Trees shrugged. He was hesitant to open this can of worms. “One step forward, two steps back. But—”
Suddenly, his phone blared. He knew that sound—and his heart stopped.
He yanked the device from his pocket, suddenly aware of the chatter around him falling silent and every eye on him. He swiped, opened the screen, and waited for the cameras to connect to his device. Thank god for Wi-Fi on the plane.
But it was the longest thirty seconds of his life.
Finally, he got visuals, and his heart seized up in his chest. Someone unauthorized was on his property.
He watched the sleek black truck with the plates obscured by a gray plastic cover rumble down the dirt road. Through the cloud of dust, he saw one driver in the cab, his face too hard to discern.
Zy looked over his shoulder, his face grave. “Who the hell is on your property?”
“I don’t know.”
His fingers shaking so hard he fumbled, he quickly dialed Laila. He had to warn her. One ring, two, three… Voicemail.
Trees fought for his next breath and tried like fuck to tamp down his panic. He called her again. No answer.
“Hey, everyone,” Hunter shouted to the operatives on the plane, his voice grave. “Just got an update from the event organizer. The Ferrari pulled out of the race. Montilla is no longer on the VIP guest list.”
Shit. So where was the bastard now? Was that who had driven onto his property? He and the team had been trying to surprise the drug lord and take him hostage…but had the wily old bastard played them instead?
The camera from his porch picked up the black truck rolling to a stop. The driver jumped out, pulled a ski mask over his face before Trees got a good luck at him, then fired a shot through the front window, shattering the glass. The house alarm started blaring.
Laila was alone with someone armed and ready to kill.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Switching his view to the inside cameras, he looked for any sign of Laila. There. She dashed from her bedroom, heading down the hall to the kitchen.
Trees’s terrified heart threatened to pound out of his chest. Before he could figure out where Laila had fled, the intruder held up his middle finger to the living room camera, then shot it point-blank.
From the kitchen camera, he watched with surreal terror, like he was watching a horror movie, when the intruder stomped deeper into the house.
Suddenly, all the power went out. His redundant battery kicked on twenty seconds later. By the time the cameras reconnected, there was no sign of Laila, and the asshole stomped through his house, systematically shooting down every one of his cameras.
His screen turned black.
He was thirty thousand feet in the air and probably two hundred miles from home. If he didn’t find some way to help Laila, she was as good as dead.
“No. No. No. No. No! Fuck! I have to get home—now!”
Don’t miss the epic conclusion of Trees & Laila’s thrilling story!
WICKED AND FOREVER
Trees and Laila, Part Two
Wicked & Devoted, Book 6
By Shayla Black
(will be available in eBook, print, and audio)
Coming April 26, 2022!
Order it HERE.
Thank you for reading Wicked as Seduction! If you enjoyed this book, please review and/or recommend it to your reader friends. That means the world to me!
Want to know first about new releases, excerpts, covers, and freebies? Join my VIP newsletter!
If you missed One-Mile and Brea, catch up with the sexiest bad boy meets good girl story. Wicked as Sin kicks off the addictive, suspenseful Wicked & Devoted series!
WICKED AS SIN
One-Mile & Brea, Part One
Wicked & Devoted, Book 1
By Shayla Black
NOW AVAILABLE!
Click here to purchase!
The good girl wants a favor? She’ll pay in his bed.
Pierce “One-Mile” Walker has always kept his heart under wraps and his head behind his sniper’s scope. Nothing about buttoned-up Brea Bell should appeal to him. But after a single glance at the pretty preacher’s daughter, he doesn’t care that his past is less than shiny, that he gets paid to end lives…or that she’s his teammate’s woman. He'll do whatever it takes to steal her heart.
Brea has always been a dutiful daughter and a good girl…until she meets the dangerous warrior. He’s everything she shouldn’t want, especially after her best friend introduces her to his fellow operative as his girlfriend—to protect her from Pierce. But he’s a forbidden temptation she’s finding impossible to resist.
Then fate strikes, forcing Brea to beg Pierce to help solve a crisis. But his skills come at a price. When her innocent flirtations run headlong into his obsession, they cross the line into a passion so fiery she can’t say no. Soon, his past rears its head and a vendetta calls his name in a mission gone horribly wrong. Will he survive to fight his way back to the woman who claimed his soul?
SNEAK PREVIEW
Sunday, January 11
Sunset, Louisiana
Finally, he had her cornered. He intended to tear down every last damn obstacle between him and Brea Bell.
Right now.
For months, she’d succumbed to fears, buried her head in the sand, even lied. He’d tried to be understanding and patient. He’d made mistakes, but damn it, he’d put her first, given her space, been the good guy.
Fuck that. Now that he’d fought his way here, she would see the real him.
One-Mile Walker slammed the door of his Jeep and turned all his focus on the modest white cottage with its vintage blue door. As he marched up the long concrete driveway, his heart pounded. He had a nasty idea how Brea’s father would respond when he explained why he’d come. The man would slam the door in his face; no maybe about that. After all, he was the bad boy from a broken home who had defiled Reverend Bell’s perfect daughter with unholy glee.
But One-Mile refused to let Brea go again. He’d make her father listen…somehow. Since punching the guy in the face was out of the question, he’d have to quell his brute-force instinct to fight dirty and instead employ polish, tact, and charm—all the qualities he possessed zero of.
Fuck. This was going to be a shit show.
Still, One-Mile refused to give up. He’d known uphill battles his whole life. What was one more?
Through the house’s front window, he spotted the soft doe eyes that had haunted him since last summer. Though Brea was talking to an elderly couple, the moment she saw him approach her porch, her pretty eyes went wide with shock.
Determination gripped One-Mile and squeezed his chest. By damned, she was going to listen, too.
He wasn’t leaving without making her his.
As he mounted the first step toward her door, his cell phone rang. He would have ignored it if it hadn’t been for two critical facts: His job often entailed saving the world as the people knew it, and this particular chime he only heard when one of the men he respected most in this fucked-up world needed him during the grimmest of emergencies.