K. Bromberg: Hard Beat

Author K. Brombergis that reserved woman sitting in the corner, who has you all fooled about the wild child inside of her – the one she lets out every time her fingertips touch the computer keyboard. She lives in Southern California with her husband and three small children. Her motto is ‘have lap-top, will travel’ because she writes around school drop offs, homework battles and endless soccer practices. When she needs a break from the daily chaos of her life, you can most likely find her with her Kindle in hand, devouring the pages of a good, saucy book.

Visit K. Bromberg online:

www.kbromberg.com

www.twitter.com/KBrombergDriven

www.facebook.com/AuthorKBromberg

ALSO BY K. BROMBERG

Slow Burn

Sweet Ache

COPYRIGHT

Published by Piatkus

978-0-3494-0978-8

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © K. Bromberg, 2015

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Extract from Sweet Ache © K. Bromberg, 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

PIATKUS

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DZ

www.littlebrown.co.uk

www.hachette.co.uk

Hard Beat

Table of Contents

About the Author

Also by K. Bromberg

COPYRIGHT

Acknowledgments

Prologue

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

Chapter 33

Epilogue

Excusive Bonus Scene

Sweet Ache

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

“Are 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 fucking 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 fuck 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 fuck 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-fuck 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 fucking 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.