Darkest Flame by Donna Grant
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To Mom –
For all the joys of being your daughter!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So much goes into getting a book ready, and I couldn’t do it without my fabulous editor, Monique Patterson, and everyone at SMP who was involved. Y’all rock!
To my amazing agent, Louise Fury, who keeps me on my toes. Hats off to my team – Melissa Bradley, Stephanie Dalvit, and Leah Suttle. Words can’t say how much I adore y’all.
A special thanks to my family for the never-ending support.
And to my husband, Steve. For … well, everything! I love you, Sexy!
CHAPTER ONE
Dreagan Land
April 20th
The night was dark and tranquil as Denae slid against an oak and waited for her partner, Matt, to catch up. They had jumped from a slow-moving van under the cover of darkness two nights earlier.
While she had only her knife—and two more no one knew about—Matt had been given a Glock. He had tried to keep it hidden, but Denae had seen it just the same.
An owl hooted nearby and crickets sang loudly in the stillness. Wind rustled the leaves as it swept through the branches of the trees. The moon played peekaboo with dense clouds that moved like dark giants swiftly across the sky.
A perfect night for spying.
“What are you waiting for?” Matt whispered irritably as he moved around her and took the lead.
Denae adjusted the pack on her back and watched Matt through her night-vision goggles. He was such a prick. Not once in all her time at MI5 had she questioned orders. But she found herself doing so now.
MI5 protected the UK, its citizens, and its interests on its own soil as well as overseas, against threats to national security. Denae had done her research on Dreagan Industries, as she did with any target she was given. Dreagan had been making whisky for as long as there were records, and besides the fact that the file was anorexic, there was nothing about Dreagan that would prompt MI5 to take a closer look.
Yet here she was.
It made sense with her photographic memory that they would send her with Matt, but … there was more going on. Spies rarely trusted anyone—especially other spies.
There were factions within divisions of MI5 that were kept secret, or as secret as it could be in a building full of spooks. That wasn’t what was disturbing. It was the fact that there was a deeper Black Ops level section she had only caught whispers of after being put on this mission that sent her mind into overdrive.
Denae had become paranoid and suspicious once she learned it was that secret division that gave the order to infiltrate Dreagan. She became even more suspicious after she found two bugs in her flat as well as a tracking device on her car.
Even so, opting out of the mission wasn’t a possibility. So here she was, in the dead of night with a partner she couldn’t stand.
Denae kept low and followed Matt through the thick underbrush of ferns. Ever since she had crossed the border onto Dreagan land she’d had an odd feeling prickling the back of her neck. Almost as if they had broken more than just the law by trespassing.
And it left her on edge and tense.
Not a good mix with her suspicions—and her dislike of Matt the Prick.
There were consequences for breaking rules. What would be the price if they were caught? Then again, they were MI5 agents. They wouldn’t get caught.
She and Matt had a few hours to reach the spot designated on the GPS she carried. In two days they had crossed just over twenty thousand acres. They moved quickly and quietly, resting sparingly.
“How close, Lacroix?” Matt asked once she reached him.
He didn’t wait for her to answer before he rushed to the next tree. Denae ran by him without stopping. Matt had never particularly warmed to her, and though she had worked with him before without incident, he hadn’t been happy when she was assigned to this mission.
Matt had voiced his displeasure loud and clear for the entire department to hear. Denae hadn’t cared—at least outwardly she had portrayed that sentiment. What she did care about was that it was just the two of them. More teams should have been sent to different parts of Dreagan’s border to make sure nothing was missed. There were so many mistakes being made that she couldn’t help but wonder why Dreagan was a target.