Echo, p.30
Echo, page 30
“I was curious,” she whispered.
Wrong answer.
Grabbing her wrist, pulling her hand away from her soaked entrance, I put it on my cock and had her stroke me. “You feel that?”
Biting her lip, she unconsciously parted her thighs. “Yes.”
“This is the only fucking weapon you’re going to touch.” Still holding her wrist, I pulled her hand off me and used her own fingers to swipe through my release that’d leaked onto her thighs before I shoved her fingers into her cunt. “And this is all the ammunition you’ll ever need.” Pushing her fingers deep, I pressed my thumb to her clit. “You get me?”
Her legs fell open, her free hand wrapped around my wrist and she moaned. “Erico.”
“Answer the fucking question, Sancia.” I rubbed her clit hard.
“Yes, yes,” she cried. “I am yours, and you are mine.”
“Mia per sempre,” I reminded her as I pulled her hand out, pushed her to her back, and shoved into my woman all the way to the hilt in one thrust.
Her cry filled the entire bedroom.
I brought my mouth to hers. “Ti Vogghiu.”
Her eyes welled, her arms wrapped around my neck and she smiled. “I love you, Erik Markos.”
“Trùoppu Bedda.” I fucked my Principessa.
Standing behind the crowd at the top of the pit straight grandstands, I watched number fifteen pull in for a stop on his nineteenth lap.
Two-point-five seconds later, the Formula One Ferrari was speeding back out, his intermediate tires swapped for medium compound slicks.
My burner vibrated in my pocket.
Watching number fifteen lead the lap, I took out one ear plug and answered the call, but I didn’t say anything as more cars sped past at over a hundred and sixty miles per hour.
“Where the hell are you? A racetrack?”
He never called me. I called him. “What’s up?”
Three more cars whipped by.
He ignored my question. “What are you doing at a racetrack?
Recon. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“Sure,” he replied skeptically. “So now you’re a fan.”
I was whatever I had to be. “What do you need?”
“Sounds like Formula One racing.”
“Is there a point to this call?” I didn’t ever talk more than thirty seconds on a burner.
“Yeah, I was wondering where you were, but now I’m not. F-ones that sound like jets doing Mach eleven, crowd noise in the background.” He paused. “Monza. Italy. The Grand Prix is today. Right now, as a matter of fact.”
“Get to the point.” Scanning the track and the crowds one more time, I headed down the back of the stands.
“I need a favor.”
“I don’t do favors.” He did them for me.
“Just like you don’t watch Cosa Nostra Formula One race car drivers?”
Cosa Nostra Don, I silently corrected, and a young one at that. “You have ten more seconds.”
“Let me guess—you’re doing recon. The only thing I can’t figure out is if it’s for an asset or a target.”
Pulling my keys out, I scanned the VIP parking area of the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza as I walked toward my rental. “Hanging up.”
“I need a meet.”
“When?” A meet only meant one thing.
“ASAP.”
Suddenly on high alert, I circled the vehicle and scanned the parking lot one more time before I dropped to a knee and checked the underside of the rental. Clear.
“You still there?”
“Yeah.” Standing up, I glanced in the back seat, unlocked the driver’s door and got behind the wheel before turning the engine over. Exhaling when it caught and I was still in one piece, I glanced at my watch. “Current location?”
“Same continent as you.”
“Eight hours. You know where.” I hung up.
Putting the rental in reverse, I backed out of my spot, then dialed a number I’d come to hate.
The call connected.
“Asset’s been burned.” I pulled out of the parking lot.
“Scheduled meet?”
“Affirmative.”
“You know what to do.”
“Copy.”
The line went dead.
I drove to the airport.
THANK YOU!
Thank you so much for reading ECHO! If you are interested in leaving a review on any retail site, I would be so appreciative. Reviews mean the world to authors, and they are helpful beyond compare.
Have you read the other exciting books in the Alpha Elite Series?
SEAL
ALPHA
VICTOR
ROMEO
ZULU
NOVEMBER
ECHO
WHISKEY
DELTA
KILO
BLADE
GHOST
Turn the page for a preview of WHISKEY, the next exciting book in the Alpha Elite Series!
WHISKEY
Mercenary.
Navy SEAL.
Unconventional Operative.
I didn’t join the Teams. I was recruited. They called me the Specialist. They said I had a unique skill set. I knew who I was.
For eight years, the Navy tried to rein me in with their tactics, techniques and procedures. They told me to adapt and overcome. I didn’t adapt. I did my job.
Now I worked for Alpha Elite Security. If you called me Specialist, I’d eliminate you before you took your next breath. If you recognized me, it was already too late. I lived by my instincts and used the resources around me. No target was out of my scope… until my boss unknowingly handed me the only assignment that was.
The one woman I couldn’t kill.
Code name: Whiskey.
Mission: Eliminate.
WHISKEY is a standalone book in the exciting Alpha Elite Series by USA Today Bestselling author, Sybil Bartel. Come meet Whiskey and the dominant alpha heroes who work for AES!
DELTA
Dominant.
Mercenary.
Navy SEAL.
I had one job on the Teams. Predict the unpredictable. See what no one else saw. Analyze, assess, anticipate. Then execute with deadly force.
Calculating the enemy’s moves, including the ones they hadn’t thought of yet, was my specialty. I did it for the Navy, and now I was private sector, utilizing my skills at Alpha Elite Security. I had a hundred percent mission success rate… until her.
Make no mistake, I saw the blonde coming. I predicted her every move. But this time, I wasn’t going to stop it. I was going to do something much worse.
Code name: Delta.
Mission: Dominate.
DELTA is a standalone book in the exciting Alpha Elite Series by USA Today Bestselling author, Sybil Bartel. Come meet Delta and the dominant alpha heroes who work for AES!
KILO
Breacher.
Navy SEAL.
Mercenary.
Being a breacher on the Teams wasn’t a job, it was my drug of choice. Detonating charges, the blast waves going through me, I lived for the rush of tactical explosive breaching. As long as I kept my brothers safe and didn’t eat a piece of frag, I never looked past my next mission… until I screwed up.
Miscalculating a blast zone, I took a hit. Then I was benched from active duty, told I’d taken one too many subconcussive blows, and forced into medical retirement.
Except the Navy wasn’t the only home for an explosives expert. Alpha Elite Security took me in, and I got to keep my addiction—right until a mysterious redhead walked into my blast zone, and suddenly, I needed a new fix.
Code name: Kilo.
Mission: Detonate.
KILO is a standalone book in the exciting Alpha Elite Series by USA Today Bestselling author, Sybil Bartel. Come meet Kilo and the dominant alpha heroes who work for AES!
As I write the last line of ECHO, I am once again feeling a bittersweet sense of accomplishment. I think every book an author writes is a testament of perseverance, and every story a culmination of the emotional trials and personal journeys we experience in life. I just never imagined, not even in my worst nightmares, that I would be experiencing this journey called life without my only child, my son, Oliver Shane.
Twenty-seven months ago (as I write this), my Sweet Boy, at the tender age of fifteen, passed away tragically and unexpectedly in his sleep from an undiagnosed birth defect in his heart that is so rare, less than 1% of the population has it.
I cannot help but think about the correlation between that rarity and my beloved son.
Oliver was a rare and extraordinarily intelligent, compassionate, and gentle soul. Born with an autoimmune disease, he not only overcame the obstacles life threw at him, he thrived. Oliver was a straight-A student with a 4.45 GPA. He was an incredibly talented cello and piano player, a black belt in Karate and Jiu Jitsu, and a compassionate friend to everyone he met. Oliver had so much perseverance and determination that I was, and still am, in awe of him.
There are no adequate words for the grief of this ruthless separation. I am, however, consoled by two humbling and incredible events that have taken place.
By the hand of God, and facilitated by Oliver’s orchestra director, along with the generous donations given in his name, the music Oliver was writing before he passed was turned into a full orchestral piece called Oliverian Fantasy, by the amazing composer, Brian Balmages. I hope everyone hears Oliver’s melody, and I hope orchestras and symphonies around the world play this incredible, haunting, and absolutely beautiful piece.
You can listen to Oliverian Fantasy here.
Another outcome from Oliver’s passing is that there is now the Oliver S. Bartel Memorial Scholarship Trust. Each year, this trust will award a Vero Beach High School Orchestra graduating senior a scholarship to help continue their musical pursuit in college. This is the only scholarship of its kind for orchestra students at Vero Beach High School. You can read about the scholarship here.
Lastly, as I write these final thoughts, while I cannot begin to describe the level of grief or put into words the all-encompassing pain of this kind of loss, I want to say this: I love you, Oliver Shane Bartel. There is not a waking moment that I do not miss everything about you. Thank you for being the greatest gift of my life. I am beyond proud of you. I will endeavor to live my moments here on earth with the same compassion, love, fortitude and perseverance you so humbly possessed. I hope this book does your memory justice.
I love you, my Sweet Boy, here, now, always, forever. I love you more than anything.
XOXO
Mom
Sybil Bartel is a USA Today Bestselling author of unapologetic alpha heroes. Whether you’re reading her deliciously dominant Alpha Elite mercenaries or her protector hero Alpha Bodyguards, her page-turning romantic suspense and heart-stopping military romance all have unwavering alpha heroes.
Sybil resides in South Florida, and she is forever Oliver’s mom.
To find out more about Sybil Bartel or her books, please visit her at:
Website: sybilbartel.com
Facebook page
Facebook group
TikTok
BookBub
Newsletter
The Oliver Bartel Memorial Scholarship Trust
Sybil Bartel, Echo
