EPILOGUE
Two Months Later
Cedric couldn’t ever remember being this scared. Not when his grandfather had been dying. Not when he’d been in the Marines. Not even when he’d sprinted into Elena’s hospital room to see a murderer looming over her with poison in his hand.
Okay, maybe that last one had been scarier than this.
But still. He was scared.
He finished folding up his gym clothes into the dirty laundry bag and threw his gym bag over his shoulder. He’d leave it in the car on the way over.
He strode from the little locker room in the basement of the Rook Securities bunker and ran smack into Atlas. Geo and Sequence were a few paces behind him.
“Well, well, well,” Atlas sang, rising up on the tips of his toes on the last word. “Don’t you clean up nice?”
Cedric tried to step around him but Atlas got in his way.
“Don’t tease him,” Geo said, sucking in her own teasing smile. “He’s on his way to meet Elena’s family. He’s probably freaked out enough.”
“Oh, is that today?” Atlas asked, placing an innocent hand over his chest and batting his eyelashes. As if he’d actually forgotten.
“You know exactly when it was,” Cedric growled, trying again to step around him. “Can I go now? I don’t want to be late.”
“Don’t want to be late for your girlfriend’s family’s party?” Atlas teased.
“Atlas, I think you’re probably the only thirty-year-old man on the planet who actually thinks that having a girlfriend is an insult,” Cedric informed him, attempting again to step around him.
“Hold on,” Sequence said, shoving his brother out of the way. “Bring this. They’ll like it.”
He shoved a huge Tupperware container in Cedric’s hands. “What’s this?”
“Vegan potato salad.”
Cedric blinked at Sequence. “You made me vegan potato salad to bring to Elena’s family’s party?”
Sequence shrugged. “It’s a fourth of July barbecue, isn’t it?”
“Right. Wow. That’s… really nice.” Sometimes it still snuck up on Cedric just how much the whole group loved Elena. A hall of famer was how Atlas described her.
She was no longer their client, and though that gave Cedric infinite relief, it kind of bummed the rest of them out. They were back to guarding the same pain-in-the-ass Hollywood star they always guarded every time he came to New York. And they were missing their time with Elena in a big way.
Cedric didn’t care though. He’d guard an asshole movie star for the rest of his days if it meant that Elena was well and truly out of harm’s way.
Which, according to the FBI, the NYPD, Interpol, and most importantly, Rook, Elena officially was out of harm’s way.
The international connections who’d wired Clint bail money were, luckily, easily traced. They were then linked immediately to David’s death, the attempts on Elena’s life, and years and years of poaching and the moving of illegal goods.
All members of the operation were currently serving double digit sentences. Clint, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. He hadn’t survived the poison that had cracked in his hand. Though it hadn’t been a particularly clean death. He’d lived for a week in the ICU before his heart eventually gave way.
Elena and Cedric were still processing all of it. Dr. Waters was helping a ton. The extended break from work that Cedric took also helped. And the fact that they were now living together helped most of all. They were tangled up together every chance they got. And nothing comforted either of them more than the proximity of the other.
“You want nice?” Atlas said, interrupting Cedric’s thoughts. “I got you nice.”
“Wow,” Cedric said again, looking down at the expensive bottle of scotch that Atlas had just shoved into Cedric’s hands.
“Ouch!” Atlas said, hopping on one foot after Geo obviously stepped on it. “Okay, okay, me and Geo got you something nice.”
“For Elena’s father and brothers,” Geo clarified. “Elena told us that they like nice scotch.”
“Thanks, you guys,” Cedric told them, impossibly touched. “It didn’t even occur to me to bring this crap.”
“That’s why we got it for you, dummy,” Geo grinned at him. Cedric grinned back. A few months ago, getting called a dummy might have poked at an old wound. But not anymore. Cedric had officially put those worries to rest. Not only did his learning disorder not bother Elena in the least, he’d done enough quick thinking on her case to assure himself that he had it where it counted. He didn’t need to be able to retain endless factoids or devour a biography a week to be the man that Elena needed. He just needed to be himself. Cedric Swift.
Or as Elena called him. Ced. He loved that.
“Rook wanted to see you before you went,” Geo told him, and he waved at his friends as best as he could with all that crap in his hands.
Cedric jogged up to Rook’s office so he wouldn’t be late to get to the barbecue.
When he entered Rook’s office, Rook was sitting behind the desk and scowling sadly at something on his computer screen. He clicked out of it when he greeted Cedric.
“Everything all right?” Cedric asked, trying to remember if he’d ever seen that particular look on Rook’s face before.
“Hmm? Oh. Yeah. Just checking into May’s new boyfriend.” Rook looked like he was about to choke and die on that last word. “Looks like a real standup asshole.”
Cedric’s eyebrows rose into his hairline. “I… didn’t know she was dating again.”
“It’s been damn near six years since the divorce,” Rook told him.
Right, but you’re not dating, Cedric thought. But wisely chose not to anything say aloud. “You wanted to see me?”
“Right. Yeah. Here.” Rook pointed at the far end of his desk where a bouquet of wildflowers lay on its side.
Cedric blinked at the flowers. “Um.”
“They’re for Elena’s mother. You can’t meet her mother without bringing flowers.”
“Jesus.” Cedric sunk into the chair across the desk from Rook and totally wilted. “I’m going to absolutely bomb this. I didn’t know about the flowers. I didn’t know about the scotch or the potato salad. I feel like an asshole in khakis and a button down in the middle of the summer. I got a haircut for this. Which means I look like I just got a haircut. So they’re all gonna know. And I barely speak eight words of Spanish. Even though I’ve been listening to those tapes 24/7 for weeks. I don’t know how to meet the family. It’s too much pressure! I didn’t even know how to act around my own family! And I don’t have a family anymore. Which they’re all going to think is sad. I mean. God. I only had my grandfather and he’s been gone for so long. How the hell do I do this?”
Rook, who had never once heard Cedric speak for that long, and certainly not that urgently, just raised his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair. “Wow.”
“I’m a mess.”
Rook leaned forward. “You’re not a mess, Swift. You’re a competent, kind, gainfully employed man who is so stupid in love with their daughter, you practically have it written on your forehead. They’ll love you for that alone. If you’re worried about the Spanish, speak in English. But throw in a gracias or de nada wherever you can, it’ll go a long way. And for fuck sakes, of course you have a family.”
Rook made meaningful eyes at the armful of gifts that Cedric was barely hanging on to.
Cedric’s face opened as he realized what Rook was saying. “You all view yourselves as my family?”
“We have to be family in this line of work. It’s the only way we don’t get dead, you know?”
“Yeah,” Cedric said quietly, realizing the truth of it and wondering how he’d never seen it before. “I guess so.”
He took a deep breath and rose, shuffling the flowers into his hands as well.
“Have a good weekend, boss.”
“You too, Swift.”
Rook smiled as he watched Cedric go.
***
“Jesus!”
“Sorry! Ooh. You smell good. Did you just show— Are those flowers? And scotch? And food for the bbq?” Elena looked at him in surprised wonder.
“The team insisted I couldn’t show up empty handed.”
“Oh, man,” Elena said as Cedric piled out of the vehicle. “You got the good stuff. My dad’s gonna propose marriage to you.”
Cedric went bright red at the tips of his ears and cleared his throat. He’d been thinking quite a bit about the words propose marriage lately, but he’d never included Elena’s father in his ruminations.
“Are you ready? They’re all dying to meet the man who saved my life a million times.”
Cedric set everything into his truck and turned back to her. The only thing he wanted in his arms was Elena. “It wasn’t a million times.”
“To them, it might as well have been.”
“Do you think we can get them to not talk about all the drama from the past few months?”
“Sure. We’ll just tell them about our upcoming trip.”
Cedric winced. He and Elena were going to Belize so that she could help implement some of the policy measures she’d helped write with hopes of saving the jaguars. Her family had been a little overprotective the last few months and were definitely going to freak when she told them she was traveling internationally again.
“Maybe we can talk about sports?” he asked hopefully.
Elena laughed and pulled his head down to hers. “I missed you this morning.”
Cedric let himself get lost in her kiss, in the flavor and heat of her. He’d had to work early and so he’d left her sleeping, foregoing their usual morning nookie.
“We’ll have to make up for it tonight,” Cedric promised her, twisting his tongue against hers and letting his hands wander down to her ass.
“Is that right?” she asked him against his lips. “How do you propose we do so?”
“Mmm. I’m thinking I want you from the back tonight.”
“We got an angry note from our neighbors last time we did that.”
“We’ll shove a pillow in your mouth this time.”
“Always the problem solver,” she teased him.
“I love you,” he whispered, never tiring of the way her expression softened every time she heard those words from him.
“I love you too. Even all the way back then I think I loved you.”
He laughed. “You did not. You thought I was a dumb jock.”
“I thought you were a lovable dumb jock.”
Cedric laughed again and the laughter dissolved away into the sweetest kiss. “Let’s not go back,” he told her, as if they somehow had a choice about returning to their past. His words barely made sense but somehow they both understood exactly what he was saying. “Let’s just keep going forward. You and me. Let’s go forward into forever.”
Elena’s dark eyes swallowed him whole. Her hair lifted up off her shoulders in a light breeze and Cedric felt dizzy, like he was lifting off the earth too. “I’ll go where you go, Ced. Simple as that.”
“Simple as that,” he agreed. Then he loaded up all the stuff his friends had given him and accepted Elena’s hand at his elbow.
The two of them walked forward together.
Into their future.
PART TWO
Chapter One
“We got a briefing in five, bro.”
Sequence Bone caught the towel that his twin brother, Atlas, chucked across the small gym. He scrubbed it over his face and frowned down at his smart watch. It had not notified him of the meeting. And what was the point of a smart watch if it wasn’t smart? Sequence then pointed that frown at his twin and apparently his message transmitted without words.
Atlas shrugged, answering Sequence’s wordless inquiry. “I dunno why it wasn’t in the calendar. Must be a last minute client acquisition or something. Rook told me not ten minutes ago that we’re meeting upstairs to go over her case.”
Sequence nodded and strode into the locker room to quickly shower off the sweat from his workout. His muscles hummed with warmth and activity. He felt loose and strong. Two of his favorite fucking feelings on earth. They were two feelings that meant he was in control. Control was extremely important to Sequence Bone. That was why he always made a point to be the strongest man in any room he entered. Unbeknownst to most people, he was also usually the most flexible.
It might surprise the people who saw his muscular build that he was a proud practitioner of yoga, but there you go. He wasn’t interested in appearing healthy. He was interested in being healthy. And no one could put on this much muscle without also regularly stretching this much muscle.
In addition to his muscles humming, his brain hummed along as well. He didn’t like when Rook acquired clients without giving him the heads up first. Not that Sequence had any say-so about who they brought on. But as the head of IT, recon, and all offensive strategy that Rook Securities undertook, Sequence generally liked to partake in at least a day of internet research on their prospective clients prior to the briefings.
He showered quickly and efficiently, noting that his short blonde hair was probably a week from needing a trim but his neat beard was in good shape. Out of the shower, he cracked a new bottle of lotion and sniffed at it. He frowned. It smelled a little girly for his tastes, apparently he’d gambled and lost at the pharmacy. But he slathered it on anyways. He wasn’t willing to let his tattoos fade. He was man enough to admit that they’d hurt like a bitch to get. And seeing as how they ranged across his shoulders and chest and all the way down to his fingertips, he wasn’t eager for touch ups. Yeah. Lotion was his wingman.
Even with all the fanfare, he still had two minutes to spare by the time he sat himself down at his usual corner of their briefing table.
Except for their boss, Rook, all the other members of Rook Securities were present and accounted for. Atlas, Sequence’s slightly sloppy carbon copy, slouched at the other end of the table, bouncing a ping pong ball on a paddle and apparently trying to beat his own record for most bounces. Savannah Georgia, or Geo for short, was the only female member of the team and she sat on the window sill, her back to the Manhattan skyline and her arms crossed against her chest. Then there was Cedric Swift who sat next to Sequence and grinned into thin air as he listened through earbuds to a voice memo his girlfriend had just sent him. Swift had a learning disorder that made texting difficult, so all of them had gotten used to communicating with him through voice memos.
And if that bastard’s smug/joyful grin was any indication, he wasn’t voice texting, he was voice sexting.
As usual, Sequence chose to keep his thoughts to himself on the matter. He allowed himself the tiniest lip twitch of a smile and turned away from Swift. He liked Elena, Swift’s girl. He liked her a lot, actually. Seeing the two of them together was the first firsthand glimpse that Sequence had ever had into true love. It looked good on them. Seemed like a goddamn fairy tale, of course, but it looked good.
Cedric Swift was built for love, though. He was a good man with not too many skeletons in his closet. He was fun to be around, kind, thoughtful. The kind of guy you brought home to Mom and Dad. Of course he’d find love. That was just the way things worked.
Sequence resisted the ancient urge to knock his fingers against the side of the table as the group waited for Rook. Though Sequence was now an almost preternaturally still and silent person, he hadn’t been born that way. He’d been as fidgety as his ping-pong-bouncing twin still was. But their upbringing had coaxed the two of them in different directions. Atlas had learned to draw attention to himself and away from others. Sequence had learned how to hide and wait for the right opportunity to strike.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t have to force his boot heel to the floor to keep it from jouncing. He hated waiting.
He was good at it.
&n
bsp; But he hated it.
Story of his life.
“Sorry to keep you all waiting,” Javier Rook said as he came briskly through the door, a stack of iPads in his hand. His dark hair was as ruthlessly tight as Sequence’s was and, true to the company uniform, he wore a white button down and black slacks. If it weren’t for the biceps swelling under his sleeves, Rook could have been sitting down for a board meeting.
Geo joined the group at the table as Rook passed around the iPads.
“As you all have probably guessed, we picked up a last minute client,” Rook said, leaning backward against his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “I know we don’t generally do that, but I deemed this to be a straightforward, necessary case of protection. And besides, our firm is free for a few weeks anyhow.”
“He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named decided to work on his tan in Tinseltown?” Geo asked, popping gum and leaning her chair back onto two legs.
Everyone at the table cracked a smile except for Rook who simply cleared his throat. Their most regular client was a pain-in-the-ass Hollywood A-lister who employed their services whenever he was in New York. Not that they didn’t appreciate the dough he sent their way, but they were all always relieved whenever Moreau Davy took advantage of bicoastal living and got the heck out of their hair.
“Davy is shooting a movie in New Zealand for the next three months and will not be needing our services.”
“Thank Christ,” Geo muttered under her breath.
Sequence didn’t exactly like Moreau Davy, but Geo seemed to positively hate him.
“So, who’re we partying with?” Atlas asked as he held up the iPad, waiting for the okay to check out the client’s profile. Atlas always took a personal interest in every single one of their clients. He said it gave him the edge when he was bodily protecting their person. Sequence, dealing more with the clients’ cyber lives and their account security, preferred to take a more distant approach to their clientele.
Rook nodded and turned on his tablet, the signal to the rest of them that they could do the same. “Allow me to introduce you all to Naomi Cutler. A 29-year-old renowned gemologist.”
Rook Security Complete Series Page 25
