Love Divided (Fortis Security Series Book 3) Read online

  Note from the Author

  This book is set in the town of Hereford in the United Kingdom. It is a town of about 60,000 people and is in the West Midlands. It borders Monmouthshire, which is in Wales.

  Hereford is famous for its being the home of Strongbow cider and the Hereford Bull.

  It is also the base for the SAS. The SAS are the elite Special Forces unit of the British Armed Forces. The unit undertakes a number of roles including covert reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, direct action and hostage rescue.

  Hereford Cathedral dates from 1079 and houses the largest Mappa Mundi in existence, which dates from 1300.

  It is a market town and has a large mix of Tudor, Victorian and new buildings.

  I hope you have enjoyed this brief history.

  Please note this book is written in English, using English spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

  Example- Centre= English/Center=USA

  Fortis Security, Book Three

  Maddie Wade

  Published by Maddie Wade, March 2017

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any similarities to real events, people, or places are entirely

  coincidental.

  First edition, March 2017

  Copyright © 2017 Maddie Wade

  Written by Maddie Wade

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Rockin’ Redhead Promotions for the gorgeous cover.

  Blackopalproofreading.com for editing.

  My Alpha reader and chief cheerleader Greta Branas

  My wonderful beta readers for catching the oopsies and helping to steer this book in the right direction. You guys all rock.

  Most importantly my readers. You are why I do this. For every email of encouragement, for every review written and every pimp on social media. You are the best readers ever. I love connecting with you guys. Thank you for brightening my days.

  Dedication

  As always my family and especially my kids. You make me so proud to be your mum.

  Love Divided

  Glossary

  Banter- Playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks

  Boxing Day- The first weekday after Christmas, when Christmas gifts or boxes are given to employees. A national holiday in the UK.

  Butties- English slang for sandwich

  Chosen Sisters- Three sisters who will be the mothers of the future leaders of the new world.

  Conifer- Evergreen tree.

  Cwtched- Welsh for Cuddle.

  Divine One-The One true leader of the Divine Watchers who will rule the new world.

  Divine Watchers- A cult group who believe that the world can only be saved by gifted people. Beginning with the un-gifted being wiped from existence

  Fugly- Short for Fucking Ugly (Slang).

  GCHQ- The Government Communications Head Quarters.

  Gifted Ones-People with abilities like healing, predictive dreams, seeing the future, communing with the dead.

  Gi- Two-piece suit worn for martial arts.

  Jogger-Someone who is obsessed with jogging.

  Jumper-British for sweater.

  Kitsch- Something of tawdry design or appearance created to appeal to popular undiscriminating taste.

  Mardy-Sulky/Moody

  Mucka- Northern word for friend.

  Mysogny- Hatred, dislike or distrust of women.

  Prime Fecund- The man who will sire the off-spring of the chosen sisters of the new world.

  Slag- A person who sleeps with many partners not caring beyond the sexual high.

  Scalextric- A brand of toy racing car track that is very well known in the UK.

  SIS- Another name for MI6 in Britain Secret Intelligence Service.

  Tosser- Literally someone who masturbates. More commonly refers to anyone who you have a low opinion of.

  The New World-The World after Armageddon has destroyed most of the population.

  Title

  Disclaimer

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Glossary

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peak

  Thanks

  Social Media links

  Links for other books in the series.

  Books I love.

  Love Divided

  Fortis Security

  Book Three

  Prologue

  Lucy looked at her mummy and grimaced, her little nose wrinkling in distaste. Her Mummy’s tummy was big and round and wriggled anytime she tried to hug her. She didn’t understand why they needed another baby; she had Lizzie and Dane and her, and that should have been enough.

  She didn’t want anyone else. Lucy liked being the baby of the family. A new baby would just take everyone’s attention, and then they would all forget about her. That’s what had happened to her friend Chloe. The baby had come along, and now Chloe was always having to stay with her gran because her mum was too tired all the time. Lucy didn’t want that to happen to her.

  She had tried talking to Dane and Lizzie, but they were really excited about the baby and made her feel silly for thinking it. Megan, they were calling it; what a silly name, the baby, should have an L name like her and Lizzie.

  Lucy twirled her hair around her finger, twisting the silky length until it curled, all the while watching her mother as she helped Lizzie with her history homework. Lizzie liked old stuff. She didn’t - she liked action and making things.

  She wondered what the baby would like, and then dismissed the thought with a wrinkle of her nose. Babies just cried and smelled funny, or at least that was what Chloe said. Maybe if she said her prayers really hard and was really, really good God would take her away and give her to another mummy and daddy.

  Lucy didn’t hate her baby sister; she wasn’t a horrid girl like Lizzie said Jasmin Waters was, she just wished that the new baby could find a different family to have instead of hers. Then they could go back to how things used to be. Just her, Dane and Lizzie.

  Having decided on a plan, Lucy felt happier. Letting go of her hair, she ran outside to play in the tree house with Dane and Daniel. They were always playing army, and she loved it too. What she didn’t like was how they made her play the helpless Princess all the time. Lucy wanted to be the hero, and not be saved by anyone, especially boys. When she grew up, she was going to be the one doing all the saving maybe be just like Wonder Woman.

  Changing direction from her course toward the garden, she ran to the kitchen instead, where her mum had finished up with Lizzie and had started making dinner.

  “Mummy, mummy I need a costume,” she said excitedly as she skidded
into the kitchen, her earlier melancholy forgotten. Her mum looked down at her and smiled. “What for my lovely girl?” she asked, a smile on her lips.

  “I want to be like Wonder Woman and rescue people.”

  “Well, that sounds like a noble endeavour sweetie-pie. Come and sit at the table, maybe you can draw it while I cook dinner.”

  Lucy liked this plan and went to grab her colours from the drawer in the Welsh dresser. She loved to sit and design things while she and her mother talked. She sat at the Oak kitchen table her father had made and with her tongue poking out the side of her mouth, drew her vision for her Wonder Lucy costume.

  It was all black with pink edging and wicked pink and black Dr Martin boots. She talked through her design while her mum cooked roast pork and all the trimmings. A roast dinner was her favourite, and her mum cooked a roast at least twice a week. Her mum was the best cook of all her friend’s mums everyone said so, and they always wanted to come to her house for tea.

  It made Lucy glow with pride and she loved her mum so much.

  She frowned as she thought of the baby, but her mum asked her a question about her design, and she forgot her ill feeling towards the baby for the moment. Her mum added more suggestions about the costume and helped her decide on a fabric. She didn’t know then that that would be the last happy time she spent with her mother.

  Three days later, her costume was nearly finished. She just had to get the Dr Martin boots to complete her outfit. Lucy had wanted to go to town to buy them that morning, but her Daddy said they couldn’t as mummy was tired because of the baby.

  Lucy went to bed that night and prayed as hard as she could that the baby would just go away and find some new parents. She would regret that prayer for the rest of her life.

  Chapter One

  Lucy was worried. Ever since Jace had returned, he had been holding back from her. He’d been overjoyed when he saw her at the church and kissed her as if she was the air he breathed. Since then he’d hardly touched her, and they hadn’t made love yet even though her body was screaming for him to touch her. She thought perhaps he was upset over the fact that Smithy and the team were still prisoners of the Divine Watchers, but now she wasn’t so sure. They had raided the place where he had been kept prisoner, and the place was clean. It was as if no one had ever been there.

  She then wondered if it was his new ability. That was intense and could throw anyone off their, game. He seemed to be grasping that though and had even told her the other night, when the team went out for pre-Christmas drinks, that he could block it at will. It seemed she was the only thing he was off with and that worried her. He never mentioned hearing her thoughts, and she wondered if he was upset by something she might have thought inadvertently. She needed to talk to him. It wasn’t her style to let things fester; she was more of a meet things head on kind of girl.

  She got in her beloved yellow Mazda and drove to his house, her stomach in little knots, which in itself pissed her off. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in agitation as she waited for the traffic lights to change on the bridge. Lucy didn’t lose her cool ever, at least not since she had joined GCHQ (The Government Communications Headquarters) and certainly not after. She tried not to think about that time in her life much. It was the decision to join GCHQ that had changed the course of her life forever and made her the woman she was now. She was proud of most of her work with GCHQ and what came after, but even the things she was ashamed of had helped to shape her.

  Her heart sped up as she approached the turn for Jace’s place. She parked the car and looked up at his apartment. The lights were on, and she shook off the nerves as she ran silently up the stairs to the second floor. Her heart was nearly banging out of her chest now as if it knew something was up. Her stomach had butterflies and was making her feel sick. Lucy stopped as a feeling of apprehension hit and the brief feeling that she didn’t want to know what was wrong between them surrounded her.

  This was stupid. This was Jace, whom she had known and loved for half her life.

  Pushing her heavy hair off her face and taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart, Lucy walked up to the door. She stopped when she heard an angry raised voice coming from inside. She didn’t mean to listen, she honestly didn’t, but when Jace said her name, she couldn’t stop herself.

  “Seriously Zack, I can’t be around her. I have no idea what she is thinking because as luck would fucking have it, she’s the one person I can’t fucking read.”

  There was a pause, as she listened, and her heart began beating faster until she thought she might faint. He must have been on the phone as the conversation seemed to be one way.

  “No Zack, I can’t. How can I when every time I look at her I want to throw up? It makes me sick, and I can’t hurt her. She’s too good, and she means too much to me. She would try to stand by me, and Dane would rip my head off. How can I be with one sister when the other could be carrying my baby?”

  Lucy felt the walls around her start to close in as she listened to Jace’s tortured words.

  How has this happened? Lucy thought he loved her and they had a sweet future ahead and yet Lizzie might be carrying his baby? What the fuck! Was she in some fucked up Parallel Universe where everything was going to shit? Her vision started to tunnel, and she felt like she was going to pass out. Dragging in deep lungfuls of air she tried to steady her breathing as she braced her hand against the wall. What was she going to do? She couldn’t go home, tomorrow was Christmas day, and she was meant to go to Lauren and Dane’s for lunch.

  Lucy rubbed her chest to try and ease the ache that had started up there. She couldn’t go to Dane’s. How would she sit there opposite her sister and her dad when her world had fallen apart? Dane would know something was up straight away; she couldn’t hide anything from him. Where would she go? Nate and Skye were all loved up, and she wouldn’t put this on them anyway, they’d been through enough lately.

  Her vision got blurry as she thought of her big sister. How could this have happened and when? Why would Lizzie do this? Jace was a guy, and they could be assholes. He was the only man she had ever loved or wanted, and she would have never have believed he could do this to her, but he was still a man and she could have forgiven him. For her sister to betray her though, she would never get over that. Who else would know if Zack knew? She felt her knees give and had to lock her legs to keep from sinking into an emotional mess on the floor. Maybe everyone knew, and it was just poor sap Lucy who didn’t know. Maybe that was why Lizzie was living at her dad’s.

  Feeling steadier on her feet now, but dead inside, she ran down the stairs and jumped in her car. She put the car in gear and did the only thing she felt she could and ran to her safe place.

  ~~~

  Jace hung up with Zack and ran his hand through his hair. He walked to the balcony to get some air and looked down just in time to see Lucy run from his door to her car. She looked like the hounds of hell were after her. His breathing almost stopped as he realized what she had obviously overheard. She would think he’d betrayed her and didn’t want her. The truth though was even more heinous than that. He had never betrayed her. He loved her with every fiber of his being. Which was why he would not do this to her.

  Jace couldn’t tell her what had happened at the facility and what the possible outcome could be. But God, he couldn’t let her believe he didn’t love her. He should go after her and try to explain. Zack seemed to think she was made of sterner stuff, but he knew Lucy and knew she was vulnerable, especially where her family was concerned. She tried to act tough, and she was she was the strongest most beautiful woman he had ever met, but had wounds from her mother’s death that had just never healed.

  Jace had wanted to be the one to help her fix that pain and make her feel safe again. Not safe in the physical sense, but emotionally. Physically she was something else, tall, strong, and yet soft and curvy in all the right places to make his body ache for her. His cock started to respond as his mind turned to her lush cu
rves, but luckily he was still in charge of his body, and he knew that any chance of feeling his Luce writhing underneath him was all but gone.

  His head fell forward as if the thoughts in his brain were too heavy and his hand came up to massage the back of his neck. Jace needed to walk away and let her think the worst of him. It would make it easier on her in the end, and the truth could stay buried despite what Zack had said. He should follow her, though, just to make sure she was okay.

  He grabbed his keys and headed out.

  What a shitty Christmas Eve.

  Jace followed Lucy all the way to Warrior, in her upset she had forgotten to disable the chip in her phone that allowed them all to track each others movements. It wasn’t great for privacy, but with The Divine Watchers upping their aggression it was a necessary evil. Warrior was the MMA club she had been coming to for the last six years. Jace knew brothers Clancy and Cadmus ran it; they joked that they had to learn MMA after their hippie parents saddled them with daft names. They went by Lance and Cad which didn’t seem so bad. They were good guys and excellent at Martial arts.

  Anyone who was anyone trained there. It wasn’t flashy or overly promoted like some clubs. It was for people who really wanted to learn and for those who already had skills and wanted to improve and stay sharp. The building itself was brick, and in the back streets of the city, it was sandwiched between a charity shop and a bookshop. The simple sign on the front was small and stated the name and a phone number. Everyone who used the facilities knew the opening times, so those were never advertised.

  Jace had trained there quite a few times, and liked the guys and the facility a lot. It was a simple building, but it had everything needed for sparring or ground work. The weight room at the back had top of the range equipment, but it wasn’t their focus. He also knew that Lance and Cad adored Lucy. He didn’t worry they would try and get in her pants as both were happily married.