Nash Security Solutions

by Lola Silverman

  She held the gun firmly. The butt was smooth against her palm. She knew how to use it. Her ex-husband had made certain of that—for home security reasons. The bullets were in the top drawer of her little antique table. She stared at the dull metal finish on the barrel. Lightly stroking the cool, smooth surface with her fingertips, she noticed that she left a little bit of oil from her skin behind.

  The ridges and whorls of her fingerprint appeared when she turned the gun over in the light streaming from the Monticello windows. She wondered if her husband had seen something similar on the gun before he put it to his head and fired.

  Francesca shivered. She laid the gun on the side table and walked toward the antique table where she had stored the bullets. She took out five. One for each chamber. She held them in the palm of her hand and wondered how something so innocuous looking could be lethal when sent with such force into a human body.

  Plucking a silver-colored bullet from the palm of her left hand with the fingers of her right, she stared at the tip. It was made of rose-colored metal. There was a tiny indentation in the very end. She lifted the concave-ended bullet and gently ran it down over the bridge of her nose to the very end. It smelled metallic with faint traces of oil.

  Walking back over to the gun, Francesca very carefully picked it up and pushed the little button to release the cylinder. It swung out from the gun in one smooth, unfettered action. She very gently placed a bullet in each chamber and then closed the cylinder. The gun was now very dangerous. It had gone from a harmless albeit fairly heavy chunk of metal to a weapon of lethal intent with those five tiny bullets.

  The gun was a revolver. Her husband had explained to her long ago that this model did not have a safety. It was lethal as soon as it was loaded. Now, Francesca held it in her hands and contemplated the same two questions that she did every single morning.

  Do I really want to die, and how badly do I want to take Stedman Hyde-Pierson with me?

  Her lip curled at the mere thought of her brother-in-law’s name. Stedman was her late husband’s older brother. Stedman was the reason that Francesca was a widow.

  A knock at the door startled her. Francesca turned around prepared to tell whomever it was to go away. Then the doorknob wiggled, and the door swung open. She found herself staring at Quentin Torrance, the bodyguard.

  His gaze flicked down to the gun in her hands. There was absolutely no outward reaction. He did not demand she put it down. He did not ask her what she was doing. He simply waited with those unfathomable dark eyes of his.

  Francesca became distracted for just a moment by Quentin and his eyes. The man didn’t speak very much. Perhaps that was why she didn’t mind his being around quite so much. Her late husband had been a constant talker. She had sometimes wondered if he hadn’t just chattered to hear the sound of his own voice. Quentin never spoke unless there was something important to say.

  He wore his usual uniform of black cargo pants and a black T-shirt. She had noticed that he rarely varied his outfits. His boots were worn but buffed to a dull shine. His hair appeared to be dark, but it was so short that it was impossible to get a good sense of the true color. With that dark, tanned skin of his, she could not help but fancy that he was descended from a long line of pirates or some other such flight of fancy. He would have looked good in the clothes of a swashbuckling buccaneer.

  She focused on his lips and wondered what it would be like to touch them. So focused on the sensations, she nearly missed the fact that they were moving as he spoke. She had to crank her attention back over to what was going on in the room or risk seeming as insane as everyone thought that she was.

  “Have you decided?” His words were simple, direct.

  Francesca stared down at the weapon in her hands. “No.”

  “Guns are very messy.” Quentin seemed to reconsider his words. “Rather, they are very messy at this close range. From a distance, it is the most impersonal way to commit murder.”

  Her gaze snapped back up to meet his. Curiosity bloomed. “Have you shot people before?”

  “A few,” he admitted. “I spent a lot of years on foreign soil with the marines. It comes with the territory. But I have never fired on anyone who was not trying to kill me first.”

  Somehow that made a lot of sense. “You’re not a murderer,” she observed. “I watch you sometimes.”

  “I know.”

  He did? She felt her cheeks heat up as she began to wonder if he realized just how much she watched him. It probably wasn’t decent. Not that she cared. “Does it bother you?”

  QUENTIN USED EVERY bit of his training to remain calm while Francesca turned the loaded gun over and over in her hands. At a minimum, she was risking the possibility of shooting him or something else in the room on accident. The other possibility was worse in his mind. That was the possibility of having the gun go off in her hands and shooting herself.

  The very first time that this had happened, Quentin had worried that he would somehow be held responsible for Francesca’s death. After a few days in her household, he had realized that the housekeeper and the maid avoided this sitting room like the plague because they knew exactly what was going on in here.

  “Messy,” Francesca murmured.

  He’d had this conversation with her a dozen times or more, yet she never seemed to remember it. In truth, he was afraid that she was more than a little crazy. Not that she didn’t have a right to be.

  “When my husband shot himself, it was very messy.” Francesca turned toward the bookshelves on the east wall of the sitting room. “It happened right there. I felt so bad because he had been quite proud of all the old antique books he had collected, but there was blood everywhere. All over the books, all over the floor, it was everywhere,” she whispered. “So much blood.”

  “The human body has a lot of blood,” Quentin agreed.

  The expression on her face was vacant. Sometimes she was quite lucid, and other times she was like this. Quentin had been in her household now for three weeks, and he had begun to wonder if she’d always been like this. Yet sometimes she was quite normal. She would go out with Ava—her sister-in-law. The two of them had lunch and went shopping like regular women with no hint of this bizarre behavior.

  “He died that day.” Francesca’s words were barely audible. “I didn’t mean for him to die.”

  “It wasn’t your fault that he committed suicide,” Quentin agreed.

  There was a flicker of something behind her eyes. “A wife should know.”

  This was different! Quentin did not quite know how to proceed. She looked as though she were coming out of a trance. He remained silent and watched as big, fat tears glistened on her cheeks.

  “I wasn’t a very good wife.” She set the gun down on the table beside her, put her face in her hands, and wept.

  Quentin hated it when women cried. Generally, he felt like they tried to manipulate men with their tears. His sisters had pulled that crap when they were kids. It hadn’t taken long for them to realize that Quentin would do just about anything to make them stop crying.

  Right now, he didn’t have that feeling at all. Feeling cautious, he took a few steps toward Francesca. Her sobs were almost silent. If it weren’t for the hands covering her face and the shaking of her shoulders, he would not have known what she was doing.

  “No wife could have kept her husband from pulling the trigger like that,” Quentin softly assured her. “You were not a bad wife. You were probably a very good wife.”

  “You don’t know!” She raised her face. Her cheeks were red, and she looked almost angry. “You don’t know anything!”

  “So, help me understand,” he coaxed. Holding out his hands, he fisted them when he realized that he had no right to touch her, even though at this moment he wanted to. She was wounded. That much was obvious.

  “Stedman killed him,” Francesca whispered. “Then he told me that it was my fault for not bringing more money to the marriage.”

  Quentin growled. If ther
e was one man he wished that he could throttle, it was Stedman Hyde-Pierson. The man was at the bottom of every single negative thing that seemed to happen within this family. “That bastard doesn’t know a damn thing.”

  “What if he was right?” Francesca raised her tearful gaze to Quentin’s. “What if my marriage portion had been just a little larger?”

  “Then Stedman would have taken that too,” Quentin reminded her. “If anyone was disappointed that you didn’t bring more money to your marriage, it was Stedman.”

  She reached out then. Lifting her arms in an almost childlike way, she begged him without words for an embrace. Even though Quentin was not a cuddly sort of man, he could not deny her. He opened his arms and then folded them around her slight body when she nestled against him.

  Francesca was so tiny and slight that Quentin sometimes wondered if he wouldn’t crush her when he was holding her hand to help her in and out of the car or out of her seat at a restaurant. Now, with her in his arms, he could say with confidence that she was far more resilient than he’d ever given her credit for before.

  “Quentin?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for coming in here.”

  “Today?”

  There was a long pause. “No. Every day.”

  “Sometimes I wonder how much you’re aware of or if you’re not really lucid while you’re in here,” Quentin admitted.

  Francesca sighed and rubbed her cheek against the cotton of his T-shirt. “Sometimes I wonder that too.”

  “I’m sorry about your husband.” Quentin could not quite resist the desire to smooth his hand over her long blond hair.

  “I’m not,” she murmured. “Not really. He was a mean bastard most of the time. I just think it’s unfair that Stedman pushed Lyle right to the edge and over. Ever since then, Stedman has been—pushing me.”

  “He didn’t realize that your husband had left his share of the family corporation to you. I know. It didn’t take long to figure that out.” Quentin sighed. “In hindsight, it was kind of mean of your husband to make you into such a target.”

  “He didn’t care about me,” Francesca said quietly. “He just wanted to screw over his brother.”

  And that was pretty much the gist of the entire Hyde-Pierson family, in Quentin’s opinion.

  Chapter Two

  Francesca hated social events. Friday morning brunch at Chotzky’s was probably the worst. As she stood in the doorway and looked around almost desperately for Ava, Francesca tried to remember why she bothered.

  “Oh, Francesca dear!” Mrs. Peabody grabbed Francesca’s hand. “How are you doing these days? I think of you all the time, shut up in that great big old brownstone by yourself.”

  Oh yes. This was why Francesca forced herself to get out of bed, get dressed, and go to stupid social events. “Why, Mrs. Peabody,” Francesca said as she patted the old woman’s hand. “I’ve been doing quite well, but thank you for your concern. I stay busy, you know. Ava and I have so much fun together. It quite keeps the doldrums away.”

  “Of course.” Old lady Peabody nodded her head in a way that suggested she didn’t believe a word of what Francesca was saying. Then she headed on to her next victim.

  Francesca forced her expression to remain neutral even though she could feel a mulish sort of attitude coming on. She was so sick and tired of everyone’s pity! Yes. Her husband had committed suicide two years ago, and she had found the body. It was two years ago! She wasn’t losing her mind. Well, not really. And not any more than she had been before Lyle’s death.

  “Frankie!”

  Francesca turned around to search for Ava. Ava was the only person in the world who called Francesca, Frankie. Finally, Francesca spotted her sister-in-law at a table in the center of the room. Ava always got preferential treatment at Chotzky’s since her family had once owned the place, and Chotzky had been her grandmother’s favorite dachshund.

  “Thank God,” Francesca moaned as she slumped into her seat. “Can I get about a dozen mimosas?”

  “That bad?” Ava shoved a champagne flute toward Francesca. It was filled with the orange juice and Cristal mixture that had made Chotzky’s famous in Boston.

  Francesca sucked down half the glass in one pull. “I’m pretty sure that old busy Peabody is sure I’m going to crack any moment now. She’s probably put money on it. Everyone knows the old woman gambles like an addict.”

  Ava snorted and flagged their waiter down for another round of drinks and some food. “Stop being so ill-tempered. You didn’t have to come.”

  “I did too!” Francesca growled. “If I don’t, they’ll all start saying I’m off my rocker. Then Stedman will step in and find some judge to declare me incompetent and appoint him my keeper. Can you imagine?”

  “He would institutionalize you in a heartbeat,” Ava agreed. “I know Stedman is pushing you. He’s pushing all of us.”

  Francesca grabbed a hunk of French bread from the basket in the middle of the table and shoved half of it into her mouth. “What’s the latest on all that crap anyway?”

  By the word “crap,” Francesca was referring to the bizarre situation that they had recently found themselves involved in—the one that had resulted in her acquiring a super-hot bodyguard named Quentin.

  “I’m still paying Nash Security Solutions pretty much just to piss off Stedman,” Ava admitted. “Nash thinks they’ve gotten a few good leads on Stedman’s mafia affiliations and that they might know where the bogus threat to our safety is coming from.”

  “Meaning—I hope—that they’ve figured out a way to prove that it’s Stedman trying to have us killed.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Have you heard anything from Ralston?” Francesca hated to mention her nephew. Ava’s son had schemed his way back into Stedman’s good graces for the sole purpose of feeding Ava and Nash information about Stedman’s operation from the inside. However, since the Ettinger’s big fundraiser two nights ago, Ralston seemed to have disappeared.

  “Nash established contact with Ralston through Analise,” Ava said quietly. “I love that woman. I’m so glad she’s with my son. I think she’s probably the only person who is capable of protecting Ralston from his own ambitious stupidity.”

  Francesca made a low noise of agreement but didn’t really know what to say. She didn’t know Analise all that well. Analise was Quentin’s coworker and friend, but she seemed kind of brash and even careless to Francesca even though it was obvious that the woman was head over heels crazy for Ralston.

  “What about you?” Ava nudged Francesca under the table. “You’ve got Quentin with you practically twenty-four seven, right? How is it?”

  “Weird,” Francesca said honestly. “I don’t really know that I need him.”

  “I think you do.” Ava smiled up at the waiter as he set several plates of hot food in front of them.

  Francesca had been hungry before, but now the crepes, tiny sausages, and home fries looked unappealing. Her gut rolled with nervousness. “You should stop this matchmaking kick.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ava dished a good portion of home fries onto her plate. “I don’t do matchmaking.”

  “Tegan and Wrath, Carson and Kayla, Ralston and Analise.” Francesca reminded her sister-in-law of the three couples that had been a result of this rendezvous with Nash Security Solutions. “Wrath, Carson, and Analise were Nash’s employees who somehow wound up with your daughter, your niece, and your son. It’s like you’re keeping Nash and his company on your payroll because you think you can find matches for your family members.”

  “It’s coincidental,” Ava said with an airy wave of her hand. “Good fortune, but still. It’s not like I decided which employees were going to be around my family members. Nash made the assignments, and they were random.”

  “Well, I think you’re doing it on purpose,” Francesca said darkly. “And you’d better not be thinking that I’m going to wind up with Quentin either. He may be the h
ottest guy I’ve ever seen, but I’m not interested in a man. I don’t need one.”

  “But you think he’s hot?” Ava’s gaze narrowed speculatively. “I’ve known you for nearly forty-five years, Francesca. I’ve never heard you say that about a man. Not even when we were young. You just weren’t interested in boys or men.”

  “I wasn’t interested, because I know what they do!” Francesca felt on the verge of panic. “They take away your freedom, take your money, and start to suffocate you behind closed doors.”

  Ava gently touched Francesca’s hand. “Frankie, calm down. Please? Nobody is going to take your freedom away again. I promise.”

  “You say that,” Francesca said weakly. “But sometimes we just don’t know until it’s too late and it’s happening. Right?”

  That was the thing with Ava. The two of them were the same age. They had attended prep school together, and they’d roomed together at college. Both had married Hyde-Piersons during their sophomore year in college. Ava had divorced Stedman after only five years of marriage. For Francesca, it had been very different. She had lasted more than two decades and would have still been married if her husband hadn’t killed himself. Sometimes she felt the horror of realizing that if he hadn’t died, she would have never had the courage to leave and seek out a better life.

  “You’re free,” Ava whispered. “You really are.”

  SITTING IN THE car outside the social hell known to Boston as Chotzky’s, Quentin felt every nerve in his body fire all at once when he spotted Stedman Hyde-Pierson striding toward the restaurant’s front door. The fact that Stedman was accompanied by Analise Vega and his son, Ralston, did not make Quentin feel better. Analise had been his coworker, but he could not quite believe that she had completely left them behind and given her loyalty unequivocally to Ralston. At the moment, it meant she was essentially working as their enemy. It made her an adversary, and Quentin didn’t like that at all.

  Quentin got out of the car and headed toward the restaurant’s front door. He had no illusions about what Stedman Hyde-Pierson wanted from Francesca. The man was a snake. He wanted his dead brother’s share of the company back. And if that meant driving Francesca crazy with fear, doubt, and worry, then Stedman would do just that to achieve his goals without even caring about what it might do to her.