Critical Density Read online

  Table of Contents

  Books by Desiree Holt

  Title Page

  Legal Page

  Book Description

  Dedication

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  Critical Density

  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

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  About the Author

  Totally Bound Publishing books by Desiree Holt

  Single Books

  Crude Oil

  Beg Me

  Down and Dirty

  Interlude

  Intermission

  Four Play

  Game On

  Swingtime

  Party of Three

  All Jacked Up

  Top or Bottom

  Rodeo Heat

  Night Heat

  Cupid’s Shaft

  Trouble in Cowboy Boots

  Strike Force

  Unconditional Surrender

  Lock and Load

  Advance to the Rear

  Take No Quarter

  The Sentinels

  The Edge of Morning

  Night Moves

  Dark Stranger

  Animal Instinct

  Mated

  Silent Hunters

  Corporate Heat

  Where Danger Hides

  Double Deception

  Masquerade

  Cat’s Eyes

  Pretty Kitty

  On the Prowl

  Erector Set

  Erected

  Hammered

  Nailed

  Galaxy

  Retrograde

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  Night of the Senses: Carnal Caresses

  Christmas Goes Camo: Melting the Ice

  Treble: Trouble at the Treble T

  Subspace: Head Games

  Bound to the Billionaire: Made for Him

  Three’s a Charm: Double Entry

  Collections

  Heatwave: Summer Spice

  Feral: Black Cat Fever

  Clandestine Classics: Northanger Abbey

  A Little Bit Cupid: Hot Pants and Valentines

  Galaxy

  CRITICAL DENSITY

  DESIREE HOLT

  Critical Density

  ISBN # 978-1-83943-488-4

  ©Copyright Desiree Holt 2021

  Cover Art by Claire Siemaszkiewicz ©Copyright March 2021

  Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2021 by Totally Bound Publishing, United Kingdom.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorised copies.

  Totally Bound Publishing is an imprint of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”.

  Book two in the Galaxy series

  Running for her life, saved by a hunky former SEAL, she never expected the sex to be as hot as the danger zone.

  Hannah Modell thought she had life by the tail—a great job as a drone engineer at top-notch Lowden Tactical with one successful project after another…until it all blew up in her face. Literally.

  Now she’s on the run. If she hadn’t met the sexy stranger, she has no idea what would have happened. But former SEAL Matt ‘Viper’ Roman turned out to be both an answer to a prayer and the sexiest man alive.

  As the men of the mysterious Galaxy agency race against time to prove her innocence and find the real culprit, things heat to the boiling point between Hannah and Viper.

  Dedication

  Although there are so many people who help me as each books gets life, this one is dedicated to my wonderful team, who is with me from start to finish: Maria Connor, the very best PA in the world and incredible friend; Margie Hager, beta reader par excellence and incredible friend—Margie, it’s been a wonderful journey since it stated more than right years ago; Kate Richards, another wizard who knows what friendship means; Rebecca Fairfax, whose editing skills make my books sing; and to all of my readers, without whom there would be no Desiree Holt.

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Beechcraft: Textron Aviation Inc.

  Cessna: Cessna

  CliffNotes: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

  Facetime: Apple, Inc.

  Glock: Glock Ges.m.b.H.

  Google: Google, Inc

  Gulfstream: General Dynamics Corporation

  Jim Beam: Beam Suntory, Inc.

  Lexus: Toyota Motor Corporation

  Lincoln: Ford Motor Company

  Lyft: Lyft, Inc.

  Powerball: Multi-State Lottery Association

  Reader’s Digest: Trusted Media Brands, Inc.

  Twitter: Twitter, Inc.

  Uber: Uber Technologies, Inc.

  The critical density is the precise density that marks the transition between eternal expansion and eventual contraction. The analogy to the critical density is the escape speed, which is the speed necessary for an object to escape the gravity of another body.

  If the expansion of your life has suddenly contracted and movement has halted or turned, you have reached your critical density.

  If the speed of your life is less than the escape speed it will settle to earth. In a Universe full of matter, both its overall geometry and its fate are controlled by the density of the matter within it.

  Chapter One

  How fucking long can they keep me here?

  Hannah Modell looked out of the window of her hotel suite to the esthetic view of…the parking lot. Beyond it, she could see other buildings in downtown Houston, accented by the sparkle of the evening lights just coming on. Traffic filled the streets as people came and went, punctuated by the impatient honking of horns. She’d be happy to be in that irritated crowd. She’d be happy to be anyplace except this hotel. Scratch that. Anyplace except for Houston.

  How in hell had this happened? One minute, she’d been doing her dream job.
The next, she’d been one step away from being arrested and tried for murder. Or whatever they decided to call it.

  Fourteen days since it happened, and she was still shocked by the whole thing. She and the rest of her GO-Team had been in a remote location, delivering explosives via drone to take out a key terrorist figure. They’d been told the man was hiding out in a house on Chesapeake Bay. The word was that he’d planned a strike on a major United States city and their assignment was to take him out first.

  Her GO-Team had been flown to an isolated location to launch the drone, which had been outfitted with special equipment because of the explosives and had a long-range capacity. This was a black ops assignment, so only the top brass at Lowden and Hannah and her team had the details. It was only the third time she’d been tasked with doing something this enormous and she’d spent hours checking and double checking everything to make sure nothing would go wrong. She knew she’d probably driven her team nuts, but she didn’t care. There was no room for error in a situation like this.

  She’d been stunned when the helicopter carrying Greg Kingsley, Lowden’s executive vice president, had shown up at their site. He never came out to remotes. Jumping out of the chopper, he’d told them they had to shut down the job. Right. Now. Right that minute. Finish packing everything up so they could get the hell out of there.

  For a moment, she’d just stood there, shocked.

  “But—why?”

  “There’s a situation, Hannah. Something went wrong big time with the drone delivery. A fuckup and we have a tragedy on our hands.”

  “A tragedy?” She’d stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language.

  “Worse than that. A disaster of epic proportions. No, bigger than epic.”

  Fingers of panic had curled in her stomach. “Greg. Please, please tell me what happened. You know how carefully I check everything before we even leave the campus.”

  “Okay, but right now we have to get everyone out of here while we sort this out. Especially you.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Hannah.” His voice had had a hard edge to it. “Lowden needs to see you ASAP, since this is your baby. He’ll go over everything with you. I’m just the delivery guy.”

  What the hell?

  On the flight back, she’d pestered him for details, but he’d had little to say beyond what he’d already told her. He’d just kept repeating that she should wait until they were back at Lowden. She’d been baffled at how this had happened. Misdirect a drone to dump its payload in a different place? Me? Hell, no. She was committed to her job, her country, her patriotism. That was why working for a paramilitary company that—among other things—did black jobs for the government had been so satisfying. Because she got to serve her country in a way a lot of people never could. She didn’t even have friends outside of the job, and those she could only categorize as acquaintances. How disgusting was that?

  The moment they’d landed at the complex, Kingsley had hustled her right to Eric Lowden’s office, where he’d told her she was off the job until the situation was resolved.

  “Situation?” She’d repeated the word. This was a hell of a lot more than that.

  “Your drone flew off course.” Lowden hadn’t minced any words with her. “I don’t know if the programming got screwed up or something else did. The fact remains that somehow, instead of taking out the terrorist, which was your assignment, that drone ended up at Senator Mark Hegman’s summer house and blew it all to shit. Including the senator. We’re just damn lucky his wife wasn’t there at the time.”

  “What?” Her stomach had cramped and a chill had slithered down her spine. “I don’t understand. How did this happen?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. Right now. There’s a shitstorm you wouldn’t believe.”

  “But I double and triple checked all my settings,” she’d assured him, “and we tested it several times before leaving the campus. I always do. You know that.”

  “Like I said, we’re being bombarded with questions,” he’d told her. “From all sides, including the fucking government that contracted this. We can’t let them near you until we have answers. I’m doing my best at the moment to avoid everyone, including the media, and juggle everything else. I managed to get the story out that the drone veered off course, which is how this terrible tragedy occurred.”

  “But we have to figure out what really happened,” she’d kept insisting. “I want to know what happened. I should be involved.”

  “We’ll do that, of course, Hannah,” he’d assured her, “but we have to keep you tucked away.”

  “Do you think it was my fault?” she’d demanded. “Mr. Lowden, you know my work. It’s always impeccable.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t matter to the outside world. And for the sake of Lowden Tactical, I have to get answers without you in the middle of a media frenzy.”

  At least they weren’t throwing her to the wolves. She supposed she should be grateful for that.

  “We’ll probably have eighteen kinds of federal agencies crawling up our butts,” he’d continued. “It’s important for you not to be available to them while we manage this.”

  “But—”

  Lowden had shaken his head. “We can’t chance it that somehow they’ll trap you. It’s for your own good as well as ours. Better it be the story that the drone malfunctioned than that you made a mistake or someone sabotaged the flight. That works the best.”

  The word sabotage had made her feel physically ill. Was it even possible?

  “But it didn’t,” she’d insisted again. “It was programmed perfectly. I want to know what happened, too.” She could hear her voice in her head now, edged with desperation.

  “I understand you, but listen to what I’m saying. I’m trying to keep everyone off your ass. That’s why you’re on leave for the moment. With you being the pilot and engineer, they’ll look to you first. And nothing you say will mean a thing to them. That drone killed the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for Christ’s sake. We have to keep you out of sight.”

  She remembered the feeling of nausea choking her as he’d continued talking to her in a low voice, but underneath his quiet tone was hard anger at what a disaster this was for Lowden Tactical. Of course. To him, that came first.

  “Eric’s on top of it,” Greg had assured her. “He just told you that. But to make this work, we need to keep you away from the media. Nothing good can come of you being interviewed.”

  She’d certainly agreed with that. And now, as she stood in her hotel room, his words kept replaying in her head.

  ‘Don’t worry, Hannah. We’re planning to keep you hidden away for your own good, until we get a public relations handle on this. And get some answers. We’ve got nice accommodations ready for you, Hannah. You’ll be very comfortable while we sort this out. We just need to keep you away from the media while we figure out how it went wrong. You understand. If you’re not guilty, you have nothing to worry about. Besides, you might not be safe at home.’

  Not safe? Who would she be in danger from? Did they know? Or was the evidence not that conclusive? It was, after all, as Lowden had pointed out, her drone, her controls that had supposedly misdirected the drone to dump its payload on the vacationing chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

  Now, as she paced the living room of the suite, she went over it again and again in her mind, trying to make sense of it. The stated target was supposed to have been an ISIS leader. That was what they had been told. The government had received word that he was hiding out on the estate of a known sympathizer, plotting an attack of some kind on the United States. Lowden had been tasked with delivering the payload because the government was afraid of leaks in its own system.

  Mistake! This has to be a mistake.

  Except…she’d never made a mistake. Ever. The drones were her life. Was it something with the equipment? Something she’d somehow missed? Except that was verified and calibrated regularly. And a
ll the questions. So many questions. And cooped up in this hotel, that was all she’d been able to think of.

  They knew her. They had to know someone else had done this, had committed what could actually be classified as espionage. Espionage. Just the word made her sick to her stomach, as she had been almost every day she’d been tucked away in this upscale jail.

  ‘You’ll be safe. We have people guarding you.’

  Guarding. Right. Private security sitting outside her door at all times. She snorted. Bodyguard, my ass. Despite what they said, they were more like jailers, and the comfortable suite, the cable television with streaming channel and anything she wanted from room service, didn’t make up for the fact that she knew she was a prisoner. The windows might have drapes on them instead of bars, but the result was the same.

  She wondered what Lowden had even told the rest of its employees, and what they thought. Had he brought up the espionage possibility with them? She considered them her friends, sort of, but would they buy into it or swear she couldn’t have done it? It occurred to her that she didn’t have any kind of social life beyond Lowden, but until now that hadn’t bothered her…but it meant there was no one to deny the charges or defend her.

  When they’d taken her to her apartment to pack up what she’d need for what they’d called ‘a possible extended stay’ elsewhere, she’d loaded everything she could. Of course, her unsmiling guards had checked everything including her undies before letting her fill her suitcases. What the hell did they think I was hiding in them? Secret plans? A payoff? If she’d taken one, for the love of god, she’d have it in a secret offshore bank account where no one could find it.

  Wait…that—that wasn’t what they thought, was it? That someone had been paid to drop the load on a non-target and she was the most likely candidate? Supposedly she wasn’t under suspicion. If she hadn’t done this—big if—then she was possibly in danger from whoever the guilty person was. Or persons. Oh, yeah? She guessed that was why they were hesitant to dump her in a jail cell. If everything pointing to her didn’t stick, Lowden could be in for a huge lawsuit. Maybe the company would be shut down.