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  TATTOO

  (a Take It Off novel)

  A tattoo gets them in trouble… He will get them out.

  After years of cultivating an undercover identity, Brody West is finally off the case and free to get a life of his own. All that time spent in the company of criminals and killers left him a little jaded… and with an identity crisis. He isn’t sure who he is anymore, or who he wants to be.

  To give him time to think, he takes a few days off from work to go fishing. On his way out of town he makes a routine stop at the bank and finds himself flirting with the girl behind the counter.

  But his flirtation is cut short when criminals burst into the bank and shoot her right before his eyes.

  In attempt to administer first aid, Brody reveals a tattoo on his back. A mark that will drag him and the girl into the kind of situation he was trying to get away from. But he can’t walk away because he’s the only thing capable of keeping Taylor alive and bringing down the guys who shot her—guys who are seriously dangerous criminals.

  Praise for the Take It Off series

  "I love all of Cambria's books, but Torch is one if my favorites by her so far. Holt and Katie have chemistry like no other. There was a perfect mixture of steam, passion, and romance."

  —New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Shanora Williams for TORCH

  "Cam was so swoon-worthy. He was everything I look for in a book boyfriend. He was hot, sexy, had a little bad boy edge, but he was also protective and loving. The mystery was also a great element. It kept me flipping the pages quickly to figure it out. And when it was revealed, it was shocking."

  —Bestselling Author Amber Garza for TEASE

  "All Hail the New Queen of HOT Romance! My favorite romance of the last year. I adore this book. Nash & Ava… such a great story. I think I may have a new book boyfriend. This is a true romance story, but it mixes in danger, deception, & desire."

  —Author Cory Cyr for TEMPT

  “TEXT kept me up late turning pages. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it. With lovable characters and a tight suspense plot, this is a great weekend read!”

  —Bestselling author Ella James for TEXT

  “A new storyline that grabs you from page one and twists you into an action-packed ride full of danger and romance!”

  —USA Today Bestselling author Tabatha Vargo for TEXT

  "Let me be clear—of the 1001 ways to die, burning would NOT be my first choice. However, a house consumed with flames and no chance of saving yourself equals RESCUE FANTASY FULFILLED."

  —Scandalicious Book Reviews for TORCH

  TATTOO

  Take It Off Series

  CAMBRIA HEBERT

  TATTOO Copyright © 2014 CAMBRIA HEBERT

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Published by: Cambria Hebert Books, LLC

  http://www.cambriahebert.com

  Interior design and typesetting by Sharon Kay

  Cover design by MAE I DESIGN

  Edited by Cassie McCown

  Copyright 2014 by Cambria Hebert

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Other books by Cambria Hebert

  Heven and Hell Series

  Before

  Masquerade

  Between

  Charade

  Bewitched

  Tirade

  Beneath

  Renegade

  Heven & Hell Anthology

  Death Escorts

  Recalled

  Charmed

  Take It Off

  Torch

  Tease

  Tempt

  Text

  Tipsy

  Tricks

  Table of Contents

  Contents:

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Taylor's Overnight Pumpkin French Toast Bake Recipe

  Author's Note

  Excerpt of Tryst

  DEDICATION

  To everyone who has a tattoo or loves someone who does.

  TATTOO

  “Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior.”

  —Juvenal

  PROLOGUE

  Taylor

  “This is 9-1-1. Please state your emergency.”

  The voice on the other end of the line was calm and cool, no indication at all that whoever they were would be bothered by the panic that surely waited on the other end of line.

  On my end of the line.

  But I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. I was scared, I was shaking… and I was afraid they would hear me.

  “9-1-1, please state your emergency,” the voice said again.

  If I just sat here, if I just put the phone down where no one would see, could I be traced? Would the operator know to send help to this address? I was using my cell phone. Could a cell phone be traced like that?

  My stomach churned because I honestly didn’t know.

  How stupid could I be? How could I have never taken the time to learn this? How could I be crouching here, under my counter, with sweat dampening my silk shirt and prayer whispering from my lips?

  “I said down on the floor, now!” an angry voice demanded.

  The cries and screams of people behind me echoed through my head. The sound bounced around in my brain, refusing to fade away and threatening to take what little bit of grip I had on my sanity.

  I couldn’t just sit here.

  I couldn’t just watch my life flash before my eyes. I couldn’t just let this happen.

  I had to do something.

  “I’m at Shaw Trust on Sunderland Avenue,” I whispered. “There is a bank robbery in progress.”

  “Are you inside the bank, ma’am?” the dispatcher asked. I could hear her fingers flying over her keyboard and I prayed that meant she was sending help.

  “Yes,” I whispered, clutching the phone.

  One of the robbers was yelling at Brandy, one of my fellow tellers, to open the safe, and she was crying loudly.

  “How many intruders are in the bank?”

  I wasn’t sure. They charged inside in a flurry of furious movement, and I ducked low, hiding myself behind my counter. “Too many,” I breathed out.

  “I’m dispatching several units to the scene, ma’am,” the operator informed me.

  My stomach twisted painfully as the man continued to shout at Brandy. He was threatening her now and it seemed to make her more hysterical. Anger burned up through my esophagus. Anger at the robbers, anger at the woman on the other end of the phone. How could she be so calm? Did she not hear the commotion going on in the background? Did she not know that our lives were in danger?

  A shot rang out and Brandy screa
med. I peeked out to see plaster from the ceiling rain down over Brandy’s head. She threw her arms up around her for protection, and the man with the gun—the man who shot into the ceiling—grabbed her by the back of her head and slammed her into the safe. “Open it!” he roared.

  “Ma’am, were those shots fired?” the operator asked.

  “Yes,” I hissed, my voice shaky. “Please hurry.”

  I could hear the people from the lobby sobbing, and my thoughts went immediately to the man just on the other side of my counter. I didn’t know him, but the thought of him being hurt made my stomach churn even more.

  “What the hell is this?” someone snarled above me, and I quivered.

  The phone was snatched away from my ear and I whimpered as a man in tattered jeans, with a wide chest and a very lethal-looking gun in his hand, snarled at me. He pressed the phone to his ear and I could hear the voice of the operator asking me if I was all right.

  Yeah, now she was concerned.

  With a loud roar, he threw the phone down onto the shiny tile floor and it broke apart, shattering instantly. The sound of scattering pieces was nearly as loud as the gunshot just moments before.

  “We got a snitch!” he yelled, reaching down. I pressed myself against the back of the counter until I felt the wood dig into the bones in my back. I slapped away his hands, but really it was useless. He outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. And he had a gun. My greatest weapon at the moment was my fingernails.

  His hands were rough as he grabbed my wrist, twisting the flesh covering the bone and wrenching me out of my hiding spot. I cried out when he jerked my arm around my back, pulling so forcefully that it felt as if my shoulder were dislocated from its socket.

  I didn’t have time to really assess if it was or not because he jammed the nozzle of the gun into my throat. I could feel my hammering pulse thump rapidly against the cold, hard metal of the weapon.

  “You call the police, bitch?” he whispered in my ear. Little dots of spit from his putrid mouth sprayed the side of my head.

  I didn’t say anything because my answer would only make things worse.

  The heavy footfalls of someone approaching from behind made me even more nervous, and I whispered another prayer in the back of my mind. We spun, and I was sandwiched between the guy threatening me with a gun and another thief staring at me with angry dark eyes.

  “You called the cops?” He said it like it was hard to believe.

  “Last time I checked, robbing a bank and holding a gun on a person was a crime,” I said, knowing I shouldn’t, but not being able to keep the words in. I was scared, but I was also very angry.

  He smacked me across the face. Hard.

  His palm literally slammed into the side of my face, making my entire head fly sideways and right into the gun at my neck. The hard steel was unforgiving and it jammed into my flesh, making me cry out.

  That was going to leave a mark.

  “Hey,” said a rough voice from off to the side. “I thought you were here for the money and not to hit women.”

  Part of me wanted to thank the man behind my counter for trying to defend me; the other part of me was horrified he would be punished.

  Just as I feared, the man who slapped me leveled his gun at him. What was his name again? I tried to remember what it said on his ID when he showed it to me to make his withdrawal, but it was hard to think when half your face was stinging fiercely and the other half was being threatened with a bullet.

  This was the worst day in the history of bad days.

  “Hey! We came here for the cash!” another man behind us yelled.

  I was shoved roughly forward. “Open the safe.”

  I wasn’t going to open that safe.

  I glanced at Brandy, who was huddled against the wall, crying. She didn’t appear to be physically harmed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I said open it!” He yanked the gun away from my neck, but I couldn’t enjoy the safety because he slapped his large, sweaty palm in between my shoulder blades and thrust me forward so forcefully that I slammed into the metal door of the safe and bounced back, falling onto my ass on the floor.

  A thud echoed behind me as I was pulled to my feet. He placed the gun between my shoulder blades, holding it there and directing me until I was standing right in front of the large keypad that opens the safe.

  “I don’t know the combination.” I lied.

  “Then you better hope you’re physic because you got exactly ten seconds to open that vault before I shoot you.”

  Well, if that wasn’t motivation, I don’t know what was.

  On shaking knees, I stepped forward, pressing a number on the pad. Then I pressed a couple more. When I hit the release button, nothing happened. But I didn’t expect it to. I just wanted it to look like I was trying to open it. I wasn’t opening it.

  “See,” I said, my voice trembling. “I don’t know.”

  I heard the distinct sound of sirens and screeching tires and gave a sigh of relief. The cops were here!

  Of course, I barely had time to celebrate because the thieves did the one thing that had the power to make me reconsider opening that safe.

  Brandy was snatched off the floor and a gun was pressed to her head.

  “So help me, God, if you don’t open that shit right now, I will splatter her brains all over the wall.”

  Brandy started screaming and shaking. The man looked at me intently like he couldn’t hear her pleas. His eyes were empty inside, completely devoid of any kind of feeling. It was like he had some weird ability to shut off his emotions.

  It made me wonder if he was a vampire.

  I shook my head, telling myself that thinking about vampires was a sign I was cracking under pressure.

  “I’ll open it.” I promised. Risking my life for the bank was one thing, but risking someone else’s life for the bank was an entirely different entity.

  After a few punches to the keypad, the lock clicked free and my stomach clenched. Someone twisted a hand in my hair from behind and pulled, practically ripping the strands from my scalp. I was tossed onto the floor, landing in a heap next to Brandy, who was still crying.

  I backed up, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, as three men walked into the safe, the sounds of opening duffle bags like a stab to my heart.

  “Thank you,” Brandy whispered, and I turned my face up to look into her red-rimmed, bloodshot brown eyes.

  “No money is worth anyone’s life,” I whispered back.

  The voice of who I assumed was a police officer boomed through the air, so loud that it came through the walls of the bank for all of us to hear. “The bank is surrounded. Release the hostages immediately,” he demanded over an intercom.

  Laughter floated out of the vault, and I figured that meant they didn’t plan on letting us walk out of here. Silly me, I thought police presence would actually deter the robbers.

  A large black duffle bag was tossed out of the vault, landing a few feet away. Crisp green bills were poking out of the top. Another one followed.

  “Yo! Hurry up!” the guy guarding the door yelled to his friends, waiving around a rather large gun. He turned toward the vault, disregarding the people cowering on the floor.

  One of the women lying behind him jumped up and made a run for it, right toward the exit. The gunman turned and fired off a shot, catching her in the leg. She fell onto the floor with a high-pitched scream.

  I watched in morbid fascination as a puddle of dark red formed around her.

  People in the bank were sobbing openly now. Some of them were pleading for their lives.

  I heard someone outside yell, “Shots fired!”

  My eyes traveled around the room, seeking out the man whose name I couldn’t remember. Our eyes locked for one long second. It was like we were the only two people in the room. He wasn’t crying or begging for his life. He wasn’t sweating or looking for a way to save his ass.

  He was standing there, in the center of the room, ca
lm and strong, like this situation wasn’t that big of a deal. He made me feel better, more in control.

  Another duffle flew out of the vault and one of the men stepped out. There had to be millions of dollars in those bags. Not only would it ruin this bank, the people who did business here, but my father as well.

  My newfound strength made me brave.

  I stepped in front of one of the bags, giving a level look to the men who intended to take it. “If you leave now, you might get away.”

  The man standing directly in front of me smirked and the smirk turned into a full-blown smile. I realized my mistake then.

  I tried to entice them with freedom, with the thought of getting away unscathed. These men didn’t care about that. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have realized that from the beginning. None of them were wearing ski masks or those plastic masks that looked like creepy clowns or animals. They weren’t even trying to hide their faces.

  Men who didn’t hide their faces in a situation like this were either really desperate or really meticulous and had a fail-proof plan. They planned to be long gone before anyone could recognize their faces.

  I wasn’t going to stop them.

  No one was.

  The man standing in front of me raised his gun, pointing it right at me.

  And then he pulled the trigger.

  1

  Brody

  I jerked awake and forced my body to lie still and listen to the sounds going on around me. A man could tell a lot just by listening. I liked knowing what I was dealing with that day before I even got out of bed.

  The only sound I heard was the hum of the air-conditioner. I sat up, pushing the blankets down to my waist and leaning against the cheap wooden headboard. It was easy to forget I was alone. It was easy to forget I was no longer working a case, that I was no longer pretending to be someone else.