Victor, p.1
Victor, page 1
Copyright © 2021 by Sybil Bartel
Cover art by: CT Cover Creations
Cover Photo by: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Andrew Biernat
Edited by: Hot Tree Editing
Formatting by: Champagne Book Design
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
Warning: This book contains offensive language, alpha males and sexual situations. Mature audiences only. 18+
Title Page
Copyright
Books by Sybil Bartel
VICTOR
Dedication
Prologue
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
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Chapter Eighty
Chapter Eighty-One
Chapter Eighty-Two
Chapter Eighty-Three
Epilogue
ROMEO
NOVEMBER
ECHO
ZULU
Acknowledgments
About the Author
BOOKS BY SYBIL BARTEL
The Alpha Elite Series
SEAL
ALPHA
VICTOR
ROMEO
ZULU
NOVEMBER
ECHO
The Alpha Bodyguard Series
SCANDALOUS
MERCILESS
RECKLESS
RUTHLESS
FEARLESS
CALLOUS
RELENTLESS
SHAMELESS
HEARTLESS
The Uncompromising Series
TALON
NEIL
ANDRÉ
BENNETT
CALLAN
The Alpha Antihero Series
HARD LIMIT
HARD JUSTICE
HARD SIN
HARD TRUTH
THE ALPHA ANTIHERO SERIES: BOOKS 1-2
The Alpha Escort Series
THRUST
ROUGH
GRIND
The Unchecked Series
IMPOSSIBLE PROMISE
IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE
IMPOSSIBLE END
The Rock Harder Series
NO APOLOGIES
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VICTOR
Philanderer.
Mercenary.
Marine.
I didn’t join the Marines because I was honorable. There wasn’t one scrupulous thing about me. If I saw an advantage, I took it. But serving my country turned out to be the best decision I ever made. It led me to Alpha Elite Security.
AES was the most sought-after security contractor in the world. Our reputation unmatched, we got the job done—by any means necessary. Which is where I came in. I handled AES’s difficult clients, the ones no one wanted to touch. My success rate flawless, I thought I was invincible.
Then my boss sent me a cryptic text. New client. Sensitive matter. Corporate Espionage. Except he failed to mention the suspected spy was a terrified brunette. And the client? Her husband. Now I had one objective.
Code name: Victor.
Mission: Infiltrate.
For my only child, my beloved son, Oliver.
You are, and will always be my entire world.
I love you, Sweet Boy, and I miss you beyond measure.
Oliver Shane Bartel 2004-2020
For my readers, thank you for being there for me. I could not have traveled this road without all of you. I am forever grateful. XOXO
Seventeen Years Ago.
“We shouldn’t do this.” Her anguished voice carried over the howling wind for a split second before being swept out to sea.
“He hit you, Annabeth.” I was right there, hiding in her closet because he’d come home early, but not even that turned out to be close enough. “You can’t deny it this time. I saw him do it.” Mean and drunk, he’d burst into her room, yelling shit about her books being left out. Before I could shove open the closet door, he’d delivered three hard blows and she was on the floor.
I should’ve done more than level him. I should’ve fucking killed him.
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she argued without any force. “You shouldn’t have hit him. It’ll only make him angrier when he wakes up.”
Enraged, I threw the second to last tie-down line back onto the dock. “Don’t you dare try to defend him! Not this time.” I hoped the asshole never woke up, but then we’d have a different problem. “He’s escalating, and it’s getting worse.” Her entire right side was already bruised, and if she would’ve let me take her to the ER, I’d bet every cent I had that at least one of her ribs was cracked.
Her breaths short, holding her side where she’d been punched, she shook her head. “He’s my father. He didn’t mean to hurt me. He never means to. You don’t understand.”
I stopped untying the boat and yelled at her like this was her fault. “You think I don’t understand?” I was so damn mad I couldn’t see straight. “I may only be seventeen, but I understand exactly what’s going on. He’s beating you like he used to beat your mother before she disappeared.” The incoming storm threw the boat against the mooring, and I slipped, but I still kept yelling. “He’s never going to stop, Annabeth. Never. He’s going to keep hurting you because he can!” He was goddamn Parker Stephens, famous criminal attorney. “No one is going to believe your word against his. How many times are you going to let this happen before it’s too late? How many?” I demanded as a squall of rain broadsided us.
Huddled in her raincoat, she shivered. “You just shouldn’t have hit him. He’ll take that out on you now.”
My shirt plastered to my chest, I swiped the water off my face. “I don’t care what he tries to do to me.” Fuck him. “I’m tired of all the shoulds, Annabeth. It’s what got us here in the first place, because I should’ve done something a long time ago. Don’t you see he’s going to keep doing this? Eventually, he’ll blame me or one of those criminals he defends or, hell, the gardener or pool guy or anyone at school who talks to you. Or worse, he’ll blame you.” He already had. He’d blamed her for her mother leaving and left bruises that time too. “Don’t you see his pattern?”
“He’s my father.” Her hoarse voice mingled with the wind.
My anger hit a new high. “I don’t care if he’s the goddamn second coming, I’m not going to let him hit you ever again!”
She flinched, the boat
Grabbing her by the shoulders so she didn’t fall, trying to be careful of her ribs, I fought to rein in my temper. “Look, we’re leaving, just like we talked about. You said you wanted this.” I grasped the side of her face. “You promised, Annabeth. You promised me. You said last week would be the last time, but here we are again, except now you’re hurt a lot worse, and I can’t stand by and watch this happen anymore.”
Tears fell down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Fuck. “I don’t want you sorry. I want you to understand what’s happening.” I wanted her to see where this was going. “How many more last times before it’s too late?” She’d wanted to leave. She’d told me, over and over. She was terrified of him. So I’d said we’d leave, and I’d been scraping every last cent together since. Needing quick money, I’d gotten involved in some shady shit with gunrunners, but none of that mattered now. My wallet was full, and I’d be gone before they needed someone to make another delivery. “It’s time, Annabeth.”
“You’re right.” She nodded like she had to convince herself.
“Then why are we arguing? Let’s get out of here.” The weather was coming in fast, we needed to cast off.
“But the storm.” She grabbed onto the stern line with the arm that wasn’t holding her ribs as the boat rocked. “Can’t we just wait a little bit? Hide in the cabin? Or the car?”
The anger at her father, at this whole situation that I’d been trying to hold in, came back full force. “Wait?” I asked incredulously as another sheet of wind-driven rain hit us. “We talked about this. Your father can trace your car. He’ll call the cops the second he realizes you’re not in the house. We wouldn’t even make it out of the county.” Her father had the cops in his pocket. He’d either spin it that I kidnapped her or that I was the one who hit her. Either way, I wasn’t going to be holed up in the cabin of his boat or hiding out in her car when the police came looking.
“I don’t have a car. The boat’s the only way out.” I grabbed a life vest and fitted it over her head. “He won’t notice it’s missing until we’re already in the Bahamas, and we can go from there.” Hell, we could fish and live off the boat until we were eighteen. I didn’t care. But I couldn’t live another second letting her get hurt every time her father decided he needed to hit something.
She gingerly threaded one arm through the life vest as her teeth started to chatter. “D-d-do you think he’ll find us?”
“No.” Yes. Eventually. But I hoped to have another plan by then. We just needed to leave now and worry about that shit later.
She glanced back up at the marina like I’d already done a hundred times. “Are you sure?”
“I knocked out the camera as we came in, your car’s at the bus station and no one followed us here. Everyone’s staying home because of the storm. This is the perfect time to leave.” And the absolute worst. I’d only driven the boat once before, and it was calm seas. The engines were big though. I figured I could handle it or at least get us out of Miami. “But we have to go now.”
The boat swayed, and thunder cracked as lightning lit up the sky.
She looked back at me. “I’m scared, Vance.”
I wanted to get away from the marina. I wanted us out on open waters. I wanted us miles and miles offshore before her piece-of-shit father realized his punching bag was missing. But every single reason why I was doing this, why I was willing to leave my entire life behind, was looking at me with fear in her eyes, and I couldn’t take it.
I couldn’t breathe when I saw her fear.
That was why I was doing this.
All I wanted was to make it stop, and this was the only way I knew how. But if she wasn’t sure, if she wasn’t one hundred percent okay with this, I knew I wouldn’t start those engines. It’d make me just like him if I forced her to do something she didn’t want to do, and I’d never be like that son of a bitch.
Bracing my legs on the rocking boat, I cupped her face and made her a promise. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again. If that means I fire up this boat and we leave, then we go. No regrets. I won’t look back. I already told you this.” I wanted to leave it at that, but I couldn’t. I had to do the right thing, even if it meant throwing myself in the line of fire. I had to give her the choice—the least feasible, least plausible, worst outcome of a choice for me. “But if you want to stay and fight, then we stay. I’ll take you to the police station right now. You know I will. This is your choice. I love you, Annabeth.”
Her lips trembling, her eyes filled with tears, she wrapped her small hand around my wrist. “Always?” she asked.
“Always and forever,” I answered, giving her the pledge we’d made to each other months ago after we’d been dating in secret because her father didn’t let her go out. Even if he had, he’d never let her date a guy like me who came from nothing.
“You swear?” With pain in her voice, she stared up at me with her pretty green eyes.
Making a fist, I held out my smallest finger.
Strands of her long, dark hair escaped her hood and whipped around her face in the wind as she caught her pinky around mine.
“I swear,” I promised.
The girl I loved more than life itself nodded once. “Okay, let’s go.”
Vance
Present Day
My head snapped left, and pain exploded in my jaw.
Blood filled my mouth.
No defensive stance, I winked. “That’s the best you’ve got, mate? A cheap shot to the jaw?” No one touched my face. Any other part of my body? Fair game. But my face? Fuck no. This asshole was going down—when I was ready.
He came at me again with a jab followed by a cross. My ribs took the hit, and air left my lungs. No denying it, the steroid prick was packing some force behind his punches.
Wheezing, I smiled. “My grandmother hit harder than you.” Watching his shoulders, his hands, his face, I counted every fucking tell. “And for the record, by hit, I mean slap.”
I let him come at me with first a left, then a right uppercut, repeating both. The fucking prick smiled around his mouth guard as he delivered the four blows, thinking he had me dead to rights.
Then he made his first and last mistake. He came at me with a textbook hook.
Leading with his right, not covering his left, he raised his arm in an arc and swung toward my temple.
I would’ve smiled if this wasn’t so disappointingly easy. Instead, I blocked his move with my left arm as my right hand shot out.
The palm strike hit him dead center.
His head snapped back, his face exploded with blood and he hit the mat.
TKO.
“Right.” I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulder, refraining from the unsportsmanlike move of spitting on his unconscious ass. “Apologies, I forgot. No face shots.”
Ignoring the staring pricks at the private, exclusive gym that was nothing more than an excuse to beat the shit out of strangers, I left my useless opponent lying prone, maneuvered under the ropes and stepped down from the ring.
“Hey,” one of the managers called. “You can’t just leave him there.”
“He’s still breathing.”
Looking like a steroid twin of the guy on the mat, the manager shook his head. “Not the point.”
“Then tell me, what is? He signed the waiver, same as anyone else here.” And paid a hefty sum when he did.
Frowning, the manager looked at the guy as he groaned and came to.
“Right. Good luck with that.” I turned toward the locker room.
Two small hands landed on my chest as a made-up blonde planted herself in front of me and smiled. “That was impressive.”
Never having seen her before, not that I kept track of the ring bunnies who liked to fuck the alpha dogs, I winked. “Love, you don’t know the half of it.”
“Oooh,” she flirted, winking right back. “You’re good with your hands and you’re British.”
Wrong. “Caught me.” Literally. “Give me a chance to shower and I’ll show you what else I can do with my hands.”
Not half as dumb as she was acting, she tried to play me. “Over dinner? Le Saison?”
