Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Devon Whitestone circled his opponent, waiting for the moment to strike. A fist drove toward his face. He leaned to the side, narrowly avoiding the blow. Jeez, his reflexes were slow today. He felt like he was moving through sand.
A jab. A hook. Bob and weave.
Focus, he told himself.
But he was sloppy throwing his next punch. Left himself wide open. He didn’t even see the fist coming, only felt knuckles driving into his chin, even through the padding.
Devon went sprawling onto the rubber flooring.
“Oh, shit.” Chase, Devon’s friend and sparring partner, threw off his headgear and pulled the gloves from his hands. “Are you okay?”
Devon let the bite guard drop from his mouth. The room was spinning, but only a little. “Yeah. No worries. I’m slower than usual today.”
“What happened? Late night?”
“Yeah. Got called in.”
“Again? What time did you get home?” Chase held out a hand, helping Devon up.
“Uh, three maybe?”
Chase whistled. “Jesus, Devon. I mean, you’re making me look good on the mat by comparison. But you should be home asleep.” He led Devon over to a bench and made him sit down. “You need a day off.”
Devon managed a weak laugh. “This is my day off.”
“I don’t know how you keep going like this, man,” Chase said. “I really don’t.”
Because I don’t have much choice, Devon thought.
Chase handed Devon a water bottle. He took a long swig.
“Tell me the truth,” his friend said. “How have you really been?”
Fucking tired, he responded silently. I’m coming apart at the seams. But I’m going to keep acting like everything’s fine, and eventually, it will be. I hope.
“Hanging in there,” Devon said.
He didn’t like talking about his problems. Devon wasn’t a fan of showing weakness, not so much because he looked down on vulnerability.
He wasn’t a hyper-macho, men-don’t-cry sort of asshole.
He had feelings, even if he couldn’t afford to show them.
Getting caught up in his own wants and needs would be selfish. His family needed him to be strong.
It had been a year and a half since his world turned upside down. Since his twin brother, Kellen, had died in the line of duty.
Devon and Kellen came from a family of Los Angeles cops.
Uncles, aunts, cousins, all proud to be blue.
The twin brothers had wanted nothing more than to join the club.
Then their father had been shot and killed while on patrol when they were ten.
It had been a terrible time. Yet the family bonded together even closer and got through it.
After they’d graduated high school, Kellen wanted to uphold their dad’s legacy.
He’d applied to a criminal justice program with the intention of entering the police academy after he got his degree.
But Devon, on the advice of his school counselor, went through the difficult process to apply to West Point.
His grades were stellar. He’d always welcomed a challenge.
And he still had a lingering ambivalence about a life patrolling the streets of LA.
And then—to his surprise, most of all—he’d actually gotten accepted with a full-ride scholarship. Four years later, he graduated and began his career as a lieutenant in the army. Then he’d completed the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program and joined the Army Rangers.
There were things he couldn’t stand about being a soldier, like losing people he’d grown to love and admire. He’d lost too many people in his life. But overall, Devon was happy with his career. He had a purpose, serving his country with pride, and that meant everything to him.
Then came the phone call last year, when he’d learned that Kellen had been shot trying to stop a gunman at a shopping mall. By the time Devon heard about it, Kellen was already gone.
Devon’s mother and sister had begged him to come home.
They couldn’t take the risk of losing another member of their family.
It took nearly a year to get his honorable discharge.
Finally, Devon made it back to Los Angeles, just in time to find out that his mom’s mortgage was underwater.
And his sister Ruby gave birth a week later, her deadbeat ex nowhere to be found.
So taking care of his family became Devon’s new purpose.
The job offer from Bennett Security came at just the right moment.
Devon moved his mom, sister, and baby niece out of Los Angeles and into the beautiful beachside community of West Oaks.
It wasn’t easy to afford the rent, but this was the kind of life that he wanted to provide for them, away from the crowds and the smog and the bad memories.
Since they’d moved to West Oaks, his family was actually smiling again.
“You could always get laid,” Chase said. “That might take some pressure off.”
He snorted. “When would I have time for that?”
Devon wasn’t in the service anymore, but he still lived by a schedule.
Wake up at five, run two miles to the gym, train.
Clean up, eat, and head to work by eight.
In the evenings, he picked up extra shifts or spent time with his Mom or Ruby.
Bed by nine, unless he was working. On Friday nights, whenever possible, he babysat his niece so his sister and mom could take a little time for themselves.
Devon had to be their rock, both financially and emotionally. They had the support of their extended family and the police community, too. But nobody else was going to take responsibility for them the way that Devon would.
His schedule kept everything moving smoothly, no unexpected surprises. His mom and sister needed certainty in their lives, and so did he. Dating had a tendency to throw mud into the gears.
If he had to take extra shifts to make ends meet, and if he had to just keep pushing relentlessly to keep himself from sinking—well, that was how it had to be.
Once he’d saved enough money to get Mom and Ruby and the baby into a real house, no more noisy apartments or unreliable landlords, then maybe he’d back off a bit. Take a nap.
If he broke under the stress? His family would come crashing down along with him.
“You can’t spare one night for a hook-up?” Chase asked. “You’re practically a monk.”
Devon grunted dismissively. He got up, and they headed for the showers. “What about you? What’s new at the station?”
Chase was an officer with the West Oaks Police Department.
This gym, in fact, was a popular place for cops to work out and train.
Even though Devon was ex-military, the officers here accepted him as an honorary fellow cop because of his family legacy.
His friendships with police often came in handy working for a private security company.
Chase stripped off the rest of his gear, throwing it into his locker. “You haven’t heard? That murder over at The Lighthouse Club is what everyone’s been talking about. I figured the sirens woke the whole town last night.”
“Oh, I heard. Actually, that was the reason I got called in to work. We did the security system at the club, and Bennett himself responded to the silent alarm. He’d even gotten a tip-off beforehand, apparently, though I’m not sure how.
I had to cover the office while Bennett and his team were gone. ”
Devon usually sold security systems these days or worked behind a desk. His mom couldn’t handle the stress of him being in danger.
Chase whistled. “Then you must know a lot more about it than I do, man. People are saying that Wolfson, the guy who got killed, had ties to a Los Angeles crime ring. They’ve been moving into West Oaks, trying to expand their territory.
And the rumor is, there was a witness to the murder. Some woman.”
From a nearby locker, another guy looked over.
He wore a towel around his waist, and he’d laid out his West Oaks PD uniform on the bench.
“I heard that, too. I wouldn’t want to be her right now.
These mobster guys are no joke. Remember that eyewitness last summer who got gunned down on the LA County courthouse steps, right before testifying? ”
“That was brutal,” Chase said. “They couldn’t tie the hit to anybody, either. Unsolved. Sickening that that kind of shit is coming to West Oaks, now.”
Devon didn’t like the sound of that. West Oaks was supposed to be a safer, quieter place for his family to settle and heal. It was like LA’s problems had followed him here.
His phone buzzed, and he checked the message. Damn. “That’s my boss. I gotta head out.”
“But what about your day off?”
“Duty calls.”
“And Devon Whitestone always answers,” Chase joked. Devon heard his friends’ rueful laughter following him out the door.
Devon swiped his key card, entered his code on the pad, and walked into Bennett Security’s main office. The place was full of large windows and chrome, with fancy flat-panel TVs lining the walls along one side. A couple of his colleagues looked up and nodded hello from behind their computers.
He had worked for Bennett Security for three months now. He was still the new guy, so he didn’t have his pick of assignments. But Max Bennett knew that Devon wanted as many shifts as possible and seemed to be pleased with the work Devon had done so far.
He jogged up the open-riser staircase to his boss’s closed door. The room was lined with glass walls, and Devon could see his boss on the phone, pacing back and forth across the luxuriously appointed space.
Bennett noticed him through the glass and waved for him to come inside.
Still listening to his phone, Bennett pointed at the leather couch across from his desk. Devon sank into the cushions.
Max Bennett had been running Bennett Security for just a few years. Bennett had grown up here, so it probably had been easy to get started. Maybe he had a built-in client base from his former classmates, no doubt some fancy private school.