Mission: Impossible to Deny (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 7), Jacki Delecki [polar express read aloud .TXT] 📗

Mission: Impossible to Deny

The Impossible Mission Series • Book 7

Jacki Delecki

Doe Bay Publishing

About the Book

This hard-edged CIA agent is going to get her man…

All CIA agent Darcy Wilson needs is one chance, one lead to take down a big time criminal. That will be enough to get her out of hot water with her boss. If she can prove who’s behind Ransomware, a malware threatening two US embassies’ database, Darcy will once again have her orderly life and career back on track. Her gut tells her the culprit is cyber millionaire Reeves Hewitt. He has the brains, the money, and the connections to pull off this crime–plus he’s a software developer, with mad hacking skills. But all evidence points elsewhere. Despite Reeves seeming innocence, Darcy doesn’t like Reeves–because she likes him. Hating him would be a lot easier if she wasn’t so attracted to him.

Just not in the way she imagined.

Reeves Hewitt might have started out life as a computer geek, but he’s upped his game since his sister’s life was threatened. Now his work with Jenkins Security has him training like an operative, able to protect those he cares about. Unfortunately, he’s got a thorn in his side–an over-achieving CIA agent who is determined to pin a government security breach on him because of a video game he developed in college. Traveling to California with Darcy so he can prove his innocence isn’t something he has time for, but at least he’ll get the chance to use his tactical training. And somehow he has to ignore the heated desire between them. But when Darcy’s almost killed helping Reeves, he has to face the truth of his feelings.

Running out of time, the hacker is one step ahead of them and has them both in his sights.

Can they uncover his identity before it’s too late?

Copyright © 2021 by Jacki Delecki

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without expressed written permission from the publisher.

Trademark disclaimer: The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in her work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Doe Bay Publishing, Seattle, Washington

ISBN: 978-1-7355679-3-8

Cover Design by The Killion Group

Digital Formatting by Author E.M.S.

Contents

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

Epilogue

A Note to my Readers

Sneak Peek: Undercover Danger

Excerpt from Mission: Impossible to Protect

Excerpt from A Secret Code

Also by Jacki Delecki

About the Author

Chapter One

Reeves Hewitt raced toward the light shining through the thick overhang. Butterfly blade in hand, he thrashed a path, desperate to escape the Colombian jungle.

 He halted as the gorge suddenly materialized before him. His teammate, XChoco, barreled into him, throwing him forward. His heart thumped against his chest as he calculated the odds of crossing the wooden bridge swinging in the downdraft over a rushing tributary of the Amazon. Nature had carved an eight-hundred-foot cavern, creating a wind tunnel in the dense jungle. The bridge was held together with planks and rope and looked as if it hadn’t been crossed since the Conquistadors plundered Colombia five centuries before.

Die by an eight-hundred-foot fall or be captured, tortured, and then killed by their pursuers? XChoco shoved him to get going. She wanted to make tracks from the bad guys as much as he did.

Muffled shouts in Spanish moved closer. He and XChoco had started on a mission to find a hidden quipu treasure the Inca’s system of knots and strings used to record detailed data, information, and history.

They had been chased off their path by a pissed off mama jaguar, only to race smack into the middle of a drug runners camp. While being hounded by gun-toting druggers, he had made a wrong turn, taking them farther into the jungle and away from Leticia, the closest town in this part of the Colombian Rainforest.

He had to get XChoco across the bridge before the baddies caught up. His hands shook with the rush of adrenaline. The ropes might not tear, or the rotten wood might hold her weight if she could make it across in a hail of fire.

He signaled with his butterfly to cross quickly before the drug smugglers appeared. She would be an easy mark, swinging in the middle of the bridge. The sharp blade gleaming in the sunlight was his only protection against an enemy armed with AK-47s. How fair were those odds? He could stop a few to give her time to cross the hundred-foot span.

Midway across the bridge, XChoco twisted and signaled him to join her. She stopped and pulled out an M-4 from her backpack, then dropped to one knee on a skinny piece of wood and set up to give him a chance of surviving. How had he gotten lucky enough to have a smart-thinking and armed partner? He had chosen a knife in preparation, and she had chosen the Marine Corp’s newest assault rifle. You had to love a partner who knew her guns.

He ran. His foot missed a plank, and he tripped. His heart and stomach plummeted as he swayed in the wind. The rat-tat of the AK-47 concussion reverberated over his head and against the canyon walls.

He was halfway when XChoco left her position to climb the cliff’s steep incline. She fell to her stomach and positioned herself above the bridge to take the vantage point to cover him.

He sprinted to the end. One rifle against ten didn’t