Nash Security Solutions

by Lola Silverman

  “I didn’t, actually.” Stedman sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers together. He thought for several moments before speaking his mind. “Anton is trying to punish me for refusing to take his offers behind his boss’s back.”

  Nash shook his head. “Try again. I cannot think of a single thing that you could tell me that I would believe at this point. You have lied at every turn. You have placed my men and my employees in danger. You have put your own family members in danger for no purpose. It makes absolutely no sense. In fact, nothing about this situation makes any sense at all.”

  “The only answer is to kill Anton and his men,” Stedman said quickly. “You must go in there and kill them all before they have a chance to murder my children and my niece! That is Anton’s purpose! He wants to murder them to punish and embarrass me.”

  Carson cleared his throat. “I’m going to forget that you just used the word embarrass. As if someone’s death could embarrass you. Inconvenience? I’d believe that. You’ve been inconvenienced by the fact that your family members are still alive.”

  Stedman shrugged. “Kayla is a thorn in my side and has been since she was four years old.”

  It was painful to hear such a thing from the man who should have loved Kayla like a daughter, but Carson could appreciate the truth when he finally heard it. “Well, I love her. And once this is over, I fully intend to see that she never inconveniences you again.”

  Nash shook his head. “Consider our contract void. You’ve broken the terms more than a dozen times. You’ve paid my employees under the table to turn against me and follow your orders even though they are contrary to mine. You’re about the worst client I’ve ever had.”

  “You can’t terminate our contract.” Of everything that Carson and Nash had said, this seemed to be what bothered Stedman. He stood up and pointed at Nash. “I’m firing you! I’ll tell everyone I know that your lackluster job performance and complete incompetence cost me the lives of my family members. Family members that you had been hired to protect!”

  Carson snorted. “You forget, Mr. Hyde-Pierson, your family isn’t dead just yet.”

  *

  Tegan’s pacing was driving Kayla insane. “Would you stop?” Kayla moaned. “Just go beat your head against the wall. It’s just as pointless as the pacing, but less annoying.”

  Ralston snorted. He gestured to Kayla and then to a narrow window about ten feet off the ground. “If I put you on my shoulders, can you see out that window?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s better than standing around here doing nothing,” Kayla decided.

  Ralston stood beneath the window and braced his hands together to make a step. Kayla perched awkwardly on the makeshift step and nearly toppled over when her cousin threw her up toward his shoulders.

  “Sorry!” She squeaked a bit in surprise but finally got her fingers wrapped around the grate that had been welded into place over the window. “There’s no way out through here for sure, but I see a group of men sort of loitering. We’re in the middle of some kind of yard, I think.”

  “What else do you see?” Ralston sounded completely calm. Sometimes Kayla wondered if the man ever outwardly reacted to anything. “Any cars? Are we alone here? Is there a guard?”

  “This is the back side of the building,” Kayla pointed out. “I can see the main house. It’s swarming with people.”

  “Not good,” Ralston muttered.

  Just then, Tegan pulled out her phone. “I just got a text from Nash!”

  “You have a phone?” Ralston swung Kayla to the ground. “They took our phones.” He looked at Kayla. “I’m not imagining that, right? They took your phone. They took my phone.”

  “I have two,” Tegan said impatiently. “They took my personal one, but this is my work phone.”

  Kayla cursed. “What does Nash say?”

  “He said they’re coming in guns blazing.”

  “Shit!” Now Kayla was the one pacing. “We can’t let that happen! That’s just what Stedman wants them to do. Anton and his men will shoot, and there will be some kind of weird war!”

  Ralston had begun poking at their cage. He poked Kayla’s arm. “Do you see that spot high up there that looks loose?”

  “Yes.” Kayla worked with metal all the time in her art. She knew quite a bit about the way it bent and the best ways to fasten wire in order to make a secure frame or a template. “Can you lift me up there?”

  “Get on my shoulders again,” Ralston said with a sigh. “Since Tegan is apparently in charge of logistics and communication.”

  “I’m texting Wrath,” Tegan said defensively. “He’s going crazy with worry!”

  “Yeah, because nobody suffers from that problem,” Kayla muttered.

  She and Ralston were a little better prepared this time. He boosted her up, and Kayla locked her fingers into the wire. It pulled away from the frame as though it had been peeling away for some time. The wire burned her fingers, but Kayla’s callouses served her well. With Ralston still holding onto her feet, she applied her entire body weight to the task. With a wiggle to the right and a wiggle to the left, she managed to get the entire thing to peel away in one gigantic roll.

  “Voila!” Kayla said with satisfaction. “I think it’s time we blow this joint and prevent a war.”

  *

  The Sokolov compound was seething with activity. Nash parked the surveillance truck nearly half a block away. As he shut off the engine, Carson could almost feel his former commanding officer’s hesitation.

  “Orders, sir?” Carson had never found it more comfortable to lapse back into marine protocol.

  “Don’t die,” Nash muttered. He got out of the truck and put boots on the sidewalk. Without Bridge and Jinx, they didn’t even have a full unit. It was too late to try and call in reinforcements. Nash handed Quentin a rifle with a stellar scope. “Stay in the shadows. Pick off as many as you can before they can become a pain in our ass.”

  Analise was strapping into her Kevlar. “Nobody get shot. I don’t have time to patch up your asses.”

  “That goes triple for you, Wrath,” Nash growled.

  Wrath muttered something under his breath, but Carson paid him no mind. They were all in the same mode. The good-natured ribbing always made war more bearable. And like it or not, this was urban warfare plain and simple. They had to go in, extract their missing personnel, and get back out with no loss of life. Should have been simple, but it never was.

  “Carson,” Nash said suddenly. “According to Tegan, the hostages are in a building behind the house. Did either you or Wrath see such a thing when you were here before?”

  “I saw an outbuilding of some kind,” Carson recalled. “A gardening shed, maybe? It wasn’t a good enough look to be able to tell you the layout.”

  “Fine.” Nash pointed to Wrath. “You go with Carson to retrieve the hostages, but for fuck’s sake, do not lose your damn head. Tegan is your woman, but she’s not the sole purpose of your job. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” Wrath snapped a salute.

  Carson knew his friend was having a lot of trouble separating the personal from the professional. Carson was struggling too. He just kept telling himself that it was going to be all right. Kayla was a badass in her own right. If she had half a chance, she would probably escape all on her own.

  “Let’s go,” Carson told Wrath.

  The two of them slipped off toward the Sokolov property line and their previous point of egress in the trees. Quentin had already headed for higher ground. He was belly down on top of the surveillance truck behind a comm satellite, with his weapon at the ready. Nash and Analise would bring up the rear, or the front depending on how you wanted to view this fiasco.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kayla pushed open the door of the gardening shed just far enough to get a peek at the yard. There were men milling about, but they seemed too distracted to realize that their precious hostages were about to escape.

  “Stay low,” Kayla whispered
to her cousins. “I think we can slip out of here without too much trouble.”

  “You think,” Ralston groused. “Great.”

  Kayla resisted the urge to kick him. It wasn’t like he was much help. Although, she didn’t know what it was she wanted him to do. They were pretty much taking their only option here. And as she pushed open the door and cringed at the squeaky hinges, she just prayed that nobody shot at them. Anton wanted them alive. Right?

  The three of them crept along as though they were in a B-rated horror flick. It was broad daylight, and there wasn’t much cover, only a few shrubs here and there. Everything was very well kept and in, sadly, non-overgrown condition. That meant there was almost no place for them to squat down and hide. They were literally sneaking around behind the backs of their captors.

  Less than ten feet away, a knot of Russian mafia soldiers had their heads together. The tone of their voices suggested an argument of some kind, but Kayla couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying.

  Finally, she and her cousins made it to the edge of the yard proper. The three of them ducked into the trees. That was about the time Kayla heard the first shot.

  “Fuck!” Ralston snarled. “Where did it come from?”

  “Front of the house,” Kayla said tersely.

  The scene in the backyard exploded into action. There was a massive thud as a body fell from the second-story roof to land on the grass. Men knelt by their fallen comrade, checking his pulse and looking wildly about for the source of the danger.

  Then another shot felled one of the men standing around the body of the first. After that it all went to hell. Men scattered. They fired randomly into the air, and the chatter of voices shouting to each other in Russian drowned out everything else. Kayla saw Anton duck out of the house to see what was going on and knew what she had to do.

  “Kayla, no!” But Ralston was too late.

  Kayla sprinted across the yard. She stayed low and zigzagged over to the two fallen Russians. She grabbed one of their guns. The heavy thing felt foreign and very unwieldy in her hand. That didn’t matter. She pulled the top part back, and it clicked just like in the movies.

  Anton was shouting orders to his men. Kayla remained as close to the ground as she could. The bodies were near the covered porch that ran the length of the exterior of the house. She gauged the distance between herself and Anton. He had his back to her. There would never be a better moment.

  *

  It did not take a master tracker to find Ralston and Tegan’s hiding place in the thick trees surrounding the Sokolov property. It was pretty much the same place that Carson and Wrath had hid when they’d scouted the area before.

  “Hey,” Carson said with a hiss. Ralston finally turned around. The look of relief on his face was palpable. Carson waved him toward the perimeter. “Let’s go.” Then he realized that Kayla wasn’t with them. His gut twisted in horror. “Where is she?”

  Ralston did not need a name. He knew exactly whom Carson was referring to. “She’s out there in the middle of the fucking shooting!” Ralston snarled. “I don’t know what she’s doing!”

  Carson made a split-second decision. “You go with Wrath and Tegan. Get off the property. We need to take our players off the board.”

  “I get it.” Ralston grabbed his sister, but there was no need.

  Tegan was already barreling through the brush toward Wrath. She flung herself into Wrath’s arms and buried her face in his chest. Carson left them to it. Wrath would get the siblings away. Carson had to find Kayla before she did something brave and equally stupid.

  He burst into the backyard and found the place in utter chaos. It brought a smile to Carson’s face to see nearly twenty Russian mobsters running around and diving for cover. They could not possibly realize that they were being herded like cats by a very skilled marine sniper.

  Quentin’s sharpshooting had them in a tizzy. He had killed two. Carson could see the bodies on the ground, but for now, he was happy to place a shot here and there when he chose. He shattered an urn, threw up dirt and grass, and generally just kept everyone on their toes. Across the yard, Carson could see Nash and Analise making their way methodically along the exterior of the house. Soon they would have infiltrated the property and they would find Anton.

  “Nobody move or Anton gets it!”

  Carson sighed with mingled admiration and aggravation. Apparently, Nash was not going to get the chance to beat the shit out of Anton. Kayla had made it there first. She had a gun pressed to the back of Anton’s head and was using him as a personal shield. All of the activity in the yard came slowly to a halt as Anton raised his hands into the air.

  “Don’t do anything stupid!” Anton told Kayla.

  Carson did not even hesitate. He dropped his weapon to his side where it hung by its sling. He put his hands up and walked into the yard. “Kayla, let’s talk about this.”

  “Talk about what?” Kayla turned to face him. “Do you guys have any idea what’s really going on here? You’re all just playing right into Stedman’s hands! It’s ridiculous!”

  KAYLA WONDERED IF everyone in that yard could hear the pounding of her heart. She was pretty sure that they could. She was so scared that she felt as though she might actually be in danger of peeing her pants. She had never held a gun before. Now she was pressing one to the back of some Russian mobster’s head. It was surreal at best. She was an artist! She created things—beautiful things. She didn’t kill or destroy.

  “Kayla!” Carson’s voice was pitched to not only carry all the way to her position, but to soothe. She could hear it in his tone. “Sweetheart, put the gun down and let him go.”

  “Not until you all stop acting like morons!” she protested.

  Anton took a deep, shuddering breath. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “I want you to tell your men to drop their weapons. I want Carson and Nash and his men to drop their weapons. I want all of us to stand here and talk like civilized people.”

  Anton snorted. “You’re asking for the moon, foolish child.”

  “Am I?” Oh, how Kayla hated the male ego! “Because I feel like what’s really going on here is that you took me and my cousins to make sure that Stedman couldn’t murder us and do—whatever it is he’s intending to do—okay, fine. But Stedman hired these marines to protect us. They’re doing their job. And in doing that, it’s put them on a collision course with you.” Kayla thought about how many times and with how many people she had proposed this question. “So let me ask you, Anton, what does Stedman have to gain with your death? Because that’s what he’s trying to do here. He’s trying to have Nash and his men wipe you and yours off the earth. And don’t think it won’t happen! Look at how easily they killed two of your men. The rest of you would be a snack.”

  She took a deep breath. Her speech had been longwinded, but she hoped it had made a dent. She just had to figure out how to extract herself from this poorly planned situation. A minor thing, right?

  No! She was standing here with a gun to someone’s head just hoping that his men wouldn’t murder her if she dropped the weapon. She looked to Carson. He very carefully lifted his rifle and put it to his shoulder.

  “Anton.” Carson pitched his voice to carry across the yard. “I’ve got my gun on you. Kayla is going to drop hers and walk over here to me. My boss is standing about twenty feet in front of you. I think we need to have a talk, but if you make a move toward Kayla, I’m going to shoot you in the brain, and there will be no coming back from that.”

  Feeling nothing but relief, Kayla let the heavy handgun drop to the ground. She turned her back on Anton and headed directly toward Carson.

  CARSON’S FINGER TWITCHED on the trigger. It would have been so easy to end this whole thing with one well-placed shot. The distance was less than twenty yards. He could fire accurately at three times that. A bullet in Anton’s eye and then the organization would fall. Sokolov would be finished. If Anton was the power behind the absentee leader, then his
men would be in disarray. The whole thing would be over and done with.

  Kayla began walking toward him with very deliberate steps. He was struck by the expression on her face. It was one of calm determination. She truly believed that this was the best way to gain the desired outcome. At this point, Carson had no fucking clue what the desired outcome might be, but trusting her suddenly became very important.

  He relaxed his finger on the trigger. Across the yard, Nash emerged from his cover with Analise at his back. From his position atop the surveillance truck, Quentin would be monitoring the entire situation. Perhaps it was time for Carson to take a little bit on faith.

  Kayla reached out and her fingers laced smoothly with his. She nestled against his chest. Carson let his gun drop in order to hold her close. Maybe that was the true measure of a man. He must be able to lay down his weapons in order to exhibit love.

  In the middle of the yard, Nash was pointing at Anton. “Stedman wants you dead. Why? He claims if I kill you and decimate your men, this whole thing will be over. That man has never told me the truth since he hired my firm to protect his family. So, I’m asking you, Anton. Why does Stedman Hyde-Pierson want you personally out of the way?”

  Anton sighed. “In five years of working for Yuri Sokolov, I have never laid eyes on the man. He is that reclusive and withdrawn. When I found out that he had been doing business with a man like Stedman Hyde-Pierson, I was incensed. The Bratva does not bring legitimate businessmen into the ranks without first calling for the vote of the Vor v Zakone. It is unheard of.”

  “So you went to war against your leader?” Nash was shaking his head. “There has to be more.”

  “We don’t make war on women and children.” Anton curled his lip. “Stedman invented that bullshit about the contracts on his family members. Maybe he hired the hitmen himself. Who knows? But I do know that my Pekhan and I would never stoop to that level. So, if someone wants them dead,”—Anton waved at Kayla—“then it’s Stedman himself.”

  “And my men?” Nash pressed. “Will you remove the prices from their heads?”