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Tour FATAL TRUTH by Misty Evans
About the Book
Series: Shadow Force International, #1
Release Date: January 25, 2016
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Book Summary:
She’s an
investigative reporter who lives to uncover the truth.
Feisty television host,
Savanna Bunkett, exposes government coverups on her award-winning
show, The Bunk Stops Here. When she digs into a rumor about a top
secret government project that's producing “super soldiers” for the president,
she suddenly finds herself on an assassin’s hit list.
He's the
man who knows the truth.
Navy SEAL Lieutenant Trace Hunter is
the only soldier to survive Project 24. After refusing a direct order from the
president, he was branded a traitor, and his career imploded after the sexy
reporter turned him into a national headline. He now works undercover for
Shadow Force International, a secret group of former SEALs helping those who
have no where else to turn, using his enhanced skills to fight for justice and
protect the innocent. His first assignment? Protect Savanna from the one man
who wants them both dead—the president.
One wrong
move and they’ll be silenced forever.
Helping Savanna is the last thing
Trace wants to do, but her unwavering determination to expose the president's
dark truth matches his own. She's his one chance to set the record straight and
he’s her only chance at survival. When their mutual enemy closes in, can
they put the past behind them and trust each other? Even if it means losing
their hearts in the process? Or will secrets, lies, and forbidden passions cost
them everything?
Excerpt
from Fatal Truth by Misty Evans
Trace climbed the stairs two at a
time, the stairwell of the fancy apartment building empty at the dinner hour.
Or maybe the rich snobs who lived here were too good to take the stairs.
He was two hours late. Not the best
way to start his first assignment for Shadow Force International. Then again,
he hadn’t planned to be working for Rock Star Security and shoved out the door
and into the world of protection services so fast it had made his head spin.
The past couple of days had been a
whirlwind. He’d struck out on his own, surviving the first Virginia night in an
empty fishing shack with no heat or running water. Reese’s cheeseburger didn’t
last long, and while the lake wasn’t frozen over and the owner had left some
gear behind, Trace hadn’t been able to catch a damn thing.
The next morning, he’d stumbled
through a snowstorm into Murder Creek, found the lone greasy spoon in town and
ordered breakfast. The coffee was mud and the eggs were runny. He didn’t care.
It was better than prison food any day.
The small 1980s TV in the corner was
turned up, a weatherman dressed in a fancy suit waving at various colored blobs
on the map and declaring the storm would intensify throughout the day and
continue overnight. By the next morning, they were expected to have six feet of
snow.
As Trace had finished his toast, a
sheriff’s car had driven up. The two men who got out walked like military men,
not cops. Before the bell over the door rang, he’d left the waitress a generous
tip and disappeared out the back and into the woods.
His mother had always said he was as
stubborn as the day was long, but he wasn’t an idiot. While there’d been
nothing on the news about his escape from Witcher, he’d known the men in that
car were looking for him. A storm was moving in that would lock down the area.
He had no vehicle to get out and no supplies to hunker down and ride it out.
He needed help.
Admitting that fact had taken every
last ounce of his common sense, but now he was here. Beatrice had cleaned him
up, made him shave his beard and cut his hair.
Because of his specialized work for
Command & Control, the agency had scrubbed his past years ago. Few pictures
existed of him before his time in Iraq with SEAL Team 3, when he’d first grown
his hair long and sported a thick beard to blend in with the locals. SEALs
often needed out-of-the-Navy-box appearances on their assignments, and that was
the picture Ms. Bunkett had spread all over America.
He was a squeaky-clean Boy Scout now,
with colored contacts and new clothes—nice threads, not the usual camo gear he
was used to. The only thing he hated was the fancy dress shoes.
Petit and Reese had put him through
their version of basic protection service training, and Reese’s wife had
explained all the ins and outs of his new job.
Beatrice. He was pretty sure that
hadn’t been her name when she was in Command & Control, but it didn’t
matter. She’d confirmed that she had played a part in getting him out of
Witcher and that there were men looking for him. Nothing official on the news
yet, the government wanting to keep his “escape” a secret and hoping they could
find him and put him back before the public caught wind of the situation.
Petit and Reese hadn’t been happy when
Beatrice insisted Trace take this assignment. They’d wanted more time to work
on him, and they’d planned to send him out of the country on a Shadow Force
assignment. Beatrice had other ideas, and neither man seemed eager to argue
with her.
So here he was, playing bodyguard. A
test run, Beatrice had called it. He’d kept himself in good shape inside
Witcher, had kept his skills sharp. His enhancements from Project 24 had never
faded.
Still, with a secret manhunt on for
him, he had to stay in the shadows as much as possible. Beatrice had given him
a set of rules to follow, briefed him on the client. Single female,
twenty-eight, with a potential stalker. He was to keep an eye on her but not be
obvious about it.
The stalker is high-profile, Beatrice had said. Has possibly harmed the client’s
sister, but there’s no proof and the client can’t make public claims without
evidence. We’d like you to investigate, see if you can incapacitate the stalker
and discover the sister’s whereabouts.
The woman lived in the penthouse on
the top floor. He climbed the last set of stairs and went through the fire
door.
It was Beatrice’s fault he was late
and she’d supposedly called ahead to let the client know. Still, Trace felt a
shot of nervous adrenaline firing below his breastbone as he rang the doorbell.
There was a marble-topped table near the elevator with an elaborate floral
arrangement. A ficus tree sat in the corner under a skylight, and a large
painting of the sun rising over a mountain range hung on the wall left of the
door.
Seconds ticked by. He straightened his
tie, smoothed the lapels of his suit coat, fiddled with the brim of his
baseball hat.
The hat didn’t go with his outfit.
He’d picked it up on his way over, feeling too exposed otherwise. Even with his
change in appearance, he feared being recognized after Savanna Bunkett had done
such a fine job of splashing his face all over the news a year and a half ago.
On the other side of the door, he
heard a muffled voice, “Coming!”
A second later, the door swung open.
The woman was out of breath, her hair swept up in a high ponytail. She was
dressed in workout attire and a fine coating of sweat glistened on her ample
cleavage as she wiped her face with a towel. The rhythmic beat of a drum,
tambourine, and finger cymbals of Middle Eastern music echoed in the background.
From behind the towel, she said, “You
must be…”
And then she moved the towel to her
neck and met his gaze.
Oh, shit.
The towel stilled and the woman
studied his face. “Coldplay?”
Trace felt frozen in place. In the
briefing with Beatrice, she’d referred to the client only as Ms. Jeffries.
Ms. Jeffries, my ass.
His heart stuttered in his chest for a
second. Even without makeup and her signature red power suit, she stood out
like a diamond among glass. She was striking, her dark hair offsetting her pale
skin, all of it softened by a delicate nose and high cheekbones. Workout
clothes did nothing to dampen her natural, elegant demeanor.
Before him stood the woman who had
ruined his life.
Trace took a step back. Waited…
She didn’t seem to recognize him.
One hand went to her hip. “Are you the
strong, silent type or is this one of the rules, that you can’t speak to me? I
must have missed that one in the contract.”
Why would she recognize me? She had
one grainy photograph of me from six years ago, and I was nothing but a story
to her.
Trace forced his mouth to work,
struggled to get sound out. He tipped the brim of his hat down a little
farther. “Sorry, I’m late.”
“Randy didn’t buzz me. How did you get
in?”
Randy, the doorman. What a joke.
Trace shifted gears, forcing the anger
boiling in his gut aside. As soon as he could get hold of Beatrice, all bets
were off. “Security check of the building showed me some weak spots. I got in
through a service door entrance on the first floor. I’ll speak to the manager
tomorrow about beefing things up.”
She stepped back, using the towel on
her arms. Long, slender arms with small wrists and finely-boned hands. “Come
in. I’ll grab a shower and then we can talk about…my problem.”
Talk. Right. “I’ll stay out here at
the door until you’re ready.”
“Um, okay. Sure.” She gave him another
once over. “Have we met? You seem familiar.”
Met? Jesus God. “No, we’ve never met.”
Not in person. If we had, I would have wrung your neck.
She gave him a small smile. “Even if
we had, we have to pretend otherwise, right? Sorry, this is all new to me.”
He nodded and stepped back, grinding
his teeth. She closed the door, leaving him alone in the penthouse hallway.
Counting to a hundred to give her time
to get in the shower, he paced to the elevator doors, locked the thing down,
then locked the door to the stairwell. He withdrew the cell phone Beatrice had
provided and punched in her number.
She picked up on the first ring.
“Yes?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Sorry?”
He forced himself to lower his voice.
“Ms. Jeffries? Her name isn’t Jeffries and you know exactly who she is
and what she did to me. If this is some kind of joke, I swear I’ll…I’ll…”
“Yes?”
What would he do? The woman was
smarter than smart and she was, well, a pregnant female.
A man, he would beat the shit out of
for tricking him like this. But he would never hit a woman. “…I’ll beat up your
husband.”
“You can try,” Beatrice said without
concern. “What’s the problem?”
Trace nearly crushed the phone. “You
know exactly what the problem is. You lied and set me up with the woman who
crucified me.”
“I didn’t lie. Her real name is
Savanna Jeffries-Bunkett, but she only goes by Savanna Bunkett for her show.
Her mother, Doris Jeffries, is from the New Hampshire Jeffries, a Daughter of
the Revolution, and a top-notch lawyer. Her father, Shawn Bunkett, is the
president of a private Catholic college. Her sister Parker works for National
Intelligence as a glorified profiler, you might say. Her job is rather vague
and ill-defined. She has a degree in cognitive therapy and a knack for
understanding how criminals work, which National Intelligence has found
helpful. For reasons I haven’t quite figured out yet, Parker pulls together the
president’s daily briefing and presents it to him. I doubt that has anything to
do with her brain research, other than to profile a terrorist here and there. A
month ago, she went missing. All I can get out of my sources is that she’s on
assignment.” Her voice emphasized assignment. “Odds are there was
something…personal…going on between her and the president, or he gave her a
black op job and she got caught.”
Linc Norman. The president sure liked
to spread himself around.
The sound of a fridge door opening
came from Beatrice’s end. “Who do you think passed your file—the bogus one—to
Savanna?”
Trace took off his hat and scratched
his hairline. “The sister?”
“If my guess is accurate, and I am
correct ninety-nine percent of the time, Parker received the file outlining
your rogue activities from the president.”
A patient silence descended, as if she
were waiting for him to connect the dots. A possible scenario spilled out
without too much brainpower. “Linc Norman told Parker to make sure Savanna
broke the story.”
“Parker is missing. The president is
stalking Savanna. It adds up, only we don’t know exactly why. Norman is now
keeping tabs on Savanna, no doubt fearing she’ll reveal her suspicions to the
world that he’s made Parker disappear. She doesn’t have any facts—yet—and
President Norman hopes to keep it that way.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me
why the president had you branded a traitor on national television?”
When he didn’t respond, she went on.
“Well, consider this your chance to prove to Savanna that you’re not a traitor
and that her intel from President Norman was bogus.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Find her sister. And if the president
is the one who threw your ass in prison, who better to have on your side
than an investigative reporter with a fan base of six million viewers? She can
clear your name, Coldplay. Think about it.”
He was thinking all right. Thinking
his former job as a cleaner for the president might put Savanna Jeffries
Bunkett in more danger than she was already in.
“She can also help you dig up dirt to
blackmail Linc Norman,” Beatrice went on. He heard the clink of silverware
against a bowl. “So he stops trying to kill you.”
Trace returned the hat to his head and
pinched the bridge of his nose. “You set me up.”
“I did,” Beatrice admitted freely. “In
so doing, I also gave you a way out of the mess you’re in. I don’t care about
your past and the things you’ve done, but it would solidify your job with
Shadow Force International if you’re not a hunted felon.”
His past was not something to be proud
of, Navy SEAL or not. He’d killed for his country, sure, but his job as a
cleaner went beyond that. While once he’d believed he was doing the morally
right thing, helping the president wipe out threats to America, he was no
longer sure there was such a thing as morally right. “Savanna is already
suspicious. Even with the change in my appearance, she suspects we’ve met.”
“So come clean. Tell her the truth.
She needs you and you need her. Besides, she signed a contract.”
So did I. Every employee of Shadow Force International, whether
they worked as bodyguards for Rock Star Security, performed search and rescue
missions, or assisted on kidnapping cases, were required to sign one. If he
breached his agreement, he was out in the cold again.
Petit planned to put Trace in charge
of a team. If things worked out. Even if they didn’t hold him to his
contract, bailing on his first assignment would hardly help his cause. He’d
never make team leader if they couldn’t depend on him.
Did he even care? He wasn’t a team
player anymore. Couldn’t endanger anyone else.
“Follow the procedure I gave you and
think about it overnight,” Beatrice said. “If you wish to terminate the
assignment in the morning, I’ll find someone else to guard Ms. Bunkett.”
A growl formed in his throat.
Beatrice’s logic was so…so…logical. Be the hero again. Keep someone safe.
Solve all your problems.
If only it were that easy.
Didn’t matter. He couldn’t complete
this assignment without risking his freedom. Morning was nearly twelve hours
away. Could he keep Savanna Bunkett from figuring out who he was in the
meantime?
The woman was a bloodhound when she
picked up the scent of a story. Sure, it had been eighteen months since she’d
run his, and she’d had plenty of stories since then, but she wasn’t one to
forget a name or a face for long, he bet. “She’ll terminate the assignment
before morning.”
“You can’t hide forever,” Beatrice
said. “And there’s only so much I can do to keep you off the grid. This is your
chance to clear your name. Don’t blow it.”
The line went dead.
Trace braced one hand against the wall
and sighed. Twelve hours. He had twelve fucking hours to keep up this charade,
and then what? Bail?
He’d never quit a job in his
life—except the last order from the president—and he wasn’t about to do so now.
If Savanna figured out who he was and called the police, he’d have to, but
until then, he’d lay low and plan for the worst case scenario.
…clear your name.
Pocketing the phone, he shook the
ridiculous idea from his brain and walked back down the hall to wait.
He’d follow procedure like Beatrice
had instructed him to when she gave him the assignment. Scan Savanna’s
apartment for bugs, make sure her windows and doors were all secure. Check her
personal security system. Then he’d stand guard for the night.
By morning—if he made it that
long—he’d have a plan of escape.
Or one that
would take down the president of the United States.
My Review:
Fatal Truth by Misty Evans was a wild, exciting read! Unique, unpredictable, suspenseful, Fatal Truth has a feel of believability to it that makes it even more fascinating.
Misty captured me and pulled me into an adventure with two strong main characters. With just enough romance and relationship intrigue, Savanna and Trace have a linked past that will impact their future...if they survive.
I loved the suspenseful plot of Fatal Truth because it was unexpected, thrilling, and Misty made it feel so real with smoothly flowing writing. Watching the relationship between Savanna and Trace evolve was an important element to the plot, and it blended perfectly with the predominantly suspenseful mystery.
Misty kept me on edge wondering what would happen and what could happen. I really enjoyed this book because it was so different and how the plot could unravel was so uncertain that I was pulled in quickly and hooked.
Fatal Truth is a powerful romantic suspense that I'd highly recommend. You won't be disappointed!!
5/5 stars!
Misty captured me and pulled me into an adventure with two strong main characters. With just enough romance and relationship intrigue, Savanna and Trace have a linked past that will impact their future...if they survive.
I loved the suspenseful plot of Fatal Truth because it was unexpected, thrilling, and Misty made it feel so real with smoothly flowing writing. Watching the relationship between Savanna and Trace evolve was an important element to the plot, and it blended perfectly with the predominantly suspenseful mystery.
Misty kept me on edge wondering what would happen and what could happen. I really enjoyed this book because it was so different and how the plot could unravel was so uncertain that I was pulled in quickly and hooked.
Fatal Truth is a powerful romantic suspense that I'd highly recommend. You won't be disappointed!!
5/5 stars!
* * *
About the Author
USA TODAY Bestselling Author Misty Evans has published
over twenty novels and writes romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and paranormal
romance. As a writing coach, she helps other authors bring their books – and
their dreams of being published – to life.
The books in
her Super Agent series have won a CataNetwork Reviewers’ Choice Award, CAPA
nominations, the New England Reader’s Choice Bean Pot Award for Best Romantic
Suspense in 2010 and the ACRA Heart of Excellence Reader’s Choice Award for
Best Romantic Suspense in 2011.
Her Witches
Anonymous series was dubbed a Fallen Angel Reviews Recommended Read. The Super
Agent Series, Witches Anonymous Series, and the Kali Sweet Series have been on
multiple Amazon Kindle bestsellers lists. Her culinary romantic mystery, THE
SECRET INGREDIENT, and the first book in her Deadly series, DEADLY PURSUIT, are
both USA TODAY bestsellers.
Misty likes
her coffee black, her conspiracy stories juicy, and her wicked characters
dressed in couture. When not reading or writing, she enjoys music, movies, and
hanging out with her husband, twin sons, and two spoiled puppies.
* * *
Giveaway Information
Tour-wide giveaway
includes a $50.00 Amazon Gift Card and a Rock Star Bracelet
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