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Shattered Secrets
Jane M. Choate
BODYGUARD REUNIONNarrowly escaping thugs who held her at knifepoint, lawyer Olivia Hammond turns to the man who once broke her heart, bodyguard Salvatore Santonni, for protection. However, when an anonymous caller reveals her boss has been kidnapped and will die if she doesn’t comply with demands, she wishes she hadn’t asked for help. Especially since the first order is to tell no one. But with someone determined to get something they think Olivia has, Sal won’t back down. He can’t let anything happen to the woman he never stopped loving. And as they uncover the truth, Sal and Olivia quickly learn that the threat is much more deadly than they ever would have guessed.
BODYGUARD REUNION
Narrowly escaping thugs who held her at knifepoint, lawyer Olivia Hammond turns to the man who once broke her heart, bodyguard Salvatore Santonni, for protection. However, when an anonymous caller reveals her boss has been kidnapped and will die if she doesn’t comply with demands, she wishes she hadn’t asked for help. Especially since the first order is to tell no one. But with someone determined to get something they think Olivia has, Sal won’t back down. He can’t let anything happen to the woman he never stopped loving. And as they uncover the truth, Sal and Olivia quickly learn that the threat is much more deadly than they ever would have guessed.
“You might be able to hide your feelings from others, but not from me,” Sal said.
He looked at Olivia and added, “Your expression gives you away every time.”
When she started to put her hands to her cheeks, he stopped her. “Don’t try to hide. Not from me.”
Deliberately, Olivia backed away from him and the touch that could still turn her inside out.
She knew she was putting off the inevitable, and she hated the fact that she felt cowardly for doing so. She’d never been one to shirk from her responsibility, but now...now she didn’t know where her duty lay.
Sal took her hand and squeezed it. “Right now, we’re operating in the dark. We don’t know who’s doing this. We don’t know what they want. We need something, anything, to give us a handle on this.”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly.
“You’re doing the right thing.”
Was she? She didn’t know.
Olivia looked up at Sal, not surprised to find his eyes flat and dark. He was all Delta at the moment.
Good. She had a feeling she was going to need his special set of skills and training.
Dear Reader (#u7799569f-365e-5d9e-9fce-479c100ee3c2),
I hope you have enjoyed Sal and Olivia’s story.
When I started this series several years ago, I wasn’t certain I could tell Sal’s story as he wanted it told. He is a strong man with a gentle side, as the best men are. But I didn’t understand him until I realized that he was struggling to forgive himself. And then I knew I could write about him, because I struggle to forgive myself as well. Olivia helped Sal remember that the Lord is always on his side, always ready to forgive him.
Sal and Olivia didn’t have an easy time of it. Their love path was punctuated with embezzlers and killers. Most of us won’t have to deal with that kind of conflict, but we, like Olivia and Sal, have to work at keeping our love alive and strong. With the Lord’s help, we can find our own happy endings.
With love in the Lord,
Jane
JANE M. CHOATE dreamed of writing from the time she was a small child when she entertained friends with outlandish stories complete with happily-ever-after endings. Writing for Love Inspired Suspense is a dream come true. Jane is the proud mother of five children, grandmother to seven grandchildren and the staff to one cat who believes she is of royal descent.
Shattered Secrets
Jane M. Choate
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy and to all them that call upon thee.
—Psalms 86:5
To Dina Davis, editor, whose suggestions for this book made it much richer and stronger.
To my friends at Front Range Christian Fiction Writers. Thank you for all the encouragement and support.
Contents
Cover (#u99503780-d68c-5455-8718-eb15b6898de1)
Back Cover Text (#ubd8f2a0b-6a0d-579f-aca4-de040a3fe543)
Introduction (#u698d76e8-9d4c-5f62-ad05-9d6941efef4b)
Dear Reader (#ucdf552ad-c6b5-5999-be65-d9eb8ccd9082)
About the Author (#u6847d203-4c92-52bb-bad4-238e4b1bf3a2)
Title Page (#u3e71d194-463b-51bb-865f-dd9b929aafd4)
Bible Verse (#u35e6a2e0-064d-50b5-84db-cd0b466ed667)
Dedication (#u298ab578-256b-5974-b223-49e70e177a78)
ONE (#u63b9d550-f9c6-5409-9a60-869b952c707a)
TWO (#ub6c23454-9018-5e62-9510-80f27e994359)
THREE (#ue9eeab50-de5f-5b94-be2b-bbc4ddb4e709)
FOUR (#u0d6f523d-30c7-5b52-a1b3-0f3ed5e12c43)
FIVE (#u2f6c31e0-8cab-56a5-a7ef-c9443c1f5118)
SIX (#u09845353-a965-54fe-bd48-2f5cce776333)
SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#u7799569f-365e-5d9e-9fce-479c100ee3c2)
A hiss of energy brushed her face as the deadly blade cleaved the air a scant inch from her cheek.
Olivia Hammond forced herself to remain still. To move even a fraction would cause the knife to slice open her skin. She dared not breathe until the need for oxygen forced her to take a noisy gulp of air.
“Ah, I see I have your attention. Now you will tell us where you hid it. Maybe we will kill you quickly rather than taking our time about it.” The heavily accented voice held no particular menace, as though the man who pressed the weapon to her face was discussing a business transaction rather than taking her life.
“Or we will be forced to encourage you to tell us.” This was from the second man who had said little during the interrogation.
The two intruders had already ransacked the law offices of Chantry & Hammond. It had been her misfortune to return for a file and run into them.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” How many times had she uttered those words? The effort of not moving and the fear of what the men intended to do to her had dulled her energy and her wits.
Don’t give up. The small voice inside her head had her sitting up straighter despite the duct tape binding her to the chair. She was far from beaten. Her passion for defending the underdog had earned her a reputation for taking no prisoners, both in and out of the courtroom. She called upon that now.
It was up to her to free herself. No one was coming to her aid. Immediately her mind rejected that. There was always One who was at her side.
Lord, I’m in a fix here. I need Your help. The silent prayer said, she tried once again to reason with her captors. “Why don’t you tell me what it is you’re looking for?”
“Enough!” Impatience shimmered in the single word. The first man, whom she’d identified as the leader, nicked the delicate skin of her cheek with the blade.
Blood trickled down her cheek. The metallic scent of it stung her nostrils and sickened her stomach.
“You know what we want. Do not play the innocent. You are part of this, along with your boss, trying to cheat us out of what is ours.”
“Calvin?” What did this have to do with Calvin Chantry, the head of the law firm where she was an associate? And where was Calvin anyway? He hadn’t shown up for work yesterday or today.
“Yes. Calvin. Your boss. He could not pull this off without help. You, his partner’s daughter, are the logical choice.”
Though the man spoke English, she struggled to understand his thick accent that gave a hard jab to every syllable. “Please... Calvin didn’t tell me anything. I don’t—”
A key turned at the office door. Teresa, the cleaning lady.
Olivia held on to a breath of hope. Just as quickly, the sliver of hope died. Teresa, sixtyish and stout, would be no match for two armed men.
An exclamation in the woman’s native Portuguese was quickly followed by the clump of her sturdy shoes down the carpeted hallway outside the office. Seconds later, a fire alarm shrilled. Teresa must have pulled it.
Thousands of gallons of water spilled from the sprinkler system above.
“This is not over,” the first man said just before he and his partner fled.
Drenched, Olivia waited for help and said another silent prayer, this one in gratitude for the Lord’s intervention.
An hour later, after the fire department had arrived and departed and the EMTs had checked her over, she was still answering questions from the Savannah police, some in uniform, some in plain clothes. She didn’t fool herself that she was that important. The Chantry & Hammond law firm, a Savannah institution, carried a lot of weight.
“I don’t know what they were looking for,” she repeated. “They kept saying I knew where it was. And then they accused me of being in on it with Calvin Chantry.”
“Did the men say what it was they wanted from Chantry?”
“Like I said, no.”
Olivia shivered in her wet clothes. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home and change.”
The older of the detectives, whose suit bore the stains of a quickly eaten dinner, nodded. “Sure.” He handed her a card. “If you think of something, anything at all, give us a call.”
After promising to do so, Olivia headed home. Though a long shower helped to rid her skin of the memory of the knife and the stench of her own fear, she admitted what she hadn’t wanted to just an hour earlier: she needed help.
She picked up the phone and punched in the number of the man she had thought never to see again. She needed the kind of help that only Salvatore Santonni could give.
* * *
At core, Salvatore Santonni was still a soldier. He shoved a hand through his hair. Though he’d left Delta several years back, he had only recently exchanged the military haircut for a nonregulation one. He missed the buzz cut that had been his for more than a decade.
Now an operative for S&J Security/Protection, he took the jobs assigned him with the same dedication to duty with which he had carried out missions for his country. Individuals contacted S&J only when circumstances had turned dangerous and they needed a bodyguard.
When he’d gotten Olivia’s call, he’d driven through the night, unable to wait until morning. He knew she wouldn’t have called unless she was terrified. He rapped on the door of the Savannah law offices of Chantry & Hammond.
Olivia Hammond let him in and stared up at him, her mouth forming a soft O, her eyes widening. He took a moment to take inventory of her. Tall and willowy, she was elegant in a red suit. He imagined she thought the severe style made her look powerful, even tough, in the courtroom where she shredded witness testimony on a regular basis. Instead, it only emphasized the delicate femininity that was so much a part of her.
Sun-streaked blond hair swung to her shoulders, framing a face that was so breathtakingly beautiful that he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t. Her features weren’t perfect: her nose was slightly too small, her lips too full, but together, they made for an arresting package.
