men and women are taking over, but don’t think that means the old guard will be left out. In so many ways, this is a new chapter in my life, too. I recently turned fifty and the world flipped and we’re all figuring out how to navigate it. The one thing that didn’t change is the comfort I find in writing these books, in inviting you to join me for an adventure, for some romance, for a few hours of respite. This Masters and Mercenaries series is set slightly in the future, and while there are definitely still threats, I hope you find it as bright a future as I have imagined it—a place where we can find love, find family, find a path to all of our dreams.

  Except for the bad guys, of course. Screw them.

  I want to thank everyone who helped turn this story into a book. As always I thank Kim Guidroz who is my family, my sounding board, the better half of Lexi Blake. My husband who holds the better half of my soul in his heart. Thanks to Maria Monroy, Liz Berry, Jillian Stein, Jenn Watson and Social Butterfly. To my agent, Kevan Lyon. To the best beta readers in the business – Kori Williamson, Stormy Pate and Riane Holt. Thanks to the lovely and amazing Lila Dubois for the cover.

  To anyone who listens to audio, you know that Ryan West has become the voice of my McKay-Taggart team. I want to thank him for 29—wow—amazing narrations. I’m so happy to move forward with many more stories!

  And thanks to you, dear reader, for following me once again. Let’s see what happens next…

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  The Dom Identity

  Treasured

  About Lexi Blake

  Other Books by Lexi Blake

  Prologue

  Papillon, LA

  Noelle LaVigne stood at the edge of the big deck in her father’s backyard and sighed because she really did miss this place and her family. It was late afternoon and the heat of the day was only broken by the nice wind coming off the water and the shade from the big cypress trees. She’d spent many an afternoon sitting under those trees and dreaming of her future.

  Most of her young life she’d lived in New Orleans, but she’d always thought of Papillon as home.

  She missed the bayou and her family, but she was kind of ready to be back in her apartment. Sure there were problems waiting for her in Dallas, but she was optimistic that she could solve them.

  Even Madison’s murder, because she was almost certain her rival scientist’s death hadn’t been an accident.

  Would Madison have tried to solve Noelle’s murder? Probably not. She’d been a genuinely terrible human being who’d tried to make Noelle’s life hell. Unfortunately, Noelle had been raised to rise above and all that, so she couldn’t look the other way.

  And she was curious.

  “Hey, sweetie. Do you want something to drink?” Her stepmother walked out from the house where the
sound of the game playing rocked the living room. The LSU game was on the big screen, and if her father and his friends’ shouts were any indication, it was going well.

  “I know I want something to drink.” Lila’s sister, Lisa, stepped out from behind her, putting a hand to her lower back.

  An evil grin lit her stepmom’s face. “You get water. And stay away from the lemonade because I’m pretty sure Zep spiked it with vodka. You’ve got at least another six weeks before you can even think about taking a drink.”

  Lisa was heavily pregnant with her first child. She and her husband, Remy, had taken their time. They’d been married for almost eight years when Lisa had announced she was having a baby. It had been fun to watch the big guy go pale at the thought. Lila was having a blast watching her youngest sister go through what she’d already been through twice.

  Lisa put a hand on her belly. “I hope my husband is happy with one because this pregnancy stuff sucks.”

  Lila chuckled. “Noelle, I want you to listen to your aunt for the next four or five years. Pregnancy is not for you. Until you’re a bit older, and then your dad is totally going to want grandkids.”

  Now she was pretty sure she was the one going pale. “No.”

  Lila pointed her way. “That is exactly what you should say. For now.” She glanced out over the backyard. “Boys, that Frisbee is meant to be thrown, not eaten.” Lila sighed. “I hope I’m right and that is a girl in your belly because boys…I’m lucky I still have hair. I was totally taken in with stories of how easy Noelle was. Then bammo, I spit out two boys and my life is one long test to see if I can keep two human beings alive. I’m a medical professional. It’s what I do every day, but those boys…Jason, do not try to ride the dog.”

  Lila strode off as the boys started to chase each other, and inside the house she could hear the guys shouting their joy over someone catching a ball or something.

  She’d never been into sports, but that hadn’t stopped her dad from finding ways to bond with her. Her small-town sheriff father had gone to way too many science fairs to mention. He’d become a STEM dad and put up with chemistry experiments in his bathroom through her teen years.

  After the accident that had left her in a wheelchair, he’d supported her when she’d learned to walk again. He and her stepmom had given her the encouragement she’d needed to make her dreams come true, and that was why she came over on football days whenever she was in town.

  “You doing okay, kiddo?” Lisa asked.

  “I’m good. I’m enjoying watching the kids play.” Her much younger brothers were running around the backyard, swinging on the trees like the crazy little boys they were. She spent so much time in a lab it was good to get out and remember there was a whole world out here.

  There was a world she could discover and explore and find out if she had a place in.

  “Are you still feeling good about what we talked about?” Lisa kept her voice down. “Never mind. I can see you are.”

  Because she was smiling. She could feel it on her face. “I’m excited.”

  Lisa leaned over and patted her hand. “I’m excited for you, sweetie. You’re going to have fun and make some great new friends.”

  Noelle went silent as her stepmom came back to the porch and checked the smoker that was currently cooking the meaty portion of the evening’s supper. “Those boys are going to give me a heart attack one of these days. Are you sure you can’t stay longer? It’s been nice to have you here.”

  “We love you, Noelle!” her youngest brother screamed from the top of the slide.

  “I love you, too,” she screamed right back. She did. They were awesome. In small doses. She would be on a plane first thing in the morning and back to her super-quiet apartment where she would watch TV that wasn’t a cartoon and sip adult “juice” boxes. She looked to her stepmom. “I have to get back to work. I normally wouldn’t have taken this time off, but they shut down the lab after the accident. I got the word today that we’ve been given the all clear to work again.”

  They’d spent a week ensuring the lab was safe after the accident that probably wasn’t an accident, but she wasn’t about to tell her stepmom she intended to play Nancy Drew. After all, she’d mentioned to her dad that she was a little suspicious about a couple of things that had happened at work lately, and now she had a meeting with a security company.

  “She can’t stay,” Lisa said. “Did you forget she’s got that appointment the day after tomorrow? The one Armie set up because he’s a crazy, paranoid freak.”

  Her stepmom’s brow arched. “Like your husband isn’t? Who do you think he called when he found out someone might be stalking his baby girl? Three answers, and the first two don’t count.”

  “I don’t think anyone is stalking me.” She simply thought someone might be trying to get a look at her work. She’d mentioned it casually to her father and the paranoia had set in.

  Lisa shrugged and ignored her. “I always knew Remy was crazy. Why do you think I married him? You, sister, were supposed to be the normal one.”

  Lila laughed at that one. “If I wanted normal, I shouldn’t have moved to Papillon, where we have our very own gator mascot.”

  Sometimes she missed Otis. But she also loved living in a city. She loved having her own place and being independent.

  Probably because only a few years before she hadn’t thought that would be possible.

  Her stepmother tucked a piece of dark hair behind her ear and gave her the look that let Noelle know she’d been thinking about a problem and was now ready to face it. “I know it feels like your dad is overbearing, but it’s because he cares. You know he’s worried about you, right?”

  Noelle shifted in her seat, stretching her legs. It was a gesture she was well used to since her legs were so often the painful center of her universe. If she didn’t get up and move soon, her calf might cramp. “I’m fine. I’m getting plenty of exercise. If I overdo it, I use my chair the next day. And I’ve got a great physical therapist in Dallas.”

  “I’m not talking about being worried about you physically,” Lila corrected. “I was talking about the stress you’ve been under since your friend died.”

  Noelle shook her head. Had she not explained this properly? She mostly tried to be nice, but there was no way she was pretending Madison had been her friend. “Oh, she was not my friend. She was always trying to get me fired. It was weird since I’m super nice and everyone loves me. But Madison took one look at me and decided we were some weird enemies or something. I never figured out what I did to deserve that. We came in at the same time. We worked on the same kinds of projects. We were the only women on most of those teams. We should have been friends.”

  “Or she’s one of those women who can’t stand having other women around,” Lisa offered. “I’ve known lots of those. Did she get along with the men?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She flushed as she realized how that could be misconstrued. “I mean she didn’t date them or anything, but she was nicer to them. Only the ones in charge, though. She was pretty mean to the men who worked under her.”

  It was why the techs liked to work for Noelle. If they were given a choice between the chick who baked them cookies and the one who yelled at them and called them morons, they usually picked cookies.

  “Lisa’s right, and I should know. Women in STEM don’t merely take crap from men,” Lila explained. Her stepmom had worked in the medical field for years. She now ran Papillon Parish’s only clinic. Noelle remembered how hard it had been on her in the beginning. “Women can be incredibly competitive and not nice about it. But I wasn’t really talking about that. I want to make sure you’re taking this seriously. Do you truly believe someone might be trying to get your research?”

  She was desperately worried that what had been happening to her and what happened to Madison were connected, but she wasn’t going to mention that part to her stepmom. Her parents were already freaked out enough by the fact that someone had stolen some samples from her l
ab, and she was almost certain someone had been on her laptop. They didn’t need to know that she thought someone had murdered her rival. “That’s why I’m going to meet with these people you want me to talk to. But I can’t exactly afford a security team, you know.”

  She made good money, but she suspected she couldn’t afford McKay-Taggart rates.

  “I wouldn’t worry about getting a bill,” Lisa said. “Big Tag owes Remy. He’s been doing side work for him for years. He’s got his bodyguard unit built up again, but he still likes to send Remy out from time to time, and that means he’s got to give us the family discount. Which means I’ll send him some jambalaya. Don’t discount that. Tag has like a hundred kids or something. It’s a lot of jambalaya.”

  Lisa winked her way, reminding her of the secret they had between them. A discount on Big Tag’s security services wasn’t the only reason she would be meeting the McKay-Taggart crew.

  She was starting a BDSM training class and she did not need her parents to know about it. She wasn’t ashamed or anything, but her stepmom wasn’t kinky, and her father needed to believe she didn’t have sexual needs in any way. It had been Lisa she’d gone to about the possibility of visiting the club she’d hopefully join at the end of her training—Sanctum. Lisa and her husband, Remy, still went to Sanctum any time they were in Dallas, and Remy had done enough favors for his old boss over the years that Ian Taggart was willing to take her on as a trainee.

  She started on Thursday, and going to the club was a big old bright spot in her life. Sex was hard for her, and she hoped this would help her find the ease with her body she dreamed about.

  “Does Remy know who’s going to be assigned to her case?” Lila asked.