The December Deal

by Dana Volney

  “He should crawl back under the rock he came from, with my family’s money by the way.” Eliam opened his email and clicked on a recent one from Ann, his assistant. He was done with this conversation.

  They should be toasting his promotion from vice president to president. Lord knew he didn’t have anyone else to go cheers with. His ears started to ring, and he swallowed to shoo away the mourning he hadn’t yet allowed himself for his mother. He didn’t know how to believe she was gone, that he was alone. He’d make his mom proud—he’d honor both of his parents by turning the company around. That would keep him going and them close to his heart.

  “Do you trust my judgment?” Louis asked.

  Eliam raised a brow and folded his hands in his lap. “Of course.”

  “Call this number.” Louis pulled a card from his wallet. “Hire them.” He walked across the room with purpose—always with purpose anywhere he went—and practically shoved the card into Eliam’s hand.

  “Wyn Security?” A bright red card with the company name, phone number, and the tagline “24/7 We Surround You” balanced between his thumb and index finger. “Aren’t you supposed to be my security?”

  “They provide a different level of protection.” Louis glanced at the card and then back at Eliam.

  There was a hint of warning in Louis’s steady gaze. A pit of caution sank in Eliam’s gut.

  “We have tons of people around here for security.”

  “You need them. Make the call.” Louis took two steps toward the door then turned around. “If nothing else, do it so I can sleep at night. I’m getting old.” Then he disappeared.

  I don’t need babysitters. He was a responsible adult with a grown-up job who could protect himself. Nothing was going to get in his way of doing what he needed to do to make Prince Industries the top shipping company in the world—not Franklin, not bodyguards, not anything.

  He pocketed the red card then busied himself with email and the stack of paperwork on his desk. When he grabbed the fifth folder in his pile, a picture slipped out and onto his keyboard. The smiling faces of his mom and dad stared back at him. He leaned back in his chair and flipped the picture over out of habit—his mom always wrote on the back to document the people, date, and location. The other man in the photo was their first client—Alan Bean.

  I’ll make it right. This company will be great again and then you’ll always be remembered.

  • • •

  Winter Wyn sped through the highway traffic on I-5 heading north into Seattle. “Get out of the way, you fool,” she shouted in her empty black Durango at a car that merged into her lane and almost into her.

  Her dickhead of a client hadn’t bothered to tell her or her team he had an after-party to attend at the downtown Westin. There’d been no security checks conducted and nothing coordinated with the hotel. Unpreparedness was not a motto she lived by—it was something she actively avoided. Assholes—they want my help, but then they don’t want to listen. Some of them most certainly deserved what she usually saved them from. And then they didn’t even pay on time, either.

  “Boss.” Felix Ibarra’s voice boomed from her cell phone between her thighs. The handy tap-to-talk function made it easy for her team to stay linked constantly. They only called when they didn’t want the conversation to be overheard.

  “Yeah.” She checked her rearview mirror—Felix, her second-in-command, was close behind. They’d left Eddie Dever with the client, and the other two members of her team, Amelia Roe and Mieko Noor, were in California escorting a client until tomorrow night.

  “I just got off the phone with the event coordinator. A couple of the other guests have had security check in. Nothing out of the ordinary. I actually know one of the teams.”

  “Good…” Her phone beeped, but she didn’t recognize the incoming number. “Hold on, I have another call.” She clicked over and held the phone to her ear. “This is Winter.”

  “Hel-lo, Winter.”

  The unmistakable voice of an old friend warmed her heart—Louis would always have a place there.

  “Hey there, buddy, ol’ pal. Finally in the mood for that cup of coffee I owe you?” She delivered their standard coffee banter and swerved around a car in time to take the downtown exit.

  “Yes, it’s been too long.” There was a hesitation in his voice, one she knew all too well from years of his being her commanding officer.

  “Okay, tell me why you really called.” She braced herself, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. Louis was an excellent man, heroic even, but small talk wasn’t his strong suit.

  “Eliam Prince at Prince Industries needs your services.”

  Does he now? Louis had never recommended her company before.

  But he had mentioned in the downtimes during their tour in Afghanistan and Iraq what he did back in Seattle. “Didn’t think you liked the guy in charge.”

  He hefted a chuckle. “Good memory, but this isn’t the same guy. This is the guy who should’ve been in charge all along. Franklin was ousted today, and I think he’s looking for revenge.”

  If Louis was calling for help, something was wrong, something he couldn’t take care of on his own. Which would be…what? Louis knew how to solve everything.

  “How real of a threat are we talking?” She made sure to use her blinker in the thick downtown traffic, even though Felix knew where they were going.

  “Franklin is trouble. I know it in my gut.”

  The man’s gut had never been wrong.

  “Franklin?”

  “Stepfather. Nasty man.”

  The Prince Industries’ change of power, since the passing of its matriarch, had been all the rage in the news today and, by all accounts, conflict free. Prince Industries was one of three major players in the worldwide shipping arena, so the transfer had been covered well.

  “And I assume he has the means to be nasty, as you say?” Winter tried picturing the type of man Louis would see as a threat: slippery, powerful, and deviant.

  “Unlimited and will steer clear of being implicated. Eliam isn’t taking this seriously at all, and he’s headstrong. Use your classic Wyn charm on him.”

  “You want me to break his finger?” She grinned.

  “The other kind of charm. I know you have it in you…deep down.” There was a smile in his voice. “He’ll listen to you.”

  She nodded in the darkness and braked for a light. “They always do. Eventually.”

  “Hopefully it’s not too late when he comes around.” Louis paused and she knew the dark place his mind had detoured.

  She was picturing it, too. Louis had taught her damn near everything she knew in the army—well, the good anyway; the bad had been instilled in her long before she’d met her former commanding officer. Louis’s wasn’t the only command she’d been under during her ten years of service, but his was where she started to become the person she was now.

  It had been two years since her honorable discharge. The pain still hit in waves out of nowhere, as did the bright flashes of fire and piercing sound of gunfire.

  Their protection tactics had been flawed—flaws she didn’t allow in her own company.

  “There’s only one problem,” Louis finally continued.

  She held the receiver away from her head to clear her throat. “Only one?”

  “He doesn’t want your services.”

  “Oh, cool. Yeah, no problem, I love protecting people who don’t want it.”

  Headstrong men and women hated listening to someone telling them what to do, even if it was to keep them alive, but they did like knowing they were safe. Her hard-ass reputation preceded her, ironically landing her the high-profile clients. Clients had been attacked on her watch but never killed, and she didn’t plan to start a precedent now.

  On the other side of the phone she heard keys jingle. “I’ll work on him. I want you to make some calls on your end to be up to speed on what or who specifically we’re dealing with.”

  The type of calls Loui
s was talking about weren’t numbers in the phone book, online, or even a black book.

  “If there really is a problem.” He thinks Eliam has a hit out on him?

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  Contracts on people’s lives were very serious, not run-of-the-mill assignments, and not something just anyone was able to coordinate.

  By the sound of it, she was gaining a high-maintenance client—she’d be sure to charge him up front. She’d taken on a lot of debt with the security company, and she refused to pay her team, who were all veterans, a subpar wage. People who served in the military shouldn’t worry about living in poverty after service to their country.

  • • •

  Eliam fired up his silver metallic Dodge Challenger, and symphony music lulled in his speakers. He pressed the button on his steering wheel to increase the sound of “Scheherazade.” What an impeccable day—everything had gone according to plan, and he was now in the perfect position to make his dreams come true. He whipped through the dark streets he’d know with his eyes closed, letting the day sink in.

  The brisk night air brought peace and excitement. His first full presidential day was in front of him, and he couldn’t wait—his head was full of so many ideas for his company’s future. His future. A genuine sense of satisfaction fell over him and relaxed his entire body further into the leather seat.

  The bright glare of headlights in his rearview mirror caught his eye. They approached too quickly. He glanced around at the two-lane road, which was completely open. Ridiculous drivers.

  “Go around me,” he growled to the no-name driver who threatened fender-to-bumper contact any second. All he’d wanted to do was enjoy a nice drive home, and this jackoff was ruining it.

  Just as he glanced, for the umpteenth time, in his rearview mirror, he heard a thud and his car leapt forward. Both hands grasped the steering wheel as he fought to stay on his side of the yellow line. He glanced ahead—no cars—then behind, but there wasn’t a car there now, either.

  What the…

  Crunch. The asshole was on the left side, ramming his car, about the size of Eliam’s, right into the driver’s side. Metal colliding and the sound of his side mirror being torn off wore loudly in his ears. The Challenger was forced right, and he swerved left hard to correct the path without flipping his car or going off the road into a building, fence, or any number of hard objects by the road.

  Is this really happening?

  Thunk. Another metal-to-metal hit, and it made his entire body cringe. Adrenaline filled his ears and sank into his gut, tightening every muscle and tendon. This time Eliam missed a sturdy streetlight by mere inches. Game on. He turned his steering wheel left sharply, nailing the bastard on the passenger side. Hard. The black car overcorrected, and screeching noises pierced through his car. He turned in his seat in time to see the bastard’s car not stop, but accelerate to catch up to him in no time.

  They were neck and neck, and he didn’t know his next move. How did car chases and assaults usually end in the movies? Cars flipping over, people dying. Hell no. He was not dying tonight. Just as the car was even with him, he lightly braked and rammed his no-longer-cherry car into the other. The slam wasn’t as hard as he would’ve liked, barely knocking the other car off its route. He couldn’t keep this up much longer—his nerves and his car weren’t in great shape.

  Trying to keep one eye on the street and one on the asshole trying to drive him off of it, Eliam snuck a look at his speed. They were going sixty miles an hour on a road with a limit of thirty. Eliam slammed on his brakes—there was a curve just ahead that wouldn’t fair well for either one of them at this speed, and since he clearly wasn’t the experienced driver in this situation, his chances weren’t ideal.

  The gun in his nightstand drawer would look pretty good right now. How far was this going? He was just about to push the Call button on the dashboard screen for 911 when the black car’s taillights disappeared around the corner. Eliam came to a full stop, barely breathing. Were there more of them? He swiveled his neck in every direction. No one was around. Should he wait here and call the cops? Nope. He was getting the hell out of the area.

  He checked the streets around him and turned right, not a direct route to his building but it would do. He wasn’t going to chance the mysterious car waiting for him up ahead. Continuously checking his rearview mirror, not using his blinker, and driving thirty over the limit, the otherwise ten-minute drive took only four, but it still felt like an eternity.

  When he pulled up to the Breeland Building, Jordan, his favorite valet, raised his pierced brow.

  “Call the body shop. It’s going to need some work,” Eliam said in his best authoritative voice, an attempt to get ahold of himself in the familiar surroundings.

  “Yes, sir.” Jordan shook his teenaged head, and wispy brown hair fell into his eyes. “You okay?”

  Dark green eyes met his and he looked down at his hands holding out the keys. To his absolute horror, he was trembling—not a good look on a man of his build and position.

  “Yes. Just a little issue on the road tonight.” He dropped the keys into Jordan’s outstretched hand. He started to say he needed the police to be called, then snapped his mouth shut. He barely had a description of the car to give them. He needed a company that would protect him. He needed a bodyguard.

  To purchase this ebook and learn more about the author, click here.

  Praise for Protecting the Prince:

  “[Eliam] is the type of man that I'd love to take home with me ... Volney has definitely created a light, fun read that melds romance with suspense in a realistic way.” —5 stars, Pure Jonel

  “Protecting the Prince will keep your eyes on the page and your mind on high alert. It's the perfect blend of action and romance.” — Jami Wagner, author of The Black Alcove Series

  For more from Dana Volney, check out:

  Paradise Point

  Praise for Paradise Point:

  "Volney’s characters fit perfectly together. Liv's feisty attitude and Adam's cool demeanor will put a smile on your face. They might even have you blushing as you think of a time or two when you did or said something similar. I know I did … If you enjoy danger mixed with falling in love, Paradise Point is the book for you!" —Tumbleweed Book Reviews, 4.5 stars

  "The dialogue is witty and natural, the narrative flows nicely, including beautiful descriptions of nature and the marina. The plot is fast-paced . . . a well-plotted and intriguing novel." —Long and Short Reviews, 4.5 stars

  Christmas Clash

  Praise for Christmas Clash:

  "...had me hooked from the very first pages. Christmas Clash is a fabulous holiday read but can certainly be enjoyable regardless of time of year." —Women on Writing, 5 stars

  "Despite the title, holiday references are minimal, so readers will delight in this solidly written and satisfying romance no matter the time of year or the temperature outside. Well done, Ms. Volney!" -- The Romance Reviews, 4 stars

  Holiday Hoopla

  Praise for Holiday Hoopla:

  “There's a lot to appreciate in this quick read of fifty-seven pages, including an engaging plot, believable conflict, and two very likable main characters. It was a pleasure to escape to Casper for Christmas, and I look forward to indulging in future works from this talented new author.” —The Romance Reviewer, 4 stars

  Candlelight Conspiracy

  Praise for Candlelight Conspiracy

  “This has to be my favorite romance written by Dana Volney yet!” —author Mary Billiter

  In the mood for more Crimson Romance?

  Check out From One Night to Forever by Synithia Williams at CrimsonRomance.com.

 

 

 
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