Out of the Shadows (Hudson Security #1)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

G avin Frazier ran his hand over the scruff on his jaw and adjusted the headphones over his ears. The muffled noise of the helicopter was soothing in a fucked-up kind of way. Their mission had been successful, but damn if his stomach didn’t tighten when he recalled the poor little kid. A glance at the faces of his teammates sitting around him showed they felt the same.

Anson McClintock was the three-year-old son of tech billionaires Edward and Rita McClintock. They’d each founded a social media network—two of the most popular sites in the world—and their marriage had made global headlines. After Anson was born, they’d gotten him his own around-the-clock security detail.

But Anson had still been kidnapped.

At his own damn third birthday party.

The McClintocks had been determined to handle the ransom negotiations privately, but after two days, the kidnappers had begun sending videos of them cutting the toes off the toddler’s right foot. After the third video, the McClintocks had called Hudson Security .

Within twenty-four hours, Gavin’s team had located the child. Another twenty-four hours later, Anson had been reunited with his family and was currently at the hospital undergoing treatment for his injuries.

Gavin’s gut clenched. The fuckers who’d taken the toddler had attempted to cauterize his foot with an iron. The boy had barely been conscious when their team had found him hidden in a warehouse in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

Within those first twenty-four hours, Hudson Security had gathered a ridiculous amount of intel, enough to find Anson and put his kidnappers away for life. Gavin had told Bean to hand everything they had to the FBI. The two men responsible for kidnapping the child were members of the McClintock family’s security detail.

Gavin would personally do everything in his power to make sure the damn feds crossed all their T’s and dotted all their I’s. They’d snatched a kid—a baby, really—and tortured him for the hope of twenty million dollars. No way were those fuckers going free. Not on his watch.

A buzzing in his pocket yanked him from his thoughts. As Gavin pulled his phone out, he glanced out the helo’s windows and caught sight of Hudson Island’s lights in the distance. Seeing the island he’d called home for the last decade lifted some of the tension he’d been holding in his shoulders.

Glancing at the text message, he frowned.

MacKay

Check on Bean. Was on a video call with her and she looked like shit. It looked like she almost passed out.

Unease stirred in Gavin’s gut. He acknowledged his second-in-command’s message, but before he could delve deeper, they were landing. Within twenty minutes, his team was gathered in Hudson Security’s largest conference room. There was a split screen on the Smartboard. The top two boxes showed Bean’s home office and MacKay’s office in London. Their in-office crew of eight took up the lower half of the screen.

Gavin’s eyes narrowed as he took in Bean. Her long, dark-brown hair was slicked back in a ponytail, and she wore one of her customary button-up blouses. The only thing that was different from her usual attire was that she was wearing dark-framed glasses, which wasn’t unusual since they’d all been up for way too many hours to count.

After working closely with Bean for the last eight years, he knew when she’d hit the wall. Her deep-blue eyes, which lightened and darkened depending on her mood, got shaky. It was always concerning when that happened, but the woman looked like her usual put-together, badass self. If MacKay thought she looked like shit, then they must have had a bad connection.

Dismissing MacKay’s concerns, Gavin got down to business. “It’s nearly four-thirty in the fucking morning, so let’s make this quick.” After giving a concise recap for MacKay’s sake with his team chiming in here and there, Gavin turned to Xander Bonetti, one of their top security specialists. “I’d like you to meet with the McClintocks later this afternoon. I talked to Edward briefly tonight about their security personnel and recommended they clean house. Edward wants us to take over the personal security for his son and wife tomorrow. He’s also requesting we take the lead on hiring long-term security for them. However, he’s insisting on keeping his own core security personnel. A team of five led by Adrian Polanski that he apparently ‘trusts with his life.’ ”

Xander frowned. “He wants to keep the people that were in charge of hiring security for his kidnapped son?”

Gavin shrugged. “Apparently, Edward, Polanski, and the other four guys go way back. And I quote, ‘It wasn’t their fault they were duped.’”

Groans and muttered curses filled the room.

Xander shook his head. “When the fuck are people going to realize that longevity doesn’t equate to loyalty?”

“So Edward trusts Polanski and his guys with his own life, but not with the lives of his wife and child.” Bean’s eyes rolled. “People are freaking strange.”

“Like I said,” Gavin began, commanding everyone’s attention, “I briefly talked with Edward. Obviously, he was preoccupied with getting Anson back and with his son’s condition. Xander, when you meet with him later, try and push him to reconsider keeping his current security. Team Two, you guys are going with. Since Anson will be in the hospital for at least a week, and Rita says she’ll be staying with him the entire time, I don’t think we need to assign an additional team to the two of them right now. We’ll reevaluate assignments when the kid gets released from the hospital.”

Xander and the three men who made up Team Two nodded, and Gavin turned to the screen. “Bean, I’ll need you to run deep background checks on all the new candidates for the McClintocks ASAP.”

“Copy,” she said, then a smirk lifted her lips. “Oh, sorry, MacKay, you’re muted. Hang on... Oh, damn. Sorry, my feed froze, and I can’t unmute you.”

MacKay flipped her off. The corners of his lips twitched as chuckles and snorts sounded throughout the conference room. One, they all knew her last sentence was a blatant lie. And two, the grin on B’s face was the definition of smug.

Wrangling the group back in line, Gavin doled out a few more assignments and then leaned back in his chair. “Good work today, everyone. Now get some rest, and we’ll check back in at fourteen hundred hours.” As his team nodded and rose from their seats, he called out, “Bean, call me on my cell in five.”

Following the group out of the conference room, Gavin said his goodbyes and made his way to his office. Flopping down onto his leather couch, he let out a tired groan. He loved the thrill of going out on missions, and while he hadn’t had the opportunity to go on many lately—he had teams of younger, highly qualified men and women who were more up to the task—he hadn’t been willing to stay behind on this one. Images of that tiny kid flashed in his mind. Then they were replaced by images of other children. Other kids who’d been tortured and beaten...

Bile churned in his belly, and he scrubbed his hands roughly over his face. He hadn’t been able to rescue those other children, but he’d been able to rescue this one.

His ringing cell phone pulled him from his grim thoughts. Yanking it from his pocket, he answered the video call.

When Bean’s face filled his display, his eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

“Sure thing, boss. Why wouldn’t I be?”

He didn’t buy her chipper, carefree routine. Not for one second. The woman was neither.

“Push your glasses up, B.” Her right eyebrow arched, and he fought a groan. “Please.”

She shoved her glasses to the top of her head and glared into the screen. “Happy?”

No. Not at all. Because the darker edges of her blue eyes trembled ever so slightly.

He quickly took in the area behind her and spied a bright-red sweatshirt lying on the table. He’d bet his company that she’d been wearing that grubby sweatshirt when MacKay had spoken with her earlier. And he’d also bet there was a reason she’d changed back into her usual professional wardrobe after hanging up with the guy.

Gavin tried not to sigh but wasn’t sure how successful he was. “You hacked into MacKay’s messages, didn’t you?”

Her eyes widened the tiniest of fractions. If he weren’t so attuned to Bean’s face, he would have missed it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He tilted his head and arched his own eyebrow. “Really?”

“Whatever,” she huffed, readjusting her glasses. “Besides, it’s rude to say someone looks like shit. I thought British people were supposed to be prim and proper.”

“You know MacKay’s neither of those things. He’s just worried about you, B. You almost passed out?”

She snorted. “No. He may have been a tiny bit right about the looking-like-shit part, but he was dead wrong about that.”

Gavin wasn’t quite sure he believed her, but it was nearly five in the morning, so what the hell did he know? “Good work today. Seriously. I don’t know how much longer the kid would have lasted if you hadn’t found him so quickly.”

She sobered and let out a sigh. “I hope he’ll be okay.”

“Me too. He’ll be safe with Team Two watching him.”

She nodded. “I’ll get on those background checks for the new security staff ASAP.”

“I know you will. Get some rest first, though.”

“Night, boss.”

“Hey, B,” he said before she could cut their connection.

“Yeah?”

He glanced behind her. “That 49ers sweatshirt back there may be a piece of shit”—he smothered a grin when she rolled her eyes. He was an unapologetic Seahawks fan, much to Bean’s disgust—“but you don’t ever look like shit. Tired or not. No matter what that dumb Brit says, got it?”

Bean’s eyes went owl wide. “Uh . . . thanks? ”

What the fuck, Frazier? He wanted to clobber himself in the head. Why the hell had he just said that? “Night, B,” he said, forcing a smile before quickly disconnecting.

He frowned and scrubbed his hands over his face. Damn. He must be more tired than he’d thought.