Avenging Angel [Tales from the Lyon's Den 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Tales from the Lyon’s Den 1

  Avenging Angel

  Can Ramón and Marcia overcome past trauma and choose the future? Clint knows it’ll be a struggle. But when Ramón steps up to become the Dom he was meant to be, and Marcia submits so sweetly, he knows they have a shot at their own happy ending.

  Ramón has never done this—mixing his personal life with a case. He didn’t believe Clint or Christopher Lyons, owner of the BDSM club The Lyon’s Den, when they’d told him he was a Dom down to his bones. But as he learns what that means, he finds a hope he never dared to embrace.

  Can he let go of the need for vengeance that he has clung to all his adult life? Can he reach for the future in the form of a ménage family? And when a wanted criminal makes a desperate move, will he and his new brother Clint be able to reach their woman in time?

  Genre: BDSM. Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Romantic Suspense

  Length: 67,896 words

  AVENGING ANGEL

  Tales from the Lyon's Den 1

  Cara Covington

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  AVENGING ANGEL

  Copyright © 2017 by Cara Covington

  ISBN: 978-1-64010-060-2

  First Publication: February 2017

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2017 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at

  [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I continue to be eternally grateful to my readers, whose loyalty to me is the greatest gift I have ever received. Many of you have told me, by e-mail and text, that you will happily read whatever I write. So, to my readers, thank you. Thank you for believing in me and for giving me the encouragement to pursue new characters and stories to share with you.

  I am especially grateful to my street team, The Lusty Ladies. This wonderful group of friends has been with me since nearly the beginning. Thank you, my friends, for always being there and for allowing me into your hearts. A huge thank you, also, to my friend Lisa Buchanan Phillips, the best admin in the world!

  Thanks go to Angie Buchanan Jones for her love and kindness and her insights into my work. She’s the best beta reader, ever.

  Finally, my thanks go to the wonderful professionals at Siren-BookStrand. I am grateful for their expertise and hard work. They make my books the best they can be. To Amanda Hilton, my publisher, my eternal gratitude. Because she said yes, my dream of being a published author came true.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my husband, David. Your endless support means the world to me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Morgan Ashbury, also writing as Cara Covington, has been a writer since she was first able to pick up a pen. In the beginning, it was a hobby, a way to create a world of her own, and who could resist the allure of that? Then as she grew and matured, life got in the way, as life often does. She got married and had three children, and worked in the field of accounting, for that was the practical thing to do, and the children did need to be fed. And all the time she was being practical, she would squirrel herself away on quiet Sunday afternoons and write.

  Most children are raised knowing the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. Morgan’s children also learned the Paper Rule: Thou shalt not throw out any paper that has thy mother’s words upon it.

  Believing in tradition, Morgan ensured that her children’s children learned this rule, too.

  Life threw Morgan a curve when, in 2002, she underwent emergency triple bypass surgery. Second chances are to be cherished, and with the encouragement and support of her husband, Morgan decided to use hers to do what she’d always dreamed of doing—writing full-time.

  Morgan has always loved writing romance. It is the one genre that can incorporate every other genre within its pulsating heart. Romance showcases all that humankind can aspire to be. And, she admits, she’s a sucker for a happy ending.

  Morgan’s favorite hobbies are reading, cooking, and traveling—though she would rather you didn’t mention that last one to her husband. She has too much fun teasing him about having become a “Traveling Fool” of late.

  Morgan lives in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, with a mysterious cat, a nine-pound Morkie dog who thinks he’s a German Shepherd, and her husband of forty-four years, David.

  For all titles by Cara Covington, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/cara-covington

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  About the Author

  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

  Epilogue

  Landmarks

  Cover

  AVENGING ANGEL

  Tales from the Lyon's Den 1

  CARA COVINGTON

  Copyright © 2017

  Prologue

  Twenty years before

  The room felt cold and smelled of antiseptic, and of death.

  Ramón Estévez might be only eighteen years old, but the scent of death had already coated his olfactory membranes and seared his soul. Burning flesh. It had surrounded him six years before as he went back to the flames, looking for his parents and finding only one.

  The memory took over, tossing him back to that horrific night, to the sound of the sirens, the madness of the fire, and the acrid stench of smoke and desperation stinging his nostrils. And the broken and dying man whose head he cradled in his lap. His hero. The only man Ramón had ever truly respected.

  His father.

  The words spoken on a last breath, and the vow given, became the purpose for his life from that moment to this. Words he could still hear, spoken by his father in the language of his birth, Spanish.

  Prométeme, hijo mío. Cuida a tu hermana. Protégela con tu vida. Júralo.

  Yes, Papá. I promise. I swear. I will guard María Angelina with all that I am.

  Even then, not quite twelve, he’d understood his sacred vow had somehow freed his father to leave his scorched and pain-wracked body, to join Ramó
n’s mother, who’d already been taken by the smoke and the flames.

  Ramón had slowly risen when the police officer had gently urged him to his feet. He’d held on to his baby sister and clung to that promise, and when he and María had finally been placed in the same “group home”—the sanitized new title for orphanage—he’d taken whatever was dished out and never once uttered a word of complaint. He’d worked hard, done all that was expected of him and more because he’d promised, and he’d needed to be able to stay close to María in order to fulfill that promise.

  Ramón was yanked back to the moment, and the sympathetic face of the man in a white lab coat who bid him to enter the inner room of the city’s morgue.

  He was vaguely aware Detective Lark followed him. His heart was frozen, and he wanted to turn away, to run away, to scream and scream and scream. But he was a man of eighteen and he needed, now and forever, to be a man.

  He stepped into the room but could not control his tears at the sight of his beautiful angel, his sister, María. Her adolescent body bruised and beaten, her life gone, all that remained now was an empty promise, the bile of hatred, and the deep, burning need for revenge.

  “Ramón Estévez, can you identify the body, please?”

  A cold question, but he understood. It had to be cold, for the record. “Sí. This is my sister.” Mi Ángel. He cleared his throat. “This is María Angelina Estévez.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes.”

  The man in the white coat looked him in the eye. “I am very sorry for your loss, Mr. Estévez.”

  Words. They were only words, but words were all Ramón Estévez had ever really had, and they were all he had left now. He nodded, the motion stiff.

  Jim Lark, who’d escorted him down to the morgue, the man who’d asked that cold question, returned to being the sympathetic police detective who’d awakened him just two hours before with the news Ramón had somehow, deep inside, expected to hear.

  “Come with me, Ramón. I’ll help you with the arrangements.”

  More words. Ramón nodded. He bent over the shell of the child that had been the light of his life, the child who’d been on the very cusp of becoming a woman. He pushed away thoughts of all that would never be as he kissed her forehead one last time. And then he allowed himself to be led away, but not before he made another sacred vow. More words, but these ones offered from his heart, to God.

  He would not rest until the animal who had done this—the animal who had kidnapped, beaten, raped, and then murdered his twelve-year-old sister—had been caught, convicted, and, because this was Texas, by God, executed.

  He’d failed in his first vow. This one he would honor, or die.

  Chapter 1

  Present day

  “I want to help, Ramón. Why won’t you let me help you?”

  The man standing just a few feet away from her, his demeanor seeming to be void of emotion, met her gaze steadily. He was tall, dark, and dangerous. Marcia Crane didn’t have the whole story on Ramón Estévez, not yet. For the last couple of weeks, while she’d been recuperating from having been assaulted—and what an ineffectual word that was—he’d been gentle and accommodating and understanding.

  Now the man was being a damned obstinate ass.

  “This is not a game, Marcia. These people are dangerous—deadly dangerous. I will not risk you.”

  She knew the mess she’d been when Ramón had rescued her from the clutches of that degenerate prick, Sérgio Torres. She couldn’t even think about her last abuser without feeling shame wash over her. She’d been so fucking stupid!

  A hazy image of the first time she’d set eyes on Ramón flooded her mind. She’d been naked, drugged, and huddled in a cage. Marcia had only moments before realized what her fate was to be—sold to the highest bidder. Then a man stood before her, his gaze seeming to pierce her very soul. She’d closed her eyes, the only thing she could do, the only weapon at her disposal. She’d denied him the visual connection he’d sought.

  The next thing she recalled was being pulled from the cage…and then awakening in a bed, surrounded by two strange men, a woman she didn’t know, and the man who’d stood outside that cage. He’d introduced himself, then, as Ramón Estévez. Special Agent Estévez with the FBI. The other men had turned out to be Dr. Robert Jessop, and Christopher Lyons. The woman, Daisy Lyons, had quickly become her friend.

  Marcia dropped her gaze, wondering if that was the real reason he didn’t want her close—close to the investigation, or even close to him. Did Ramón believe she was too stupid to understand what she’d done? Had he taken one look at her, the way her uncle had all those years ago, and labeled her whore?

  “I know I made a mistake. I never should have accepted that damn scholarship. I never should have believed I could actually be anything but—”

  “Stop right there. Not. One. More. Word.”

  Marcia shut up. She didn’t know what was more infuriating—his dominant attitude or her immediate, submissive response to it. He got that tone in his voice and all she wanted to do was whatever he demanded of her.

  Except stay safe and cosseted within the confines of his apartment. She wanted to help him, damn it! She needed to have a hand in nailing that bastard, Sérgio Torres. As she met his gaze, she realized the man was livid.

  Something inside her that had begun to heal felt as if it just shattered. “I’m never going to live my stupidity down with you, am I? You’re never going to see me as anything more than a pathetic victim.”

  Ramón closed his eyes for one moment. When he opened them again, he still looked angry—but his expression had changed, subtly. “You will not say that again, not any of it. You are not stupid, Marcia. You are not pathetic. Dios, you acted to better your life. The Claymore College, up until the death of its founder, was a well-respected educational institution that did indeed offer scholarships to qualified applicants from all over the country. Why should you not have applied for it?”

  “But I understood what Victor Swift was offering me at that interview. He wanted to prostitute me in exchange for that betterment. I should have turned him down then.”

  Ramón shook his head. “How could you have? I understand, querida, why you said yes to him. It was a chance to turn what had been taken from you, time and time again, into something positive. It was a way to take one more hand of the cards dealt to you and change the game.”

  Marcia felt every bit of strength leave her body. She was grateful she was sitting because otherwise she’d have ended up on the floor. He knows about my past. “How…how did you find out about…” She couldn’t even put it into words.

  Ramón hunkered down in front of her and took her hands in his. His hands were large and felt a little rough—there was nothing whatsoever pampered about Ramón Estévez. His hands were also hot, and the heat seeped into her, warming parts she’d believed could never be warmed again.

  “Did you think I would not look into your past? There is too much at stake here, Marcia.” He looked as if he wanted to say more. Then he nodded. “Can you blame me for wanting to protect you from even more horror once I learned what had been done to you? When I think of all you’ve endured, ever since you were a child of only twelve, I have nothing but respect for you.”

  “Can you blame me for wanting to finally fight back?” She needed to find just the right words. She hadn’t even consciously fisted her hands. It just happened, and he, still holding her hands, simply held them tighter.

  She needed to make him understand the way she felt. “You just said you respected me, but I don’t feel worthy of that respect. I cannot respect myself unless…I need to do something, Ramón. Can’t you see that? How can I ever become someone better if I never stand up against what happened to me—what happened over and over again? How can I respect myself if I don’t finally fight back?” Marcia had never used tears the way she knew some women did. With every bit of will she possessed, she clamped down on the tears that begged, now, to flow. Her e
yes stung, and her throat burned. But she held on. In fact, she focused on control so fiercely that she nearly missed it.

  A lightning bolt of raw desolation flashed in his eyes and then was gone. He looked away for just a moment. When he turned his gaze back to her, he nodded. “We will see if there is some way you can help, then. I do understand your need for vindication. I understand the burning for revenge. But you must respect my need to protect you. I won’t let anyone interfere with that—not even you, pequeña.”

  She could see by the expression in his eyes that he was deadly serious. And maybe he really did respect her, after all.

  “I have a meeting shortly with my team. There might be some way you can help us. I will discuss it with them.”

  Marcia nodded. At this point, she would take what she could get. “Yes, all right. I’m…I’m not trying to be difficult.”

  “I know that.” He squeezed her hands and then got to his feet. “I’m going to take you over to Christopher’s apartment while I see to business.”

  She understood he could have done several things with her once he had gotten her away from Torres. He could have left her with the Lyonses or he could have shuffled her off to a safe house. She was a potential witness in a federal case. She’d been attacked, which meant she was likely seen to still be in danger. She certainly would be if word got out that she was roaming the streets free instead of living as a “slave” to the man who’d “bought” her.

  But when Ramón had learned she had no family, and no one to support her emotionally, he’d done none of those things. Instead, he’d made the decision to watch over her himself.