Forever Notorious Read online

  Forever Notorious

  Forever Bluegrass #11

  Kathleen Brooks

  Contents

  Also by Kathleen Brooks

  Family Trees for Keeneston

  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

  Epilogue

  Also by Kathleen Brooks

  About the Author

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  An original work of Kathleen Brooks. Forever Notorious copyright @ 2019 by Kathleen Brooks.

  * * *

  Forever Bluegrass Series® is a registered Trademark of Laurens Publishing, LLC.

  Bluegrass Series

  Bluegrass State of Mind

  Risky Shot

  Dead Heat

  * * *

  Bluegrass Brothers

  Bluegrass Undercover

  Rising Storm

  Secret Santa: A Bluegrass Series Novella

  Acquiring Trouble

  Relentless Pursuit

  Secrets Collide

  Final Vow

  * * *

  Bluegrass Singles

  All Hung Up

  Bluegrass Dawn

  The Perfect Gift

  The Keeneston Roses

  * * *

  Forever Bluegrass Series

  Forever Entangled

  Forever Hidden

  Forever Betrayed

  Forever Driven

  Forever Secret

  Forever Surprised

  Forever Concealed

  Forever Devoted

  Forever Hunted

  Forever Guarded

  Forever Notorious

  Forever Ventured (coming later in 2019)

  * * *

  Shadows Landing Series

  Saving Shadows

  Sunken Shadows (coming May 2019)

  Lasting Shadows (coming later in 2019)

  * * *

  Women of Power Series

  Chosen for Power

  Built for Power

  Fashioned for Power

  Destined for Power

  * * *

  Web of Lies Series

  Whispered Lies

  Rogue Lies

  Shattered Lies

  To my readers:

  This is the first book I’ve written without my father’s participation. Before he passed away, we had discussed this book and he was so excited to see your response. He loved hearing about social media posts, emails, and reviews upon release. I fully plan to keep sharing those moments in his memory as I toast him with a glass of bourbon.

  During his illness and passing, my dear readers lifted my mother and me up with messages of support and kindness. Each one filled a part of my broken heart. It’s because of you and because I know how proud my dad is of my writing that I was able to put my heart and soul into this story. I hope you love it as much as I do.

  * * *

  To my friends and family:

  Thank you for the support, kindness, and love you gave my mother and my family. I’m beyond fortunate to have such wonderful support from the best neighbors anyone could ever have, to the best of friends, and to my family, who while are far away, have been just a text or phone call away. Special thanks to Melissa for daily phone calls that helped me more than you can know. To Tara, while working hard yourself, you found time to help me out so I could get to doctor appointments. To Kathy, who helped me in more ways that I can ever say. And to Candy, who not only fed us, but who wrapped my mother and me in love.

  * * *

  As my world collapsed my husband and daughter caught me. I have to look no further than my own family to find my own happily ever after. Love shines the brightest in the darkest of times.

  Family Trees for Keeneston

  Davies Family Tree

  * * *

  Keeneston Friends Family Trees

  Prologue

  Five years ago at an undisclosed location . . .

  * * *

  Abigail Mueez, or Abby to her friends, refused to scream. She refused to give up even though that is what every single person in that blasted training center wanted. The large warehouse was a hundred twenty degrees to mimic the Middle Eastern deserts. She had a black hood over her head and her lungs burned from the waterboarding she’d received for the past thirty minutes. And now she took each punishing hit they gave her.

  “All you have to do is say stop,” the angry voice of the training commander said as one of her supposed teammates’ fist rammed into her stomach. They wouldn’t let her fight back. They wanted to break her. They wanted to prove she didn’t belong.

  “You don’t deserve to be here. No woman does,” her training commander said a moment before she felt the knife travel from her neck to her navel, ripping her desert tan shirt in half. Abby didn’t care, though. If they got their power trip trying to intimidate her sexually, that was their weakness, not hers. She knew they’d take the coward’s way out and try to make it about her sex. Normally, she would know they wouldn’t take it any further. However, this was an off the books, privately contracted CIA training facility for their Special Activities Division/Special Operation Division, commonly called SAD or SOG. This was the elite of the elite of paramilitary groups comprised of only a couple hundred men chosen for their agility, adaptability, and most importantly, complete government deniability. And that went for the training as well—especially for their first woman candidate.

  “A woman can’t do what we do. It’s impossible. They can’t stand to do the things required to get the job done because of their delicate sensibilities. A woman can’t go behind enemy lines and put a bullet point blank into Osama Bin Laden. A woman can’t defend herself against trained Al-Qaeda terrorists. A woman can’t withstand torture. And they sure as hell can’t carry out a downed team member from five miles behind enemy lines. In fact, all you’re good for is creating division in the group and making the team weak because they’ll have to cover for you.”

  Her commander was on a roll as she felt her pants being ripped from her body. Abby concentrated on her breathing. She focused not on being tied flat to a bench in her sports bra and compression shorts. She kept her attention on the two men to her right, one at her head, one to her left, and the commander at her feet.

  “You train with Rahmi Special Forces for a year and think you are equal with men who have been in Delta Force or the Green Berets for five years? You don’t deserve this position that was handed to you on a silver fucking platter.”

  Some of that was true. Abby had been handed this opportunity, but it was up
to her to grab it by the balls. Abby had been approached by the CIA during her junior year of college as she was majoring in international law. She had a unique background that made her the first viable female candidate for the CIA’s elite military branch. She was the daughter of Rahmi Special Forces soldier Ahmed Mueez. Her father was the most renowned soldier in modern history. He had interrogation techniques named after him. He’d survived torture, killed his captors, and been involved in more assassinations, rescues, and government overthrows than even she knew about.

  Abby was uniquely qualified because of her ability to speak multiple languages, combined with her dual citizenship in the United States and Rahmi, a small island country near the Persian Gulf where her father was born and where she’d received military training. That training had taught her to be a crack shot and how to dominate in hand-to-hand combat that made her not your average girl next door. Then the icing on the top—her maternal grandfather had been the commander of the United States Special Operations Command before becoming the chief of staff for the Army. She was born to do this job. That and she wanted it . . . badly. That was why she had been tapped as a test subject to see if a woman could make it through training.

  After being recruited by the CIA, they agreed to send her to Rahmi for military combat training. There it could be done in complete secrecy. No media trying to take pictures of a woman SEAL or Green Beret. No Congressional oversight. No politicians trying to turn her training into a political circus. It was completely off the record as she worked with her father, mother, and the Rahmi soldiers. No one, except a select few in the CIA and the newly sworn-in president, Birch Stratton, knew about her enrollment in the program. No one back in her hometown of Keeneston knew what she was doing either. Back home, they all thought she was studying abroad.

  Abby had made it through CIA training at The Farm in a snap. But this was a completely different kind of training. This was SEAL training on steroids. Again, all done at a private facility so no one in Washington was the wiser. But she was ready for it. She knew she was mentally prepared, and she knew she was physically prepared. And now she was ready to show them. She’d made it further in the torture and interrogation round than any of the men, which had conveniently slipped her commander’s mind. She’d been able to break her teammates with minimally damaging techniques her father taught her in almost half the time they’d been interrogating her. But now she was ready to give them what they asked for.

  A sob escaped her mouth as she let her body shake with false tears. There were advantages to being hooded. It gave the men a false feeling of power over her and prevented them from seeing the smile on her face.

  “And there’s what a woman does best—cry. Now, let’s give her something to cry about. Terrorists won’t care if you cry. They’ll degrade you, hurt you, and they’ll break you. Better you break now than out in the field where you can cost us lives,” her training commander spat, completely ignoring she was on hour thirty-three of interrogation, which was a good ten to fifteen hours longer than her teammates.

  Abby sobbed harder.

  “Say stop and we’ll stop it,” the training commander, a retired Delta Force soldier, said almost gleefully. Abby cried harder.

  “Break her.”

  Abby felt the hands untying her feet as someone shoved her legs open. She felt a man move between her legs and stand over her. She felt the warm blade of a knife point being pushed slightly against her shoulder—a spot that wouldn’t permanently damage her but would hurt like hell if he stabbed. She felt the breath of a man leaning over her head and made her move. She slammed her head upward at the same time she scissored her legs around the man who was standing between her legs.

  She heard the crunch of a nose, felt the warm blood gushing onto the hood covering her face; heard the sharp inhale on the man’s body she had in a leglock, thanks to two decades of cross-training between Silat and Muay Thai fighting. And most importantly, Abby heard the sound of the knife hitting the concrete floor. With the man trapped between her legs, she used her legs to send him flying, which in turn sent her and the bench she was on tumbling to the side. The impact on the dirty and damp floor jarred her shoulder, but she was already rolling up to her feet before the surprised men could grab her.

  Her hood fell off as she rolled and the brightness of the room took a couple of blinks to adjust to. That momentary blindness was all it took as she took a full punch to the face. It wasn’t the first punch she’d taken and it wouldn’t be the last. This time, though, she could fight with her legs. She judged her opponent, and as much as they were ordered to hurt her, none of their attacks were career ending. And as much as she hated it, she would abide by those rules.

  When Abby saw her opportunity, she slammed her knee into her assailant’s balls before spinning and using the legs of the wooden bench tied to her back to slam into two of her supposed teammates. In quick succession, she used her knee and Muay Thai training to drop the remaining men from her team. Abby shot a quick look around the room. There weren’t many weapons nearby, and her commander was yelling at the men rolling on the ground. They’d be up soon.

  Abby took a deep breath and then let it out as she leaped straight up and then fell backward, driving the wooden bench and her body into the floor. The bench shattered and Abby grinned, even as her body cried out in pain and blood dripped from her mouth. She worked quickly to free her hands now that the bench was busted.

  “My father taught me that men were vulnerable to tears. I guess he was right. Now, tell me again about a woman being the weak link,” Abby said as she got into the Silat position called the horse stance. Silat was a Southeast Asian form of martial arts that was deadly. They trained with animal-like movements, and the purpose of the attacks was to easily and quickly take down multiple opponents.

  “Get that bitch,” the training commander ordered, his voice reverberating through the large warehouse.

  The men moved and Abby let her body do what it was trained to do. She was injured, she was hurt, and she was tired. But that didn’t stop her from leaping to wrap her legs around a teammate’s neck and flipping him to the ground before springing up and taking another down. She’d taken down her entire team in about ten seconds. She turned to her commander and saluted him with her middle finger.

  “Want to see how brave you are against a woman who isn’t tied down?” Abby taunted. The commander of the unit training them wouldn’t be her commander if she passed. He was only an instructor. And as such, he was much older than she and her teammates were. While he had more experience on the battlefield, she had youth and anger on her side.

  She watched as his mustache sank with his frown. His jaw tensed, his wide muscled shoulders bunched, and Abby attacked. She ran forward, he prepared to take her down, but then she dropped to the ground, sliding under his kicking leg and leaping up onto his back as agilely as a monkey swinging on a tree. Her arm locked around his neck, and then her commander was down and out. His eyes were closed in a blissful state of unconsciousness.

  Abby stood slowly looking at the men she was supposed to depend on. They would be her teammates if they all passed, but right now she wasn’t sure she wanted to work with any of them. Some had potential, but they were soft. If they were partnered together, then she’d have to train them. While some would resent her, the ones who would listen would be lifelong partners of hers. She’d die for them and they for her, if only they’d give her a chance.

  Some were still on the ground and others slowly began to stand. She used the back of her hand to wipe the blood from her lip as Tom, the first man she’d taken down, stood up, stepped forward, and held out his hand.

  “I’d be honored to be on a team with you.”

  Abby took a breath. She’d done it. There was at least one man she could partner with. She reached out and shook Tom’s hand. “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  The door on the far side of the warehouse opened and the head of the CIA’s clandestine operations walked in. Lewis Jone
s had recruited Abby personally. The adrenaline surge from her successful fight was the only thing keeping her from collapsing in exhaustion.

  Lewis was in his early fifties, having spent his own time in the CIA’s SOG program before retiring and climbing the ranks at the CIA. His black hair was lightly salted with gray. His midsection was a little softer these days, but he still carried himself with lethal grace.

  “I’m exhausted and I’ve only been watching for the past thirty-three hours,” Lewis said with a grin. “I knew you could do it,” he said for her ears only.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The team stood, some leaning on others, to greet their potential boss. The training commander stirred as some other trainers who’d been watching moved into the warehouse to help him up.

  Lewis turned to the group of trainees. “After you receive medical attention, we’ll be meeting with you one by one to let you know the outcome. See you in an hour.”

  * * *

  Abby sat quietly with the group of nine men who had gone through training with her. Over the course of an hour, each man had been called in, but none ever came back to the holding room. Tom was called and Abby found herself sitting by herself as time slowed. Her injuries were throbbing, but nothing was broken. She let herself relax for the first time in a very long time as she waited. She’d done all she could and now it was up to the higher powers.