Rulebreaker Read online

  Rulebreaker

  By Cathy Pegau

  Liv Braxton’s Felon Rule #1: Don’t get emotionally involved.

  Smash-and-grab thieving doesn’t lend itself to getting chummy with the victims, and Liv hasn’t met anyone on the mining colony of Nevarro worth knowing, anyway. So it’s easy to follow her Rules.

  Until her ex, Tonio, shows up with an invitation to join him on the job of a lifetime.

  Until Zia Talbot, the woman she’s supposed to deceive, turns Liv’s expectations upside down in a way no woman ever has.

  Until corporate secrets turn deadly.

  But to make things work with Zia, Liv has to do more than break her Rules, and the stakes are higher than just a broken heart…

  89,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I feel as though it was just last week I was attending 2010 conferences and telling authors and readers who were wondering what was next for Carina Press, “we’ve only been publishing books for four months, give us time” and now, here it is, a year later. Carina Press has been bringing you quality romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy and more for over twelve months. This just boggles my mind.

  But though we’re celebrating our one-year anniversary (with champagne and chocolate, of course) we’re not slowing down. Every week brings something new for us, and we continue to look for ways to grow, expand and improve. This summer, we’ll continue to bring you new genres, new authors and new niches—and we plan to publish the unexpected for years to come.

  So whether you’re reading this in the middle of a summer heat wave, looking to escape from the hot summer nights and sultry afternoons, or whether you’re reading this in the dead of winter, searching for a respite from the cold, months after I’ve written it, you can be assured that our promise to take you on new adventures, bring you great stories and discover new talent remains the same.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my friends and crit partners, Sharron

  McClellan and Jody Wallace, for their (sometimes

  brutal) honesty. Your knowledge, insight and

  support saved me from throwing in the towel many

  times. You rock!

  Undying gratitude to Kym Hinton, for the amazing

  R&R letter that pushed Rulebreaker over the edge

  from “Maybe” to “Yes.” Also, to Rhonda Stapleton,

  for her enthusiasm and jumping in to whip the

  manuscript into final shape. Wine-Fest, here I come.

  And Lauren, thanks for catching the things that

  almost slipped by.

  Agent Natalie Fischer signed me based on this book,

  taking a chance on a brand spanking-new author.

  Thanks for seeing the potential, Natalie.

  Most of all, thanks to my family for their patience

  and understanding. The years between “My mommy

  writes” and “My mom is an author” were long and

  filled with many cereal dinners (because I just needed

  to finish that one scene while it was in my head!).

  Scott, thanks for not making me get a real job.

  Special thanks to R., for her help untangling some

  plot issues, and to K., for a rockin’ title.

  Dedication

  This first novel is dedicated to my parents, who

  always told me I could do or be anything and

  supported even some of my more eyebrow-raising

  decisions. Love you, Mom. Love and miss you, Dad.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  One of the three masked men raised his rifle and shot a short burst of energy pulses into the ceiling of the First Colonial Bank of Nevarro. Fft-fft-fft-fft-fft. Plaster hit the wood floor in a staccato patter louder than the shots themselves. Ozone, dust and cries of alarm filled the air.

  The shooter swung the muzzle toward me. “I said, heads down, lady.”

  Gut tight, I complied, imitating the others who had been caught inside the bank when the black-clad men had entered just before closing time. It wasn’t often that I stared into the dark, deadly hole of a weapon. I don’t recommend it as a regular activity.

  “Everyone stay down and stay quiet,” he ordered. “We’ll be outta here in two minutes, and y’all can go home alive.”

  One of the men in black escorted the teller and the manager to the back of the bank where the vault was. The guard, an elderly couple, Calvin and I lay on our bellies, hands on the backs of our heads and cheeks to the rough wood. The elderly couple had come in to check on their savings.

  Cal and I had come in to rob the place ourselves.

  Despite the pulse pistol nestled under my clothes against the small of my back, and Cal’s gun tucked in a holster covered by his right pant leg, neither of us was inclined to play hero.

  Cal turned his head away from the shooter to glare at me. “Only you, Liv,” he whispered fiercely, “would pick the exact same day to rob a bank as real criminals.”

  Real criminals? I opened my mouth to loudly voice my indignation but snapped it shut. I’d already drawn enough attention to myself. Instead, I returned his harsh whisper. “We are real criminals. This is just poor timing.”

  Cal and I had been planning this job for a while. The Exeter Mining Company deposited its employees’ pay during an undisclosed period each month to avoid such actions as, say, robbery. But Cal had finagled the schedule and amounts from a friend. Seventy-five thousand in cold, hard cash had been delivered to this bank in Milchner the day before. Many small-op contract miners preferred hard money to electronic transfer—fewer slipped digits and short changings to worry about.

  We chose this branch because it was the most remote, the least secure and had the fewest personnel. Despite its lower take than a branch in one of the larger cities, like Pembroke, it was the perfect hit.

  Apparently the competition thought so too.

  “We should have done this sooner,” Cal grumbled.

  “It’s not my fault my car died,” I said.

  This had not been one of my luckier days, or months, or years for that matter. The job was supposed to go down last month, but fast transportation was a must. Cal only had access to a slower model Airvan. A week before the original hit date, the lifters on my somewhat newer, sleeker and more sensitive light air car went offline. Part of this take was earmarked to pay that bill. Damn the void.

  And while PubTrans was an efficient mode for us working-class folks of Pembroke City, it was not the ideal getaway system. Besides, PubTrans didn’t run to way-the-hell-out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere towns like Milchner.

  Be
fore Cal could remind me we’d had ample opportunity in prior months, the black barrel of the second gunman’s rifle tapped down on his temple. Cal’s eyes widened. The breath caught in my chest.

  My gaze traveled along the length of the rifle, hesitated where a gloved finger rested on the trigger, then up to the man’s face. I assumed it was a man; he looked tall and broad from my view from the floor.

  Like the other two thieves, this one wore dark glasses and a garish cloth to mask his features. The hood of his black jacket covered his head. There would be no facial recognition program to help catch these guys even if this bank had decent video, which it didn’t. Yet another reason Cal and I had targeted it.

  Black lenses reflected twin images of my prone body. The man raised his index finger and placed it against his mouth. Quiet.

  I nodded, getting a splinter from the floor jabbed into my cheek for my troubles. The gunman moved away.

  My stomach did a flip. I closed my eyes, trying not to puke as bile bit at the back of my throat. So this was what it felt like to be utterly helpless, to have complete strangers decide if you lived or died. The fear. The uncertainty. The praying they would just do their thing and go away without hurting anyone.

  Somewhere behind me, the old lady began to sob quietly. Her husband made soft shushing noises, his voice shaky. I hoped the gunmen wouldn’t notice.

  Forget about them, Liv, my brain ordered. You’ve got your own ass to keep alive.

  Right. Felon’s Rule Number One: Don’t get emotionally involved. I forced professional curiosity to replace victimization—the old couple’s and my own. I opened my eyes and took in as much of the scene as I could without lifting my head. Shooter at the door. Second gunman? Out of my line of sight for the moment.

  What was the third man doing with the manager and teller? You only needed one or the other to open the vault. The money sat right there in its happy little lockboxes, which also required only one key. Why risk having to deal with two employees? These guys had a different technique from mine and Cal’s, but now was not the time to open a discussion.

  “Liv,” Cal whispered through unmoving lips. His dark eyes watched something behind me.

  The soft scrape of a boot. The gunman had returned. I didn’t dare turn toward him. Cool, ion-hardened ceramic touched the back of my hands. I swallowed hard, eyes fixed on Cal.

  The gunman didn’t speak. His palm skimmed the length of my leather jacket from shoulder to just above my buttocks. He pressed down, jabbing my pistol into my spine, then moved the tails of the jacket and shirt aside, exposing the waist of my trousers. And the gun. Like he knew it would be there.

  My gut quivered. Shit! If he took me for a lawman, I was dead.

  “Tsk tsk tsk,” he whispered close to my ear. He eased the gun out, resting it on the bared skin of my back. His gloved fingers slid under my trousers. My muscles stiffened when he tickled my tailbone just below the waistband of my bikini panties. “Got anything else there?”

  His hand trailed back up to my gun, and its weight disappeared. The barrel of his rifle nudged the back of my hands. “You’re quite lucky today, amante. Quite lucky.”

  Amante. Lover.

  Only one person used that word with me, and he’d lost the privilege three years ago.

  Tonio Calderon.

  Over the indignation and disbelief buzzing in my head, activity from near the vault told me the job was done.

  The bastard leaned closer. His breath warmed my ear. “Gotta go, darlin’.”

  He dragged a finger up my spine then was gone.

  My body shivered in memory of his touch while my mind screamed. No! No no no, double damn the void, NO! This went beyond poor timing.

  My ex-husband had just felt me up, taken my gun and spoiled my hit.

  “Here’s your water, Miss Braxton.” Sheriff Nathan Sterling set the heavy glass tumbler in front of me and resumed his seat on the other side of the table. He wasn’t particularly tall, only a dozen centis over my 167. But his dark uniform with its shiny badge, his broad shoulders and erect posture made him seem bigger.

  “Thank you,” I said and took a sip of tepid water.

  We sat in the windowless, overheated interview room of the Milchner sheriff’s station. Like most of Milchner—and Nevarro, for that matter—the room and the station had seen better days. Peeling paint and rickety furniture proclaimed the sheriff department’s lack of budget.

  Sterling shuffled through a few sheets of synth paper on the table. Paper. I swallowed a chuckle with another sip. No handhelds in sight, and the bulky System Interface terminals in the main office were about a decade behind the rest of civilization. How did they chase down criminals? With a posse on horseback? Just as long as they didn’t go in for lynching, I’d be fine.

  A thin scar running across his forehead blended with frown lines as he read my statement. “You went into the bank to withdraw some cash.” His blue eyes met mine. “Your ID says you’re from Pembroke. What’s your business in our little burg?”

  Cal and I had worked out details well beforehand. “My friend and I were taking a weekend trip. We needed a room.”

  That was a lie, but the fleabag hotel we’d scoped out only took hard money, not credit vouchers or weepy promises. Though the guy behind the desk was scary enough that he probably would’ve taken a kidney or small child as payment. The trade in both was rampant on some worlds.

  Sterling quirked a dark blond brow at me. “You were gonna stay at the Milchner Arms?”

  I gave him a weary smile. “It’s the only hotel in town. We’re tired and poor.”

  This part was true, hence our plan to rob the bank.

  He held my gaze for a moment. As he stared, his right eye drifted, shifting its focus to the wall. Artificial organ. And a cheap one at that, if it couldn’t hold position. If the Milchner constabulary couldn’t afford decent furniture, why was I surprised its sheriff received second-rate eye replacement?

  The sheriff rubbed the corner of his eye, setting it back into place before nodding. “All right. Tell me what happened.”

  Despite the fact he had my full statement right in front of his baby blues—at least the colors matched—the lawman wanted to see if there were any discrepancies in my story. To see if I’d left out any details of the robbery, which I hadn’t. Or was lying about anything, which I was, but he’d never know it. Lawmen were suspicious types; “trust no one” was their mantra. I could relate.

  I cleared my throat. “Cal and I had come in to get some cash. It was getting late, and the bank was about to close.” Classic time for a hit. The robbers knew it. Sterling probably knew it. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to admit I knew it. “Before we got up to the teller’s cage, these three guys in black burst in, hit the guard and pointed guns at us. They told us to lay on the floor, and we did.”

  My hands clenched on the table. Sterling probably thought it was a reaction to the frightening situation I’d been through. Actually it was from being torqued that our plans had been thwarted. Again. The idea of switching careers had crossed my mind more than once since this afternoon.

  “What about the teller and the manager?” he asked.

  “One of the men yelled to them to come out from behind the cage. I guess they did. I couldn’t see them, but I heard movement when the gunman told them to hurry up.”

  The reason the robbers needed both people still niggled at the back of my brain.

  He tapped on the table and rested his other hand against his face, two fingers pressed against the corner of his right eye. “One of the other witnesses says you were approached by a gunman. Want to tell me about that?”

  I shifted on the wooden chair. “It’s in my statement.” Mostly.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear it out loud, Miss Braxton.”

  Like the distraught victim I was supposed to be, I dropped my gaze to my hands encircling the tumbler and waited for him to prompt me again. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “I realiz
e this is difficult for you,” he said in the lawman tone of sympathetic interrogation, “but we need your help if we’re gonna catch these guys.”

  That brought my eyes up to his. “Do you think you will?”

  I hoped I sounded more like a justice-seeking victim than a vengeful ex. But oh, to have Tonio and his new little gang tossed into a Colonial Correctional Mine for a dozen or so years would make my year. Teach the bastards for messing up my hit.

  “I can’t make any guarantees, but every little bit helps.” Sterling’s earnest desire to see the bad guys put away was admirable. He actually seemed competent, an unusual trait in backwater lawmen. Though I’d rather have been the one to make the hit, I was glad it wasn’t me he sought.

  “All right.” I took another sip of water. “We were all lying on the floor. I said something to Cal about how scared I was. One of the men stuck his gun against Cal’s head.” I swallowed hard, remembering the look in Cal’s eyes when he felt the barrel.

  Sheriff Sterling asked, “Did he say anything?”

  I shook my head. “No. He just raised his finger to his lips.” I demonstrated. “Then he left us alone.”

  “But he came back to you. Touched you.”

  Renewed indignation seared my cheeks. “Yes,” I whispered. “He put his gun to my head.” I’d never forgive Tonio for that little bit of theatrics.

  Sterling leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “Mr. Crosby, the elderly gentleman, said the gunman crouched down beside you. What did he do?”

  Took my gun and copped a feel. But the first part wasn’t in any statement and never would be. My pulse pistol wasn’t exactly legal. Between its scatter coat to deflect security detection and not being registered, merely possessing it was an automatic five years in the CCM.

  “He ran his hand along my back and—” I let my voice break appropriately, “—and m-my backside.”