“Don’t worry about the money, dear,” Miranda said, leaning across the table to grip Elena’s hand in hers for a moment. “All that’s important is that Rook and his people will keep you safe.”
Don’t worry about the money? Miranda Leary, as Chief Operating Officer for the IWCF, had never uttered such a phrase in her entire life. In fact, budget, budget, budget was practically the woman’s war cry. Elena blinked at the older woman. “Which project’s budget will this money come out of?”
Miranda paused in a rather guilty way and Elena was grateful for it. Because for just a minute, she felt like her old self. Full of fire and opinions and life. “Miranda, this is a gross misuse of our organization’s funds. If the donors were to find out about this… Or worse! The press? My god, that would be the end of the IWCF as we know it. I refuse to be party—”
“The IWCF is not paying for this, El,” Miranda said, in an almost bored tone, her lips pursing as she redid one of the buttons on the cuff of her shirt.
“Then… you? You’re personally financing this lunacy?”
“I’m not sure I’d call protecting your person lunacy, dear.”
“Miranda, you can’t be serious. You said to me that you’d feel more comfortable if I had a touch of personal security. But you’ve employed a-a…a brute squad, for God sakes! No offense to any of you but that one can barely even stand up straight in here!” She pointed to the one called Cedric who was, in fact, slouching to accommodate her low ceilings. “They’re staying with me? Where the hell am I supposed to put them up?”
“No, dear, you’re going with them. While they sort you out. Make sure you’re safe.”
At that, Elena covered her face with her hand. “Someone please explain this to me,” she muttered muffled words into her palm.
“Ms. Vasquez,” Rook spoke up. “We have private offices in Brooklyn, complete with living quarters. It’s a comfortable space that has state-of-the-art security. You’ll be completely safe there from any impending threats. And in the meantime, our team will be working around the clock to identify, isolate, and eliminate the source of those threats to you. It’s the fastest and most efficient way to keep you safe.”
Elena could see that the ring leader of this operation had expected his words to calm her down, to soothe her. But they had the opposite effect. Her hand fell away from her face. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m just supposed to tra-la-la off to some top secret bunker and read magazines for a month? All the while my project, David’s project, just up and dies on the line? Miranda, you know I can’t be gone from work for that long!”
“Ms. Vasquez,” Rook interrupted. “We’ll be setting you up with an office space and a secure server. We’re not trying to imprison you. Anything that can be done remotely, you’ll be allowed to do. If you want to work for 22 hours a day, none of us will stop you.”
That made Elena pause.
“I can’t believe this is happening.” The words were so quiet, Elena wondered if she’d even said them out loud. She hated being observed, prized her solitude over almost anything else. And even now, her own kitchen had become a fishbowl with four goons and a ringleader staring at every rise and fall of her chest. Elena stiffened and then relaxed when Miranda’s hand found hers.
“It may be overkill, dear, but I’m not taking any chances with you. You’re my beloved girl. My protégé. My life’s work. I’ll never forgive myself for the way we lost David. Please, don’t make me carry any more burdens.”
Elena’s jaw clenched and her eyes went glassy with tears. One spilled over onto her cheek and she didn’t bother brushing it away. She merely lifted her chin. Her hand squeezing Miranda’s fingers, she spoke. “Maybe this is a dumb question, but could I expect there to be any semblance of privacy or solitude ahead of me if I agree to this?”
“Yes,” Rook answered immediately. “Obviously, our place is heavily surveilled. But no one will be watching you sleep or change your clothes. We’ll do everything we can to preserve your modesty and to keep you sane. One of the advantages to having such tight security in our building is that you’ll be free to move around it as you please. You won’t have to have a member of our security team breathing down your neck at all times.”
Elena nodded, instantly absorbing the information. “And if I were to agree to this, what would happen right now?”
“We’d help you pack the things you’ll require, and we’ll help you shut down your home for the time you’ll be gone. Then you’ll come with us to the car we have waiting downstairs and we’ll take you back to our place.”
“Where I’ll stay for four weeks.”
“That’s right.”
“With no visitors.”
“That’s right. But you’ll have access to your email and to a phone if you’d like. As long as you don’t tell anyone where you are, we don’t expect you to ghost your family and friends.”
“Well, that’s something I suppose.” She sat in silence for a few long moments. The line of worry on Miranda’s forehead became more and more pronounced with each second that passed.
Finally Elena sat back in her chair and looked Rook in the eye. “I’ll go with you.”
“That’s good,” Rook replied immediately. He lifted up a sheaf of papers that Elena hadn’t noticed before. Stripping one paper off the stack, he handed it to her. “This is a list of things that our clients are typically glad they brought to our space when they come to stay with us.”
Elena squinted at the list and then raised an eyebrow. “Slippers?”
“Cold floors.”
“Oh joy.”
She rose and made her way into her bedroom. It looked like they wanted her to pack for about a week. Which meant they must have laundry there. Elena turned a slow circle around her bedroom. It was an absolute disaster zone. She hadn’t bothered to tidy a single thing since she’d been back. She didn’t think she even had a bag to pack her things in.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and didn’t bother wiping the tears that fell freely down her cheeks.
“I’ll help you pack,” a smooth, feminine voice said behind Elena. She turned and there was the woman, Geo, standing with her hands in her pockets in Elena’s doorway. She had one of those voices that could talk anyone into anything. Like honey and silk wrapped around a dagger.
“It’s okay. I just— I don’t have anything to pack in. I lost my duffel in the investigation. It was with me in the parking garage.”
Elena’s voice cracked but Geo didn’t acknowledge it. Just like she didn’t acknowledge that Elena’s room looked like a preteen had thrown a tantrum in there. She just turned back to the kitchen. “Atlas, go get one of the tactical duffels from the truck.”
In the meantime, Geo started sifting through Elena’s things, sorting out the items she was going to want to bring. By the time one of the blonde giants brought a large, black bag into the bedroom, Geo had pretty much organized everything Elena was going to bring. Elena came back from the bathroom with her toiletries in a Ziploc bag and tossed those into the duffel as well.
“You’re gonna wanna bring some sort of comfort thing,” the blonde guy, Atlas, said to her.
“A teddy bear?” Elena quipped, raising her eyebrow but softening her mouth in a smile.
He shrugged. “Whatever fills your balloon, Miss. I’m just saying, our place is long on security and short on… charm. You want comforts? You bring em.”
Elena considered that, looking around her room. But before she could select anything, Atlas had strode over to her wall and plucked a picture of her family right off of it.
“That’ll work,” he said, stuffing it into the duffel. “And you got any big sweatshirts? Maybe something you stole from an old boyfriend? I know girls love to snuggle up in those. I swear, can’t seem to keep a soft sweatshirt to save my life. It’s like the second I get one,” he whistled and threw his finger over his shoulder. “It’s out the door.”
Elena, a little stunned by this tornado of large, frie
ndly man, stood in silence for a second before the unthinkable happened. A small, rusty chuckle worked its way up and out of her. It stopped as quickly as it had started, but it was the first time in a month that she’d done anything but fold in on herself. “Yeah. I have one of those.”
She pulled open the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out a huge Columbia sweatshirt.
“But I didn’t steal it from a man,” she told him wryly. “I bought it myself.”
“More power to ya, sister,” he grinned at her, zipping the sweatshirt into the bag and tossing the whole thing over his shoulder. “Let’s ride, people.”
And then he was out the door, dragging her whole life along with him.
***
This was gonna be fine. Totally fine. Cedric was totally gonna be able to keep a lid on his feelings and do his job. So what if she was pretty much still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life? So what if even from across the back of their gigantic SUV, he could catch the light, familiar scent of her. Girl sweat and mint. That was fine. No biggie. He could roll with that.
It was a relief, really, that she hadn’t remembered him. They were gonna keep things professional anyways, so no need to go getting wrapped up in memories—
“Owens,” Elena said, snapping her fingers and staring directly at Cedric from the other side of the SUV.
Sequence drove, as usual, Rook sat in the shotgun seat, and Elena sat in the middle of the back seat, flanked on either side by Geo and Atlas. Cedric sat in the jump seat, facing her. He jolted in surprise at her use of the last name he’d dropped more than a decade ago.
Shit. She did remember him.
“Ah…” Cedric said, his brain unable to come up with a more cogent response.
“That’s what you used to go by, right?” Elena asked him, tilting her head to one side and her messy dark hair tumbling over her shoulder. Even in the bright afternoon light, her face was a gorgeous composition of shadows. Slashing cheekbones, the dip of her top lip, her dark, deep set eyes. If someone were drawing her with charcoals, they’d run out of charcoal.
Cedric gave in to the urge to shift in his seat, but he kept steady eye contact with her. He refused to mess with his hair though. It was an old tick that he’d left behind when he’d graduated high school. He’d be damned if he picked it back up now. “Um. Yeah. Used to be Cedric Swift-Owens. Hyphenated.”
“But most people just called you Owens,” she recalled, her eyes squinting like she was trying to see straight into the past.
“That’s right.”
“Now everyone calls him Swift,” Atlas cut in.
Cedric was half grateful, half annoyed for the interruption. He had the strange feeling of wanting Elena to keep looking at him, but knowing he needed her to look away. It was like basking in the warmth of the sun even though he knew it was giving him a sunburn.
“You two kids know each other?” Atlas asked.
“Yeah,” Cedric said, his eyes on hers. “We went to high school together. Sorry I didn’t jog your memory earlier. I figured you had enough to think about up there.”
“That’s okay,” Elena replied, lifting one shoulder and dropping it. She continued to study him for a moment. “You look really different.”
“How so?” Atlas asked, a look of glee in his eye. “Oh my god, please tell me he was a skinny little twerp in high school. Was he a nerd?” Atlas pressed his hands together in prayer and rolled his eyes up to the heavens. “Please Lord, tell me Ced Swift was a true-blue dork in high school. It’s only fair, you know.”
“Why would that be fair?” Cedric asked, trying not to smile at Atlas’s ridiculousness. They’d all learned early on that the only way to get Atlas to calm down was to not laugh. If even one person laughed at his antics, then they’d be treating themselves to endless shtick for all eternity.
“Because you’re all calm and cool and collected now. And you can run the 40 in 4.5 and you’re practically drowning in puss—”
“Reel it in, Atlas,” Rook growled from the front seat.
Cedric lost the fight with an epic blush, but he didn’t cover his face the way every molecule of his being begged him to. “Jesus,” he grumbled, low in his chest.
“I hate to dash your hopes,” Elena told Atlas. “But he was definitely not a dork. I was the dork. He was one of the cool kids.”
“You were not a dork,” Cedric piped up immediately. “You were just one of the smart kids.”
“Please tell me he was at least shrimpy,” Atlas implored her.
Elena chuckled again and Cedric found he didn’t even care that he was basically the butt of the joke. It was like a knot in his stomach loosened when she laughed.
“I mean, I can’t say for sure, because all gigantic people look the same to me. But no. He was always humongous. Barely fit into the desk chairs. What was your sport again?” She directed the last to Cedric.
And it was just like her to not even remember that he’d been Kennedy High School’s football star. That school had bled for football and she hadn’t even remembered which sport it was. For some reason it embarrassed him to have to tell her now. He’d been very aware that she hadn’t thought it was cool then, and now it was even less cool. High school football. Ugh. How embarrassing.
“Football.”
“That’s right,” she snapped her fingers again, like it was all coming back to her. “You got a scholarship somewhere, right? We had a school-wide celebration for you?”
This time he couldn’t resist the temptation to cover his eyes for a second. That had been utterly humiliating for him. Considering anyone who’d ever been in a class with him knew exactly how much of a dumbass he was. And then the whole school celebrates his acceptance into college. There’d been streamers, for god sakes.
Even the back of his neck was burning with embarrassment at this point. “Ah. Yeah. Full ride to Alabama on a football scholarship.”
“No shit?” Sequence said from the front seat. It was most likely the only two words he’d say out loud today.
“Yeah.”
“We’re here,” Geo said, pointing out the window.
Elena craned forward and Cedric watched her forehead pucker in confusion. He didn’t blame her. Besides the ten-foot-high fencing and two security gates their SUV had to go through to get into the compound, Rook Securities really just looked like a rundown old warehouse.
“It’s a lot nicer on the inside,” Atlas assured her.
“Right,” she said faintly, looking for all the world like she wished she’d never agreed to this.
CHAPTER THREE
“Meeting’s not for another ten minutes,” Rook said from his desk, without looking up from the paperwork he was filling out.
He didn’t like it when his employees were late. He also didn’t like it when they were early.
“I know,” Cedric said. “But I just wanted to check in with you before we meet with the group.”
Rook looked up, laid down his pencil and gestured at the chair across the desk from him. Cedric slid into the seat and resisted the urge to mess with his hair. “Ah,” Cedric cleared his throat. “We’re all good where she’s concerned, but it’s best if I’m on the offense team and night duty.”
He said the words with zero shame and a whole lot of resolve. He tried not to feel like a total douche for basically having to admit that he wasn’t gonna be able to keep a high school crush under control enough to actually play bodyguard to this woman.
Rook studied him for a moment, looking like he might ask a follow-up question. But then he nodded and looked down at his paperwork. “Fair enough. Now get the hell out of my office while I finish this up before the meeting.”
Cedric stood up, relieved that that was over and not at all perturbed by his boss’s gruff manner. Rook was an asshole sometimes. He was also organized, fair, efficient and occasionally kind. Cedric figured everybody had flaws. He didn’t begrudge Rook his.
Cedric jogged down to the meeting room and saw th
at Sequence and Geo were already there, shooting a quick game of pool. The meeting room was large, had a wall of windows overlooking the Hudson Bay, a pool table in one corner, a ping pong table in the other, and a boardroom table on the far end.
Cedric took his usual seat at the boardroom table and laced his fingers behind his head, his eyes watching the clouds scuttle across the night sky. He loved that the lights of the city turned night clouds an orangey gold. He knew that in most of the world, the night was black. Not in New York. In NYC, you never knew what color the sky was going to be at night. Depended on whatever mood the city was in, whatever clouds the Earth decided to throw their way. Some nights it was a gray blue, other nights it was brown. Tonight the sky was gray down near the buildings and flat black up high. The clouds rolled past thin and long, reflecting the glow of the city lights back down to earth.
Rook came in to the meeting room and took his place at the head of the boardroom table and Atlas strode in a second later.
“She all tucked in?” Geo asked Atlas as she shot Sequence the finger for sinking the eight ball. They hung up their pool cues and filed over to the table.
“Guess so,” Atlas said. “She unpacked her things, took a shower, and said goodnight.”
Every member of the team automatically checked the live security feeds from her quadrant of the house. She was housed up in one of the Crow’s nests. There was no way to access those rooms except for the single staircase that wound up through the turret. There weren’t active cameras in her actual room, but every window and entry point was surveilled and alarmed.
All signs pointed to her being secure and quiet in her room.
“All right then,” Rook said, reaching into the drawer on the edge of the table and pulling out an iPad apiece. He slid each one down the table toward the members of his team. They all automatically entered the project management app they used for clients like Elena. “Let’s go over our next 72 hours.”
***
Elena couldn’t sleep. The city dazzled her out the window, but that wasn’t what kept her awake.
Rook Security Complete Series Page 4
