GRAY WOLF SECURITY, Texas: The Complete 6-Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Bailey!”

  She was here. I could feel her. I had to find her.

  I headed back downstairs. Just as I was about to reach the bottom, the wall behind me exploded. I spun around and fired without looking. I heard a squeal, but I didn’t see anything.

  Where the fuck was he?

  I searched every room in the house, but he seemed to be keeping a few steps ahead of me at every turn. He knew the place better than I did—all its nooks and crannies. I was never going to find him this way.

  I went into the living room and took a seat on the couch.

  “I can wait all day, Philips!” I called out. “Either you come out and face me, or we play this game until the cops show up.”

  “The cops aren’t coming here,” he answered from somewhere on my left. “They’re on their way to that pretty mansion where you work, friend. They’re looking for you.”

  “They’re looking for you, too.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Possible. That recording? You forget that we live in a digital era, Philips. I had that emailed out before I was even out of the diner parking lot.”

  “To whom?” he asked, his voice a little shakier than it had been.

  “The press. The police. Everyone who might give a shit.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Try me.”

  I heard a sound on my right and raised my gun. Bailey, her right arm pressed between her breasts, some sort of bat in her left, came around the corner. I started to get up, but then she pointed. In the light coming through the broken window, I just caught sight of Philips headed for the garage door. I rushed after him, bursting through the door just as he disappeared through another side door.

  “Fuck!”

  I chased after him, dropping the rifle in favor of holding the .35 between two hands. The street was clear, so he had to have headed toward the backyard. I rushed after him, unaware that he had stopped just out of sight, around the back corner. He had his gun trained on me, ready to blow me away when I was close enough that he didn’t have to worry about the possibility of missing. But it wasn’t his gun that fired as I approached the back of the house.

  I pulled up short at the sound of the gunfire, not sure if it was just a miss or something else. And then…David stepped out from around the corner of the house.

  “He’s down,” he said, as if we were talking about a rabid dog. And maybe that’s what we were talking about. Philips was definitely not a human being, was he?

  I walked around the corner and Philips was sitting on his ass, his hands pressed to a wound on his chest. Blood was flowing profusely between his fingers.

  “Nine millimeter,” David said.

  I wanted to kiss him. Instead, I patted him on the back.

  “Thanks, brother.”

  “Any time.”

  Chapter 21

  Bailey

  I heard the gunshot. I wanted to go out there and see what was happening, but I was so convinced that it was Ingram who was injured that I couldn’t make myself move. But then he came back into the house through the sliding glass door in the back. I rushed toward him, relieved to see him hold open his arms, proving there were no injuries on his chest or anywhere else.

  I pressed my face to his chest for a long moment, breathing in the scent of him, the vitality of him. And then I pulled back and slapped him as hard as I could.

  “How dare you make a unilateral decision like that! We’re married. You can’t just go running off because you think you’re protecting us. You have to talk to me first!”

  David laughed from where he was standing just inside the sliding glass doors.

  “Sounds familiar,” he said quietly.

  Ingram took my face between his hands and kissed me roughly.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered against my mouth. “I’m sorry I worried you, but I’m not sorry I did the best I could to protect you.”

  “Ingram…”

  “I love you. I will always do what I can to protect you. There’s nothing you can do about that.”

  And then he kissed me again, his kiss rough, as emotion that he couldn’t really express verbally washed over me from his physical touch.

  The house was suddenly filled with red flashing lights and sirens. Ingram pulled away, instinctively pushing me behind him as the cops filled the house. David walked up and explained to them what had just happened. I slid my arm through Ingram’s and moaned softly as my other arm began to throb.

  “Are you hurt, ma’am?” a cop asked as he approached Ingram and me.

  I nodded.

  It was chaos, but they let us stay together. We sat on the back bumper of an ambulance and answered dozens of questions over and over again. I think we answered some questions more than three or four times, each time mumbling the same answer. I watched as they brought Karen out on a gurney, her wrist handcuffed to the rail. I was filled with mixed emotions as I watched, feeling bad for hurting her, but hating her for what she’d done to me.

  It was going to take some time to adjust to this new reality.

  Ingram insisted on coming to the hospital with me. It was a clean break, right in the center of my radius. All they needed to do was put it in a cast, but the doctor insisted on keeping me overnight just to make sure there were no unseen injuries.

  Ingram stayed at my side all night. It was…awesome.

  Chapter 22

  At the Compound

  David stayed at Philips’ house until the cops got everything they needed. He left his number with the detectives and then headed back into town. That’s when he got the call. Trouble at the safe house where we’d placed Tierney Michaels just a few days ago. David rushed right over, arriving just as the detective arrived to interview her.

  David stood back and listened to Tierney’s story, anger burning in his chest as he thought about all the mistakes that had been made here this day. He’d almost lost Ingram in Bastrop and now he’d nearly lost a client when she was attacked right outside a safe house.

  What the hell was happening here?

  And then Alexander walked in.

  “Tierney?”

  He rushed into the living room, nearly falling down the steps. David was immediately there, Tony beside him. The two of them pushed him back into the kitchen, Knox following.

  David pushed him hard back against the sink. “Where have you been?”

  Alexander tried to move around him, but David grabbed the front of his shirt and shoved him back again. David had never been violent around any of his operatives before—but this had been a very unusual day—and that, in itself, brought Alexander out of his shock and fear for a second.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  He’d never seen David angry, either.

  “Following a lead. Is she…what happened here?”

  “She’s okay,” Knox said. “A little bruised, but nothing’s broken.”

  Alexander nodded slowly, his eyes darting to the entrance of the living room even though he couldn’t see inside.

  “It’s your job to be here with your target,” David said. “Why was Tony here?”

  “I asked him.” Alexander focused on David again. “I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind the threats against Tierney, but I had to check out a few things. Tony wasn’t on a case, so he agreed to come over.”

  “It wasn’t Tony’s case. It was yours. And when I assign a case to one of you, I expect you to stick it out no matter what.”

  “I am. I was. I just… I couldn’t take her to the places I went today.”

  David shook his head. “This is unacceptable. I can’t have targets getting hurt while we’re watching over them.”

  “What happened?” Alexander asked, staring pointedly at Tony.

  Much to his credit, Tony looked ashamed.

  “I thought she was in the bedroom. She’d been in the bedroom since you left. But then I went to see if she wanted some lunch and she wasn’t there.”

  Alexander cross
ed his arms over his chest. “Didn’t the perimeter alarms go off?”

  “No. She must not have stood close enough to the doors to set them off.”

  “We think she went out the window,” Knox said.

  Alexander shook his head. “And you didn’t think of that?”

  Tony shrugged. “She’s paying us. I thought she’d be smart enough to go out the front door.”

  David watched the interaction, trying to get a handle on his anger.

  “She told her mother where the house was.” David glanced toward the living room. “We think whoever did this followed her mother here.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “She’s working with the cops, Alex,” Knox said. “She knows what she did was wrong.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong. This asshole,” Alexander said, shoving Tony back a few paces, “never should have taken his eyes off her.”

  “Hey! I was doing my job. I didn’t expect her to sneak out the window.”

  “You should have been watching the video feeds.”

  “That’s not fair, Alexander,” David said in his calm, steady voice. “We’ve designed those feeds so that they don’t have to be watched twenty-four seven.”

  “I trusted you to watch over her,” Alexander said as if David hadn’t spoken at all. “All you had to do was keep her in the house. Keep her safe!”

  “Alex,” Knox said, putting her hand on the center of his chest as he took a step toward Tony. “He did the same thing I would have done.”

  Alexander looked like he was about to argue, but then the cop came into the room.

  “Detective Snider,” David said respectfully, approaching him with his hand outstretched.

  “I’ve got all the information she could give. I’ll send someone over with some mug shots—see if she can pick out her assailant. She seemed to think she got a good look at him despite the ski mask.”

  David began to speak, but Alexander stepped up in front of the cop.

  “Have you found out who put that girl up to breaking into Tierney’s apartment? Have you talked to the other two vandals? Do you know who’s behind all this?”

  “We have a lot of cases we need to take care of, Mr. Garcia. I don’t have time to follow up on every breaking and entering job out there.”

  “Or you just choose to ignore this one because she’s a lawyer defending someone you think doesn’t deserve a defense. Isn’t that more like it, Detective?”

  “That’s uncalled for, Alexander,” David said in a low, dangerous tone.

  “You were pretty clear to me, Detective,” Alexander said, pronouncing his title like it was a slur. “You don’t like who her clients are. And that’s hardly motivation to do your job, right?”

  “You’d better back off,” the cop said, shoving his finger into Alexander’s chest. “I’m not like you. I can’t pick and choose my cases. But I do the best I can on each and every one of them.”

  “I doubt that.”

  The cop’s face suddenly turned red. David thought the cop might hit Alexander, but then Tierney called his name.

  “Alexander.”

  David watched the transformation that came over Alexander. He knew that Alex had a sister who was attacked and that he’d devoted the last few years of his life to taking care of her. He often had Knox and Ingram check in on her. David knew that Alexander was a good man. But this…watching the way he touched her, the way his thumb moved over the injuries on her face, it was very clear that there was more to their relationship than just client-operative. And that was against the number one rule David set out for his operatives when he hired them.

  David followed the cop outside.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “Alexander gets a little emotional sometimes.”

  “You need to control your people, Mr. Grayson, if you wish to continue operating in this city without issue.”

  “Like I said, I’m sorry about Alexander.”

  Detective Snider turned to look at David. “I’m not your enemy. And I’m not his. I’m just as interested as you people are to find out who’s doing this to Ms. Michaels. But I can’t do my job if he keeps getting in my way.”

  “I understand.”

  Snider looked David over, his eyes moving slowly over him as though he were assessing him.

  “I’ve heard good things about Gray Wolf. A friend of mine works on the Santa Monica police force. He says you people helped out on a few big cases out there.”

  David inclined his head. “With the help of the local police chief and his wife, Detective Emily Warren out of the LAPD.”

  Snider inclined his head. “That’s what I heard.”

  “We could be an asset to you and the APD, Detective, if you’d just give us a chance.”

  Snider reached into his pocket and handed David a card. “Call me before things implode next time.”

  David watched him drive off, then turned back to survey the front of the house. He had choices to make now. And he didn’t like any of them.

  Knox came out the front door.

  “I heard a rumor that Ingram went rogue this morning.”

  “It’s all over. He’s fine.”

  She nodded. “Is it true that he’s married?”

  “Yes.” I touched her arm lightly. “Sorry, kid, but he’s not only married, but he appears to be happily married.”

  She nodded, hiding the disappointment in her eyes. “First Alexander, now Ingram. I’m on a real roll here”

  “Would you mind hanging around? I’m going to need you to take over this case.”

  Knox’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think that’s a good idea? Alexander isn’t going to take that well.”

  “I know. But I can’t have him watching over a client he has feelings for. It might cause him to make a mistake.”

  She inclined her head, clearly reluctant to agree with David.

  “What about Tony?”

  David shrugged. He wasn’t pleased with Tony, either.

  “I’ll deal with him later.”

  David could feel Knox watching him as he went inside. And she could likely hear the yelling as Alexander tried to convince David not to take him off the case. But, in the end, Alexander agreed that it was the best thing. For now.

  David was exhausted when he got back to the compound. Ricki found him in his office, staring at nothing. She already knew everything that had happened in Bastrop. But she didn’t know what had happened with Alexander.

  “When it rains, it pours. I had to take Alexander off the case. He was pretty pissed at me.”

  Ricki came around the side of the desk and climbed into David’s arms. “It’s not like Alexander to act like that.”

  “I think a lot of it has to do with his feelings for the client.”

  Ricki’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah? You think there’s something going on there?”

  “They made it pretty obvious. They’re in a relationship.”

  Ricki chewed on her bottom lip a second. “It’s kind of hard to get angry with him considering that that’s kind of how you and I got together.”

  “I wasn’t protecting you. I was working the tech with you.”

  “Only because I hired Gray Wolf to find out who was making threats against me.”

  “True. But I wasn’t your bodyguard. And Ash didn’t tell me I couldn’t sleep with you.”

  “Would you have obeyed him if he had?”

  David ran his hand slowly down the length of Ricki’s back. “I don’t know. But, then again, you never really gave me a chance.”

  “Me?”

  “You were all over me from the start.”

  She laughed. “I wanted your body, not necessarily your ring on my finger.”

  “But did you really think it wouldn’t lead to that?”

  David could see the wheels turning in Ricki’s mind. He wondered if she was remembering that first time like he was. She shrugged, her tongue sliding slowly over her lips as the memory burned on her cheeks and
in her eyes. She couldn’t resist teasing him.

  “I don’t know. I guess it might have been there, at the back of my mind.”

  He sighed, his thoughts forced back to the subject at hand. “I just… I hate having to get mean with one of our operatives. Alexander has been a great employee from day one, never questioning me, never defying any of my instructions. But this—”

  “Maybe it’s love. Maybe they’ll end up like us.”

  “Maybe. But I can’t have him on the case if his personal feelings could get in the way.”

  “Well, that’s always a danger. I don’t think it’s natural for a man and woman to spend as much time together as some of our operatives do with their targets and not develop some feelings.”

  “But they’re professionals.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that they all have hearts.”

  David sighed, burying his face against her chest. “We’re not going to survive if this keeps happening, though. Then our operatives won’t want to go out into the field anymore and we’ll have to hire new ones and go through the same thing again. Just like Ash.”

  “You’re not in competition with your brother, you know. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if you did some things like him.”

  David sat back and studied his wife’s face. “You know nothing about sibling rivalry.”

  She ran her finger down the bridge of his nose. “I know plenty. I have two siblings, remember?”

  “But you haven’t seen them in years.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t remember the fights we used to have.” She kissed him gently. “Call that guy, that Kipling guy. Maybe he’ll have a few suggestions for you.”

  She climbed off his lap and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To feed our son, Mr. Grayson. But I shall return. After you make your phone call.”

  He groaned, but when she was gone, he reached for the phone. He’d already called Kipling McKay twice and been politely, but sternly, turned down both times. He took a deep breath as he dialed, thinking that the third time was supposed to be the charm.

  The phone was answered sharply on the second ring.

  “Kipling McKay.”