Parker: A Reed Security Romance

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  “You got the video rolling?” Sinner asked Cazzo.

  “No. No fucking video evidence.” I had to put my foot down.

  “He’s right,” Cazzo said.

  “Target locked,” Sinner said, watching the targeting system. “Hold your nuts!”

  He fired, sending the RPG flying through the air. I watched as it smashed into the helicopter, sending a massive explosion into the sky. There was no way that someone wouldn’t see the smoke.

  “That was so fucking awesome,” Sinner grinned.

  I shook my head, doing my best to hold back my grin. It was cool, even if as the boss I had to say that we shouldn’t have done that.

  We watched for about thirty seconds as the men around the helicopter scrambled and the helicopter burned bright orange. It was a thing of beauty. Then the helicopter shifted and dropped down into the ground like a lead weight. I pulled the binoculars from my face and slowly looked to Sinner. He had his arms over his chest and he was scratching at his jaw, a look of consternation on his face.

  “Oops.”

  Cazzo glanced at him, then looked at me, then he fucking burst out laughing. “Oops?”

  “Well, what do you want me to say?” Sinner asked. “It’s not like I meant to send it into the fucking ground. Look on the bright side, it’s buried and it’ll be harder to find.”

  “Except that Blake and Parker are down in the fucking mines,” I reminded him.

  “Well, I guess if you want to look at this as a bad thing-”

  I bit down on my fist to keep from fucking slamming it into his face. Instead, I turned around and shifted into drive, not even waiting for everyone to sit down. They all fell on their asses in the back, but I didn’t give a shit. I was pissed right now. When we pulled up to the site of the explosion, our guys immediately jumped out, guns raised at the men on site.

  “Guns down!” Hunter shouted.

  “Yeah, or I’ll turn you into a pancake, just like I did your chopper,” Sinner shouted.

  I rolled my eyes and moved around to the other side. It was four on eight. One of their guys must have gotten taken out in the blast. Slowly, they lowered their weapons to the ground and got on their knees. Derek’s team started cuffing them while I headed over to where the helicopter fell into the ground and sighed.

  “There must have been a closed off shaft,” Sinner said as he walked up to me.

  “Let’s hope that Parker and Blake are still alive.”

  “I’m sure they are,” Sinner brushed off my concern. “The mines are huge. What are the chances they got caught right under the fucking helicopter?”

  “I don’t know,” I said sarcastically. “What were the chances that the helicopter would land on a closed off mine shaft?”

  He nodded jauntily. “Well, you got me there.” He slapped me on the shoulder and tossed his pack over his shoulder. “Yo, Knight! Let’s go find your peeps!”

  I hung my head back and stared up at the sky. Sometimes I really fucking hated my job.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Parker

  The rocks had finally stopped shifting and the dust was settling heavy in the air. I coughed as I pushed up off Blake and grimaced at the pain in my back. I had been whacked with quite a few heavy rocks, but nothing was broken and nothing had hit my head, so I should be good.

  Blake groaned and pushed herself up from the ground. When she looked up at me, I started laughing. Her entire face was coated in dirt, and the whites of her eyes stood out bright in the dim lighting.

  “What?” she asked, swiping at her face. “Do I have something on my face?”

  “Just a little bit.”

  She grinned and stood up, brushing off the dirt from her clothes. There was light peeking in from where the rocks caved in. We had gotten lucky. Whatever caused the collapse wasn’t close enough to hurt us.

  “We need to find a way out of here,” I said, moving closer to where everything had caved in.

  “Is that safe?”

  “It might be easier to climb up than to go back through the tunnel,” I gestured behind her. The rocks had partially blocked the tunnel, so logically speaking, we might have more luck just climbing up.

  “We don’t even know that it’s safe to go up. What if they made it collapse on us?”

  “We can’t stay down here. If the ground shifts any more, the whole fucking place could collapse in on us. I think we have to take our chances.”

  We moved through the rubble toward the big collapse, but the closer we got, the more I realized that something had actually fallen through the shaft. We crested a mountain of rocks and stared at what appeared to be a burnt out helicopter that had just fallen through the ground.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Are you seeing a spaceship?”

  I tilted my head and tried to see it the way she was, but I still saw a helicopter. The blades were still there. It just looked like it had been stripped to bare bones.

  “No.”

  “Good, because I see a helicopter,” she said, climbing over the mountain of rocks to start working her way down the other side.

  “Parker!”

  I looked up through the bright light shining down, placing my hand above my eyebrows to block the sunlight. Someone was standing up top, but I couldn’t make out who it was.

  “It’s Sinner. Good to see I didn’t crush you when I fired that RPG,” he shouted.

  “You did this?”

  “Hell yeah. It was fucking awesome. You should have seen it.”

  “I was close enough,” I said dryly. I may not have witnessed the actual explosion, but I had first hand knowledge of the aftermath.

  “Right, sorry about that. You know, you just don’t expect the ground to cave in when you blow up a helicopter.”

  “I guess you’ll think twice next time.”

  He laughed, shaking his head slightly. “Probably not.”

  Twenty minutes later, the guys had pulled Blake and I up through the hole after throwing down a rope for us and making a pulley system for us. I made Blake go first, despite her protests that I should go first because I had taken the brunt of the impact of the rocks.

  “See, Cap? I told you they’d be fine,” Sinner said, slapping Cap on the shoulder.

  “Yeah, just a little light bruising,” Blake said jokingly.

  “Do you have it?” Knight asked, not bothering to find out if we were okay first.

  “Yeah, I have it. Thanks for making sure we were okay after jumping from a second story window, evading being shot up, surviving a car crash, almost drowning in the mine, and …what was that last one? Oh yeah, almost getting crushed from a helicopter, that you blew up, crashing down on top of us.”

  I pulled the journal out of my vest, but held it away from him. He eyed, but made no move to take it.

  “If it had crashed on top of you, you’d be dead,” he said slowly.

  “Fine, I’ll give you that one.”

  When I didn’t move to hand over the journal, he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Parker, are you okay?”

  “A little bruised. I think that window got me again, but for the most part, I should be fine.”

  “Then what the fuck are you complaining about?” He snatched the journal away and headed back for the SUV, his nose stuck in it the whole way. I shook my head in disbelief. It was amazing that guy fit in so well with Reed Security.

  “You two ready to get back?” Cap asked.

  “I am,” Blake said excitedly, raising her hand up like a little kid.

  “You didn’t have a good time?” I asked jokingly. “Damn, I really thought that date would be a winner.”

  “We’ll see how the night ends,” she said, giving me a devilish grin before walking away. My cock twitched in anticipation and Cap coughed out a laugh.

  “Damn.” He slapped me on the back, making me flinch. My back was sore as hell right now, and as much as I tried to hide it, I really needed to just
lay the fuck down. As much as I wanted to get my cock inside Blake again, that might have to wait until I could move without groaning. “Come on, let’s get back before someone sees this clusterfuck and comes at us again.”

  We were all gathered in the conference room, going over what happened at the lab, what we saw, anyone we could identify…And the whole fucking time, my eyes were on that door, wondering when I could get the fuck out of here and get back to my room. I needed a shower desperately, and I probably needed Hunter to clean up my side. The bleeding had stopped, but I didn’t want to risk infection.

  My eyes shifted to the blood soaked wound in Blake’s shoulder. I grimaced as I thought of accidentally shooting her. It had totally been an accident, but accidentally shooting someone when you were trained like I had been was something that I would never live down. I couldn’t let her find out about that. She would razz on me for the rest of my life. I chuckled to myself, thinking about her still harping on me a year from now.

  I shook my head slightly. When was the last time that I had thought about anything a year in advance? Would I even still know Blake in a year? I had no clue what would happen when this was all over. It seemed like that was so far away. But I found myself wanting to stick around and see what could happen between Blake and I. She wasn’t like the other women I knew. Sure, the women I had served with were tough, but I felt like they were always trying to prove a point, even though none of us ever treated them any differently. Well, that obviously wasn’t true since Colonel Barrow had been fucking her.

  But as I watched Blake talking with everyone else at the table, I noticed how easy it was for her. She just fit in. There was no attitude in her voice. She was who she was and no one questioned that. Then again, why would they? She had the skills to back it up, and if that wasn’t enough, she always came out on top with me. And I didn’t even care. I knew that I was good, she just happened to be just as good, if not better. She had a natural instinct when it came to fighting, and I really respected that. In fact, she could throw me through a window any time, and I would gladly take it if it meant she got to clean me up and take care of me afterward.

  “Loverboy, care to share with the class?”

  I was jerked out of my thoughts, and realized I was staring at Blake, watching the way her mouth moved and her tongue darted out to lick those beautiful lips. I was completely mesmerized. And fucked. She was smiling, a slight blush filling her cheeks as she looked away. She fucking knew that I was staring. So, instead of trying to pretend that I wasn’t or brushing it off as something else, I fucking owned it.

  “I was just thinking about how I went through a window for the second time because of Blake, and how much I was going to enjoy her taking care of me this time.”

  Her face flamed red as a round of catcalls filled the room. I smirked at her, knowing that I was going to get exactly what I wanted later.

  “I’m sure your sex life is fascinating,” Knight said drolly, “but we have more important things to worry about right now.”

  “By all means.” I gestured for him to continue as he scowled at me before continuing.

  “I’ve been looking this over, for the past half hour, but there’s a shit ton of medical jargon in here that I don’t understand. I’m going to have Becky copy every page and then we’ll start dissecting it. In the meantime, we need to keep Parker and Blake wrapped up tight. Becky has erased as much of the video feed as she could, but some of the video was transferred off site before she could finish. Rob’s working on tracking calls the senator is making and trying to figure out who exactly he’s involved with.”

  “Why?” I asked, not sure where he was going with this.

  “Because a senator of his ranking doesn’t have connections that can send a fucking Blackhawk out in the middle of the day without worrying about the repercussions. Whoever he’s involved with has a lot of pull. We need to know as many of the players involved so we know who the fuck is going to come for us.”

  “So, we’re looking at another trafficking situation,” Derek surmised.

  “This has nothing to do with trafficking,” Knight said with absolute certainty.

  “Right, but people are coming after us, we hide out in the bunker, ready the guns, keep Maggie away from the grenades….”

  “What the hell are you guys into?” I asked.

  “It’s something we like to do every few years,” Sinner shrugged. “You know, go for some massive badass showdown where one or more of us almost dies and the company almost sinks. I guess this is that situation.”

  “The company is not sinking and no one is dying,” Cap insisted.

  “Well, we almost did,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t really count. You don’t technically work for us yet. If I had to guess, I’d say the most likely candidate to bite the bullet this time is Knight,” Sinner said, nodding in Cap’s direction.

  “Nope, he’s too paranoid,” Hunter said, kicking his shoes up on the table. “Looking at the players involved, I’m guessing it’s Cap this time.”

  “Why me?”

  “Well, let’s look at this statistically. I’ve already had two brushes with death in the span of a year.”

  “The second one doesn’t count,” Burg cut in. “I didn’t actually shoot you.” He turned and glared at Knight. “Although, I didn’t know that at the time.”

  “Wait, how did you not really shoot him, but he thought he was having a brush with death?” Blake asked.

  “Oh, he did shoot me,” Hunter insisted. “Right in the fucking chest.”

  “You shot your own teammate?” Blake gasped. “Do you have really bad aim or do you just really hate him?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Burg said. “I thought he was someone else.”

  “And if it wasn’t for the new technology that Knight was trying out, it would have been another shot to the vest. It would have hurt like hell, but I would have been fine.”

  “Did the bullet go through?” I asked in confusion.

  “No, he had these training suits that simulated gunshot wounds, knife wounds, all that kind of shit. So, when the bullet hit, blood started pouring out from the suit. Not to mention that the suit sent shocks through my body to make me feel like I was actually dying.”

  “Holy shit,” I murmured.

  “Yeah, talk about a mindfuck.”

  I looked at Knight, kind of in awe of him right now. I didn’t even know that kind of shit existed.

  “It served its purpose,” Knight said, not bothering to explain any further.

  I had to admit, it was kind of cool, not the part about them not knowing, but the idea behind it was brilliant.

  “Anyway,” Cap said, getting us back on track, “We’ll go over the journal. You two need to get cleaned up and get some rest. We’ll let you know when we have something.”

  I nodded and started to stand, but Cap held up his hand. “I need a word with you first.”

  Blake walked past me, running her hand over my shoulder. “I’ll be waiting for you…to make good on my promise.”

  She winked at me and walked out of the room, her ass swaying as she moved. I was getting a boner just thinking about all the dirty things she would do to me later.

  “What promise?” Sinner asked. “Is it something dirty?”

  “Of course it’s dirty,” Burg snorted. “You don’t promise something like…a foot massage and then give a wink.”

  “Maybe he has a foot fetish,” Sinner counter. “Maybe rubbing her toes makes him hot, just like a dick makes you hot.”

  “I don’t get hot for dick. Fuck, it was one time and I thought she was a woman!”

  “You slept with a dude?”

  “No!” Burg roared. “It was a mistake in identity. I didn’t know he or she was a dude.”

  “Yeah, but muscle mass and facial features… I mean, come on, some of those can’t be mistaken.”

  “He was a very beautiful woman!”

  “Alright, alright,” I
said, holding my hands up. Obviously this was still a touchy subject for him.

  “So, what was it? What did she promise you?” Sinner asked eagerly.

  “Nothing, it was…” I thought back to her seductive voice and the things she promised. Damn, I was gonna get lucky. But then I remembered the reason I shouldn’t accept it and my smile slipped.

  “Uh-oh,” Hunter cut into my thoughts. “I don’t think this is a good thing.”

  “It’s…complicated.”

  “How?”

  “Well, see, I saved her from drowning in the mine. She fell in this pool of water and there was a current underneath that was trying to suck her in. I dove in and saved her.”

  “Blow job,” Cazzo said. “You do something like that and you’re definitely getting her on her knees.”

  “And then when you blew up that helicopter and the rocks collapsed, I dove over her and protected her with my body.”

  “Do me a favor,” Derek asked, “please do not tell Claire any of this shit. We make a pact right now that none of the other women hear about this.”

  “What’s wrong, Superman? Afraid you can’t keep up with the competition?”

  “No, I’m scared Claire’s going to want to go cave diving next or something.”

  “Yeah, you poor man. All that sex you’ll be getting,” Rocco scoffed.

  “So, what’s the problem?” Cap asked.

  “Uh…” I ran my hand along the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure that I should tell the guys this, but I needed to know if I should keep it to myself or not. “So, we were trying to get away from the guys that came after us, right?” The guys nodded. “Well, Blake was driving, so naturally, I was in charge of disposing of the other guys. I found grenades in the back of the SUV and I tossed one at the car closest to us. The car exploded, all was good.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  I winced, hating this next part. “We were too close and the blast threw me. My gun went flying and I caught it, but my finger also hit the trigger when I grasped it. I…I shot Blake in the shoulder.”

  “You did what?”