by Celia Kyle
Real talk, this kind of swanky ‘hood didn’t usually welcome ex-cons like her dad, much less his nefarious pals.
“None taken,” he said smoothly, but a muscle in his jaw twitched at the almost-insult. “Just be patient, sweets. He’ll be here any minute.”
“Better be,” she grumbled, glancing at the clock again. One seventeen. “Some of us have real jobs, you know.”
Cray’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile, flashing a hint of fang. “I thought you would have enjoyed this. Consider it practice for a real stakeout.”
Elissa barked out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, as if my editor would ever give me a story that required a stakeout. I wish. Sadly, he doesn’t think they’re necessary for me to puke out a ‘Community Happenings’ article.”
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
Elissa shrugged and went back to watching the moon continue its trek. “Trust me. It’s all puff pieces about cats getting stuck in trees or promotional articles for advertisers, like this mind-numbing spotlight on Wildridge Security.”
“Isn’t that why you’re here in the first place? You’d think a graduate of journalism school would be thrilled at finding her first informant.”
She shot her father a dubious look. “Do you believe him? Do you really think he has dirt on Wildridge?”
“If Buddy says he has dirt, he has dirt,” Cray said, leveling a confident look at his daughter.
Elissa dropped her head against the head rest again and sighed. “But what kind of dirt?”
“All news is good news. Right?”
Elissa shook her head. “That’s not how the saying goes, Dad.”
“Eh, close enough. Besides, you’re the writer, not me.” He flashed her a smile and winked.
“Oh, so they didn’t teach you journalism in prison?” She sounded snarkier than she’d intended, but she was tired. And annoyed.
“Hardly, though San Diego at least offered some educational opportunities. Glad I was sent there instead of LA. That’s where they send the real degenerates.
“Yeah, and we all know you’re not a degenerate,” Elissa quipped with a twist of her lips.
Her father snorted, well accustomed to her sass. “Burglary is hardly first-degree murder, Elissa. But I’m reformed now. Going straight.”
“So you’ve said,” she deadpanned, her lack of confidence obvious. Not to mention well-earned.
Nothing would please her more than for her father’s claims to be true, but a lifetime of experience told her otherwise. The man had been in and out of jails and prisons since her mother’s death when Elissa was ten. Since her mother had been the primary breadwinner, Cray had resorted to a life of crime to keep them afloat. Petty theft, burglary, larceny. Nothing major—that they’d ever popped him for, that is. Elissa had learned long ago to not ask questions she didn’t want the answers to.
Still, he was her dad, the only true family she had left in the world—apart from crazy Aunt Sanne, her dad’s only sibling. Elissa had been shuffled off to live with Aunt Sanne every time her father went to jail. It had been hard enough to say goodbye to him so many times throughout her childhood, but to then live with a grown woman who had an unhealthy obsession with boy bands and a fondness for Chardonnay—or maybe it was the other way around—was the rotten cherry on top of a shit sundae.
That’s why, when Cray had been released this last time, Elissa had invited him to stay with her until he got back on his feet and figured out a new path. That seemed less and less likely, though, especially when he still palled around with his criminal cronies. And she could only assume Buddy was one of them.
So why the hell was she sitting here waiting for the guy in the middle of a fancy neighborhood at one—no, make that one twenty—in the morning? The answer was, of course, that the chance to write an explosive exposé on the company of dragons responsible for enforcing shifter law in Los Angeles far outweighed any concerns over her own safety or her father’s promises to clean up his act. Good thing it was dark or Cray would have seen her blush.
The dark was blasted away by the overhead light when the rear passenger door of her car was jerked open, blinding her momentarily. Buddy must have finally arrived. Squinting and blinking against the light, Elissa only caught a glimpse of the man in her backseat before he slammed the door shut, blinding her again, but this time with darkness.
Adrenaline shot into her system, sending her heart thumping in her chest. The man was dressed from head to toe in black with a ski mask covering his face. Except his eyes. His wild, feral eyes. He looked a helluva lot more like a carjacker than an informant, and his shouts confirmed it.
“Drive!” the man screamed as he slid a heavy black duffel bag onto the seat next to him. The bag could easily have been filled with enough weapons to take out a couple of unarmed panther shifters. “Go! Go! Go!”
Elissa’s fight or flight instinct took over. Throwing the car into Drive, she mashed the gas pedal all the way to the floorboard and peeled off down the street at the speed of a souped-up DeLorean.
Maybe if I get the speedometer up to eighty-eight miles per hour, her panicked brain thought, I can go back in time and tell my dad no for once in my life.
Elissa’s wide eyes watched in the rearview mirror as the carjacker peeled off his ski mask to reveal a middle-aged dude with short salt-and-pepper hair and an equally speckled goatee. Her sniffer told her he was also a big cat shifter, but the smell of her own fear hid which kind.
The man frowned at her in the mirror but then turned his attention to Cray. “What the hell, Cray? You were supposed to come alone!”
“Buddy, this is my daughter, Elissa,” Cray said smoothly, totally unfazed by what had just happened. Because why would he be? This was his friend they’d been waiting on for what seemed like hours. “Now, would you mind telling me exactly what the hell is going on?”
Buddy shook his head. “Oh, is that the game you’re playing? Don’t want to look bad in front of the kid?”
Elissa gripped the steering wheel and tried not to look at her father. She knew the expression he’d be wearing—one of stunned surprise, total bewilderment, and utter innocence.
“What are you talking about, Buddy?” Cray snapped, keeping up the show for her sake.
“Psh! Man, stop pretending you’re something you’re not. You knew the deal when you took my call. I’m the muscle. You’re the driver. Just like old times.”
Cray twisted in his seat to glare at Buddy. “I most certainly did not know that was the deal. I just thought you needed a ride and that this might be a good opportunity for you and Elissa to meet.”
Buddy snorted and turned to stare out the window, wholly unimpressed by Cray’s excuses. So was Elissa, for that matter.
She shot a sideways glance at him, noticing the way the occasional streetlight illuminated the craggy lines and creases on his thin face. He’d lived a hard, brutish life and it showed. More than anything, Elissa desperately wanted to believe he was reformed, a changed man. She’d been dreaming of it her entire life, but now it was clear he’d never change, and that broke her heart.
As her heart rate slowed and the panic eased, so did her foot on the accelerator. No need to get to eighty-eighty miles per hour. No use fighting a losing battle. She pegged the needle at the speed limit and kept it there, praying her tail lights were working and all the cops in the city would be too busy to pull them over.
“Fantastic,” she muttered, just loudly enough for Cray to hear. “Now I’m a getaway driver for a thief. I think they call it ‘accessory after the fact.’”
Her dad winced and gave her a sheepish smile. “Well, you said you wanted a story…”
Last One to the Meeting wasn’t a title Ragan DeFever especially wanted to earn six months into his job at Wildridge Security, the prestigious firm entrusted with the safety of the shifter population in Los Angeles. As the newbie at Wildridge, he was under a microscope, but LA traffic could be brutal—even for a dragon.
B
alancing a to-go box of coffee on top of a box of bribe-doughnuts, he pushed the door to the conference room open with his butt. Six thick folders were tucked under his arm and a pen sat tucked behind one ear. At least the last two items made him look somewhat professional. No one needed to know he’d accidentally stolen the pen after scrawling his signature on the doughnut receipt.
“…occurred last night,” Ragan’s boss, Charlie Volant was saying as Ragan entered, pointedly ignoring him. “The victim was none other than Stark Bradford.”
Murmurs erupted around the conference table as the five other specialists exchanged shocked glances.
“Thirty-five, widower, father to a seven-year-old boy, and owner of a beautiful home in Malibu. Every one of you should be familiar with the residence already, seeing as Mr. Bradford has been one of our most notable clients for over a year now. Which makes what happened last night absolutely unacceptable.”
Ragan paused as he was setting the boxes onto the table and looked to Charlie. “Does this mean we don’t deserve doughnuts?”
“Set the doughnuts down, my friend,” said Thrett Lacerta from across the table. He eyed the pink box as if his dragon hadn’t eaten in ages.
“And step away slowly if you want to keep both of your hands,” added Elektra Mico, her expression hard and unflinching. If Ragan hadn’t known she was joking, the cold look in her eyes might have made his dragon whimper, as it did with so many bad guys. Turning her dark gaze back to Charlie, she asked, “Was anyone hurt during the break-in?”
Charlie nodded to Ragan, who finally set down the boxes and started handing out folders. “As you’ll see, no one was harmed.”
Easily the largest person in the room—maybe the city—Allon Wyvern slipped his file from the top of the pile without glancing at Ragan. He always projected a casual confidence Ragan admired. Of course looking like a Venice Beach bodybuilder probably made it easy. He’d joined the firm a few years earlier as a skip tracer, or as Allon put it, a glorified bounty hunter. Hunting down criminals on the run was no job for wimps and Allon worked hard to keep every inch of his six-foot-seven frame in peak condition. His reputation proved the man was the cream of the crop…and he knew it.
At least Elektra acknowledged Ragan’s existence with a curt nod as he handed her a folder. She sat like a soldier—stiff posture, tense like she was ready to lunge at anyone who made a wrong move, and a keen gaze that never stopped taking in her surroundings. The first time they’d met, Ragan finally understood how a person’s eyes could be called “vividly black.” She stood ten inches shorter than Allon, but Ragan would have been hard-pressed to bet against her in a fight between the two. She didn’t advertise her immense strength like Allon did, and she didn’t need to. Her intensity did it for her.
Thrett had already loaded a maple bar and a raised glaze onto a napkin by the time Ragan handed him the report on the Bradford burglary. The firm’s security specialist grinned as he chomped a big bite out of the maple bar and took the folder with his free hand. “Thanks, kid.” Ragan decided it wasn’t the right moment to point out Thrett was only two years older.
“Hey, leave some for the rest of us,” Wyntir Ignis chided Thrett, who winked and took another bite. “Thanks, Ragan.”
Some clients were surprised to learn Wyntir was Wildridge’s personal security specialist—a.k.a. bodyguard. She delighted in dressing in the latest fashions, preferably in the color pink, had a standing monthly appointment with someone called an aesthetician—Ragan wasn’t entirely sure what the job entailed, but he suspected it had to do with beauty stuff—and she loved blasting the newest pop sensation as she drove around LA with the top down, singing at the top of her lungs. Badly. But those clients quickly learned her girly-girl outward appearance hid the heart of a bad-ass.
At a glance, Dyrk Fortis could have been Wyntir’s counterpart. He took great pride in his appearance, to the point of fussiness. He wore the same type of jet-black bespoke suit every day, which matched the color of his neatly trimmed hair. The man’s scruffy beard never grew past the three-day mark and neither did his nails. In fact, he looked every bit a cover model for the billionaire romances Wyntir loved to read. The perfect image to project for a banking specialist, though the rest of them were always trying to get him to loosen up a bit, especially Thrett.
Once all the folders were dispersed, Ragan looked around the table for an open seat and sighed. One more reason he hated to be late—the only open chair was between Thrett and Bellicent Bleek, Wildridge’s receptionist. It wasn’t that he disliked her, but he hated the smell of the clove cigarettes she insisted on smoking. Of course, it didn’t help that she wasn’t the most pleasant person in the world, always dressing like she was going to a funeral and making snarky comments. Although today the crow shifter seemed blessedly quiet, paying more attention to her game of spider solitaire than the document she had presumably opened to take notes. When she caught Ragan looking at her screen, she shot him a glare from bloodshot and baggy eyes, no doubt remnants from yet another rave with her goth friends last night.
“All other business is tabled until we solve this case,” Charlie announced, waving away the doughnut box Thrett offered to him. “Mr. Bradford and his son were out of town when the burglary occurred, thank goodness, but we must make this right. Not only to serve our client, but to maintain the integrity of Wildridge. I want to get on site immediately, so I have tasks for all of you.”
Ragan’s heart rate picked up at the word all. His gaze flitted around the table and Wyntir flashed him an encouraging smile. For the past six months, Ragan had pushed for Charlie to send him into the field, but as the firm’s only cybersecurity specialist, his position was generally sitting in front of a computer screen. He’d hoped that making a simple doughnut run would be enough to make Charlie forgive his tardiness, but he’d never dreamed it would land him the chance he’d been waiting for since he’d been hired.
“Allon, I want you touching base with all of your underworld contacts,” Charlie said. “See if you can find out if this was a professional job or a personal vendetta. Elektra, floor plans of the Bradford house are included in your packet. The burglars figured out how to get past our security measures. We need to find that weakness and close it. Thrett, you’ll obviously be scouring the security videos, as well as assessing if we need to upgrade Mr. Bradford’s system.”
Charlie ran a leathery hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “It goes without saying that we’ll eat the bill if an upgrade is necessary. Wyntir, you are now assigned to Blaise Bradford. Mr. Bradford doesn’t seem overly concerned with his own safety, so I want you watching the boy’s every move. But keep your distance. We don’t want them panicking. This is purely a cover-your-ass situation. Got it? Dyrk, you’ll follow the money, as usual. Talk to Stark’s financial team and find out if the thieves made off with more than just physical goods.”
While Charlie handed out assignments, Ragan thumbed through his own folder to find some clue as to what his role would be in the investigation. Charlie had prepared all of the files early that morning and left them on Ragan’s desk to pass out, as was his job as the new guy, so he was surprised to find only a dossier on an online news site for shifters.
“Rawr News?” Ragan mumbled, frowning at the sheet of paper.
“Ah yes, glad to see you’re reading ahead, Ragan,” Charlie said, his demeanor brightening. “Since this was a physical burglary, your cybersecurity expertise isn’t something we’ll need at this point.”
Ragan’s stomach clenched. “Um, okay. So…what? You want me checking out the background of whoever runs this fake news site? Are they suspects or something?”
Charlie chuckled. “No, nothing like that. Although I can’t stress enough how important your assignment is to Wildridge, Ragan. You’ll be the point man for a reporter from Rawr News.”
Ragan stared at his boss, not caring that his mouth was hanging open. “But…but you said…”
“I know,” Charlie said with a sligh
t grimace, “but trust me, this is every bit as important as anyone else’s assignment. You see, the publisher is an old friend of mine and he owes me a favor. A big one. This reporter will be doing a spotlight on us as a company, showing us in a positive light. I’m hoping it will keep anyone else from sniffing around about the Bradford case. PR is vital to our work, Ragan. You know that.”
Ragan couldn’t look at his boss for a second longer. He studied the dossier, such as it was, without really reading it. He just needed to bide some time so he could calm down. Once again, he’d been denied field time.
“So you want me emailing all of our marketing material to this guy, huh?”
“Well, that would certainly be the easiest—” Charlie paused when Wyntir made a face at him but then jerked her head pointedly at Ragan. “Um, well, I suppose you could take the reporter out to canvass the Bradfords’ neighborhood to see if anyone saw anything suspicious. They rarely do, but it would get you out into the field and it might impress the reporter. How does that sound?”
Ragan shrugged, knowing perfectly well he looked like a petulant child. But he couldn’t help it because that’s exactly how he felt. He’d paid his damn dues. He deserved time in the field with his cohort, but Charlie seemed determined to keep him in the office. He was tired of it. Canvassing the neighborhood was something, but only just.
“It’s busy work,” Ragan shrugged, unable to hold his tongue any longer. “We both know that, Charlie. We also both know I’m ready to get out there and do something, and I don’t think babysitting some hack who couldn’t land a real journalism job counts.”
A loud knock at the open conference room door jerked them all to attention. A tall, voluptuous woman with long black hair and striking violet eyes stood in the doorway dressed in a well-tailored dress suit that hugged every curve in the most spectacular manner imaginable. She was beautiful, gorgeous, stunning—and she was glaring directly at him.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, her rich voice oozing sarcasm. “I was just writing a thank you email to my last babysitter.”
