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  Table of Contents

  A Guide to Jean-Luc’s Cajun

  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

  About the Author

  Discover more Amara titles… Wanted for Life

  Fair Game

  Dark Justice: Hunt

  Caught Up

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Tonya Burrows. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 105, PMB 159

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Heather Howland

  Cover design by KAM Designs

  Cover art from Deposit Photos, Shutterstock, and Bigstock

  ISBN 978-1-64063-557-9

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition April 2018

  We dance even if there’s no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we’re suspicious of others who don’t.

  —Chris Rose

  Heart always wins out over the mind. The heart, although reckless and suicidal and a masochist all on its own, always gets its way.

  —J.A. Redmerski

  A Guide to Jean-Luc’s Cajun

  Allons! – Let’s go!

  Allons dancer! – Let’s dance!

  Alors pas – Of course not.

  Beaucoup – A lot.

  Beck moi tchew – Bite my ass.

  Catin – Dear, doll.

  C’est la vie – That’s life.

  Cher (sha) – A Cajun endearment, “sweet” or “dear”.

  Coullion (coo-yawn) – Stupid, idiot, fool.

  Cunja – A curse or spell put on someone.

  Embrasse moi tchew – Kiss my ass.

  Envie (on-vie) – Desire, longing.

  Fais do-do – A dance party, Cajun version of a square dance.

  Fils de putain – Son of a bitch.

  Frissons – Goose bumps, chills.

  Lâche pas la patate! – Literally “don’t drop the potato!”, a Cajun expression meaning “don’t give up!”

  Laissez les bons temps rouler! – Let the good times roll!

  Ma belle – My beautiful.

  Mais (may) – Well or but (interjection).

  Mais la! – An expression of exasperation.

  Mais, no! – But no! Oh no!

  Mais, yeah! – But of course!

  Maudit! – Damn!

  Merci – Thank you.

  Merde – Shit.

  Mon ami – My friend.

  Non – No.

  Oui – Yes.

  Pour l’amour de Dieu – For the love of God.

  Putain – Literal translation is “whore,” but it’s used along the same lines as “fuck” in English. An all-purpose swearword.

  Santé! – Cheers!

  Chapter One

  Niger Delta, Nigeria

  Dr. Claire Oliver stepped from the hastily thrown together quarantine tent into a wall of oppressive humidity. Sweat already trickled between her breasts as she stripped off her mask, gown, and gloves. She placed all of the protective gear in the already-full dented metal drum that served as a biohazard bin. Soon local workers would pick up the drum and wash everything inside with a bleach solution. Disposable protective gear was an unaffordable luxury in this part of the Niger River Delta.

  “Do you see now why I contacted you?” Dr. Sunday Reggie-Fubara asked in her posh British accent. Nigerian born, Sunday had lived most of her life in London until Médecins Sans Frontières—also known as MSF or Doctors Without Borders—sent her back to the land of her birth. She’d been a friend of Claire’s since boarding school, and although they’d kept in touch even after Claire had moved to the States, it had been a long time since they’d last spoken. When Sunday’s email had hit her inbox last week, she’d been surprised. Then shocked…and a little bit curious. Sunday was an outstanding doctor and never asked for help.

  Until now.

  The thought had crossed her mind that this could be a setup. A trap. After everything that had happened in the last month—her best friend killed, mercenaries chasing her across the globe, intent on stealing her life’s work—it was entirely possible. She hated that she couldn’t even view a contact from an old friend without suspicion. She’d wrestled with herself over answering the email, and in the end, decided paranoia couldn’t dictate the rest of her life. What good would she accomplish if she was always running and hiding?

  So here she was, sweating in the sticky tropical heat, soaked to the skin by the ceaseless rain of monsoon season, scratching her head over something that didn’t make any sense. “The serologic tests are coming back as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome?”

  “And also hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.”

  No, that wasn’t right. Too many variables weren’t adding up. Hanta wasn’t an African virus, and human-to-human transmission was so rare as to be nonexistent. Not to mention the fact that the two forms of the virus had never shown up simultaneously in one host. They were from opposite hemispheres—HFRS was found mainly in Europe and Asia, HPS in the Americas.

  Claire shook her head. “It shouldn’t be here, burning through the population like this.”

  “It’s unlike any strain we’ve seen before,” Sunday said. “It’s really all very strange. I thought if anyone could figure out what is happening here, it would be you.”

  Claire looked at the quarantine tents. “How many people have died?”

  “All of them.”

  She froze and stared at Sunday in disbelieving shock. “What did you say?”

  Sunday’s lips flattened i
nto a grim line. “All of them have died, Claire. It has a one hundred percent fatality rate.”

  “What…?” Horror tightened Claire’s throat as she again looked at the tents. One hundred and fifty people convalesced inside the makeshift hospital, hoping the foreign doctors could help them. Men, women, children. Seniors. Babies. Even two pregnant women. There had been a toddler in one of the last beds before the decontamination zone. She’d stared at Claire and Sunday in the protective space suits with dull, fearful eyes.

  “All of them,” she repeated in a whisper and pictured the girl slowly bleeding out while her kidneys failed. It was a horrific, painful way to go.

  No. Step back. Pull yourself together.

  She closed her eyes, took a second to regroup. Getting emotionally involved wouldn’t help that toddler. What would help was figuring out why this was happening, finding a suitable treatment, and keeping anyone else from becoming infected. “That’s…” She tried to reconcile the facts she knew about hantavirus with what Sunday was saying. “Depending on the strain, hantavirus has, at most, a thirty percent mortality rate.”

  “Could it have mutated? Maybe two strains combined into a daughter virus?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.” Claire turned away from the tent and faced her friend. “But if this was a natural mutation, we’d have seen the mutated strain in Asia or Europe or South America. Even the U.S. Somewhere the virus is already prevalent. Not Nigeria, a country where there has never been a known case. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Could someone have traveled here with it?”

  Claire considered the nearest village with its thatched roof homes. There was no electricity or running water. The locals were all uneducated fishermen, eking out a simple life along the banks of the Niger River. “Again, it’s possible. It’d be more possible if this were a city, but…” She waved a hand, encompassing the surrounding area. “This isn’t a major travel hub. Even if someone had come here with the virus, they shouldn’t have been able to transmit it to anyone else.”

  Concern drew a deep groove between Sunday’s brows. “You said ‘natural’ mutation. If it was a natural mutation, we’d have found it elsewhere. You think this is unnatural.”

  “I don’t know.” It was a puzzle, and Claire had never been able to resist a puzzle. “The village where this started is just a few kilometers east of here? I want to see it. If I can find the virus reservoir, I’ll know more about the infection.”

  “No.” Sunday grabbed Claire’s arm. “You’re white. The whole area is owned by Egbesu Fighters. They’ll think you’re with the oil companies and see you as a potential payday.”

  So what else was new? Lately, it seemed everyone was after her for a payday. She’d spent the last month running from mercenaries who wanted her research. God only knew who had hired them, but someone knew about Akeso and wanted to capitalize the antiviral’s panacean ability to kill virus-infected cells without harming healthy ones. She’d spent most of her adult life working on Akeso, and she’d be damned if she let some asshole Big Pharma company steal her research so they could turn around and sell it for ridiculous prices.

  If only she’d been able to continue her research in peace. Akeso would help these people. She was sure of it, but she and her old med school roommate, Dr. Tiffany Peters, had only just started trials on human cells in the lab before the world turned sideways and Tiffany was killed.

  Oh, she missed Tiffany. She often caught herself reaching for the phone to call, only to remember her best friend was gone.

  She gazed toward the east. Thought of the village. Who else there was infected? Had this started with an infected rat population or was this something worse? Something more sinister? She wouldn’t know without an investigation, and she couldn’t investigate if she kept running from Tiffany’s killers.

  She gave herself a moment—only a moment—for the fear, then pushed it down and locked it up. That way there be dragons and their names were Paranoia and Anxiety. It wasn’t productive to let them off their chains, especially when people were dying.

  Sunday’s hand still clenched her forearm. Claire covered it with one of her own and gave Sunday’s fingers a reassuring squeeze. “I understand your concern, but you contacted me for help.”

  Sunday gave an abrupt laugh. “Same old Claire. Always fearlessly chasing trouble.”

  “I do not chase trouble,” she protested.

  “You don’t exactly avoid it, either.” Sunday studied her for a moment, then sighed. “And I see your mind’s made up about this.”

  “If you want my help treating this virus, the village is our first step.”

  Sunday lifted a hand and waved a large man over. He had skin like onyx and thick lips that spread into a big white grin as he approached. He said something to Sunday in the local language, and Claire didn’t need to understand to know it had been intimate because Sunday’s lighter skin flushed dark with embarrassment.

  They were lovers. Or if not, they would be soon enough. Good for them.

  Claire looked down to hide her smile while Sunday smacked his arm and replied in an affectionately chiding tone.

  “This is Adedayo Temitope,” Sunday introduced. “He’s our local guide.”

  “Call me Dayo,” he said and held out a hand. “I’ve heard much about you, Dr. Claire.”

  Claire smiled at him and accepted the handshake, then raised a brow at Sunday. “I haven’t heard nearly enough about you.”

  Sunday poked her in the ribs with an elbow and Dayo’s grin only widened. But then Sunday got serious. “She wants to see the village.”

  Dayo’s grin faded. “It’s not safe.”

  Claire huffed out a breath in exasperation. “So I’ve been told, but I can’t begin to help until I know what I’m dealing with and I won’t know without an investigation.” She planted her hands on her hips and stared the two of them down. “So will you help or not?”

  Chapter Two

  Things could be worse. Things could be worse. Things could be worse.

  Jean-Luc Cavalier kept repeating the mantra to himself as he sat propped against the stone wall of his prison, trying to ignore the throbbing in his arm where an ugly knife wound was still oozing blood and beginning to fester. Though he wasn’t sure how anything could be worse than his current situation. The guard who was supposed to be guarding him had dropped dead half a day ago and now rotted on the other side of his prison’s door. He had no food, no water, and no way to communicate with his team, who were halfway across the world because he was a coullion who went chasing weak intel with only one questionably sane man for backup.

  And who knew where Marcus Deangelo had ended up. Or even if he was still alive. They’d been separated when militants attacked their truck and Jean-Luc hadn’t seen him in days.

  HORNET’s commanders, Gabe and Quinn, had warned Jean-Luc not to come to Nigeria. Had told him he’d get himself dead if he did. At the time, he’d thought they were just spooked by the team’s last clusterfuck of a mission in Martinique. They had lost a man that night—Marcus’s best friend Danny—and nobody wanted a repeat.

  Jean-Luc didn’t blame his commanders for their caution, but nor could he stay at HQ twiddling his thumbs while Harvard, their computer whiz, gathered actionable intel. He’d made someone a promise.

  Claire.

  He shut his eyes and brought her face up from his memories. Brilliant blue eyes, the dusting of freckles over her slightly upturned nose. Her shoulder-length bob of blond hair that somehow looked both severely professional and ungodly sexy at the same time. She was petite, not a lot in the way of curves, but merde, her mouth. She had lips made for kissing, upper lip slightly fuller than the lower. She wasn’t all beauty. She had a brain to match, and a tongue sharp enough to draw blood. She fascinated him.

  Claire was the reason he’d disobeyed orders and endangered his career as a linguist for HumInt Inc.’s Hostage Rescue and Negotiation Team. She was the reason he was here. When he’d helped her escape Mart
inique, he’d promised to find her again, to help keep her safe.

  He didn’t intend to break that promise.

  Which brought him back to his current predicament.

  It could be worse.

  Yeah. Maybe if aliens invaded? That would be worse. The apocalypse would be worse. Four Horsemen, End Times, and all that. But barring those scenarios, nothing was fucking worse than this.

  Jean-Luc sighed and pushed himself to his feet. He’d been trying to reach the keys on the dead guard’s belt for hours until exhaustion finally won out, but it was time to move again. He wasn’t dying here. Not like this.

  He bellied up to the bars and reached his good hand through. He could almost catch the guard’s shirt between his fingers. He just had to stretch…a little…farther…

  His fingers brushed the edge of the T-shirt, but he couldn’t get a grip on it. For the first time in his life, he wished he didn’t have such muscular arms and shoulders. He only needed another inch, and he’d have a fist full of the fabric. He stretched, felt the rusted bar dig into his biceps, ignored it, and stretched more, and…

  Nothing.

  Putain! He couldn’t reach.

  He sat up and leaned the side of his face against the bars. He was shaking and sweating from the effort he’d expended. Exhausted. Every muscle in his body ached, even his goddamn eyelids. He hoped his current state was due to the beating he’d taken plus a lack of food or water, and not whatever had killed the fils de putain who was currently stinking up the place. Because he did not want to go out like that guy had, leaking blood from multiple orifices while coughing up his lungs.

  Man, he’d seriously screwed up this time. He wasn’t going to be able to talk, fuck, or kill his way out of this mess.

  When he first arrived in Africa two weeks ago, he’d had a purpose, a plan, and a partner in crime. He’d find Claire and keep her and her research safe. He’d failed her so spectacularly two months ago in Martinique that he hadn’t been able to get a good night’s rest since. His need to find her became all consuming until he finally narrowed his search to Nigeria. Marcus had come along, chasing—or maybe running from—his own demons.

  Had Marcus stayed in Nigeria after they were separated? Had he called in the rest of the team for help? Probably not. They’d gone against direct orders by coming here. That act of defiance had likely been the end of their careers with HORNET. For all he knew, Tucker Quentin, CEO and founder of HumInt, had written them off.