Hard Beat by K. Bromberg
Acknowledgments
The acknowledgments are the hardest part to write in every book. Thanking people never gets old but the fear that I will forget someone who should be thanked does. So this time around, I’ll try to be short and sweet.
To my readers, thank you for continually taking a chance on me. Your unending support and unwavering faith has made all the difference in my success. I may write the books, but you are the ones who tell your friends about them. Not a day goes by that I take your support for granted. To the VP Pit Crew and the ladies who help run it, thank you for keeping my Driven world alive while I’m off writing.
To my author friends, thank you for making this wild ride a little more bearable. To be able to do what we love to do for a living and at the same time build a community that supports one another is a pretty incredible thing to be a part of.
To my friends and family, thank you for understanding that my computer is an extra appendage, that social media is a necessary evil, and that when I’m quiet, it’s not you – it’s those damn people in my head again.
To Amy and Kerry, thank you for believing in Beaux and Tanner’s story when it was so very different from the other Driven books.
Kristy
Prologue
“A
re you on a suicide mission, now?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I shift in my seat to face Rafe, catching a glimpse of the world outside the windows of the Manhattan headquarters of Worldwide News. But what I really see in my mind’s eye are the memories I wish I could wipe away.
Flashes of light against the stark black night. Piercing sirens drowning out my pleas for her to breathe. Her lifeless body, pale and clammy. Unresponsive.
Her eyes. Those blue eyes of hers, always so goddamn vibrant and mischievous, blank and fixed.
The smell of gunpowder mixed with the metallic scent of unexpected death lingering around us like a fog.
The ache. In my heart from what I knew to be true, and in my shoulders and arms from the force of the compressions on her chest as I tried to force life back into her.
Her lips. So cold. So blue.
The sound of my own voice pleading and begging for her to be strong. To stay with me.
Chaos. The feel of hands pulling me back because the medics needed space to do their job. The one I knew was useless.
The chill that settled in as they loaded her in the transport, and I shivered uncontrollably from the trauma. But I held on to the cold, wrapped it around me like a blanket, because it was so much easier to focus on that than the guilt already weaving itself around my psyche and soul.
I couldn’t save her. I tried. But I failed.
“Tanner!” Rafe’s voice pulls me from the nightmare on a constant repeat in my mind. It takes me a moment to pull myself from the painful recollections.
“Yeah. Sorry.” I run my hand over my upper lip and wipe away the beads of sweat forming there. “I —”
“Got distracted? Like I said, you want a suicide mission.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. It’s always about the story. Always.” I’m pissed at having to explain myself when usually the only question I get asked is if my bag is packed.
“I’m afraid you’re going to become the story, given your mind-set.” The sarcasm in his voice pisses me off further, and I know he’s purposefully pushing my buttons. “You want the danger, the hard beat, somewhere where you can risk your safety as punishment for not being able to save Stella?” He squares his shoulders and braces his hands on his desk, staring down at me from the other side of it. A silent reprimand in a sense. I hold his glare because as right as he is, he’s also so very wrong.
“Am I not your best reporter?” It’s an arrogant question but one I know is damn well true. I glance out the window for a moment before scooting forward in my seat and bracing my hands on my knees. When I look back up to him, I make sure he sees the temerity in my eyes.
“That’s not the issue. The —”
“Bullshit!” I shove my chair back as I stand up, letting the sound emphasize my point. “Shit’s about to go down over there. You don’t need some fresh-faced kid getting killed because he doesn’t know the lay of the land. I can do the job better than any of them.”
“You’re gonna burn out, man. You’ve been going hard for years… and now with this, I mean it’s only been two and a half months…”
“And I’m going out of my f*cking mind with boredom,” I shout, throwing my hands up before I get hold of myself and rein it in. I have to show him I can do this. That I can go out in the field and be an asset instead of the loose cannon he thinks I am. And f*ck yes, mentally I’m just that, but he doesn’t need to know. “Put me in, coach. I’m begging you, Rafe. I need this, need to get the f*ck out of Dodge and back to where I’m comfortable and feel at home…” My begging is pathetic, but at this point I’m a desperate man.
“If home to you is a hotel full of journalists in bum-f*ck Egypt, then I feel sorry for you, man…” His voice fades off as his eyes search mine. His gaze holds compassion, understanding, and pity, and I hate f*cking pity.
“It’s not my home, but it’s what I need right now. It’ll help me process everything… make me focus on the job and not on her.” Or her funeral and meeting her parents at the service instead of in Ibiza where we had all planned to vacation a week later.