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  Jaxon: The Assignment

  Indie Rebels, Book 2

  Miranda P. Charles

  MPC Romance Publishing

  Copyright © 2018 by Miranda P. Charles

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, locations, organisations and events described in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination, fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any event, locale or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs.

  Contents

  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

  The Unmasked CEO Extract

  Also by Miranda P. Charles

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Jaxon Caine pressed on the accelerator of his SUV, ignoring the stop sign at the side of the narrow, quiet residential alleyway. The black sedan coming from the left of the intersection swerved to avoid him and ended up hitting a parked car.

  Ah, he’d timed it perfectly. He’d only been hoping to slow the burly man down, but he’d managed to stop him altogether.

  He glanced at an oncoming vehicle and knew it was an unmarked police car chasing after the sedan driver. He got out of his SUV, relieved that the burly guy appeared too dazed to make a quick escape. At least he wouldn’t have to tackle the bastard or do something equally obvious.

  The burly man fumbled with the door and stumbled out, then attempted to run.

  Jaxon hurried to grab his arms. “Hey, are you okay? I’m so sorry.”

  “You fucking moron! Get off me!” The guy tried to ward him off.

  But Jaxon tightened his grip. “Hey, really, I’m sorry. I saw you coming, but I think you accelerated? You wouldn’t have had to avoid me otherwise. Are you okay?”

  The police car screeched to a halt in front of them, and Jaxon let his captive push him away.

  “Police! Freeze or we’ll shoot!” shouted one of the detectives as he and his partner aimed their guns at the sedan driver.

  Jaxon pretended to look shocked, raising his arms in surrender. He kept his astonished expression as the police cuffed and patted the other guy.

  Finally, one of the detectives approached him while his partner took the perp to the car.

  “Don’t worry. We haven’t come for you,” the officer said jokingly, flashing a badge.

  Jaxon let out a laugh. “That’s a relief.”

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “Well, I did look and I did see him. I was sure I had plenty of time to cross, but I mustn’t have noticed him accelerating. I think we both surprised each other. Anyway, he swerved to avoid me and he hit the other car.”

  “You stopped him from running away.”

  “Well,” he said with a snicker, “I actually thought he was dizzy and disoriented. I was holding him up because he didn’t look all right.”

  The cop chuckled. “We’re lucky you were at the right place at the right time.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “He’s wanted for multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault.”

  Jaxon let his mouth drop. “Glad I was of some help, then.”

  The detective nodded. “Mind if I get your details for our report?”

  “Sure. You’re not gonna give me a ticket for some driving offence, are you?”

  “Nah. Just don’t be in too much of a hurry next time.”

  Jaxon grinned in relief and gave his details to the officer.

  “Thank you, Mr. Caine. Have a good afternoon.” The cop headed back to the police car.

  Jaxon watched them drive away before returning to his vehicle and making a phone call. “Aidan,” he greeted the Indie Rebels agent who manned the control centre.

  “How did you go?” Aidan asked.

  “He’s in police custody now. And there are no complications. We don’t need to cover any of my tracks.”

  “Excellent work. I’ll let Florence know about this. She’ll be relieved he’s finally caught. And she’s mentioned she’d want to meet the agent working on this case one of these days.”

  “Does she live here in Sydney?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll be easy for us to meet then.”

  “I’m just waiting to see if the chiefs will give it the go-ahead. As you know, you’re still both initiates.”

  “Okay. So when will I become a full agent?” Frankly, he couldn’t wait to pass the Indie Rebels’ initiation phase. Then he’d be privy to restricted information regarding this secretive group he’d joined when he’d needed their help. Most of all, he’d finally learn the identity of the other Indie Rebels, or IRs as they liked to call themselves.

  “Patience, Jax,” Aidan said with a chuckle. “Even though this assignment is very important, it’s not considered big. I’d say completing a couple more will get you there. You’ve already proven you’re trustworthy. So it’s just a matter of the chiefs being satisfied that you’ve balanced the scale with the assignments you’ve been completing against what the IR team has done for you. You’re almost there.”

  Jaxon started driving towards his office in Sydney’s central business district. “Can’t wait, you know.”

  “Can’t wait to see what I look like?” Aidan teased.

  He laughed. “Yeah, sure. But I have to say you’re not the one I most want to meet.”

  “The chiefs?”

  “Nope. Not even our billionaire founder, even though I’m dying to know who he or she is.”

  “So who, then?”

  “The women IRs,” he answered, hoping he didn’t sound as embarrassed as he felt.

  “Dare I ask why?” Aidan said dryly.

  “Are you dating someone?”

  Aidan chuckled. “Sort of.”

  “Is she—or he—an IR?”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Does she know you’re an IR?”

  “’Course not.”

  “See, that’s my problem. We can’t tell our partners about this.”

  “Funnily enough,” Aidan said with a snicker, “she read in the papers about one of the cases we closed a couple of weeks ago, and she asked me if I’ve heard of our team. I said, oh, that vigilante gang? The police hate them, don’t they?”

  Jaxon chuckled. “What did she say about that?”

  “Well, she said the police had to stop being so arrogant and admit the Indie Rebels are helping them. Then she started Googling because she wanted to see what the IRs look like. She was sure the ones mentioned in the news were hot. She was so disappointed she couldn’t find a single picture that showed our agents’ faces.” Aidan chortled.

  “So have you ever dated an IR?”

  “No. Unlike you, I’m not looking for a serious relationship, so I actually avoid dating one of us. It’ll be messier if I happen to break an IR’s heart.”

  Jaxon snorted. “It’s not that I’m looking for anything serious…”

/>   “You just said you can’t wait to meet women IRs. I assume you want to be completely open to her for the sake of a good relationship. Ergo, you’d want it to progress to something serious.”

  “It’s more like I don’t want to have to worry about hiding this role, even if I’m just casually dating. I went out with this girl five months ago, and she wouldn’t stop bugging me about why I couldn’t see her on certain nights. She thought I was cheating on her, but I was actually working on my IR assignment. I had similar problems with the girl I dated before her. So I think it’s just not worth the hassle dating non-IRs.”

  “I guess it’s harder for someone like you who also has an actual brick and mortar office that you need to manage. Me, I can tell my dates I’m an IT consultant working with international clients, so they don’t question why I work funny hours. Anyway, you can ask the chiefs to give you simpler assignments that would work better with your schedule. But it would extend your initiation phase.”

  “Nah. I enjoy the heavy stuff. There’s nothing like ridding Australia of big-shot criminals. Makes me feel more useful.” In fact, Jaxon had hired a manager to take over some more of his work for his tax agency franchisor business. Luckily, his company was established enough that he could take himself out of the day-to-day tasks.

  “Speaking of useful…” Aidan suddenly sounded serious. “I just got a new report… Let me check this out, and I’ll give you a ring back. Looks like this will involve Xavier too, so I’ll speak to you guys at the same time.”

  “I’ll go to his gym, then. I cancelled my session because I thought this would take up my whole afternoon. I’ll tell him I can turn up, after all.”

  “Good. Give me an hour to find out everything about this, then I’ll call you guys.”

  “Okay.”

  Jaxon pressed the hang-up button on the steering wheel, then left a message on Xavier’s voicemail. Twenty minutes later, he arrived in his city office. He changed into his exercise gear then took the elevator down to Xavier’s A to X Fitness gym on the ground floor of the high-rise commercial building.

  Xavier was still wrapping up a one-on-one session with another client, so Jaxon did some stretching and warm up exercises while he waited.

  “Hey!” Xavier said to him when the other man left. “So you made it after all. I take it you got the guy already?”

  He nodded to his fellow IR initiate. “Aidan does want to talk to us about something new. He’ll be calling in about half an hour.”

  “Cool. We have time to check your progress on Obstacle X, then. You said you improved your time by eleven seconds when I wasn’t around to witness it.”

  “Yup. I daresay I’ll come really, really close to beating you this time.”

  “You’re on, bro,” Xavier said with a laugh. “Shall I go first while you continue to warm up?”

  “Sure.” Jaxon called up the timer on his watch and signalled for Xavier to start. He watched his friend go through the long and extremely challenging obstacle course while he stretched his muscles.

  “Two minutes, forty-two seconds,” he said as Xavier finished.

  Xavier made a face. “Not my fastest time, so I expect you to come a lot closer to that.”

  “We’ll see.” Jaxon waited until Xavier said go, then powered ahead.

  He completed the first four segments easily. His fitness, strength, endurance and speed had certainly improved considerably since hiring Xavier as a personal trainer a year and a half ago.

  They’d grown very close since then. People had even mistaken them for brothers twice before since they were both well-built with dark hair and dark-brown eyes. They were even the same age—thirty-three—and they both enjoyed pushing each other to greater heights with their workouts.

  But their tightest bond came from being Indie Rebels.

  When Xavier had asked for the Indie Rebels’ help, Jaxon had been the one tasked to explain to his buddy that to get the assistance of the IR team, Xavier had to become one of its agents. He’d been proud to tell Xavier exactly how much he owed the Indie Rebels. The team had saved his business from an underworld character who’d vandalised and trashed his and his top franchisees’ offices, jeopardising their livelihood. Now, he wouldn’t even consider becoming an inactive IR when he got to the point where he’d fully repaid the team in kind.

  The Indie Rebels’ work was too important. While they were unsanctioned and unwanted by law enforcement agencies, he believed they were needed, nonetheless. Too many criminals avoided police detection or capture. Often, it was due to police resources being too stretched. But sometimes, it was from sheer incompetence by the cops or total dishonesty by individuals.

  He grunted and held on tighter to the horizontal log he was dangling from, almost losing his grip. But he quickly got back on track and made it all the way to the end of the course without further problems.

  He raised his arms in triumph. That felt faster than the last time.

  “Two minutes, fifty-three seconds,” Xavier said. “Not bad at all.”

  His jubilation lessened. “That’s five seconds slower than my best time.”

  Xavier patted the pole he was standing next to. “I’m still the king of my own Obstacle X.”

  “It won’t be forever, bro,” he said with a laugh.

  “Oh, we missed the show,” a female voice said.

  Jaxon glanced at the newcomer and grinned. Holly Stirling, Xavier’s sister, stood by the room’s entrance together with Eve Marrin, Xavier’s fiancée and a fellow IR initiate.

  He still couldn’t get over the fact that the famous Holly Stirling could be so unrecognisable with a long blonde wig covering her dark, wavy hair and a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses fitted over her eyes. But Jaxon was sure that fans of the superstar singer could easily spot her if they bothered to take a good look.

  “Can you guys do it again?” asked Eve cheekily.

  “How about you girls have a go?” Xavier asked, kissing Eve on the lips and Holly on the cheek. “You two look dressed up for it.”

  “Yes, I’ll have a go,” Holly said, starting to stretch. “But I can’t even get past the third segment. Maybe you should coach me, Jax.”

  “Am I not the trainer around here?” Xavier asked dryly. “He doesn’t even work for me.”

  Holly wrinkled her nose. “I think he’ll be more patient than you. Anyway, aren’t you supposed to have a phone meeting with that wedding planner Eve wanted to hire?”

  “Oh, is that now?”

  Jaxon hid his amusement at Xavier’s consternation.

  “Sorry. I thought you guys weren’t having a session today,” Eve said apologetically.

  “I finished early with my previous appointment, so I have time, after all,” Jaxon answered. “But you can drag your fiancé to the meeting. I don’t mind.”

  “Aw, thanks. We shouldn’t take long. I just want to make sure he’ll be happy with this wedding planner too.”

  “You know I trust your judgement, babe,” Xavier said. “But if you want me in the meeting…”

  Eve sent her man a sweet smile. “I do.”

  Xavier took Eve’s hand and headed to the office. “We won’t be long.”

  Jaxon stifled a sigh. Xavier was lucky to be engaged to a fellow Indie Rebel. His buddy didn’t have to contend with the complications of hiding something from his significant other.

  Not that Jaxon was on the market right now for a serious relationship, but he did want to settle down with someone special one day.

  Unfortunately, with IRs being on the hit list of several powerful crime syndicates, he had to strictly abide by the team’s most important rule—that they could only reveal their Indie Rebel identity to another Indie Rebel. The safety of all IR agents depended on that incontestable directive.

  “So, Jax,” Holly said. “I’m so looking forward to your housewarming.”

  He smiled. “Me too. It’s going to be a small party, but it should be fun.”

  “Xavier said you’ve asked him
to design an obstacle course for the backyard. Have you decided to move to Avalon, then?”

  “Nah. My city pad is too convenient. No way I’d want to deal with horrendous peak hour traffic every single day if I lived in Avalon. I’ve actually decided to list it on Airbnb instead of going for a long-term rental. That way, I could choose to go there for a break whenever I want.”

  “Good idea.” Holly stretched her legs. “So, while Xave’s busy, would you watch me and give me tips on this obstacle thing?”

  “Obstacle thing? Don’t let Xavier hear you say that about his beloved Obstacle X.”

  “Then don’t tell! I’m envious of Eve getting past the pull-up ladder. By the time I get there, my arm muscles are already so tired that I have a hard time just hanging on. Say…” Holly sent him a coy smile. “Maybe you can hold me up when I’m about to slip.”

  “That’s cheating,” he said with a chuckle.

  Despite his promise never to encourage Holly’s flirting, he couldn’t stop his wide grin. Holly was fun to be with. And to be honest, he was flattered by her clear interest in him, which had been obvious from the moment they’d met six months ago.

  Who wouldn’t be flattered? Not only was this woman one of the most talented people in the world, she was also hot.

  And amazing.

  And breathtaking.

  But Holly was a superstar. No doubt he’d be dragged into the limelight if he went out with her, and the last thing he wanted was for the media to poke around his life. There were certain things about him and his family he didn’t want anyone to discover.

  By the same token, it would be disastrous for Holly if she ended up with a boyfriend with such an “interesting” background. He couldn’t stomach the thought of subjecting her to the kind of scrutiny she was bound to get if his family secrets were dug up.