Honey Trap (The Guild Book 1) Read online

  HONEY TRAP

  THE GUILD #1

  TATE JAMES

  Contents

  Social Links

  Reading Order

  Content Warning

  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

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  To Be Continued

  A Note From Tate

  Also By Tate James

  Tate James

  Honey Trap: The Guild #1

  Copyright © Tate James 2021

  All rights reserved

  First published in 2021

  James, Tate

  Honey Trap: The Guild #1

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design: Tamara Kokic

  Editing: Heather Long (content) and Helayna Trask (line).

  For that hard assed bitch who nearly made me quit, four and a half years ago before I ever published my first book. The one who implied I was a crappy writer, but that my storyline had potential.

  This one is for you.

  Lucky the tough love thing worked for me, huh Heather?

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  SHADOW GROVE WORLD

  Interconnected series

  While each series in the Shadow Grove world can be read independent of the others, this is the recommended reading order for a chronological timeline. You do not need to read in this order, but it may help with overall background and cameo character appearances.

  MADISON KATE

  #1 Hate

  #2 Liar

  #3 Fake

  #4 Kate

  HADES

  #1 7th Circle

  #2 Anarchy

  #3 Club 22

  #4 Timber

  MADISON KATE NOVELLA

  #4.5 Vault

  THE GUILD

  #1 Honey Trap

  #2 Dead Drop

  #3 Kill Order

  Content Warning

  The Guild series is a part of the Shadow Grove world which contains several interconnected series. The tone and content tends to lean toward the dark, and reader discretion is advised.

  Please be mindful of your own content triggers and limits.

  The characters within The Guild series are not heroes or heroines, please kindly don’t hold them to a heroic standard as they will fall short of expectations. They do bad things, and they own their actions.

  If you’re cool with this, then please read on with an open mind and hopefully you’ll fall for these lovable psychopaths as hard as I have.

  - Tate

  1

  Shadow Grove. Such a curious place, full of all manner of interesting people and surprisingly one of the easiest cities I’d ever disappeared in plain sight within. The people of Shadow Grove—and the neighboring Cloudcroft and Rainybanks—were so acclimatized to the criminals running their city, they simply kept their heads down and minded their own business.

  It was odd. But I liked it. Maybe I would buy a house in Shadow Grove.

  Except I’d made a promise to keep someone in this town off the Guild’s radar… which meant I probably shouldn’t draw any unnecessary attention from the Circle—the Guild’s leadership council—by moving in down the road.

  Still, it was the casual anonymity of criminals on these streets that had brought me back to Shadow Grove just over a year since I’d last visited. Apparently, Hades’s and her Timberwolves’ iron grip over this area had made it the perfect hiding place for fugitive mercenaries.

  “Can I get you anything else?” A waitress leaned over my table, clearing my empty pie plate away and offering a friendly, slightly flirtatious smile.

  I gave her a bland smile back, adjusting my glasses that I didn’t even remotely need. “Another coffee, please.”

  She nodded, and I watched the swing of her hips as she headed back to the counter to make my coffee. She was pretty. Maybe my mission could wait another night while I sampled some of the local goods.

  The waitress disappeared into the kitchen, and my gaze caught on a child sitting at the counter, wearing some expensive black and gray private school uniform. A child who was staring directly at me.

  My eyes narrowed and she didn’t flinch. How peculiar. Children generally didn’t like me, that was no great surprise. But she was staring at me, when everyone else in the coffee shop had barely noticed I was sitting there. Either I wasn’t blending into the background as well as I should or this kid was more observant than most adults.

  “What?” I snapped when the kid didn’t look away. She didn’t even blink. Weird girl.

  She quirked a brow, totally unfazed. “Is that a Beretta M9?”

  My brows shot up and my spine stiffened. Who the fuck was this kid? The crest on her school uniform said she attended the local school, Shadow Prep, and her copper red hair was tightly wound into two braids making her look as innocent as pie. Except for her eyes. This was a kid who’d been to hell and back.

  I clicked my tongue, putting the pieces together from my previous research into Shadow Grove’s key players—and their weaknesses. “Good eye. Diana, right?”

  Her brow dipped in a scowl. “And who the fuck are you?”

  An old woman reached over from behind the counter and gave the girl a light cuff around the ears. “Watch your mouth, child. Leave the man alone.”

  The kid—Diana—just scowled harder but turned her attention back to the school books open on the counter in front of her. A moment later, my pretty waitress returned with my coffee and another flirtatious smile. My focus was still on the kid, though. Sharp little thing, spotting my concealed weapon and accurately identifying it from a distance. Her guardians were training her well.

  I quickly pushed the curiosity from my mind, though, when the man I’d been waiting for walked past the cafe window.

  “Thank you,” I said quickly, cutting off the waitress’s offer to meet later for a drink, “I have to go.”

  Not bothering to wait for a check, I tossed a wad of cash onto the table and made my way out of the coffee shop to tail my mark. He’d been harder to track down than a lot of my assignments, but that was to be expected. After all… he was a mercenary, just like me.

  Okay, not quite like me. But he was Guild-trained, meaning it’d taken me several weeks to get this close rather than the easy couple of days it took for mundane targets. In a way, I was sad this assignment was almost over.

  The best part was yet to come, though.

  My mark, for all appearances, was a boring, unremarkable kind of guy. In his mid-thirties, dressed casually in jeans and a sweatshirt, with no less than three guns—Glock 19s by my guess—and six knives decorating his body. Thank fuck for that. I was in the mood for a good fight, and nothing was more disappointing than a Guild-trained mercenary just surrendering when they saw me.

  It only took three blocks before my target noticed me following him, and the corners of my mouth kicked up. This might be more fun than I’d anticipated. I should have known Shadow Grove wouldn’t disappoint.

  His pace quickened dramatically, and within a few more blocks, he was full on running. I no longer needed to hide the fact that I was tailing him, so I matched his pace easily but made no attempt to catch up. Why would I when he was doing all the hard work of getting away from the public for me?

  Chuckling under my breath, I chased my scared little rabbit away from the busy shopping street and into the quieter, run-down residential area. I was still in no hurry to catch up, leaving the same hundred yard gap between us no matter how fast he ran. It must be infuriating for a skilled mercenary to be toyed with like this.
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  He ducked around corners and jumped fences, doing everything he could to shake me, but it was futile. Now that I had him in my sights… surely he had to know the Guild wouldn’t just let him go?

  A moment later, my sneaky mark disappeared out of my sight, and I needed to pause to decide which way he’d gone. Left. Definitely left. I barked a sharp laugh as I realized that my prey hadn’t run into a park, like I’d initially thought. It was a cemetery.

  Shadow Grove never failed to entertain me, that was for sure.

  Up ahead of me, I caught a glimpse of my target sprinting down a row of taller headstones, some carved angels and monolithic stone crosses. Seeing as how I couldn’t have picked a better location to kill a man than this, I launched myself over a series of grave markers and increased my speed.

  Silent and deadly.

  He never even saw me coming, too busy looking for me over his shoulder until he ran straight into my knife.

  The impact reverberated up my arm, but I held strong, bracing against the man’s momentum.

  To his credit, my prey didn’t scream. He didn’t shout for help or beg for his life. He just grunted, peering down at his midsection where I still gripped the handle of my knife, its blade entirely buried in him—and probably poking out the other side, too.

  “You fucked up, Jean-Claude,” I informed him, as though my blade in his flesh wasn’t driving that point home enough all on its own. “Don’t worry, this isn’t the one that will kill you.”

  The mercenary winced, clearly understanding that I meant to make his death painful.

  “Leon,” he croaked. “Not who I expected.”

  I felt the corners of my mouth curl in a cold smile. “I never am, Jean-Claude.” Yanking my knife free of his gut in a squelching tug, I then quickly slammed the hilt into his temple to knock him unconscious. It wasn’t necessary, but it sure did make things easier.

  The disgraced mercenary crumpled to the ground, and I carefully wiped my blade on his sweatshirt before tucking it away. Jean-Claude wasn’t a small man, so I needed both hands to drag him off the path and farther into the cemetery where it was less likely we might be overheard.

  Just to be safe, I’d keep it quick. The last thing I needed was for some nosey Timberwolves to intervene, because then I’d have to kill them and deal with the fallout from Hades. Doable, but not my idea of entertainment. Better she not know I was ever in town.

  Using zip ties, I bound my assignment to a particularly decorative wrought-iron fence around a family plot. Once he was secured—and stripped of his weapons—I took the little sachet of ammonium carbonate from my pocket to wake Jean-Claude up. I didn’t have the time or patience to stand around tapping my foot and waiting for him to regain consciousness. Nor did that steadily bleeding wound in his gut, for that matter.

  “We’ll keep this brief,” I announced when he started groaning. “The Guild knows you’ve broken the secrecy protocols. We know all about the secret meetings with a journalist by the name of Gillian White, and the evidence you provided to her to expose the Guild. Rest assured, none of it will ever see the light of day.” I smirked, unable to help myself. “Nor will Miss White.”

  Jean-Claude moaned in pain. He’d spilled Guild secrets during pillow talk, then allowed his bed-buddy to talk him into an exclusive interview. The kind of article that could make a young journalist’s entire career. The kind of article that got silly young journalists killed and their house burned down.

  “What we want to know,” I continued, “is what on earth you thought you were going to achieve, Jean-Claude? Surely you knew you couldn’t get away with this.”

  The dying man gave a hacking laugh, then rolled his head back to meet my eyes. His lips clamped tight together, and his gaze held steady. I knew that look well. He wasn’t talking.

  Shrugging, I pulled a pair of ear plugs out of my pocket. It was my job to ensure Jean-Claude’s death was painful, but I sure as shit didn’t need to lose my hearing in the process. So I popped them into my ears and smiled at the instant quiet all around me. It was a surreal thing, torturing a man and barely hearing his screams.

  Jean-Claude’s mouth moved in horror, his lips rounding with terror as I went to work with my pliers. Removing his fingernails took no time at all, really, then because I was in no mood to be caught in the act, I quickly cut out his tongue and went to work stitching his lips shut.

  Jean-Claude ultimately drowned in his own blood, which was a terribly dramatic way to go. It sent a message, though.

  When I was done, I placed a call to the closest cleanup crew on Guild payroll. We valued our secrecy, so I wouldn’t risk leaving the body strapped up in the cemetery for any unsuspecting Shadow Grove local to find. But the message would be clear to the cleanup crew. And word would spread from there. The Guild didn’t tolerate loose lips.

  I stood for a moment, staring down at my own handiwork. It was neat stitching across Jean-Claude’s mouth. The recent uptick in defectors had given me plenty of practice, that was for sure.

  It took almost a whole packet of disinfectant wipes from my coat pocket to clean up my hands and tools, then I effortlessly blended back into the shadows some distance away to keep an eye on the kill site until the cleaners arrived.

  Leaning against a stone cross, I folded my arms and settled in to wait. I didn’t ever have a problem simply waiting without turning to a fidget like smoking. But a few moments later, my phone vibrated in my pocket with a call coming through.

  Frowning to myself, I pulled the phone out and checked the caller ID, then stood up straighter.

  3982

  I normally would have ignored all distractions until my assignment was complete, cleanup included. But this… I couldn’t seem to resist taking this call.

  Connecting the call, I brought the phone to my ear and said nothing. Listening.

  In the background, gunshots rang out and glass shattered, but I was more interested in the gasping breath of the caller.

  “Leon,” the husky female voice coughed out, closely followed by a series of louder gunshots.

  I smiled as my blood pumped faster. She was calling me from the middle of a firefight? This was new.

  “Danny,” I replied. “Sounds like you’re in the middle of something there.”

  She laughed, low and rough. “You could say that. Hold on a second?”

  More rapid gunfire and short, sharp breaths from Danny as she no doubt finished up whatever she was working on. Then after a minute, the shots stopped. I waited patiently, eagerly, as a woman’s high heels clicked on a hard floor, seventeen steps—I counted them—then three more shots in quick succession.

  “Sorry, Leon,” she said with a heavy exhale. “What was I saying?”

  I couldn’t help myself, I grinned. Danny and I had worked together on a handful of assignments, but I hadn’t heard from her in a long time.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “What were you saying?”

  She huffed an irritated sound. “Right. I need a local medic that can stitch up a GSW. I’m in Prague.”

  My brows raised with curiosity. “Who got shot?”

  Danny gave a small growl. “Me. Can you help or not? I can’t go to the Guild medic here. I need someone outside the organization.”

  Danny got shot? No way. I must have heard her wrong. Danny DeLuna was Guild royalty. She was totally untouchable… in more ways than one. But shit, consider me curious enough to play her game.