Stand & Deliver

by Rhenna Morgan

  Beckett chin-lifted toward the folder. “What’s the news?”

  Knox dragged a small stack of papers from inside, a mix of photos and articles printed out on plain copy paper. He slid the biggest photo across the table to Beckett. “Meet Bowen Sanders, aka Ivan Moody. Born 1981, age 36. No father listed on his birth certificate. One sister, both of whom lived with their single mother. Disappeared in late 2008 in Chicago.”

  Appearancewise, there wasn’t much difference in the man they worked with today. Way shorter hair, no dreds and much younger, but still a built man with rock-solid determination in his eyes. Most of the shots were candid with Ivan mostly in the background. “You get these off social media?”

  “Yeah, and this is about all that’s out there. Which makes sense because Bowen Sanders didn’t have much time for a social life. Dropped out of high school one semester into his sophomore year. That ties to about six months after his mom suffered a back injury and lost both of her jobs.”

  “He went to work to pay the bills,” Danny said, stating the obvious.

  Knox nodded. “Looks like it, and never went back. Though I did find that Ivan Moody has a GED.”

  Jace propped an elbow on the arm of his chair and twirled his toothpick. “No incentive there for a man to disappear.”

  “No, but his sister has records at a Chicago hospital that show her in intensive care about a month before he went MIA.”

  “Think I got an idea where this is headed.” Zeke scratched the back of his head. “Let me guess—domestic abuse.”

  “She never claimed as much, but the doctor made comments about suspected abuse.”

  “She married?” Danny asked.

  “No, but she had a man,” Trevor answered before Knox could. He shifted enough to meet Danny’s gaze. “That man disappeared a week before Bowen followed suit.”

  Silence lasted all of a few heartbeats.

  “Where’s the sister now?” Beckett said.

  Trevor hung his head, the weight of the things he’d learned seeming to press down on his shoulders. “Dead. Drug overdose roughly six years ago.”

  “Hold up.” Danny leaned into the table and eyeballed Knox. “His little girl, Mary, is six.”

  “She’s not his kid,” Jace said, filling in the blanks everyone else was closing in on.

  “Nope.” Knox kicked back in his chair, the pose of a man wrapping up the end of a wicked story. “From what I can tell, the woman he claims is Mary’s mom is a connection he made after Ivan disappeared. He set it up so she’s the momma on paper, but that’s it.”

  “Smart move.” Axel ran his thumb through his beard along his jaw. “Get someone pliable. Someone who needs money and won’t talk. He ends up with Mary legally in the system with him as the dad and undeniable rights.”

  The room got quiet, every man looking from one to the other.

  Jace homed in on Trevor. “You brought him to us. This change anything for you?”

  Trevor stared at the table, thoughtful. “If someone fucked with Natalie or Levi, no question in my mind how I’d react.” He lifted his head and met Jace’s stare. “He took care of his own. Maybe not the way the law says he should, but to my mind, he’s more solid now than before.”

  “Not gonna argue with that logic,” Zeke added.

  Jace looked to Beckett.

  Like he was gonna naysay a man who’d looked after family. Ten days ago, if someone had so much as bruised Gia, he’d have been hard-pressed not to arrange the need for a body cast. Now he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to stop until he was painted in someone’s blood. “He’s got my vote.”

  “Mine, too.” Knox craned his head to Trevor. “Though for the record, I think the tip was less of a test and more his way of saying he wanted in.”

  “Maybe.” Axel stared at Jace from his end of the table for a few beats, then dipped his head. “I’m in.”

  “Right. Looks like we’re moving from seven to eight.” Jace straightened, snatched his Scotch and raised it to the men around him. “We’re gonna need a bigger table.”

  Just that fast, the weight of the room lightened, plans as to when and how Trevor planned to broach the topic with Ivan flying back and forth with the same levity as the beer conversation had gone. Not that Beckett was tracking a word of it. His brain was still stuck on Gia and the primal protective urge the day’s topic had surfaced. She’d all but convinced him the primary suspect was the stalker she’d helped put away, but what if it wasn’t?

  “We gotta talk about something else.” The statement wasn’t pitched to carry, but the fact that he’d cut through his brothers’ banter to make it silenced the room as effectively as a gavel.

  Knox smiled big enough to show teeth.

  Danny and Zeke raised their eyebrows almost in perfect sync, where Axel and Trevor just chuckled.

  Jace leaned a forearm on the table and swirled his Scotch. “Do we, now?”

  Fuckers. Though, he guessed he’d earned getting his chops busted over the last few years. Especially with Jace. He hadn’t exactly been warm and fuzzy when he’d brought Viv into the fold. Not at first anyway. “I’m claiming Gia.”

  Trevor, Danny and Axel all spoke at once, irony the common element between them.

  “Now there’s a shocker.”

  “No...”

  “Ya don’t bloody say.”

  For the first time since he’d walked in, Zeke looked like he wasn’t five seconds from hitting the sack. “Not nearly as hard as you think it’ll be, is it?”

  Knox tipped the mouth of his ale Beckett’s direction and cocked an eyebrow. “Told ya.”

  Jace cocked his head and studied Beckett. “Knox shared about the YouTube thing over the weekend. How’s she doin’?”

  “Still beatin’ her own ass for not catching her trigger was off before she started and plotting ways to cut the nuts off whoever posted the clip, but other than that, she’s dealin’.”

  “Maury call you back?” Axel asked.

  Beckett nodded. “Someone definitely altered it, but whoever did it knew what they were doing.”

  “I don’t get it,” Zeke said. “Why would anyone set her up like that?”

  Danny scoffed and crossed his arms on the table. “Not all that hard to piss someone off in the security business. Figured that out in the first few gigs I worked for Beckett.”

  That was absolutely true. Nothing pissed people off more than the person who stood between them and causing pain or trouble for their intended target. “Yeah, well, whoever it is, I need to find ’em and shut ’em down. G’s got a chance at a big detail in Atlanta in about a month. Political fund-raiser and a lobbyist she’d do good to get on her resume. If she lands it, having an unknown like this hanging over her head could backfire in a way she wouldn’t easily bounce back from.”

  “She got any suspects?” Jace asked.

  “Four. Possible fallout from the two deals she helped us with on Natalie and Darya, a pissed-off corporate termination she had to intercede with in Atlanta and a stalker she helped put away on one of her first jobs here. The stalker got released on a technicality about three months ago.”

  “Darya’s thing we can trace down easy enough,” Knox said. “I’ll put in a call to Sergei and ask him to dig.”

  Trevor shook his head. “I don’t think it’s Wyatt. He’s got incentive for sure, but between the Feds keepin’ him on a tight leash and our come-to-Jesus intervention, he’s kept a healthy distance.”

  Come-to-Jesus indeed. He bet Natalie’s ex never walked into a dark parking lot again so long as he lived.

  “Still smart to check it,” Jace said. “Could be he’s keepin’ quiet and covering his tracks.”

  Trevor shrugged and scooted back enough to stretch his legs out and cross one boot over the other. “Not a problem.”

  “You got the name of the gu
y from Atlanta?” Knox said.

  Beckett nodded. “And the stalker.”

  If Knox’s laptop had been in reaching distance he’d have likely settled in and started searching ASAP. Instead, he whipped his phone out and typed in a note. “I’ll check ’em out, but my money’s on the guy who just got out of jail.”

  “Mine, too.” Axel shifted his focus to Beckett. “Might not be a bad idea to put a man on him until Knox is done runnin’ traps.”

  The primal urge kicked up a notch. As if it had locked onto a slice of sunshine at the edge of its dark cage and was primed to escape. “Oh, he’ll have someone on him 24/7 as soon as we find him, but the first window we get, I’m combing his place. I’m not dickin’ around with this one. Not with Gia involved.”

  “I’ll run it with you,” Danny said, openly perking up at the prospect of tapping into some of his shadier skill sets. “Two sets of eyes, we’ll be in and out in no time.”

  Jace cleared his throat, lips twitching with the smile he was doing a piss-poor job of hiding. “I see you’ve adjusted to havin’ Gia be a part of Haven, but how prepped is she to be wrapped up in our overbearing arms?”

  Overbearing? What the fuck? “What’s to prepare? She knows us. Gets the gist of what we are even without me running things down. And I’ve lost count of the places we’ve broken into for info in the last decade. It’s standard operating procedure.”

  “For us, yeah,” Zeke cut in, “but don’t forget how Gabe took to our little B&E stint a few years ago.”

  Beckett shook his head. “Nah, Gia’s good. The only pushback she’d give me is if she wasn’t in on the job.”

  “You gonna let her in on it?” Trevor asked.

  “Hell, no.” As soon as he said it, a warning buzz fired across his neck. Kind of like he had a shock collar on and Gia had punched the remote without even knowing it. He gripped the armrests on his chair. “She’s got too much exposure already. I’ll tell her after the fact.”

  Axel grinned. “Not always easier to get forgiveness, brother. Plus, you’d be smart to give her some kind of warning shot about what she’s gotten herself into being a part of our family. I heard the moms planning something this morning. Gia might get the gist of how we operate, but you might want to help her gird her loins before all our women descend en masse.”

  All too easily, the image of Gia surrounded by the women in his family drew his focus from the room at large. Knowing her, she’d employ the same no-bullshit approach on them that she used with the herd of men she worked with every day, but he also had a feeling she needed what they could give her. An acceptance from equally strong women she’d never found growing up.

  “I’ll talk to her.” He’d also hit Sylvie up for details and see if he couldn’t figure out a way to be a fly on the wall when the descent actually happened. In the meantime, he was gonna do what he could to get Gia stockpiled with goodness on the professional side of her life. “Got another favor I need to ask.”

  “Not a favor if it’s family.” This from Trevor who was still watching him with far too knowing eyes.

  Beckett shrugged it off and scanned the rest of the crew. “Anyone know a guy out of Atlanta named Peter Trannell?”

  “I don’t know anybody out of Atlanta,” Zeke said. “Who is he?”

  “The guy runnin’ the event Gia’s trying to land. A lobbyist.”

  Axel stood and paced toward the wet bar. “Name doesn’t ring a bell, but I know a few people there. Wouldn’t mind askin’ around.”

  “If Axel doesn’t, I’d bet Sergei does,” Knox said. “He might be based out of New Orleans, but the man’s made more connections since he moved to the States than half the politicians in the senate.”

  “There a reason you’re asking?” Jace asked.

  Beckett hesitated, the same cautionary pause he’d felt when he and Knox had first met the rest of the guys and they’d offered their help bubbling back up like it was yesterday. Back then, having family besides Knox to back him up had been a hard concept to wrap his head around. Now he knew better, and thinking even for a second they wouldn’t be there this time was wasted energy. “Because I want her to get this detail.”

  Danny chuckled and thunked his now empty beer bottle on the table. “Stacking the deck, huh?”

  “Fuck yeah. It’s what we’d do if we wanted a contract. Why not do the same for her?”

  Axel tipped his head and stared down at the empty dance floor and the crew readying the place for opening later on. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

  “There’s also the fact she’s been undercut way too many times,” Beckett said barely pausing. “Way more than I ever knew, and it’s bullshit. She wants this job and I want her to have it.”

  Knox’s gaze got wicked sharp. “Undercut by who?”

  “Only one I know personally is that pompous fuck, Judd.”

  “Judd Rainier?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Zeke perked up and leaned into the table, eyes on Knox. “Who’s that?”

  “Works the same biz as us. Moved here from Atlanta a little after Gia did. Total douche. Thinks he’s MacGyver, but comes off more like Malibu Ken with a stick up his ass.”

  “Turns out they grew up together,” Beckett added. “As in right next door to each other—if you can call five-million-dollar homes and five-acre lots neighbors.”

  “What’d he do to her?” Trevor asked.

  “She called him in on a corporate gig right before the thing at the range went down. The principal was traveling with extended family and she needed someone to cover the mom and kids. Turns out Judd arranged an earlier flight, played the man card with the exec and pushed Gia out to cover the mom and kids.”

  “That’s whacked,” Danny said.

  Knox tipped his beer toward Danny. “It’s also an industry insult. You book the deal, you cover the primary.”

  Axel turned from the window. “You say this happens a lot?”

  “Judd’s the only one she named, but yeah. Everything she gains in our business takes three times the effort, and she’s had no one at her back. Not her peers or her family.”

  “Well, then.” Jace lifted his Scotch and scanned the room, that crafty smile of his slipping into place. “I’d say her days of flying solo are over.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  On her belly, naked with Beckett’s weight pinning her to her bed and his cock languidly shuttling in and out of her still quivering sex—now Gia knew what all the fuss was about morning sex. She’d thought she’d hate it. Thought she’d never be able to get past bed head and morning breath to enjoy it, but in the last few days Beckett had taken great pains to demonstrate just how easy those hurdles were to clear.

  At least with him they were. And the more she was with him—the more she got to know the man beyond the limitations of work—the more she realized how deep she could fall with him. How easy it would be to just let go and let all those hard lines she’d established soften and mingle with his. But then what? How would she ever be able to erase or rewind how it felt to linger in her kitchen with him? Having him send her this way and that to get what he needed while he cooked, and how he often trapped her in between tasks to sneak a kiss or a subtle touch? How at home he looked on the couch in her office, even if it was too small for his big frame?

  She sighed and rolled her head, resting her cheek on the cool sheets and pushing her worries to the side. For now. She’d figure things out later. Preferably when Beckett wasn’t petting every inch of her and her brain was capable of something besides oohing and aahing about his sexual prowess.

  With one forearm braced by her shoulder, he swept her hair to one side and nuzzled her neck, his deep, raspy morning voice stirring a whole new wave of flutters low in her stomach. “Not sure if that’s a contented sound, or one I need to head off at the pass.”

  “Oh, I’m
content.” She smiled and stretched like a cat beneath him, the act seating him flush inside her. “Veeery content.”

  He chuckled and swept his hand down her side and lingered on the curve of her hip. Another trait she could easy grow addicted to. When they were alone, his hands were always on her. Sometimes still. Sometimes tracing patterns on her skin. But after sex, his hands were everywhere. Reverent. Comforting. As if he were thanking her for what she’d shared and checking to make sure she was real at the same time.

  “Gotta deal with this condom.” He nipped her earlobe then licked the sting he’d left behind. “You gonna be where I left you when I get back, or am I gonna have to work the hustle right back out of you again?”

  Beyond her window, the early August morning skies were still a hazy blue, the sun not yet up enough to cast its heat or vibrancy on the waking city, but enough to blanket the room in an intimate glow. Even if she wanted to crawl out of bed and face the day, she wasn’t sure her legs were ready to function yet. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The sound that rumbled from his chest was somewhere between a growl and a hum and sent delicious ripples along her skin. “Holdin’ you to that.” With that, he kissed her cheek and slipped free of her still quivering flesh.

  She sucked in a sharp breath at the loss, the emptiness and the rush of cool air against her skin a startling slap against her senses. She tugged the rumpled bedcovers up to her shoulders and snuggled on her side. It was nowhere near the warmth Beckett generated. Nice, but not as pleasant.

  Kind of what life would be like if you lost Beckett.

  God, what had it been? Ten days since they’d started their odd dance? Half of that since their first date, but she was already sliding dangerously deep. She smoothed her hand over Beckett’s pillow and savored the lingering scent of him. Was that why her mother never stood up to her dad? Never called him on the string of affairs he’d done nothing to hide over the years? No matter how hard she’d tried, she’d never once been able to conjure a memory of her parents showing the kind of affection for each other that Beckett showed her. Couldn’t remember a time when she’d seen either of their eyes light up when the other walked into a room, or heard an easy laugh shared between them. But maybe they’d had that once. Maybe it’d been good enough that her mom had clung to some desperate hope that she’d get it back.