Breeders (24 page)

Bruce glanced at Laiveaux then back to Alexa. “Alexa, I’m not sure about that. You both have dangerous jobs. You’re not even married.”

Alexa took her father’s hand. “Dad, you did the same for me. She has nowhere else to go.”

Neil touched Bruce’s arm. “You must understand that we’re ready to do this. But we need your and the general’s blessing.”

Laiveaux waved his hand. “Bah, let them do it, Bruce.” He pulled Alexa up then held her shoulders. “You’re the closest I’ve ever come to having a daughter.” He turned to Bruce. “And, besides, we don’t have any grandchildren. I need the practice.”

Bruce studied him for a couple of seconds then his face softened. “All right then, but Laiveaux, you better make sure she isn’t sent on any more of these dangerous missions, you old fox.”

Laiveaux nodded. “Of course not.”

Alexa squealed and grabbed her father around his neck, planting kisses all over his face. She turned to Laiveaux and hugged him, then she looked him in his eyes. “Would you mind being her godfather?”

He felt a lump in his throat. He was going to be a godfather? He nodded, unable to talk. She hugged him again.

Neil walked over with a smile and shook his hand. “You better look after these girls, Sergeant. They’re my pride and joy,” Laiveaux said, not being able to think of what else to say.

Neil nodded. “Mine as well. Let’s go celebrate.”

They followed him outside into the gusty wind then walked down the road to the harbor, arm-in-arm, supporting each other.

Neil shaded his eyes as he watched Yumi play on the beach, building sand castles. Two surfers strolled by, gripping their boards to their sides.

They cast appreciative glances at Alexa, who was lathering her toned skin with sunblock. She stood up and passed the bottle to Neil. “Please do my back,” she said, undoing the top of her bikini. One of the guys stopped, and the other guy bumped into him.

He smiled then poured some of the cream onto his hand and rubbed it into her shoulders and back, admiring her body from a much better angle.

Her phone rang. She bent and rummaged through her beach bag and fished it out. Her bikini top hiked up, exposing a nipple. Neil couldn’t help but laugh as one of the surfers actually dropped his board on the other guy’s foot.

She turned to him with a frown. “What?”
 

That’s what he loved about her. She wouldn’t think twice about breaking the nose of a man who she thought deserved it. But she also had this naive innocence. He smiled. “Nothing. You’re beautiful.”

She shrugged then slid her thumb over the screen and had a quick conversation.
 

Neil looked at the young men who stood there, mouths agape. “Oy, scram!” he shouted, tying Alexa’s top.

They gathered their boards and hurriedly jogged away.

Alexa disconnected the call and turned to Neil with a smile. “That was Latorre. Laiveaux managed to push the adoption through. He said we’ll be receiving her passport sometime this week.”

Neil slapped his thigh. “That’s great. Then we can get out of here.” He turned to look at Yumi. “She’s very intelligent. She’s already starting to speak English.”

“It’s in her genes,” Alexa said.

Neil nodded. “You’re not worried about the type of people her parents were? That she could turn out the way they were?”

Alexa sat down on her beach towel then lay on her side. “Nope, I think the environment in which you were raised plays a more important role in determining who you’ll become one day.”

“But then she hasn’t had a very good start.”

“I know, that’s why we’ll have to make up for it,” Alexa said, putting on her sunglasses. “Latorre said the orphanage is up and running at the Happy Sunshine Clinic. All the girls who haven’t been placed with foster parents are there at the moment.” She folded her long bangs behind her ear. “You should see how beautiful the place is going to be. Laiveaux said they’re building additional dorm rooms and a library and a movie theatre. It’ll be wonderful.”

Neil smiled. “That’s great news.”

“Yes, the Thai government is managing it until all the support personnel have been employed. They’ll have enough money to run it for a very long time.”

Neil propped his head on his hand. “How much did they finally get from Wattana’s estate?”

“A lot. At the moment it’s around fifty million dollars. But they found some paintings his grandfather had stashed that he stole from the Jews during the Second World War. Laiveaux said the artwork would probably be worth double that amount.”

Neil whistled.

Alexa smiled then jumped up and pulled him up with her. “Let’s go play with our daughter,” she said with a giggle. She ran toward Yumi and grabbed her, swinging her in the air. “Come on, slowpoke!” she shouted at Neil.

He smiled, trying to etch this moment in his memory. He felt the happiest he had ever felt in his life. Kodak moments. He jogged toward them, then he picked both of them up and ran into the water with them. The girls shrieked and laughed.

This was what life was all about.

Let’s Talk!

I would like to say a very big THANK YOU to all the readers for making Fatal an Amazon Best Seller!

That’s right! Fatal has made me one of the Top 100 Authors in the Romantic Suspense charts on the Amazon Best Sellers list, and I would like to extend my most heartfelt thanks to all of the readers who have made this possible.

Still.

Writing is a lonesome occupation. So I’m going to ask you, my reader, a
huge
favor.

Please get in touch with me. Write me at [email protected] and tell me what you think, what you enjoyed, and where you reckon I should improve. Hey, I’m no Stephen King or Thomas Mann for that matter, but I do think I spin an interesting yarn, and if you would like to continue on this journey with me, please let me know.

And if you have a moment to spare, please leave a review for this book or any of the other books you may have read.
 

It would be
greatly
appreciated.
 

You may also sign up for my newsletter to receive exclusive content and short stories, notice of sales and new releases, and invitations to review advanced copies of upcoming books. You will never be spammed, and if you want to unsubscribe, click the link at the bottom of every newsletter.

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Hope to hear from you
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soon!

Arno Joubert

Author of the FATAL Series

Acknowledgments

Writing a novel is lonely, challenging, intimidating, monotonous work. But also extremely self-fulfilling and gratifying, especially when a reader comments on your expert knowledge on a particular subject area.

That feels good.

When a novelist starts his career, he or she often makes mistakes and they subsequently get one star reviews for the work that they’ve poured their heart and soul into perfecting.

Why?

Because, as a writer, we are stupid, or too lazy to do some proper research. You see, we make things up for a living, so who would care that army troops cannot parachute from a B-52 bomber? But people do care. To suspend disbelief and truly submerge yourself in a story, it has to be as close to reality as possible.
 

As a writer, you need to get your facts straight.

Luckily there are some gifted readers and confidantes who gently point out our mistakes and indiscretions, reminding me that I cannot simply hit someone’s septum into his brain, and that it is disrespectful to toss bags of donated blood on the ground.

Without these specialists who have painstakingly taken their valuable time to pore over my tomes, the work would have been so much weaker, and I cannot thank them enough.
 

So here is a shoutout to all the people who have helped me during the past year:

Doctor Rob Gentz for your medical expertise, useful comments and observations and just your humorous way of pointing out my mistakes. Man, I should have paid more attention in those anatomy classes. Also, thanks for being a pal! Next beer’s on me, man.

To Colonel Kenneth Gerchman, thanks for all the advice on how to blow various things up, explaining to me which is the weapon of choice in CQB’s (Close Quarter Battles) and thank you as well for pointing out that the term “Ex-Marine” is a misnomer. I get it, the men worked hard to earn the title; they will always stay Marines. I salute you, sir.

Laura Kingsley, my Content Editor. You’re brilliant mind and sharp wit inspire me to be so much more than I can be. They day you said that, ‘there's a good book lurking in the mess’, I felt so proud that you didn’t simply say that I should stop writing this blathering rubbish. Thank you for your observations and guidance, and soon, another piece of hogwash will make its way to your inbox to be ripped open and torn apart and cajoled into some coherent tome that I will be proud to display to the world. But, all jokes aside. Honestly, thanks. I couldn’t have started this journey without your expert guidance and advice. You’re the best, and don’t stop chastising me, I’ll get there in the end.

Amy Maddox, copy editor extraordinaire, perfectionist and all-round fantastic human being. If I had a penny for every mistake you have picked up, and another for every time I asked “Now how did I miss that?” I would have been a gazillionaire by now. You put so much effort into polishing my work, whatever I pay you is not enough. Thank you so much for all your help and God Speed to a truly nice person.

Excerpt from Book 4 of the Fatal Series called
Ultimate Power
starring Alexa Guerra.

“Just one more, please daddy,” Franky begged. He swopped the melting ice cream cone to another hand, then licked his sticky fingers.

Pete Ricco smiled and fed another euro into the coin-operated telescope. His boy handed him the ice cream and plastered two tacky hands to the sides of the scope.
 

Kids.

Pete licked the ice cream as he absorbed the sights and sounds of a warm Parisian afternoon. A balmy breeze wafted over the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, and people mulled about excitedly, babbling and pointing to the various landmarks that they recognised from their travel guides.
 

The view from the top of the Eiffel Tower was spectacular. The grey River Seine meandered a sluggish path through the heart of Paris. A variety of brightly painted vessels churned this way and that along the river, like confused ants. Pete leaned forward on the handrail as he admired the architectural intricacies of the Chaillot Palace and the lush greenery of the Bois de Boulogne which separated the old city from the new.
 

He stood up straight and paged through his travel guide, trying to decide what to do next. The damn thing kept referring to the popular landmarks to the left side of Seine and to the right side of the Seine.
 

“How the hell did you know which side was the left and which side was right?” he had asked the pretty girl manning the reception desk at the hotel.

She nodded knowingly. It was pretty simple, really, if you looked downstream, left was left and right was right. Which didn’t work either, until he remembered not to assume that all boats were travelling downstream. Sometimes he was such an idiot.
 

He fished his cell phone from his pocket as he felt it vibrate for probably the tenth time that morning. He read the message then cursed under his breath before slipping it back. It was a message from the bank, a transaction for a thousand five hundred Euro had been cleared on his card. His wife, Carmen, was in Paris shopping, maxing out his credit. Paris wasn’t the cheapest city in the world to take your impulsive wife on a damn spending spree, that was for sure.

He shrugged involuntarily. Suck it up Pete, she was pretty and she was young and Franky seems to have accepted her. He would do anything for Carmen. Well, almost anything, he wouldn’t give her half of his wealth if he ever decided to divorce her, that was for damn sure.

She came from a very wealthy Spanish family, and she was a prized catch. A lovely face without any blemishes or wrinkles. She was toned, spent hours in the gym. He scratched his balls without thinking. Damn, she was a handful in bed.