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  A Better Life

  Angel’s Trials Book 3

  By Liza O’Connor

  All Rights Reserved

  Any copying or recording is forbidden without the written permission of the author reproduction of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, electronic except that allowed by Amazon.

  In other words: if you buy this book anywhere other than Amazon, it’s a pirated copy. Please support Authors instead of Pirates. They often carry viruses.

  We are much nicer.

  All characters in this book come from the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names, titles or professions. They are not based on or inspired by any known individual and any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A Better Life

  By Liza O’Connor

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  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

  Other books by Liza O’Connor

  Warning: The heroine of this series has multiple lovers.

  Blurb

  Angel’s husband had barely left the country when the first attempt on her life occurred. Fortunately, Anna was at home and shot the man as he entered through a window that for some reason had been left open. Now a dead body chilled in the basement freezer.

  Angel had always known this day would come. She had lived in fear of this day for the last five years. The terrorists had somehow discovered her identity. By the sounds of gunshots outside the house, she knew her nightmare was far from over. Any thought of her living a normal life from here-on wasn’t possible. God only knows what would happen to her and her children now.

  Discover the new life of the extraordinary forensic auditor named Angel. She can locate improperly acquired money better than anyone. Unfortunately, that puts her and her children at serious risk.

  Nor does her love life work nearly as well as her forensic abilities. Men are constantly using, then betraying her. Still, she remains positive and optimistic. Now that she is officially dead, living deep within a mountain, she hopes she and her children will be safe.

  To her surprise, the biggest threat is not from criminals, but her husband, who has ordered her to be killed.

  Chapter 1

  “Please God, keep my children safe,” she whispered beneath her breath. Her three young sons, ages eight, five, and one year old, were at Derrick’s house, next door, the older two playing with his kids. Hopefully, at the first sound of trouble, the former FBI agent had gotten them to the safe room hidden beneath the house she had built for him.

  She could accept her death, but not that of her innocent children.

  Anna, a young woman of twenty-five, whom she loved like a sister, and Sahid, a new guest, whom she barely knew at all, were struggling before the front door.

  “Let me go! I have to see to Pete.” Anna yelled.

  Sahid held onto her. “No! They will kill you! You must stay here!” He slung her away from the door, slammed it shut, and bolted it.

  A moment later, someone pounded on the outside. “Help! We need help!”

  Anna fought with Sahid, determined to go to Pete. Angel’s heart went out to her. After four years of not speaking to her ex-fiancé, Anna had recently fallen back in love with Pete.

  Before she could unbolt the door, a rapid burst of gunfire erupted, and the bullets pounded against the outside of the door. Any normal door would have disintegrated into wood chips, and Anna would be dead now. However, Angel’s husband Max had upgraded her house right after they married. Her door was two-inch steel and the windows bulletproof.

  They both had known someday this nightmare would occur and Max had done all he could to ensure she would survive it.

  Unable to shoot their way in, the attackers shoved Pete, Anna’s former fiancé, against the window. His chest was covered in blood, his face contorted in pain.

  Anna ran to the window and pressed her hands against the bulletproof glass. “Don’t hurt him,” she pleaded. “Please, tell me what you want. We can negotiate.”

  The hooded man pointed to the door.

  Pete attempted to grab the hooded man’s gun.

  Instead, the man rammed a gun against Pete’s head. He then lifted the unconscious body of Pete up to the window and pressed the gun to Pete’s head. He once again pointed at the door.

  She looked at Pete, her face against the glass. “I love you!” she cried out. “Don’t die on me, Pete, please…don’t die.”

  The hooded man’s rage increased.

  Tears streaked down her face. She knew the man probably could hear her words, but she tried anyway. “I can’t open the door. The house is in lockdown. Please, help him. I am willing to negotiate.”

  The man pulled the trigger, and Pete’s brains splattered across the window pane.

  Anna screamed, and Angel turned away, sick to her stomach. She had known one day she would die, but why Pete? Why Anna? And Sahid… he was just a temporary guest needing a place to stay.

  Anna, amazingly strong just like her father, rebounded from her pain and focused on their imminent danger. “Take Angel to the basement,” she ordered Sahid.

  “No, we should remain here together,” the man said.

  Angel stared at Sahid. Why would he think he had any say at all? He was only an interpreter for the FBI. Anna had spent her life with some of the best FBI agents there were. And while she failed to graduate from the FBI academy due to a foolish prank, Angel never doubted her competence.

  But Sahid was a Mid-Eastern man, so he would never think a woman could be competent.

  While he argued with Anna on their next move, Angel eased from the room and hurried to the basement as Anna had requested. Max had once told her in case of a security issue, Anna was in charge.

  Once down the steps, Angel searched for someplace to hide. Damn it all! Why had her grandparents lived such a simple life? They never accumulated the mounds of junk that could have provided hiding spots.

  All that sat in the large concrete basement was the recently updated oil tank and furnace needed to heat their house during the cold Virginia winters, an old futon, and a giant freezer, currently hosting the dead body of the man who attempted to enter the house through a second story window that had somehow been left open. She knelt to slide beneath the futon and yelped at the sight of a hand. Another dead man, but where had he come from?

  The basement door opened and Sahid glared down at her. “I told you to…never mind. Just stay down there.” He then slammed the door shut, never giving her a chance to tell him about the second dead body.

  She grabbed the edge of the futon, planning to move it away from the body, only hands gripped her mouth and waist and pulled her back into a hard body. She tried to twist out of the attacker’s grip, but he was too strong.

  A low voice growled in her ear. “Angel, I’m Captain Logan, here to rescue you. We have your boys.”

  She stopped fighting. She had no idea if he was really here to rescue her, but if
he had her boys then she had no choice but to go with him.

  “Where’s Anna?” he whispered. His question gave her hope this truly was a rescue.

  “Upstairs, in Max’s office, I think. She’s going to put the house in lockdown.” She recalled Anna telling Sahid the opposite. “Oh God! Anna must think Sahid is working for the terrorists.”

  The basement door opened. The man released her and jumped beneath the stairs.

  “Angel, you okay?” Anna asked. The tension in her voice was audible.

  “Yes.”

  “Try to find a place to hide,” Anna advised and closed the door.

  Before she could follow Anna’s advice, the captain gripped Angel by the waist and rushed her to the south end of the basement where the furnace stood. He opened a panel and motioned for her to enter.

  The face of another man stared up from what should have been solid ground. Evidently Max had a tunnel dug to her house. At least she hoped it was Max who’d done this. While both men had the hardened eyes of soldiers, she sensed no hate in them. They genuinely seemed to be rescuing her.

  But she needed one promise from the captain before she could go. “Rescue Anna. She’s still upstairs.”

  The captain’s eyes nailed her with a frightening intensity. “If you’ll leave with my man, now, I’ll see to Anna.”

  Angel stepped into the furnace opening and climbed down a metal ladder on the side of the vertical tunnel. When she reached the bottom of the descent, she resisted going any further. “Can’t we wait for Anna here?” The soldier, who turned out to be a wiry fellow, no more than five feet six, shook his head.

  “Lil’ Bit will be fine. The captain will see to it. But I’ll be missing my head if I don’t get you to your boys now.”

  The mention of her boys got her moving.

  Why did he call Anna ‘Lil’ Bit?’ She was five feet ten and extremely fit. “Do you know Anna?” she asked between gasps of air. She hadn’t run in five years. She was not up for this.

  “Run, don’t talk.”

  Soon she could do neither. Instead of giving her time to catch her breath, the small man insisted she climb upon his back.

  “I’m too heavy.”

  “I carry two hundred pounds regularly. You’ve got to be less than that.”

  She was only a hundred and forty, but she still didn’t believe he could carry her. Sighing, she climbed on his back, expecting his legs to give out after ten steps.

  To her shock, he took off running faster than they had been moving before.

  Ten minutes later, he set her down below an upward tunnel. He climbed up the ladder first, then motioned her to follow.

  Another soldier gave her a hand out of what looked to be a sewer manhole. Only it opened into a metal shack.

  Once she was out, the guy jumped in the hole. Another soldier tossed weapons and boxes down to him. They looked to be going in for an all-out war.

  “A young woman is still in the house and needs to be rescued,” Angel advised them.

  Her wiry rescuer spoke. “It’s Lil’ Bit.”

  The tension in their faces relaxed.

  The little man tugged her from the shed. Despite his size, he was far stronger than Angel. She stared up at the familiar water tank a mile down the road from her house. He opened the back of a Public Utilities van and forcefully assisted her inside. The door slammed shut before she could beg him again to save Anna. Pitch blackness overwhelmed her.

  As she pushed herself into a seated position, small bodies scuttled closer and pressed against her. Fear had altered their scents, but she still knew them. Her two boys: eight-year old Stevie and five-year old Tommy; and Derrick’s son: eight-year old Dare and his fifteen-year old daughter, Kelly, were all pressed hard against some portion of Angel’s body.

  Kelly and Tommy were on her right, gripping her arm and thigh. Stevie and Derrick were on her left.

  Only baby Johnny was missing. Upon making certain he wasn’t resting in Kelly’s lap, she whispered, “Where’s the baby?”

  A stern ‘shhhhh’ came from further up in the pitch-black van. Even from that limited sound, she knew it was Derrick. Evidently, she was expected to trust Derrick had saved her year-old baby.

  And while she didn’t like not knowing for certain, she did trust him.

  The van bounced them violently about until it reached pavement, and then they mostly vibrated with an occasional bounce on the steel floor of the van. As uncomfortable as the hard floor was, it was the total darkness that unnerved her.

  Three hours into the drive she heard a hunger whimper of her youngest child.

  The sound of her baby eased her worry greatly. She heard a bit of rustling then he quieted, which meant someone had just given him a bottle. She’d been weaning Johnny off the bottle, but right now she was only grateful someone had thought to bring him one.

  Had to be Derrick’s mother who cared for her child. The dear woman had moved from Florida to help with Derrick’s kids and had become Johnny’s primary caregiver.

  Whenever one of the kids would forget and speak, Derrick’s voice would softly scold.

  She held them all tight, kissing all four on their heads, as they pressed against her arm or chest. She wished she could tell them everything was going to be all right. But she feared nothing would ever be right again.

  Her enemies would never stop looking for her until she was dead. She and her children were in grave danger, had been for years, only their illusion of safety was now stripped away forever.

  Chapter 2

  As the hours wore on, the children all needed a bathroom. When Stevie whispered his need, Derrick shushed him and handed her a large plastic item that she soon determined was a port-a-potty. None of the boys wanted to use a potty meant for babies. Kelly was desperate, so she broke resistance and went first. Certain that if a teenager would use it, they could too, the boys were quick to follow.

  Unfortunately, now the van held the horrible stench of an overflowing port-a-potty, which made the hours following tortuous. Keeping the kids quiet became even harder as they kicked and slapped each other.

  She tried to calm them with kisses to their foreheads, but all too soon that trick ceased to work.

  Finally, Derrick resorted to fear. He gripped Dare and Stevie by their collars. “Do you want us all to die?” he whispered with angry intensity.

  Kelly’s grip on her arm tightened at her father’s words. Little Tommy, seated in her lap, crawled to Angel and wrapped his arms around her neck. Stevie and Dare pressed against her, their fear driving out their anger for one another.

  With the kids quiet at last, Angel dozed off, hoping in sleep she could escape the misery of their current situation.

  ***

  Bright lights jolted Angel awake. The glare was painful, causing her eyes to squeeze shut.

  Please God, let this be part of my rescue.

  “Out! Quickly,” a hard voice demanded.

  Whoever the man was, soldier or terrorist, he’d managed to terrify all the children, making them scamper further into the van.

  “Stop it!” Derrick scolded. “We are almost safe. Don’t screw it up now.”

  Evidently tired of waiting, the man grabbed Angel’s arm and pulled her from the van. He blinded her by shining his flashlight in her face. “Is this the package?”

  Derrick replied. “Yes.”

  The hard-voiced man gripped her arm and forcefully pulled her away.

  Stevie and Tommy called out for her. The terror in their voices turned her rebellious. With all her strength, she tried to wrench her arm from the man’s grip.

  “Stop it!” he barked. “You will see your children once you’ve been processed.” He then yanked her forward.

  Angel attempted to scream, but only a second of her anguish was heard before she was slammed to the ground and her mouth was taped. Yanked to her feet, she stumbled alongside the angry man, his grip never once loosening on her arm.

  They walked forever down a dimly lit
concrete corridor with creepy spider webs stretched at angles from the ceiling to the walls, creating almost a dome effect. She sensed they were underground, but she had no proof, except for her feeling she was walking to her coffin.

  Was it possible that after all she’d done for Derrick, he had betrayed her?

  She couldn’t believe it. His children were his whole life and they came too. Perhaps Mr. Hard Voice was a good guy, just one with no patience for frightened children and protective mothers.

  Working upon that theory, she stopped resisting and tried to stay up with his fast pace.

  If he noticed her improved cooperation, she couldn’t tell. His painful grip on her arm didn’t change.

  After what seemed several hours, they arrived at an apparent dead-end. Mr. Hard Voice opened a panel and stared into a retinal scan. Then he typed something into the keyboard. A moment later a steel panel closed off the tunnel behind them.

  Great! Now she was stuck in a claustrophobic cube with the man. After ten minutes where nothing happened, her ears began to pop.

  “Yawning helps,” Mr. Hard Voice stated, and yawned wide.

  The pain was becoming unbearable, so she tried yawning, only the damn duct tape made it hard to do.

  Clearly the pressure level was changing. But why? Was she going down but just couldn’t tell? Or were they just changing the pressure in the cube?

  With her free hand, she reached up and tugged at the edge of the tape.

  “Leave it,” Mr. Hard Voice snapped. “We have a solution that will make it come off without ripping off your skin.

  She focused on another issue. His grip on her arm was so tight that her fingers had gone numb. She pointed to her arm.

  He just glared in response.

  She pantomimed a limp hand with her good arm and then pointed to her red and swollen right hand.

  He stared at it a second. “Shit!” He not only released her arm but lifted her arm and began a painful massage. “You should have said something before now. I only gripped your arm with force because you ignored my orders, and that section was not secured so I needed to remove you as fast as possible.”