Dead Draw Read online

  Dead Draw

  A Perfect Play Novel

  Layla Reyne

  Dead Draw

  Copyright © 2022 by Layla Reyne

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright owner, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review.

  * * *

  Cover Design: Cate Ashwood Designs

  Cover Photography: Wander Aguiar Photography

  Developmental Editing: Edits by Kristi

  Line & Copy Editing: Susie Selva

  Proofreading: Lori Parks

  * * *

  First Edition

  June, 2022

  E-Book ISBN: 978-1-7373524-5-7

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7373524-6-4

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Content Warnings: explicit sex; explicit language; violence; trafficking; off-page death of a former spouse; instances and/or discussion of homophobia; and instances and/or discussion of depression and PTSD.

  Contents

  Stay in Touch with Layla

  About this Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Layla Reyne

  About the Author

  Stay in Touch with Layla

  Join Layla’s Lushes

  Like Layla on Facebook

  Follow Layla on Instagram

  * * *

  Never Miss a New Release or Sale:

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  * * *

  Binge a Layla Series:

  Fog City

  Agents Irish and Whiskey

  Trouble Brewing

  Changing Lanes

  * * *

  Reading Order on Layla’s Website:

  www.laylareyne.com

  About this Book

  When a marriage of convenience is the only play left…

  * * *

  Special Agent Emmitt Marshall knows how to:

  Wear a cowboy hat.

  Hack anything.

  Win at chess.

  Fall in love with emotionally unavailable men.

  He even knows the perfect play to catch the terrorists who killed his mentor.

  * * *

  Special Agent Levi Bishop doesn’t know how to:

  Move on after his wife’s death.

  Help his grieving son.

  Pay off his mountain of debt.

  Fix the mess some cowboy cyber agent made of his case.

  The same cowboy who proposes a marriage of convenience to stop a common enemy.

  * * *

  Marsh is either the answer to Levi’s prayers—or a handsome nightmare in a Stetson.

  Levi doesn’t know.

  But both men do know their cases and lives are at a dead draw.

  There’s only one play left…

  I do.

  * * *

  Dead Draw is book one of the Perfect Play m/m romantic suspense series, featuring a cocky hacker with a heart of gold, a widowed father who needs so much help, and a plan only a cowboy could cook up. Grab your hat, hold tight to the reins, and enjoy the ride!

  For Kristi

  Thank fuck you always know the right place to start

  One

  Marsh was fucked. He couldn’t pinpoint any single moment or event when it had all gone to shit. It was more like a cascade—or an avalanche.

  He grimaced at the thought. He fucking hated snow. He’d been born and raised in the Texas desert, then had spent half his life in a different desert on the other side of the world. He didn’t do snow. Four years in Europe was enough. He never wanted to see the white flaky shit again if he could help it.

  It had been snowing that night in Vienna. Three years ago. When the windows had rattled with the force of an explosion five kilometers away.

  That moment, he could say with certainty, was when the fuckening had begun.

  Had led him to this moment. A hotel room in San Diego, his computer monitors arranged on the desk so there was a sliver of Pacific Ocean visible between them. Moonlight reflected on the dark rippling water outside, same as it did across the rail yard crawling with federal agents on one of his monitors.

  Across the face of the beautiful, irate federal agent whose raid Marsh had just fucked to high heaven.

  “Any sign of them?” Special Agent Levi Bishop called to the other agents on-site.

  With each reply of “Clear,” his anger and frustration grew. Hands on his trim hips, high cheekbones swept with silvery light and rosy anger, his perfectly straight nose casting a shadow that darkened one blue eye while the other shone, Agent Bishop could be mistaken for one of those pissed-off wolf shifters in the paranormal romance books Marsh used to borrow from Camp Casey’s mishmash collection of donated paperbacks.

  Marsh could be forgiven a fantasy or two about subduing the wolf. Fantasies that were cut short by gunfire that ripped through the speakers and the rail yard on-screen.

  Marsh lurched forward in his chair, eyes following the action. Bishop crouched, ran, and hit the ground, facedown in a nearby ditch, elbows braced, pistol aimed forward. Another agent in an FBI windbreaker, his dark hair glossy, his features sharp and focused crawled into the ditch beside him, similarly at the ready.

  “Backup advance,” Bishop said over the FBI comms channel Marsh also had access to. Sort of legitimately. He had Special Agent in front of his name too. That counted.

  Gravel crunched as other agents on Bishop’s periphery advanced. As if in answer, movement at the opposite end of the yard caught Marsh’s attention. Caught the attention of Bishop too. “FBI! Stop right there!”

  Just one step closer, Marsh silently urged.

  The lone stranger stepped forward, and having hacked control of the yard’s security system, Marsh flicked on the floodlight at the far end, illuminating the figure without blinding the agents.

  Several agents turned, but Agent Bishop remained focused. “FBI! I said stop! Hands up!”

  The man, dressed all in black, lifted his arms, a pistol in one hand, hanging upside down, his finger through the trigger guard. “Did you turn those lights on?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Hired security,” the man said. He spread his arms wider, and that’s when Marsh saw the patch on his outer right shoulder—and Bishop must have seen a similar one on his front. “Name’s Anton Dale.” He was an average-sized white man, midthirties maybe. Given his steady stance and surrendered weapon, Marsh guessed ex-law enforcement—in this town, proba
bly ex-military. “What’s going on?”

  “Did you discharge your weapon?” Bishop asked.

  “Yeah,” Dale replied. “Aimed high enough not to hit anything. We’ve had a problem with looters lately. That why you’re here?”

  “Put the gun on the ground,” the agent beside Bishop ordered.

  Dale immediately obeyed, slow and steady. “Did you turn on the lights?” he asked again as he straightened.

  “Not us,” radioed the FBI agent running comms.

  Bishop kept his pistol trained on Dale. “You working with someone, Mr. Dale?”

  “No, just me.” He raised his hands a little higher, spread his fingers a little wider, the first signs of distress. “Just clocked in. What’s going on? Who turned on the lights?”

  “Any other movement?” Bishop asked.

  “All clear,” came word over the comms.

  Judging Dale wasn’t a threat, Agent Bishop stood. “Security was supposed to be off tonight. We’re running an operation.”

  “No one told me.”

  “Someone clearly told our suspects,” said a familiar voice over the comms. “And I have an idea on the lights.” Marsh grimaced again. She was going to be extra pissed when she confirmed it was him. Would bust his balls like she used to in the desert. “Agent Bishop, finish sweeping the area,” she said. “Determine if your traffickers were ever there, then report back to command. We’ll track down the cyber breach on our end.”

  She signed off and so did Marsh. He’d heard enough. His gambit hadn’t worked. Instead of forcing Agent Bishop’s traffickers, who were tied to Marsh’s terrorists, into action, he’d spooked them from acting at all. Or they’d diverted a direction neither he nor Agent Bishop’s team had covered.

  He closed his laptops, picked up his phone, and stepped out onto the balcony. He could call his best friend on the East Coast and, despite it being the middle of the night, make Sean listen to him verbally facepalm. Or he could call his other best friend on the West Coast at a slightly more decent hour, likewise bemoan his idiocy, then activate the hackers at Brax’s disposal, including the one who, at this hour, was either in bed beside him or on his own computers running an op for his family’s organization.

  And Brax knew better than anyone the shit he’d just stepped into. Marsh opened his favorites list and tapped on the grizzled mug he used to have a crush on.

  Brax answered on the second ring. “It’s one in the morning,” he mumbled groggily.

  Marsh didn’t mince words. “I went cowboy and fucked up a raid for one of Eagle’s agents.”

  “Well, you’re fucked.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.” Marsh wrapped his fingers around the balcony rail and leaned against the sturdy iron, letting it hold his tired, heavy weight. “Now, get your husband on the line and help me sort a way to unfuck this mess. Please.”

  “Your traffickers were tipped off.”

  Hours later, Levi’s ASAC’s words still rang in his ears. He pulled into his garage, turned off the car, and lowered the door on the rising sun.

  Eighteen months of grueling work ruined.

  They’d cleared the rail yard, cleared Mr. Dale, and once back at the office, cleared the security interference. Levi couldn’t ever recall seeing his ASAC so angry. Some cyber jockey—or as the ASAC kept calling him “that fucking cowboy”—on the Bureau’s legal attaché team at The Hague had tipped off the traffickers. Special Agent Marshall had been trying to help supposedly. He’d also been the one to tip off Levi’s ASAC about the rail yard, thinking some cyber bullshit he’d pulled would force Levi’s traffickers’ hand. Agent Marshall wanted to get at someone higher up the ladder, his ASAC had said. Well, all Agent Marshall had done was aid and abet the kidnapping of ten women.

  Help.

  Levi’s bitter laugh was almost as sharp as the horn that blew when he punched the steering wheel. He’d had a plan to intercept the traffickers at one of three known handoff spots next week. They’d moved the location and timing of the op based on Agent Marshall’s tip. And now the traffickers would surely change their game plan, picking a new transfer location that wasn’t potentially being surveilled.

  Eighteen months of long days and nights gone up in smoke.

  More victims snatched out of their lives and gone missing.

  His wife’s legacy—

  David opened the door at the far end of the garage, his flannel bottoms and Lakers tee wrinkled, his green eyes narrowed, and his ginger hair sticking out in every direction. “Was that necessary?” he grumbled in surly fourteen-year-old.

  Levi grabbed his phone off the dash and climbed out of the SUV, soreness setting in from the quick drop onto hard ground at the rail yard. He worked out regularly, ran several miles a day, but thirty-eight was thirty-eight. “Sorry about that.”

  “Are you just getting home?”

  Levi checked the time on his phone. “Go back to bed. You’ve got another hour before your alarm goes off.”

  “I’m turning it off.” David flapped a dismissive hand his direction. “Just for that.”

  “Your aunt will be here at eight to pick you up for work.”

  More grumbling as he turned back in the direction of his cave, the door slamming shut, the Keep Out sign rattling on its nail.

  The alarm reminder was selfish on Levi’s part. They’d maybe get an hour together before Nicole picked him up. It would be the most time they’d spent together all week, the raid prep nonstop ever since Agent Marshall’s useless tip had unnecessarily advanced their timeline. Levi missed his son.

  He unlocked the other door and entered the house, Taco greeting him enthusiastically as soon as he opened the pet gate and turned the corner for the kitchen. “Shush, boy. David’s already grumpy.” The rescued racing greyhound muffled his barks, offering pitiful whines instead as he shook his tall slender body, tail whipping Levi’s legs. “Yes, I know, I love you too.” He ran a hand along his narrow fawn head and scratched behind his ears. “You want an early breakfast?”

  The whining escalated, bordering on a bark again, which Levi shushed with a boop to his nose. Only to be foiled by a plaintive meow as Burrito slunk into the kitchen and wound around her bestie’s legs, nipping at Taco’s ankles until he moved to the feeding mat. A little of the night’s weight lifted off Levi’s shoulders at their playful interactions, at their eagerness for Levi’s attention and the sustenance he could give them. Lifted a little more as he straightened from setting their bowls down and watched the birds outside the patio door, finches swarming the feeders and the usual trio of doves tottering around on the ground beneath them. Lifted more at the folded blankets, the slipcovers arranged, the dishes done—

  Then plummeted at the stack of mail on the end of the kitchen island. He flipped through the envelopes, too many with Past Due stamped on them, and froze when he reached the last one. Past Due was stamped on it too along with Notice of Repossession. He glanced at the return address—the collection agency the car loan had been referred to. He’d sold his hybrid last year to pay hospital bills. He’d kept Kristin’s SUV since it was roomier, but he’d fallen behind on the payments. He flipped it over, saw it had been opened, then slowly turning around, took in the kitchen and living room area anew, seeing the order for what it was—his son’s attempt to lessen the blow, even though it had to have been a blow to him too.

  On this day of all days…

  Levi tossed the envelope onto the pile, leaned back against the island, covered his face with his hands, and silently screamed.

  It was all going to shit.

  Two

  “Marry me.”

  Levi lifted his gaze from his plate of untouched food and nearly spit out his champagne. Sliding into the chair across from him was the largest, most attractive man he’d ever seen. And the most underdressed in the room. Faded jeans, a shiny belt buckle, red-checked flannel, and a snow-white Stetson had no business among the designer threads of San Diego’s finest.

  Neit
her did Levi with his maxed-out credit cards and no-name sports coat, but traditions mattered. Just because his other half was no longer on this earth didn’t mean he shouldn’t celebrate the years they’d lived and loved together—here, in this place where sixteen years ago they’d toasted their vows with friends and family. After the shitty few days Levi had had, he deserved to wallow with the best champagne as his company.

  And this cowboy apparently.

  Wait, cowboy… It couldn’t be…

  “Did I steal your words, Agent Bishop?” the handsome stranger with the Texas accent drawled. Bronze skin spoke of a lifetime in the sun, warm brown eyes were punctuated by deep laugh lines, his dark, silver-flecked beard dusted a chiseled jaw, and teeth as white as his hat dug into his full lower lip. “The only one I need is yes.”

  Levi glanced at the bottle of champagne in the sterling silver ice bucket beside him. He’d only drunk half. Nowhere near enough to get him tipsy. Nowhere near enough to make him hallucinate the mountain of a man across from him or the fact that Mount Cowboy knew his name. Or that what he was proposing was absurd. There was only one explanation. He lowered the flute to the table, careful not to form an angry fist around the stem and shatter the delicate crystal. “Agent Marshall, I presume?”