Tuff Enough

by Samantha A. Cole

  Chet sighed as she eyed the dog at her feet. “I’ve sworn off males of the human species, Meat. And even if I hadn’t, getting involved with a guy I live next door to is never a good idea, so it’s just you and me. Okay?”

  As if he’d understood her every word, the canine let loose a hearty “woof.”

  Chapter Three

  For the third time that week, Tuff awoke to an erotic dream featuring his next-door neighbor, his hand around his aching cock, and her name on his lips. Damn, she was making it hard to keep things platonic between them. Not that she’d indicated she was interested in him. Nope, she’d kept things friendly. And she’d kept her distance. Well, that probably had to do with Meat. Twice a day, Tuff had met the canine and handler in the backyard—Chet hadn’t wanted any distractions like one of the neighborhood kids riding by on a bike or a delivery truck pulling in.

  Meat had relaxed enough over the past six days, to sniff Tuff up close and personal. Chet had set little treats along his shoulders, back, and legs. At first, the dog was hesitant, but Tuff stayed perfectly still as each little morsel was eaten. Slowly, he was earning the dog’s trust.

  Since Tuff had to report back to work today, they wouldn’t have a chance to do the routine until later in the day. While he loved his downtime, six days was too long for him not to be doing anything exciting. But it had given him plenty of time to get stuff done around the house. Even though he rented—his cousin owned the duplex—Tuff did a lot of the maintenance and upkeep for both units. He’d told his cousin he’d only move in if his rent covered half the mortgage, taxes, and all the utilities for his side. Money was tight for Taylor and his family right now, and if the two rentals didn’t at least break even, he’d have to sell the property he’d inherited from his maternal grandmother. That was why Tuff fixed whatever he could around the place.

  Flinging the sheets off his nude body, Tuff stood and strode to the bathroom. He was due at the Blackhawk offices at 8:00 a.m., which gave him an hour to shower, stop for coffee and an egg-white sandwich, and get to the building that housed the security business in St. Petersburg. After talking to one of his teammates last night, he didn’t expect anything big to be on the agenda this week. But that was always subject to change in the blink of an eye. Like Trident Security, Blackhawk had several government contracts, and the operatives never knew when they’d get a call to go wheels up to another part the world, usually with less than an hour’s notice. Especially since they contracted out to other companies like Trident. Tuff liked working with those guys. They were a fun bunch, even though the original six had all been Navy SEALs. While their new Omega team was an eclectic mix of people coming from different military branches or law enforcement, the Alpha team still liked to sling shit about SEALs being the best of the best. Three-on-three basketball games at their compound tended to result in plenty of bruises and a few drops of blood being spilled, but it was all in the name of a healthy, friendly rivalry. The operatives of Trident knew those from Blackhawk had their backs when shit got real and vice versa. Tuff trusted the Sawyers and their teams as much as he trusted his own teammates and boss.

  Fifty minutes later, a little bummed he hadn’t seen Chet when he’d left the house, Tuff entered the five-story building that housed the headquarters for BHS. While the “h” was lowercase and in the middle of the word Blackhawk, having BS for the company’s initials wouldn’t exactly instill confidence in new clients, so the uppercase “H” had been added to the logo. After passing through security, while bypassing the metal detectors for those who weren’t authorized to carry, Tuff headed to the elevators and rode one to the fourth floor with several other operatives, all going to the same morning briefing. He followed the small crowd into a huge room that looked like a movie theater. The sloped floor and rows of comfortable, plush seats accommodated up to fifty operatives and allowed a good view of the front of the room. Each seat had a folding tabletop tucked under an armrest, like airline trays, that could be pulled out and used to lean on while taking notes. Taking a seat in the middle, Tuff set his coffee in a cup holder attached to the end of the armrest.

  At the front of the room was a 120-foot screen separated into sections to accommodate twenty different video feeds. At the moment only six of them were showing images from current ops in progress. Directly under the screen was a computer setup worthy of NASA—and that wasn’t even the main system. That monstrosity was located on the third floor. Sitting in front of the computer was a blonde-haired woman named Bianca Gordon—hacker extraordinaire. Nicknamed Gordo, she gave Brody “Egghead” Evans over at Trident a run for his money sometimes. It wasn’t unheard of for the two geeks to challenge each other in hacking competitions. Tuff wasn’t sure what they hacked into and had no desire to know. Plausible deniability was always a good thing to have in some situations and that was one of them.

  Blane “Boots” Nelson plopped down in the seat next to Tuff, yawning as he did so. Tuff glanced at the other operative he’d been partnered with numerous times. His eyes were red, and it was obvious he was having a hard time keeping them open. Tuff let out a snort. “Jesus, dude, you look like crap. When was the last time you slept?”

  Checking his military-style wristwatch, Blane responded, “Six weeks, five days, and fourteen hours ago—give or take an hour.”

  Tuff laughed. Almost seven weeks ago, his buddy’s wife had given birth to their second child, Jonah—otherwise known as Satan’s spawn because the kid was colicky and still wasn’t sleeping during the night.

  Before either could say anything more, a loud rapping of knuckles against wood came from the front of the room. Chase was standing behind the room’s podium. “All right. Let’s get to work. Jester, where are you and Minx on the Piedmont case?”

  “Up a fucking creek without a paddle.” Jerry “Jester” Beekman was sitting four rows ahead of Tuff, yet the man’s booming voice easily carried to those behind him. His partner, Lucy “Minx” Ward, sat next to him.

  “That’s not what I want to hear.”

  “That’s not what I want to report, either, but there it is.” A few chuckles filled the room at the sarcasm in his voice. The bear of a man rattled off all the things that had gone wrong so far on the case they’d been assigned. Two months ago, a local businessman had been shot and killed, and after the police had failed to come up with any leads, the man’s brother hired Blackhawk to look into the homicide.

  “So we suspect the killer has ties to Tampa P.D.?” Chase asked, while frowning. The man hated when the supposed good guys turned out to be the bad guys.

  “Starting to look that way—just not sure to what extent—could be a friend or relative of an OTJ . . .” That was law-enforcement speak for someone on-the-job. “. . . but whoever it is covered their tracks. We have a lead that came in late last night that we’re going to follow up on, but if it doesn’t pan out, I’m not sure where the hell to go from here.” He glanced at his partner for confirmation, and she nodded.

  “All right. Keep me posted. If you hit another brick wall, come back here, and Irv and I will do a debrief with both of you. Maybe something will pop up that was overlooked.”

  Lance Irving had been Chase’s righthand man for several years now, and often took part in the bull sessions that were needed for the more difficult or intricate cases. Some people might be insulted if their boss indicated they might’ve missed something, but unless it was stupidly obvious, Chase never called his operatives out on it. He always said that sometimes it just took a fresh set of eyes to look things over. No one was perfect—even him. That attitude had earned him the respect of every person who’d ever worked for him.

  As the meeting dragged on, one by one the individual operatives or teams gave updates on their current cases, if they were on one, and then Chase began to dole out new assignments. Tuff straightened in his seat when he heard his name called. “Tuff, Boots, Corndog, and Sherlock, the Dali Museum has a loaned exhibit flying in. We’ll be providing extra security during the transport
from the airport to the museum tonight. Sherlock, you’ve got the lead on that. I requested the same museum personnel as last time to be involved, since everything went like clockwork. The curator, Sherrie Kirk, is your contact again.”

  Tuff’s phone vibrated with an incoming text. He didn’t bother to look at it since he knew Gordo had just sent him and the three others all the details about the assignment. After the briefing ended, the foursome would meet and go over everything together. It was an easy gig, one they’d done numerous times for local museums or businesses, but that didn’t mean they could be lax about it. The one time that happened was the one time everything would go FUBAR. While art heists weren’t very common in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, they could be lucrative for thieves. In some circles, works by Salvador Dali were the holy grail. A heist would have to involve a lot of planning, so the security team needed to be able to thwart those plans with some of their own.

  Ten minutes later, the briefing ended, and everyone filed out of the room, ready to work on their assignments. Tuff and his teammates spent the next hour and a half in one of the conference rooms, plotting the route they’d take from the airport to the museum, among other details. They never took the same route twice, and each one was subject to change at the drop of a hat if something didn’t feel right. Once they’d nailed down each component of the assignment, Tuff headed to the second floor and zig-zagged through the maze of cubicles belonging to Blackhawk’s operatives, before arriving at his own and taking a seat. While his computer booted up, he sifted through the stack of mail that’d been left on his desk, tossing out anything that was junk. Next, he tackled his email, filtering out what he needed and deleting the rest. Finally, he got down to the reports he had to finish writing and a few things he wanted to research online.

  Arching his back to loosen the kinks that seemed to appear more often as of late, he was surprised to see it was just past 1:00 p.m. No wonder his stomach was growling. Standing, he pushed the chair under the desk and grabbed his keys and phone. On his way out to find some lunch, a thought occurred to him. Maybe he’d stop in the butcher shop next to the pizzeria across the street and pick up a few bones for Meat. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach—maybe it was true for male canines too.

  Chapter Four

  Just after 1:00 a.m., Tuff turned into his cul-de-sac, looking forward to climbing into bed. The transport gig had taken longer than usual because the plane had been late. A strong storm system over LaGuardia airport in New York had resulted in numerous flights being delayed. Tuff doubted anybody on the commercial flight had known that millions of dollars in art had been safely stowed in the cargo hold of their 757. Curator Sherrie Kirk and her assistant had overseen the crates being transferred from the plane to a large truck by vetted employees of the airport and a moving company the museum had on contract. When the caravan arrived at its destination, there were museum employees waiting to help unload and catalog each crate. All this had been done under the watchful eyes of the heavily armed Blackhawk team and museum security guards. The route from the airport to the museum had been one of three that’d been planned out and selected at random moments before they left the tarmac. After everything had been locked in the museum’s huge walk-in vault, and the building’s alarm system had been reset, Tuff and the rest of the team had been able to head home.

  As he pulled into his shared driveway, next to Chet’s vehicle, the headlights on his truck illuminated her side of the duplex. Tuff immediately went into combat mode when he saw a dark figure dart around the corner of the house. Throwing his truck into park, he opened the driver’s door and leaped out, taking off after the unidentified person. The chain-link fence around the side of the house rattled as if someone had swung open the gate or vaulted over it. Tuff didn’t remember pulling his weapon from its holster at his hip, but muscle memory could do that. All he knew was the gun was in his hand, locked and loaded, safety off, and the heavy weight reassuring.

  After checking and making sure he wasn’t running into an ambush, Tuff rounded the corner and pushed open the metal gate. From inside Chet’s unit, Meat had started going ballistic, barking his head off. Hopefully, the dog wouldn’t crash though a window to go after whoever Tuff was chasing—or even Tuff for that matter. When he reached the backyard, Tuff saw the suspect jump over the rear fence, onto the property of the people who lived one street over, and keep going. The trained operative quickly closed the distance between himself and the fence and vaulted over it. The roar of an engine and screeching tires reached his ears, as he took off at a sprint again. When he ran out into the street, all he saw were the taillights of a dark-colored SUV, possibly a Cadillac Escalade, as it made a left turn onto the main street. There was far too little moonlight or streetlight and the distance too great for Tuff to see the license plate.

  “Shit!” His nostrils flared, and his heart raced as he stared at the entrance to the cul-de-sac. A few moments passed before he turned and headed back to the duplex the same way he’d come, through the neighbor’s yard and over the fence, holstering his weapon once again.

  At some point, the lights had been turned on outside Chet’s back and front doors, so Tuff knew she was awake, which was expected after the racket Meat had made. Now, though, the dog was silent.

  After striding around from the back of the house to the front, Tuff stopped short when he saw the driver’s side of Chet’s car. The word “bitch” had been spray painted in huge letters across both the front and rear doors, and he wondered who the hell she’d pissed off. An ex-boyfriend or her ex-husband, perhaps? He’d learned she was divorced during one of their conversations while working on getting Meat comfortable around him. While she’d hadn’t elaborated, Tuff had gotten the impression her marriage hadn’t ended well.

  Needing to know she was safe, Tuff climbed the stairs and knocked on Chet’s door.

  “Who is it?” Her response had been immediate as Meat started up again. “Ruhig, Meat.”

  “It’s Tuff,” he told her, loud enough for her to hear over the barking. “Open the door, Chet.”

  It took a few moments and a repeated command before the dog quieted again. “Hang on.”

  Tuff heard a thump, like something heavy hitting wood just inside the door, then the lock being flipped. The door swung open. Chet stood before him, with a leash in her hand attached to Meat’s collar. She held it close to the side of the dog’s neck, preventing any attempts at lunging forward. Beside her in the foyer was an entry table with a Ruger 9mm, compact enough to fit easily in the woman’s smaller hands, sitting on it. He was happy to see she had a way to protect herself, although, he doubted Meat would let any harm come to his mistress.

  Surprisingly, the big dog’s tail thumped against the tiled floor when he spotted Tuff, which reminded the man he had some beef bones in his refrigerator for the animal. But they’d have to wait. His eyes roamed over Chet’s body, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out she wasn’t wearing a bra under the thin nightshirt, which stopped right above her knees. Below that, her legs and feet were bare. It was difficult to do, but Tuff forced his gaze to her face. “Are you okay, Chet?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. But what the hell is going on?”

  “You tell me. I pulled up to see someone dressed in in black, running from your car. I chased after him, or her, but they got away. I get back here and see your car’s been spray painted.” When her eyes grew wide in disbelief, he cocked his head toward the stairs. “Come take a look.”

  “Someone spray painted my car?” Without putting anything on her feet, she stepped toward him, and Tuff moved aside to let her and Meat exit the house. She kept the big dog on the opposite side of her, away from Tuff, and then hurried down the stairs.

  When she caught sight of the damage, she cried out in dismay. “My car! Who—who the hell . . . why would someone do this?” Her gaze flitted to Tuff, who stood nearby with his arms crossed. “You didn’t get a good look at them?”

  “Nope. Black h
oodie, black pants, black sneakers, about five feet ten, 160 pounds. I’ll check the security camera aimed at my door and the backyard—” He’d also add a few more cameras aimed at her door, windows, and the entire driveway by tomorrow evening. “—but I’m not optimistic about getting a better description than that. Any idea who you pissed off? An ex?”

  She stiffened for a moment, then shook her head. “No. There haven’t been any boyfriends for a while, and it’s not my ex-husband.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Unless you got the description wrong, he’s six three and over 200 pounds, so, yeah, I’m sure.”

  Tuff wasn’t convinced. “He could’ve hired someone to do this.”

  “Either way, it would violate the order of protection—he has to stay away from me, and, so far, he has.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why do you have an OP against him?”

  Chet took a deep breath and looked down at the dog sitting next to her. “It’s not important because it wasn’t him. Let me go call the police. Fuss, Meat.” This time the canine didn’t hesitate to follow the command to heel.

  Tuff ground his molars together but didn’t push Chet for more information than she was willing to give right now. Although they seemed to be getting along this past week, there was still a lot they didn’t know about each other. He didn’t want her to think he was being nosy. Besides, there were other ways he could find out about her ex-husband. For now, he’d wait for the police with her, so he could give his statement. Then, tomorrow, he’d start on a list of things he needed to do to ensure Chet’s safety. He’d be damned if anything happened to her on his watch.