New Roots (Raising the Bar #1)

Chapter 1 Axel

ONE

AXEL

“Special delivery from the Swedish bakery!” Anna’s voice called from the hallway, and it was music to my ears.

I may have been just imagining it, but I swear I could already smell whatever wonderful pastries she was carrying.

I had yet to visit this bakery in person, and I really needed to. I was born and raised in Sweden and had only moved here to the U.S. about three years ago.

I had moved to take a job at a crime tech company as a cybersecurity analyst. I was essentially a white hat—the good kind of hacker.

I helped companies find holes in their systems and fix them.

I’d had a similar job with the Swedish military, where I had worked before coming to America.

It was a good job, and I enjoyed it, but the tech company was so boring.

I sat at a desk all day long and found I was miserable.

One day, a colleague of mine quietly pulled me aside and told me about a job opening for the same type of job, but at a security and private investigations company.

The kicker—it involved hands-on projects, not sitting at a desk all day.

I interviewed with Wade, Vince, and Archer at the new company—Ranger Shield Security—and they offered me the job on the spot.

I had been working here at Ranger Shield for nearly two years now and hadn’t regretted the decision to switch jobs at all.

“Axel, you better hurry before all your favorites are gone!” Anna yelled again from down the hall, reminding me there were Swedish treats with my name on them.

I popped up from my desk and made my way over to our large meeting room, which was likely where she’d put them.

Anna was Archer’s wife, and she had discovered this bakery a while ago.

Once she found out I was Swedish, she recommended I go by to get a taste of home.

I hadn’t gone yet, because admittedly, everything Anna had ever brought us from there was delicious, and I was afraid I’d order one of every single item they made if I went there on my own.

I turned the corner and walked into our meeting room, which had a large oval table that could seat twelve people. That table was currently covered in a variety of baked goods and desserts, and the room smelled incredible.

“Oh good, you’re all here,” Anna said, standing on the far side of the table.

Sure enough, almost everyone was here. The four owners of the company—Wade, Archer, Jack, and Vince—along with all the newer hires they’d had over the last two years since they started the company—Dane, Andre, Delia.

The only ones missing were Ruthie, our administrative assistant, who was likely still downstairs in the front lobby, and Diego, who was out on a reconnaissance project right now.

“So,” Anna said, clapping her hands together, a sly smile on her face, as everyone dug into the delicious pastries laid out. “This free food comes with a request for a favor.”

Normally if someone said that, it would be accompanied by groans, but Anna was not one to ask for favors. She was a news anchor at a local TV station here in Atlanta, Georgia. More importantly, she was a fan of curling—the greatest sport in the world—so I knew she was good people.

“Most of you know about Stella, who owns the Swedish bakery. She received a creepy note while I was there picking up my usual order,” Anna said to the room.

“I was eavesdropping and heard the conversation between her and her assistant. Apparently, some guy keeps coming into the store and asking her out on a date. He’s left flowers and notes and made other gestures, but Stella isn’t interested.

She’s made this very clear, though politely, to the man and has even taken to having her other employees intercept the presents so she doesn’t have to get them herself. ”

Wow. I understood going for it and taking a chance asking a beautiful woman out when you didn’t know whether it would be reciprocated, but once the woman says no, you move on. Period.

“Well, according to Luna—Stella’s assistant—the notes are starting to be a bit more aggressive,” Anna added, and my attention became even more heightened.

I didn’t even know this woman, and I was already angry on her behalf.

“What do these notes say?” I asked.

Before she could answer, there was a gasp at the front door behind me. I turned to see Ruthie standing there, out of breath.

“I swear to God, if you guys ate all the cinnamon rolls, I will never forgive you,” Ruthie said to the room.

“I saved you one, girlie,” Anna told her, handing her a smaller box.

“God, I love you,” Ruthie said, grabbing the box and sitting down in the seat closest to me.

“Back to the notes,” Vince said, bringing my attention back to Anna.

“Stella has been throwing them out, so I don’t have any of the older ones, but I was able to get the one from today,” she said, pulling out a small plastic bag with a piece of paper inside.

“I put it in one of Stella’s Ziploc bags from the kitchen so no other fingerprints would get on it, but I’m not sure it matters. ”

She handed the bag to Archer before she spoke again. “Both Stella and Luna are convinced it’s this same guy with the presents. His name is Braden, but they don’t know his last name.”

She said that last part while looking at me. I nodded back to her, knowing what she was implying. She wanted me to look into this man and find more information about him. Dane was also good at getting some basic background info, but hacking was my specialty.

“Stella?” Ruthie said, her mouth half full of a wonderful smelling kanelbulle. “What happened to Stella?”

Anna briefly filled her in while she stuffed the rest of the cinnamon roll pastry in her mouth.

“Unfortunately, the note doesn’t actually say anything threatening,” Archer chimed in, looking down at the note that he had obviously just read.

“It says, ‘I wish you would reconsider and go on a date with me. I think you are making a big mistake. I understand your father is sick and you have the bakery, but you need to make time for yourself. I’ll give you a few days to think about it, and then I will return. Hopefully you will change your mind and make the right decision before it comes back to haunt you.’”

“That last part sounds like a threat to me!” Ruthie said defensively.

“Not legally,” Archer pointed out, and he would know since he’d been a cop in Las Vegas prior to coming here and starting this company with his cousin Vince and his friends.

“He could easily say he was just trying to give her some advice and hopes she makes the right decision about her life choices,” Archer said and held up his hand when Ruthie tried to interrupt him. “Look, Ruthie, I get it. The guy sounds like a tool.”

Ruthie slumped in response, but I was caught on his word of choice.

“Tool?” I leaned over to ask, unfamiliar with this word.

“Dick. Asshole. Jerk. Weirdo,” Ruthie said to me.

Ruthie had been great over the past year or so, really helping me fine tune my English language skills.

When I came to the States, I spoke a decent amount of English, but when I engaged in conversations with people, there were many nuanced words and phrases that I didn’t understand.

I needed to get better at it, but I didn’t like small talk, and that was the best way to learn the colloquial terms of another language.

Sensing my frustration, she snapped her fingers at me as though she’d just thought of the best idea in her entire life. “Oh! Axel! I’ve been meaning to tell you... Tammy said they are looking for someone to help out occasionally at the bar. You should offer to work as a bartender to help her out.”

“I have a job,” I replied, unclear why she was telling me this.

“Yes, but this would just be maybe once a week for a few hours, and it would help you meet people and practice your English more,” she told me. “Besides, Tammy would do the hard work. You really just have to get people drinks and make casual conversation.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, but I also didn’t really like to hang out with strangers. I wasn’t an introvert per se, but I just didn’t like small talk or having random conversations with people I didn’t know.

“I’ll talk to Tammy. Don’t worry,” Ruthie said.

“I’m not worried,” I told her.

She smiled at me, the one she used when I said something wrong or not in the correct context.

“Focus, people,” Anna broke in. “Here’s the thing. I told her we would look into the guy, but she told me not to because she…and I quote…didn’t want to bother you guys if it turned out to be nothing.”

Anna rolled her eyes at that last part and shook her head lightly. “Clearly I’m going to make you do it anyway, which is why I told her it was a moot point and to let me have the letter from today.”

“And also why you brought us all these goodies from her bakery as bribery,” Vince surmised with a small smirk on his face.

If this were any woman dealing with a creepy man who couldn’t take no for an answer, I would gladly help if Anna asked me to. But knowing it was Stella, I felt compelled to help her even more, knowing she was a fellow Swede.

“I will do it,” I told the room, causing Anna to look at me and smile.

“Thank you, Axel. I actually figured you would be the best person for this anyway,” she told me.

“I’m hoping maybe if you go to her bakery and meet her…

tell her you are also Swedish…maybe she will open up to you a little more.

Plus, you also have the skills to look into this creeper without raising any red flags. ”

Subtlety was my specialty when it came to digging for information on the internet. Plus, I also knew a few others in the business who I could reach out to for help if I needed it.

I may have learned my skills while in the Swedish Armed Forces, but the dark web could also be a meeting place for like-minded people. I had met and assisted two other hackers over the years who had become my friends, even though I had never met them in person.