Nash Security Solutions

by Lola Silverman

  “Later,” Wrath suggested. “We have to keep moving or we’ll miss our window.”

  “We need to let Nash know about this,” Carson said darkly. He pivoted in a slow circle to take a mental inventory of everything that he could see. “If we’re up against this, I think we need to spring for some new equipment.”

  “Shit,” Wrath drawled. “I think our budget now is less than it was when the Department of Defense was footing the bill.”

  Carson didn’t comment. Instead, he crossed the room to the opposite doorway. He tried the handle and it opened. Perhaps it was only locked from the outside. That only made Stedman Hyde-Pierson worse than careless, in Carson’s book, but the man was a banker, not a soldier.

  The two men could hear low voices coming from the wall just to their right. They had emerged in a hallway that converged with the one they had entered through last time. That meant the study was just around the corner.

  Carson kept low and quiet. The hallway was cool and silent. There were no visible threats, and he could hear nothing but the meeting going on. If Ralston’s elevated tone was any indicator, it wasn’t going that well to begin with.

  The two marines sped down the hallway. They moved low to the ground and quickly. Their boots made almost no noise on the thick carpeting. Once they came to the end of the hallway, they could see the sitting room where they had entered last time. Carson took the right fork, and the study doors were directly in front of him.

  What he wouldn’t have given for the cover of darkness or something to hide his presence in the hallway. The only saving factor was that everyone in the room was utterly focused on Ralston. The man was railing at his father, using numbers, statistics, and even citing laws that had been broken. Carson could not see Stedman, but he had little faith that the man would care.

  The next part of the plan was critical, especially since Wrath was less than a hundred percent. Hell. The guy was probably running at twenty percent. It did not bode well, but Carson had no other viable options at the moment.

  Pausing perhaps a foot or two from the partially opened doorway, Carson squatted down as low as he could go. Wrath was right behind him. Carson peered into the room and got the layout. Stedman was behind the desk. Ralston, Tegan, and Kayla were standing in front of Stedman as though they were supplicants pleading a case before a magistrate. Behind them, Bridge and Jinx were standing with their arms crossed and their legs spread. The two marines looked as though they were completely bored by this topic of conversation. This could most definitely work to Carson and Wrath’s advantage.

  Carson’s heart sped up. Adrenaline poured into his veins, and he felt the familiar security of his battle reflexes take over. He could do this. He’d trained to do this and more. He felt Wrath slip a cool plastic syringe into his right hand.

  Putting up three fingers, Carson counted down one by one. Three. Two. One. Then, in a series of motions that seemed almost choreographed, Carson and Wrath burst into the office. They split and buried the needles of their hypodermic syringes into both Bridge’s and Jinx’s necks at almost the exact same moment.

  The two big former marines reached up to touch the point of contact, but by then it was already too late. They both crumpled to the floor.

  “Pardon us,” Carson said to Stedman Hyde-Pierson. “Our boss has decided that Bridge and Jinx are no longer fit for service. We’ll have them out of your way momentarily.”

  Kayla was trying hard to hide a smile of triumph. Carson gave her a wink just before he grabbed Bridge’s arms and began heaving him backwards toward the hallway.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kayla felt a jolt of excitement mingled with pride at the neat and tidy way Carson and Wrath had gotten rid of Stedman’s intimidation squad. It was strange though. She had expected her uncle to look nervous or at least bothered. He didn’t. The oily facade remained in place. He simply stood up behind his desk and looked—well, he looked annoyed.

  “Well, that was uncalled for,” Stedman Hyde-Pierson muttered. He turned his attention to Kayla, Tegan, and Ralston. “This behavior is entirely unnecessary. I’ve been listening to the three of you rant and rave for nearly fifteen minutes. Could you please get to the point? I need to call Mr. Nash and have a discussion about terminating our agreement.”

  Kayla could not understand her own reaction to that statement. It was dread. She was sure of it. And yet there was no reason that this shouldn’t be wonderful news. She lifted her chin and glared at her uncle. “I’m sure Mr. Nash will be thrilled when he finds out that you’ve decided that you no longer need him and his men as your private army.”

  Something flickered behind Stedman’s eyes. Tegan was the first one to point and made a frustrated noise of irritation. “It’s true!” she crowed. “Oh my God, it’s true, Daddy. Your face says it all.”

  “It says no such thing,” Stedman snapped. His dark eyes flashed fire. “You’re being ridiculous. You’ve allowed your association with that moron Mr. Nash and his lackeys to infect your thoughts! What possible reason could I have for wanting Mr. Nash to provide me with a private army? It makes no sense!”

  Kayla cleared her throat. “Show him the book, Tegan.”

  Ralston was peering curiously at the book Tegan had been nervously clutching since they’d arrived at Stedman’s home. Kayla hadn’t mentioned anything to him about it, and she could not imagine that Tegan had either. That meant whatever the answers were, Ralston would be in for as much of a shock as the rest of them.

  “I found this on a shelf at the White Russian.” Tegan set the book on his desk. “Mom gave that to you. The inscription is still inside the front cover. But since you own the White Russian, perhaps that isn’t such a surprise.”

  Stedman sank down into his seat. He picked up the book, and the expression on his face turned to actual amusement. What. The. Hell? Kayla was getting antsy. This wasn’t going at all as planned. Of course, she didn’t know why that surprised her. Nothing so far had “gone according to plan.”

  “I remember this book,” Stedman mused. He turned it over in his hands and finally opened it to the inscription that Ava had written to him. “Your mother”—he pointed to Tegan—“lobbed this at me like a bomb the night she took you and Ralston and left.”

  “Yes,” Tegan said impatiently. “Mother told me. Could you please explain what it was doing in that bar?”

  “I own the building.” He shrugged as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a supposedly by-the-books financier and the CEO of a finance corporation to own a building that housed a mafia-run bar. “The office upstairs is mine. I cannot help it if Aloysha allowed you to go up there under the guise of having a good time.” He looked up and pegged Tegan and Kayla with a look of such disdain that Kayla struggled not to squirm. “He told me about the two of you. In fact, I know everything about what the three of you and Ava have been up to.”

  Kayla was done playing these little games. “Then you must know why we’re here.”

  “Actually, I cannot fathom it at all.” Stedman looked at each one of them individually.

  It was an obvious attempt to establish authority. Kayla remembered that tactic well from her younger years. When any of them had questioned his authority, broken the rules, or somehow stepped out of line, he had used that look to establish something akin to superiority. It had grated on her then. And it damn sure bugged the hell out of her now.

  “Let’s start with fraud,” Kayla said firmly. “I’ve already filed paperwork with my attorney to take over control of my trust. They’ve been working to try and rectify some of the business decisions you were making on my behalf.”

  Stedman raised his hands. “You were the one who left, Kayla. You threw a fit like a petulant child and left. Of course I continued to manage your assets.”

  “Your version of management was to try and take them over in secret!” Kayla fumed. “How can you sit there and pretend you were doing it for my benefit? You weren’t! You were doing it for your own.” />
  He shook his head and gave a little sigh. “It’s so sad to see a child that I raised be so fooled by those she was naive enough to trust. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for your own good.”

  “Including trying to have me killed, I’m sure,” Kayla shot back. “You know what? I’m done with this.” She gestured to her cousins. “This narcissistic bastard isn’t going to give us what we want or need. I don’t even think he’s capable of basic human insight into things like remorse. It’s enough for me that he no longer has control over me or my assets. The rest I’ll leave up to karma.”

  Kayla turned to walk out of the study. To her shock, her uncle leaped up from the desk. He pointed at Kayla and curled his lip. “Don’t you walk away from me, you little ingrate!”

  “Excuse me?” Kayla snorted. “Ingrate? Please tell me how that word even applies to me.”

  Stedman never got to answer. The study seemed to burst open on all sides. Ralston stepped in front of his sister, but there was nothing he could do against all of the gun barrels that were being pointed at him. Ralston, Tegan, and Kayla slowly raised their hands. The tension was so thick in the room that Kayla could hardly breathe. What in the hell was going on? And why did her uncle look so composed? Shouldn’t he have been just as shocked and frightened as they were?

  “Hello, Stedman.”

  The Russian accent was unmistakable, but the short man with the huge moustache wearing a designer suit was completely unfamiliar. Kayla watched in fascination as he strolled into the room from the hallway where only a short time ago Carson and Wrath had disappeared with Bridge and Jinx in tow.

  Stedman gave the man a nod. “Anton.”

  “You see now that you are not safe,” Anton told Stedman. “Not even in your own home.” Anton looked around at the well-appointed study. “The danger of a man like you is in his desire to be lord over everything in his path. Unfortunately for you, this I cannot allow.”

  Anton said something in clipped Russian, and Kayla found herself and her two cousins being herded out of the room like animals being sent to slaughter.

  *

  Carson was using Bridge’s overlarge body as something of a seat when he saw the horde of black cars pull into the driveway. Beside him, Wrath was texting a situation report to Nash.

  “Better amend that report,” Carson murmured. They had good cover behind a copse of bushes, but the number of men spilling out of those black vehicles put the odds sadly out of their favor. “We’ve hit an unexpected hiccup.”

  “What?” Wrath glanced up and caught sight of what Carson was watching unfold. “Fuck me. What’s going on?”

  “I have a feeling that the Russians got tired of watching.” Carson could not have even begun to speculate on a timeline or a sequence of events that would have led them to this point. “Tell Nash to get his butt over here and to scramble everyone he can find.”

  Carson’s gut tightened as he realized that he had no way of extracting Kayla from that house. Even if she would have been amenable to leaving her cousins behind, there was no way that he could get in or out without being seen. To say nothing of trying to pluck her right out from under the Russian’s noses. No. He was going to have to play this one to the end and try like hell to stack the deck in his favor.

  “They’re coming outside,” Wrath said tensely. He was leaning into the bushes to get a better view, and Carson had to shove him back to keep him from cracking a few twigs and giving away their presence.

  “You have to calm down,” Carson ordered. “You’re not going to do her any good if you give yourself away.”

  “Fuck off,” Wrath snarled. “That’s my woman. I’m not letting them…” His voice trailed off as he saw Tegan emerge from the house sandwiched between two burly Russians. “No. I’m not letting them take her, Carson. I can’t!”

  Carson lunged for Wrath and caught his friend just in time. He wrapped an arm around Wrath’s neck and squeezed. His friend struggled, but Carson was bigger and had the better position. “Think,” Carson said harshly. “If you go running out there, they’ll shoot you without even blinking. Do you want her to see that? Do you? Better to go and live to fight another day.”

  Wrath finally stropped struggling. The Russians were quickly getting into their vehicles. Carson wondered if they were going back to the Sokolov mansion. It seemed likely. Considering the information that Wrath and Carson had found while snooping around the place, it wasn’t being used for anything else anyway.

  Carson considered it a blessing that Wrath was such a mess. The guy acted as if he had no faith that Tegan could protect herself or manage her situation in any way. Wrath’s complete loss of composure gave Carson something else to focus on besides the fact that he’d just watched a bunch of Russian thugs escort Kayla away from him and into unknown territory.

  Wrath was pacing back and forth in the driveway by the time Nash showed up. Their boss got out of his car and slammed the door. “What happened?” He took one look at Wrath and addressed his question to Carson.

  “Anton showed up with upwards of ten men. They went inside and came back out with Kayla, Tegan, and Ralston. We have no idea what happened.”

  “Bridge and Jinx?” Nash was looking around as though he expected to see the other two former marines just littering the driveway. “Did you remove them from the equation?”

  “As requested,” Carson said with a nod.

  Nash puffed out his cheeks and then exhaled long and slow. “I guess we’re going to attack a Russian mafia compound. Nice. I think I’ll go have a little chat with Stedman first.” Nash gestured to Wrath. “Keep an eye on Bridge and Jinx. Got it?”

  Wrath waved his hand to indicate that he’d heard the order, but never stopped pacing and muttering.

  Carson sighed. “He completely lost his shit when they took Tegan.”

  “Yet you’re just fine. Am I wrong in thinking that Kayla has come to mean a lot to you?”

  “Not wrong,” Carson admitted. “But losing my shit isn’t going to help her. Kayla is resourceful. She’ll find a way to stay alive. In the meantime, I have to keep it together.”

  “Good.” Nash gave a hard nod. “I needed to know that I can count on you. So, let’s go talk to our resident scumbag and get the lay of the land.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kayla hadn’t been at all certain what to expect from her cousins when the three of them had been taken captive in Stedman’s house. Her good fortune held though, and neither Ralston or Tegan seemed in danger of losing their minds.

  Good fortune. Ha! She was being marched into what she could only assume was some weird outbuilding behind the Sokolov house in Cambridge. What kind of mafia man set up shop in Cambridge? Did the guy have Harvard aspirations or something?

  The place was cool and smelled slightly damp. There were gardening implements on the wall. Two sturdy-looking wood tables sat in the center of the building’s cement floor. The wood was stained in places. Kayla wondered if that was supposed to be blood. Perhaps this place was used to intimidate. Or maybe she was screwed and it really was blood.

  “So.” Anton appeared and put his hands together. He rubbed them like some classic villain and then gestured to his men. Moments later, a giant-sized thug was clipping off the zip ties holding Kayla’s wrists behind her back. “I would like to offer my apologies for the inhospitable treatment.”

  Ralston was the first one to recover. He grunted and then spoke very slowly. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your meaning.”

  Anton spread his arms wide. “Your father”—then he gestured to Kayla—“and your uncle would like you to believe that the Russian mafia wants you dead. This is not true. Well, not entirely.”

  Kayla shook her head. “I’m sorry. How is it possible for that statement to be not entirely true? Either we’re on some kind of hit list or we aren’t. It’s pretty simple.”

  “Not when the mafia is split down the middle,” Anton reasoned. He clapped his hands. “See, Stedman Hyde-Pierson
is infamous for double-dealing. I think you know this to be true, right?”

  “Understatement of the year,” Ralston muttered. “So, you’re telling me that you didn’t issue our death warrants? It was some other Russian mobster?”

  Tegan snorted. “Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”

  “All the same,” Anton said with a shrug. “Here is where you will stay. I apologize for the accommodations of course, but we must keep up appearances, you understand.”

  Kayla gaped at him. “Are you saying you’re holding us hostage here because you want to keep us alive?”

  “Exactly!” Anton’s broad smile made his enormous moustache twitch. He looked like he should be wearing a circus ringmaster’s outfit. Instead, he commanded half of the Russian mobsters in the city and was trying to hold her hostage against her will. “We have security personnel to look after us!”

  “About that.” Anton shook his head. “Since Nash and his associates are a threat to my men, we’ve decided that they have to go.”

  “But that is what Stedman wants!” Kayla protested. “Don’t you understand? It’s about starting a war!”

  Anton bit out a series of instructions in Russian. The men scrambled to obey. Kayla noticed a caged area in one corner of the room. Before she could even react, the three of them were pushed through a wide doorway and shut away as though they were in a jail cell made of animal wire.

  *

  Carson and Nash found Stedman Hyde-Pierson sitting calmly in his study. There did not seem to be anyone else inside the house. Carson had always found that to be peculiar. A house this size should have had staff or something. But other than the aging housekeeper who appeared to be nowhere in sight, Stedman was the only occupant.

  “Did you find Bridge and Jinx?” Stedman asked as soon as he spotted Nash. “They seem to have been the victims of assault by their useless coworkers.”

  “Useless coworkers,” Carson repeated. “You have got to be kidding me. You set this up, you bastard. Admit it!”