The Perfect Hostage (A Super Agent Novella) (Entangled Edge) by Misty Evans

Chapter One
    In the past two months, CIA operative John Quick had ridden a camel through the rough terrain of Afghanistan, set off a bomb under the Kremlin in Moscow, and spent time undercover inside a Mexican prison.
    Standing in front of the Morgan family retreat in upstate New York, none of those special ops missions compared to the personal nightmare on which he was about to embark.
    His finger hovered over the doorbell. The Morgan family home—one of six owned by the billionaire financier, Charles Morgan—was more than your average vacation house. From the intel John had gathered—and he never went into enemy territory without knowing the layout—the multi-story log and glass home situated on Otsego Lake boasted five bedrooms, an equal amount of bathrooms, a theater, a wine cellar, and a complete spa. The six acres surrounding it contained a boat dock, tennis courts, a pool, and a zip line in the woods behind the house.
    The type of home Lucie Morgan—the woman of his dreams—belonged in. Not his simple, unadorned one-bedroom apartment in D.C.
    From inside, he heard conversation and laughter. Soft music, the clink of glasses and silverware. The sounds of family and friends.
    What the hell was he doing here?
    You’re on vacation.
    Vacation. Normal people liked vacation. They looked forward to it. Sleeping in, hitting the beach, spending time away from their jobs.
    Normal people left town and went to fucking Disneyland.
    While he wasn’t actually a spook for the CIA, he wasn’t exactly your average Joe, either. Had never set foot inside Disneyland. An ex–military operative with the highly trained and efficient Team Pegasus, he hunted down lost spies and brought them home, rescued those trapped in foreign prisons, and acted as a bodyguard in third-world countries when certain covert deals were going down. Like all the men in Pegasus, he was on call 24/7.
    Until now.
    Vacation or not, he didn’t belong here. He was adding fuel to the fire of his relationship with Lucie. His non -relationship with Lucie. Rehabbing an old house into a dance studio and spending a few nights together here and there when he was in the States was not a relationship, though Lucie wanted it to be. He’d squashed that crazy idea any time it came up, but here he was, because he just couldn’t stay away from her.
    He lowered his finger from the doorbell and cast a glance over his shoulder. On the sweeping driveway, his four-wheel-drive truck, rusty and ugly in the midst of BMWs and Mercedes, stood positioned for a quick getaway. It wasn’t too late to turn around. Not too late to text Lucie and claim he’d been called away on a job—
    His phone rang.
    Maybe it won’t be a lie.
    Caller ID showed Lawson.
    Busted.
    He hit the button. “Hey, man. I was just going to text you. Flynn’s worried about one of his spies stuck in Syria. I’m heading back to D.C. in case Pegasus needs to perform an extraction. The team and I—”
    “Aren’t going anywhere,” the Pegasus team leader said. “Get your ass in here with that six-pack, Johnnie boy, or I’m coming out to get you. That’s an order.”
    John instinctively looked up. Lawson stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor. Inside enemy territory.
    Lawson, Lucie’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, waved.
    John waved back with his middle finger. “I can’t do this.”
    “You can handle a simple party.”
    “A party with a bunch of strangers who mean nothing to me? Nothing I love better.” He’d slapped a red bow on a six-pack of Bud as a gift to the expecting parents. They were going to need a whole case when the kid was born. “A party with Lucie’s highfalutin’ family? Send me back to Afghanistan, man. Shit, even another goddamn Mexican prison would be a fucking picnic compared to this.”
    “Suck it up.”
    How many times had they demanded that of each other in the past five years since John had taken over as Lawson’s operations captain? “This isn’t