Secret Alpha Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Quotes

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Translations

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  This book goes out to my husband. Tough, manly, rugged, and sexy on the outside, complimented by an unparalleled ability to love. Your affection is the reality I translate into fiction in all of my heroes. You put up with my quirks and faults, and I do the same for you.

  I love you.

  “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

  — Friedrich Nietzsche

  “One person's craziness is another person's reality.”

  — Tim Burton

  “What we see depends mainly on what we look for.”

  — John Lubbock

  She said. He said.

  Kano, is short for "Amerikano" which is a Filipino term for an American man.

  The weight of his tanned, callused hand on my shoulder was the only thing anchoring me to that moment.

  A police station. Fluorescent lights humming in time with my heartbeat. The pulsing weight of my grief pounding in my ears. A feeling of complete abandonment—other than the single palm on my shoulder.

  Noticing these details was second nature, but they only manifested themselves with the intensity of background information.

  Insignificant. Inconsequential. White noise overpowered by a completely unrecognized, grief-sodden heart.

  A more substantial, if only ethereal, part of me was back in my family home, reliving the cowardice I displayed while my family suffered.

  I was young, only eight years old, but not so young that I didn’t know mere moments could make a lifetime of difference. Old enough to know that my hiding had no effect on my family. I was only eight. I couldn’t have saved them.

  But the implications of my actions for myself were vast. I saved myself from immediate suffering, but I had also guaranteed myself a lifetime of torment and loneliness.

  Several people, all officials of some capacity, had asked me what happened. Despite having all the answers they sought, I kept my lips pressed firmly together and my voice box stagnant.

  “Wade,” I heard a man wearing an FBI jacket call as he addressed the man connected to me. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  I was pretty sure I was the “this”.

  “He doesn’t have any family, Ray,” Wade answered, confirming me as the topic of conversation, but gave my shoulder a squeeze in an attempt to comfort.

  As of yesterday night, I no longer had any family. Both of my parents were only children, somewhat of a rarity for their generation, and then both lost their parents to disease at too early of an age.

  “Doesn’t mean you have to fill the void,” Ray countered, his face sympathetic but his words self serving.

  I felt my body swing around as Wade dropped into a relaxed squat in front of me. He met my eyes with his, brown and shiny with an unknown emotion. Both of his hands settled into the crease of my neck, and it seemed as though we were the only two people in existence, Ray all but gone and forgotten despite his position a few feet away.

  Speaking directly to me, his eyes never once flitting away or questioning, he said, “I don’t have any family either, Ryan. But today, that’s going to change. You and me are going to take care of each other.” Pausing just briefly he let me digest his words, swallowing them right along with the lump in my throat. “Deal?”

  I didn’t say anything in either agreement or denial, but I held his eyes like I thought a man would. Like my father would have wanted me to. Like he was holding mine.

  Wade was an unknown, but the lesser of two evils. I knew the stories that followed orphans around like shadows. I knew that my life could be bad with Wade, but it would be bad if I chose the alternative.

  I didn’t think I could take care of anyone, even myself, but with one short nod, I agreed to try.

  From that moment forward, Wade did nothing short of jump through hoops. Evaluations and visits, background checks and personal questionnaires.

  As nice as it is for someone to offer to take in a recently orphaned kid, the process of getting it approved, especially for a single male like Wade, really takes some doing.

  But he never faltered, meeting every evaluation head on and doing his best to fast track the cutting of every last ribbon of red tape. Thankfully, as the investigation of my family’s murders was ongoing and my safety was considered a liability, I was relegated to police custody rather than pushed off to a group home.

  I wouldn’t say it was an experience worth repeating, but again, I felt strongly that I had been dealt the better of two crappy hands.

  Six months later, a birthday had passed, turning my eight years into nine, and the State of Tennessee had finally decided to write me off, granting full custody to Wade Reddington. I was a tough case, a victim of a trauma with a need for anonymity, so after extensive research into his background, the necessary authorities finally decided to hand me over to the man who’d been fighting so hard for me.

  And he had fought. To this day, I’m not entirely certain why, but I’m endlessly thankful. Sometimes it just takes one person. One person to fight for you, try for you— be the filler to every last void in your life. One person to make you want to keep living.

  Wade was that for me.

  And I had a sneaking suspicion, that I was that person for him.

  Two years later, I started to feel the full weight of everything Wade had done for me. I was a very manly eleven years old, and no longer a Parker. Instead, I was Dan Smith.

  At first, the name change had felt like a betrayal to my family. Another layer of unworthiness as far as I was concerned. But now, I saw it as something different. Something that nourished both myself and Wade, giving us both a connection we had been missing. Because not only did my name change, but Wade’s did as well. We assumed the roles of Uncle and nephew, both with the family name of Smith.

  Until then, I hadn’t bothered to ask Wade anything about himself. I didn’t socialize, I didn’t thank him for what he had done, and I didn’t do anything to pull my weight. But Wade had the patience of a saint, letting me soak in my pond of despondence and self-centeredness.

  But when I realized the error of my ways, it only took one question to understand the depth of Wade’s own sadness.

  I had approached him in the living room in our house in Southern California as he perused through one of his case files. He had looked up briefly, and then quickly reverted his eyes to the file, no doubt expecting my normal silence.

  “Wade,” I murmured tentatively, wringing my hands behind my back in the hopes that he wouldn’t see how nervous I was.

  He immediately looked up and met my eyes, dropping the file to the coffee table in front of him and questioning, “Yeah, buddy?” with genuine interest.

  I cleared my throat and chewed on my lip briefly before diving in. “I was wondering about your family. Where they are, I mean.”
>
  He paused long enough that I began to question myself, stammering, “It’s okay. You don’t have to answer.”

  Just as I turned to leave the room, Wade stopped me in my tracks. “I didn’t have any, buddy. At least, not until you.”

  “But everybody’s got to have parents,” I argued using my knowledge of minimal biology.

  “Come take a seat,” he instructed.

  I did as I was told, parking myself on the worn-in cushion of the love seat that sat catty cornered from Wade’s spot on the couch.

  “Biologically, I have parents, yes. But I grew up without any family. My parents gave me up for adoption about six months in, and from what I’m told, it’s good that they did. I was malnourished,” he explained, and then paused, checking to see if I understood. “Do you know what malnourished means?”

  “They weren’t feeding you?” I answered with the inflection of a question.

  “Yep,” he confirmed on a nod. “They weren’t feeding me enough. But I went into the system, and unfortunately, never found a home in any of my foster families or through permanent adoption.”

  Wade had fought both sides of the system. Both from the inside, while he lived it, and from the outside, while he worked to give me a different outcome than his own.

  “What about when you grew up?” I questioned. “You didn’t wanna start your own family with some lady?”

  Wade’s light chuckle echoed through the mostly empty space, and my eyes flitted down to my jean covered legs thanks to my anxiety.

  “Yeah, Danny. I did want to start a family with some lady,” he said through his still present laugh. “And I did. For a few wonderful years, Melly and I had a family in each other.”

  I looked up at him then, curious as to what had happened to the woman, Melly. Lifting his weight slowly off the of the sofa, he moved effortlessly to the love seat and settled right next to me, resting his elbows on his knees and letting the weight of his head hang forward from the support of his shoulders.

  “Melly passed away just three short years before you and I met, buddy. Cancer.”

  I felt the heavy comfort of his palm settle onto the back of my neck just before he continued, “See? That’s why I need you just as much as you need me, Danny.” With a squeeze of his long fingers, he finished, “You’re my family too.”

  “I haven’t been a very good family, have I?” I asked as I tossed my longish hair out of my eyes, bringing his hand up with the motion of my head.

  The sheen of his eyes met mine, and one corner of his mouth curved upwards just slightly. “You’ve been perfect, Danny. With me, all you ever have to be is you.”

  “I’m no fool. I know you can have me dead by tonight,” I told Sergio calmly, the dimple on the right side of my face slowly deepening as I curved my lips into my most sinister of smirks.

  “At least, you think you can.”

  Crimson tinted his cheeks as anger surged through his veins, raising his blood pressure. He didn’t like to be talked to with any insolence whatsoever. I could practically see him ordering my hit in his head. But I wasn’t one of his fucking minions. I was his equal, or at least, I was pretending to be, and guys like him take the first crack of weakness and turn it into a chasm.

  “I have a different proposal for you,” I continued, picking an imaginary piece of lint off of the denim encasing my knee. My posture was relaxed, my face at ease---the portrait of smart and confident. Maybe even a little bit cocky.

  Kind of ironic for a guy who might be dead in an hour.

  Interest flashed like lightning in his eyes. Intense and foreboding for the most intimidating of instants, and then gone. Just like that.

  “And what’s that, Kano?” he asked derisively, the edge of his voice as sharp as the knife he was twirling in his hand. “What’s more appealing than killing you and taking your business?”

  An evil smile transformed his face from semi-handsome to the cold of a killer.

  Fucking scum. I could not believe I grew up thousands of miles from my life, thousands of miles from my true identity, only to spend my time with the kind of people I hated most in this world. The kind of people everyone had worked to keep me distanced from.

  “Working with me,” I declared.

  “Ha!” he bellowed loudly, his eyes traveling from man to man at his side, sharing a look and laugh at my expense. Turning back to me, his face settled back into malevolence. “And why would I do that?” he spat. “I could have your business without the headache of you.”

  By killing you. That part was unspoken but clear nonetheless.

  Leaving his question unanswered, I held the black of his eyes tightly in the clutches of my hazel as I stated, “The decision is yours. But I’m harder to kill than you think. And I’m an asset you don’t have.”

  The chair scraped the ground as I lifted my weight out of it, careful to look each and every man in the eye, my awareness and perception running full steam.

  Most people would say I was “blessed” with the gift of an overactive memory, details of life’s events, conversations, and details cataloging themselves neatly in my brain like a virtual filing cabinet. But only I, the man burdened with vivid memories, too gruesome for any imagination, while only a boy, would understand that this gift could often be a curse.

  With a nod from Sergio, his men moved to the door blocking my exit until I either gave him the answer he wanted or he killed me. Which one he really wanted, I wasn’t sure.

  “Again, how are you an asset?” he asked acidly.

  Chuckling softly, I lifted my eyes from the ground and once again locked onto his. Holding my arms out to my sides, I asked, “Do I look like I run guns, Sergio?”

  Dropping my arms and then crossing them over my chest, I continued, “Do I look like I have an extensive illegal operation, only slightly smaller than yours?”

  “No. I don’t,” I answered quickly. “I look like the All-American, guy next door. A Kano, just like you say. But you. You don’t look like any guy I would want to live next door to.”

  Taking an extremely big risk, one that could have ended my fucking life right in that instant, I turned my back on Sergio casually, strolled right up to his men at the door, bowled right through them, and walked right out the door.

  The truth is that I wouldn’t have made it out the door if Sergio hadn’t given his guys the signal. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have even made it to the door.

  Walking straight to my Challenger, throwing open the door, and climbing in with efficiency and speed, I cranked it up and made my way slowly out of the middle class neighborhood, checking my six at every turn.

  I watched carefully for a tail for twenty miles, weaving my way in and out of the city and taking the longest route possible before heading back in the direction of my house. I pulled into the gravel driveway and made my way around the house to the garage in the back. Once again surveying my surroundings, I checked the gun at the small of my back, and then slowly got out of the still-running car to open the manual garage door.

  I got my baby pulled inside and the ignition switched off, slowly letting my forehead rest on the stitched leather at the top of my steering wheel. Only then did I smile.

  I was alive.

  And that could only mean one thing.

  The bastard wanted to play.

  Protocol was ingrained in me after years in the field, two of which had been on this operation. My cell phone felt slimy in my hand as I pulled it out of the console, a result of my clammy palms produced by crashing adrenaline. I dialed number one on the speed dial, waited two seconds, and then hung up. By doing a dial check in, my superiors knew I was alive, but no actual words had to be spoken.

  We didn’t wear wires because the illegal arms industry is so far advanced at security, and an outed agent is a dead agent. No check in from me would be the first indication that I had been eliminated, but even then, it wouldn’t make much difference. For me anyway. My body would probably never be recovered.

 
As cold as it sounds, the US government is not going to scrap an entire operation over one casualty. If at all possible, cover is upheld and the operation goes on. As you can imagine, that’s why people with personal connections, like Wade and I, don’t often work the same cases. We’re just cogs in a much larger wheel, and things like emotions and vengeance don’t have a place in a case this large.

  I’m not really sure why they allow us to work together. Maybe because we work so well as a team, or maybe because we’ve been doing it for years without allowing our personal relationship to infiltrate our work relationship. Or maybe, it’s because our already established ties allow for deeper, more impenetrable cover.

  I didn’t know, and it wasn’t worth questioning. It would be the way that was until it wasn’t, and when it changed, we would be expected to flow with it effortlessly.

  That was just the way of the business.

  Hefting myself off of the supple leather of my Challenger’s seat, I turned, closed the door gently behind me, and made my way out of the dark dampness of our old garage.

  On a day like today, I usually had two very simple objectives. Do my debriefing with Wade, and then go get laid.

  Hey, when you’re knocking on death’s door, you have to take every opportunity to live the opportunities life presents. And for a man, getting laid was one of the most important of all of those opportunities.

  The gravel crunched under my feet as I crossed the driveway at the back of our house, entered the screen door on the back of our porch, and trudged my way into the cool air conditioning of the indoors.

  Wade sat on the couch, poised with a case file in his lap, just like he had done time and time again during the twenty plus years we had spent together. If someone were to paint a portrait of Wade to hang over the fireplace, this was exactly the position that would have been pictured.

  The creak of the door gave me away, and Wade’s head whipped up, his eyes flooding with visible relief before he managed to mask it.

  “You’re back,” he stated simply, his elementary words veiling a much deeper meaning.

  “Indeed,” I answered, and then made my way to sit down next to Wade on the couch, shuffling his files out of the way when necessary.