The Reed Security Relationship Manual: A Reed Security Romance

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  Emma started to rouse, her eyes squinting as she looked around. “Did we get him?”

  “What?” Hunter asked, confused by the question.

  “The guy following us. Did we get him?”

  Raegan moaned, trying to roll her head, but Hunter stopped her. “Don’t move. An ambulance is on the way.”

  I looked in the backseat, thankful to see that all the other women were moving around, seemingly uninjured. Still, they needed to stay still until the paramedics got here. By now, all of Reed Security was here, trying to help out in any way they could.

  “Ladies, just sit still until the ambulance gets here. Cara, you doing okay?”

  She looked up at me and smiled. “I’m doing fine. Sinner taught me how to strap myself in at the last minute when the vehicle’s about to crash.”

  I frowned, shaking my head slightly. It just sounded so weird coming out of a pregnant woman’s mouth.

  Jackson pushed his way to the car, taking a knee beside Raegan. “Raegan, are you alright?”

  She stared ahead of her, looking at the other vehicle that was in flames.

  “Hey, are you okay?” She groaned and rolled to look at him. “Just hang on, okay? I swear, I’ll do that Rod Stewart impression you keep asking me about. Just don’t fucking die on me.”

  I yanked open the back door and started checking on the girls. “Why the hell weren’t any of you wearing your seat belts?” I asked.

  “Well—“ Claire started, but I interrupted her when I saw the ambulance pull up.

  “Just hang on, girls. The ambulance is here.”

  Raegan lifted a shaky hand and pointed out the front window. A weird grin split her lips that was slightly tinged with red. “We got him.”

  Emma laughed, slapping the wheel excitedly. “Told you we had him.”

  “Had who?” Burg asked, taking Emma’s hand in his. “Who was after you, babe?”

  Cap shoved his way beside me, “Raegan, can you describe who was following you?”

  “Dark hair, sunglasses,” she said, squinting. “He was right on our tail.”

  “What was he doing?” Cap pressed.

  “He was following us,” Emma repeated. “Way too close. He had to be…”

  She closed her eyes and Burg flipped out. “Goddamnit, do something!”

  I moved to him, pressing a hand against Burg’s chest. “Just calm down. The ambulance is here. It looks like she just hit her head.”

  “Would you be so calm if it was Brooke?” he shouted. “That’s my wife in there!”

  “I know, man. I get it, but you have to calm the fuck down.”

  Cap was staring at the other vehicle, his eyes scanning it as it burned. Then he took off running. “Cole!” he shouted, racing toward the truck. My eyes widened, and I took off after him. The girls were fine for now, but if Cole was in that truck, there was no way he was still alive. Cap raced to the driver’s side door, ready to rip it off its hinges, but the flames were burning too hot.

  “Cap, get back!” I shouted, racing to the other side of the truck. I couldn’t see anything inside, but if anyone was in there, they were already burned up. I ran around to the other side, watching Cap panic as he grabbed his hair, on the edge of fucking losing it.

  “No,” he shook his head. “No, this…it can’t be.”

  “Cap, are you sure it was him?”

  He swallowed hard. “That’s his license plate.”

  The utter devastation on his face was crippling. I didn’t know what to say or do. All I could do was watch him.

  “Cap! Over here!”

  I spun around, seeing Craig point into the ditch. He climbed down as Cap and I raced over there. He was kneeling beside something, but we couldn’t see with the tall blades of grass that filled the ditch. Then he was pulling a body up and relief shot through me. It was Cole. He wasn’t in the truck.

  Cap ran over to him, practically throwing himself into the man’s arms. It was a slight overreaction in my opinion, but what the hell did I know?

  “What the hell happened?” Cap asked, looking Cole over.

  Cole shook his head. “I was just following them like Knight asked.”

  “Like Knight asked?” Cap shouted. “Why the fuck would he have you follow them?”

  “Because he couldn’t. He had to stay with Kate.”

  “Why would he need you to follow them? They were just going to a conference.”

  Cole shook his head slightly. “You know Knight.”

  And that was really all that needed to be said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cap

  “What do you mean, Knight had you follow the girls? Why would he do that? We checked out the venue ahead of time. We had them follow a strict route that would have the least amount of traffic. Hell, we even checked out everyone that was attending first!”

  Cole shrugged. “You know Knight is paranoid.”

  “But why would you agree to do it?”

  “Because Cara was going. I was a little worried about her freaking out, so I went along. But apparently, I didn’t have anything to worry about because she fired a fucking grenade at me.”

  I did a double take, narrowing my eyes at him. “She did what?”

  He huffed out a laugh, “Yeah, I saw the window open and a grenade launcher in her hands, and I bailed out. I didn’t even think twice about it.”

  “You could have killed them,” Rocco pointed out.

  Cole laughed. “They were the ones holding the grenade launcher. I’m just saying, it was either I dive out of the truck or be blown up. And today didn’t feel like a good day to get blown up.”

  Sean had just pulled up, jumping out of his car and racing toward us. “What the hell happened?”

  “You know,” I laughed humorlessly. “Just another day at Reed Security.”

  “What did you get involved in this time?”

  I held up both hands. “Nothing, I swear! This was a total freak accident.”

  “Well, it wasn’t really an accident,” Cole grumbled.

  “Is that your truck on fire, Cole?” Sean asked.

  “It is.”

  “And why is it on fire?”

  “Oh, that would be the freak accident that Sebastian’s talking about.”

  I rolled my head to the sky, praying for patience. “Look, let’s just go find out why they fired a grenade at you.”

  “Whoa,” Sean stopped me, placing a hand to my chest. “What do you mean? Who fired a grenade?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I spat, turning to walk back to the girls’ vehicle. Stomping over there, I could feel the tension in my shoulders with every step. Just once, I would like to have a normal day, where nothing exploded and no one got hurt. Was that really too much to ask?

  The girls were all climbing out of the SUV, and Hunter was still checking them over as the ambulance pulled up. A bag fell out of the back, spilling the contents all over the pavement. Groaning, I rubbed at my face.

  “What the hell is that?” Sean asked, picking up a black device. Examining it way too closely, I hid my smile when Cara chimed in.

  “That’s my bullet. You know, my sex toy?”

  Sean dropped it quickly, wiping his hand on his shirt. “Why are there sex toys laying on the ground?”

  “Because we were coming back from a sex toy conference,” Cara said, her eyebrows raised in challenge.

  “You were where?” he asked, anger seething off him.

  “Alright,” I said, stepping in front of him. “Let’s all calm down. Sean, you already knew that the girls started this venture. Is it really surprising that they would go to a conference about them?”

  He glared at the offending objects on the ground, and a few that seemed to be stuck to the windshield. In fact, as I looked past him, it seemed the whole SUV was littered with sex toys. Clenching my fists, I took a deep breath. I had bigger issues to deal with than the fact that it looked like a porn shop threw up on the road.

  �
��How about we discuss what happened here.” I crossed my arms over my chest, using my most authoritative voice. “Why did you fire upon another vehicle?”

  “Because we were being followed,” Emma piped up.

  “Yeah, and we couldn’t lead them back to Reed Security,” Raegan said.

  “So, we took them out,” Claire said excitedly. “Man, you should have seen it. It was just like the last time, flying down the road, the wind in our hair as we outran the bad guys. Of course, there were no railroad tracks to get stuck on. Thank God, am I right? I mean, that train barreling down on us last time was scary as hell. But to have the gun in my hands again, and feel that firepower thrumming through my body, it was like my best fantasies with Derek come to life. I mean, without the sex.”

  She flushed bright red as we all stared her down. She shuffled slightly, clearing her throat uncomfortably. “I mean, we totally had things under control. At no time was anyone in danger.”

  “You mean, aside from when you crashed in the ditch,” I reminded her.

  “Well, sure. But you should have seen Cara with that grenade launcher. Whoever was in that SUV never saw it coming, and look, now he’s dead as a doornail,” Claire said proudly.

  “Actually, I did see it coming,” Cole spoke up. “Which is why I’m alive, and not dead as a doornail in the truck.”

  All the girls slowly turned and looked at the truck that firefighters were now trying to extinguish, and then back to Cole.

  Cara half pointed to the truck. “You were…”

  “Yeah,” Cole nodded.

  She laughed uncomfortably. “Oops?”

  “You know, she even sounds like Sinner when she says it,” Rocco said beside me. “Oops, I just blew up a truck,” he shrugged.

  “Yep,” Sinner grinned. “That’s my girl. Taking out the bad guys at almost nine months pregnant. You feeling okay, Lollipop?”

  “Just peachy,” Cara grinned. “I did that whole tuck and duck thing you taught me. It worked really well. I hardly felt any impact from the crash.”

  “See? Killer,” Sinner nodded to us, like we should all be so proud of our wives blowing people up.

  “Yeah, let’s forget the fact that she almost killed her brother’s best friend,” Cole muttered.

  “I don’t know,” Sean said, tilting his head to the side. “Would a best friend allow his friend’s sister to attend a sex conference without telling him?”

  “It wasn’t a sex conference,” Emma said quickly. “It’s not like we were discussing positions and girth. Not that that wouldn’t be fun. I would so attend something like that.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you’re going anywhere for a while,” Burg said, placing a possessive hand around her waist.

  “But why did you try and ‘take them out’ when you could have just called us?”

  “And be locked up for all eternity?” Ivy shrieked. “I’m just saying, normal women don’t have to arm themselves to go out of town. Normal women don’t have to stay in an underground bunker during security drills.” She took a step toward me and poked me in the chest. I stared down at her finger for a second before flicking my eyes back to her face. “Normal women don’t have alert buttons! We’re not eighty years old! This is all on you guys.”

  My mouth gaped at that. I wasn’t sure what to say, because it was true. I didn’t really have an argument or any way to counter what she just said.

  Rocco though, he was never one to keep his mouth shut. “We have alert buttons because of you! Women are always getting into trouble, and then it’s the rest of us that have to clean up your messes. Look at Brooke. She took a bat to her boyfriend’s car and then took me hostage!”

  “Still not something to brag about,” Burg muttered.

  “No, it doesn’t matter. Whether I was or wasn’t a willing captive isn’t the point. The point is that our women are a shit load of trouble, and since we can’t babysit them all the time, we have those pesky alert buttons.” He stepped forward and jabbed her in the chest. My eyes went wide, fearing she was about to snap his finger off. “You’re the reason we have the damn rulebook.”

  I swallowed hard, staring at the stare-off. I couldn’t drag my eyes away if I wanted. Was he really poking the bear? He was insane, but I also wanted to applaud him at the same time. He was standing up to her like he wasn’t afraid of getting his balls yanked off. She wasn’t even his woman.

  Ivy glared back at him. “Well, since we’re all so much trouble, maybe we’ll take our home-cooked meals, laundry services, waiting-on-your-every-need services, oh, and our sexual services, and we’ll sleep in the bunker!”

  She stomped past me, the other five girls following confidently behind her. Though Cara did look back at Sinner apologetically. I turned back to Rocco and slapped him upside the head. “Are you trying to ruin all our lives?”

  “What? I just said what we were all thinking.”

  “And there was a reason we don’t say that shit! Christ, have you been listening at all to what we’ve been saying. This is why we need the relationship manual,” I said slowly and clearly. Walking away, I muttered to myself. “I’m gonna end up with another pressure trigger under my bed.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cazzo

  After another shitty day at work, I was exhausted and just wanted to sink into my chair with a beer and watch a war documentary. It seemed like we never really got a break at work anymore. Hell, even when there were no jobs, something always went wrong. Take today, for instance. It was a normal day, if you consider sitting around making a relationship manual normal, until the alarms sounded at work.

  When we heard that sound, my heart almost stopped. It had been months of nearly no excitement at all, and then suddenly, our worlds were falling out from under us. Granted, when I showed up at the scene of the accident and saw dildos all over the road, I was a little shocked. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but that sure as hell wasn’t it.

  But when Cap realized that Cole was in the truck that was on fire, I knew our lives were about to change. The biggest problem we had was that our women all thought they were invincible. Hell, even when Blake first came to town when she was running from Parker, their first thoughts weren’t to call us and have us deal with her. No, they hid her at Lindsey’s bed and breakfast. Something about girl power, and my woman was right there along with everyone else, joining in the fight to conceal her identity.

  Luckily, Vanessa was on the lower end of the crazy scale. She didn’t get nearly as involved with the women’s antics as some of the others. Like Claire, shit, that woman was insane. And then there was Isa. I loved my sister, but what she saw in Gabe, I would never know. Since she wasn’t too big on weapons either, she and Vanessa got along extremely well. My niece, however, was another story. I had tried to convince Knight to hold her back, but the girl was relentless, and Knight was all about making sure everyone was properly trained. I had no clue how Enzo would end up. As for my own children, Sofia was still young enough that she still liked to play with dolls. Thank God for that. I wasn’t going to push training on her the way the others did. As for Leo and Max, well, I still had another year or two before they really got into training.

  I pulled in the driveway and rested my head back against my seat. Hell, I was tired. I was going to have to take a step back soon. These long hours and killer jobs were getting to be too much. I knew Vanessa would be happy about that, but part of me was sad. I didn’t like that I couldn’t move as fast as I used to, even if I was just a second or two slower. My body was telling me it was getting on time to hang up my hat.

  Shoving the door open, I got out, my body creaking as it moved. God, I felt ancient. Cap had said something about Axel possibly retiring soon, but I wasn’t so sure. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL. Those guys didn’t get out until they were dead. However, he had a great team behind him, and if even half of them decided to come work for us, that would help a lot. The question was, how long would it be before they decided to leave that life behin
d?

  “Hey,” I called out to Vanessa as I walked through the door.

  “Hey,” she sighed tiredly. “How was work?”

  “You know, another day of the relationship manual until some of the ladies decided to blow up a truck.”

  She pulled back in surprise. “They what?”

  “Yeah, almost killed Cole.”

  “Oh my gosh. How?”

  “He was following them for Knight. They thought someone was following them on purpose to get to Reed Security, so they launched a grenade right through his damn window.”

  She frowned. “Well, did anyone bother to tell them that he would be following them?”

  “Why would we do that? That would defeat the purpose of stealthily keeping an eye on them.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, so they don’t try and kill someone with a grenade?” she snapped.

  Sighing, I ran a hand down my face. This was not an argument I wanted to have. “Look, let’s just forget about it. What’s for dinner?”

  “I warmed up chicken and potatoes from last night,” she said, turning toward the kitchen.

  “Leftovers?”

  She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to me, tilting her head to the side. “Is that a problem?”

  “Well, it’s just that, you’re a cook and I thought maybe there would be something homemade waiting for me. I’ve had a long day.”

  “So have I,” she grumbled.

  “Yeah, but baby, you cook food. I mean, if you mess up something you cook, you just make more. If I mess up, someone gets blown up.”

  “You just said you were writing a relationship manual today. Are you saying that if you mess that up, someone will get killed?”

  I snorted. “Have you met Maggie? Besides, I told you, the women blew up a truck. It’s not like your day of baking and shit.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded knowingly. “I see.” I had a feeling she didn’t. “So, because you choose to be a cowboy and blow shit up all day, and I’m just a lowly cook, I should always have a homemade meal for you, so that you can replenish your fuel for the next day.”