Mercer’s War Series

Out for Blood

Book 2

Mercer Broderick is haunted by the death of his wife and son. While on a covert mission as a CIA operative four years earlier, he’d been on foreign soil instead of protecting Keara and Braeden in America. His family’s killers were never found. With his entire world destroyed, he quit the CIA and struggled for a reason to live, wallowing in grief and an all-consuming guilt.

 

Mercer emerged from the fog of devastation, obsessed with swift justice and driven to honor the memory of his beloved wife and child. He forged a network of wealthy benefactors across the world—the Alliance—influential, high-powered people who secretly yearn for a new world order of vigilante justice. With the support of a mysterious Danish woman, Eva Henriksen, Mercer built Zion in the mountains of Wyoming, a fortified sanctuary for his handpicked team.

 

After Mercer gets a lead on who ordered the hit on his family, he’s drawn to El Paso to take on the Ruiz cartel and the faceless man known only as the Panther. Accompanied by his exotic bodyguard specialist, Keiko Kayakova—a blue-eyed Japanese beauty trained by her lethal Russian father—Mercer calls upon the Sentinels to join his Alliance team—Detective Mateo Vega, computer genius Axel Ballard, Liam Walker, and Jake Dunkirk. With the clock ticking, Mercer must take down the Panther before he closes up shop and disappears forever, taking his fortune and leaving a bloody carnage of dead witnesses.

 

But when his plan derails, Mercer is forced to risk his life to stop a mad man from getting away with murder.

Excerpt

Keiko Kayakova broke all traffic laws as she rode her Harley-Davidson Dyna Low Rider motorcycle like a mad woman, replaying Mercer’s words in her mind, ‘It’ll be over by then.’ He’d said it had been part of his plan for her to arrive late to the party, but knowing how he always flirted with death made her angry.

She pulled up to the deserted cement plant with her eyes alert, listening for the sounds of a gun battle after she took off her helmet, but an eerie stillness made her more afraid—for Mercer. The steady rhythm of the rain carried no comfort.

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Keiko ignored the muggy rainfall as she slipped off her Harley, dressed in leathers. She pulled her Heckler & Koch UMP submachine gun from a custom compartment on her bike, loaded a fresh mag, and pocketed spares. She wore a holstered Beretta 92FS handgun under her black leather jacket and she had a smaller untraceable drop gun in an ankle holster.

 

With the stock of her H&K tucked against her shoulder, she chambered a round and merged with the shadows of the abandoned cement plant. The old facility towered over her against a dark sky. Aiming her weapon, she crept through the grounds with her eyes vigilant.

“I’m here. Where are you, Wolf?” she spoke into her com unit.

“I’m enjoying the lovely weather.” He gave her his location.

Keiko lowered her weapon when she saw the first body. A man lay in a pool of blood with two rounds to his chest. His eyes were open and vacant and a machine pistol lay on the ground near his right hand. He wore gold chains and a Christian cross around his neck.

She wondered if the dead man ever saw the irony.

When she turned, she saw two more bodies and Mercer standing over the corpses in the rain. He stared at her with his fierce eyes and chills raced down her arms. Her reaction had nothing to do with the weather.

Mercer Broderick was the only man she truly wanted, but could never have. He’d made that plain. Even after the death of his wife and child, his heart would always be taken. His loyalty to the dead made her feel unworthy of him, but that was her problem, not his.

“I called a local cop. He owes me.” Mercer’s low gravelly voice soothed her like a long sip of Kentucky Bourbon. “When Detective Mateo Vega gets here, follow my lead and let me do the talking.”

“He won’t know I’m even here.”

Keiko eased toward him, not taking her eyes off his. When she got close enough to hear him breathe, she felt the heat off his body and filled her lungs with his scent.

“Impossible,” he said. “A man would have to be dead not to notice you.”

Mercer always did know what to say to a woman.

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Praise

“Rarely does an author make such an impact in such a short span of time.”
Romantic Times Magazine

“Dane’s smooth style, believable characters, and intense pacing will remind readers of Lisa Gardner, Lisa Jackson, and Tami Hoag.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Dane’s smartly crafted characters—in a red-hot mix of volatile conflict—they become more than words on a page.”
—Suspense Magazine