Brass (Cerberus Personal Security #2)

Chapter 1 Celeste

ONE

Celeste

He’s never late.

I hunch deeper into my coat, scanning both ends of the alley.

My messenger bag hangs heavy against my hip, laptop and recorder tucked inside.

Three months chasing shadows. Three sources gone silent: Quentin Hargrove’s “heart attack” at forty-two with no prior health issues, Zara Nouri’s single-car accident on a straight dry road, and Lachlan Reeves’s “suicide” despite the half-finished wedding invitations on his desk.

And now Jared Caldwell, former data analyst at Northridge Defense Solutions, is the only one still answering my calls. The only one who might know what connects them all.

My phone buzzes. Text from a number I don’t recognize: Change of plans. Come to the Windsor Hotel. Room 512. Walls have ears.

My stomach knots. This isn’t protocol. But Jared’s paranoia has kept him alive this long, so I rush to my car and head across town to the hotel.

The Windsor is all faded elegance—brass fixtures tarnished just enough to suggest character rather than neglect. I take the stairs instead of the elevator, checking over my shoulder at each landing.

Room 512’s door stands slightly ajar.

“Jared?” My voice echoes in the empty hallway. I push the door open with my fingertips.

The copper smell hits me first. Metallic. Primal. Wrong.

Jared lies sprawled across the bed. His throat—God, his throat. A red line carved from ear to ear, blood soaking the white hotel sheets. His eyes, fixed and dilated, stare at the ceiling. His laptop is gone.

Bile surges up my throat. I should call the police. Should scream. Should run.

Instead, I move on instinct—a safeguard we swore we’d never need. If it ever comes to this, check the remote.

My hands shake as I slide the back panel off the TV remote. Batteries spill onto the carpet. One is hollow, a dummy. The flash drive is taped beneath the cover, exactly where he promised it would be.

For a second, I can’t breathe. He knew. He planned for this.

I shove the drive into my pocket.

And then I run.

Now, speeding through D.C.’s rain-slicked streets, every shadow feels like a predator. Every traffic light is a countdown to something terrible. The flash drive burns in my pocket, heavy with whatever secrets cost Jared his life.

And someone is following me.

A black SUV has been in my mirror since the corner of K and 14th. At first, I dismissed it as paranoia—a coincidence, just another vehicle caught in the same downpour. But when I switch lanes? They follow. When I deliberately miss my turn onto Massachusetts? They miss theirs, too.

Another glance in the rearview. The SUV looms larger now.

Closer. Too close for coincidence. Its headlights bore through the rain like twin predatory eyes, high beams deliberately switched on to blind me.

The windshield wipers can’t keep up with the downpour, each swipe buying only a second of clarity before the world blurs again.

I grip the wheel tighter, knuckles whitening. Switch lanes again. Rush through a yellow light. The SUV follows, matching my every move.

Twenty blocks from the hotel, and I’m certain. I’m being hunted.

My heartbeat drowns out the radio. Sweat slicks my palms despite the cold air blasting from the vents. I take a sharp right onto a one-way street, tires skidding slightly on the wet pavement. The SUV hangs back for just a moment—hesitating—then accelerates.

Amateur move on my part. The street narrows. Less traffic. No witnesses.

The black vehicle surges forward. Gains on me. Ten car lengths. Five. Three.

I slam the accelerator to the floor. The engine whines in protest. Not enough.

In the mirror, I catch a glimpse of the driver. A flash of pale skin under the streetlights. No expression. No rage. No hurry. Just cold, calculating eyes locked on my car.

He wears what looks like a comm device in one ear.

His mouth moves, speaking to someone I can’t see.

Not alone then. Coordinated. Professional.

He adjusts his grip on the wheel, gloved hands shifting.

Our eyes meet in the mirror for a split second.

No emotion registers at all. Just the flat, dead gaze of someone doing a job.

This isn’t personal. It’s worse. It’s business.

The SUV kisses my bumper.

“Shit!” White-knuckle grip on the wheel. Heart hammering against my ribs.

A horn blares from somewhere to my left. The SUV taps me again, harder this time. My tires scream across wet asphalt.

I jerk the wheel right, trying to pull away. Slam the brake. Stomp the accelerator. Nothing matters.

They ram me.

Metal crushes against metal. The sound deafens—a terrible screech that vibrates through my bones. My world becomes a violent carousel. The steering wheel rips from my hands as the car spins. My head snaps forward, then back. Streetlights streak across the windshield in dizzy arcs of color.

My body slams against the door. Ribs crack. Air punches from my lungs.

The seatbelt cuts into my chest, burning across my collarbone, the only thing keeping me from becoming a projectile.

Headlights blind me—a taxi swerves, horn blaring, clipping my bumper. The impact sends my car spinning again. Something warm trickles down my temple. Blood or sweat or rain leaking through the fractured window, I can’t tell.

The SUV fishtails, regains control, then disappears into traffic. Leaving me. My car sputters, coughs, and dies in the middle of the intersection, steam billowing from the crumpled hood, hissing into the rain. The smell of burned rubber and antifreeze chokes me.

I claw at the seatbelt release. Click. Freedom. Pain shoots through my left side. Broken rib, maybe two. My legs tremble as I force the door open and stumble into the downpour.

Glass and plastic crunch beneath my boots. My knee buckles, sending lightning up my thigh. Rain pelts my face, washing away whatever’s trickling from my hairline. My wool coat hangs sodden, dragging at my shoulders, weighing me down.

Sirens wail in the distance. Police or ambulance. Questions I can’t answer. People who can’t protect me.

Across the street—salvation. The Dupont Circle subway entrance, its light spilling out onto the sidewalk like an invitation.

I run. Every step jars my ribs. Every breath burns.

The flash drive knocks against my thigh through my pocket. Worth dying for, Jared thought. Worth killing for, someone else decided.

Down the steps, gripping the handrail to keep from falling.

The fluorescent lighting assaults my eyes after the darkness outside.

The air down here hangs thick with humanity—stale perfume, wet clothes, the metallic tang of the trains, and beneath it all, the unmistakable reek of urine and mildew clinging to every surface.

My hair clings to my eyes. I swipe it back, wincing as my fingers graze a knot swelling at my temple.

Deeper into the station. Left turn. Another staircase. The rumble of an approaching train vibrates through the concrete. Safety in numbers. That’s my plan. Lose myself in the crowd. Catch the Red Line. Get to my apartment. Pack. Run.

I reach the platform.

There is no crowd.

Tuesday night. Late. Rain. Just a few scattered commuters huddled under flickering lights, faces buried in phones, purposefully ignoring each other. Three teenagers sharing earbuds. A homeless man is asleep on a bench. An elderly woman is clutching her purse. No safety in these numbers.

Then I hear it.

Footsteps. Synchronized. Deliberate. Different from the casual shuffle of commuters.

I turn. Cold sweat breaks across my neck despite the chill.

Four men descend the escalator. Dark coats. Identical builds. One adjusts something beneath his jacket—the telltale gesture of checking a weapon. Another lifts his chin, scanning the platform. His eyes lock onto mine.

Recognition flares. Not of me personally, but of a target acquired.

“Fuck.” The word escapes as vapor in the cold air.

My heart slams against my broken ribs. I back away, shoes slipping slightly on the wet tile. The train’s rumbling grows louder, but it won’t arrive in time.

Two of them angle left. The other two cut right. Cutting off escape routes. Herding me.

My back hits the tiled wall. Nowhere to go. The flash drive feels like it’s burning through my pocket, branding me. I bring my hands up, remembering fragments from a self-defense class I took after covering a story on campus assaults. Thumbs to eyes. Knee to groin. Scream fire, not rape or help.

None of it will save me from four trained killers.

They close in. Ten feet away. Eight. Five.

A large hand grabs my upper arm. I scream, twisting to fight this new threat from behind.

“Stay behind me.”

The voice cuts through my panic. Low. Calm. Absolute authority.

A stranger materializes beside me. Tall—six-three, maybe six-four. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. Military posture. Close-cropped dark blond hair. A jagged scar beneath his left eye that pulls slightly at the corner.

He steps forward, positioning his body between me and the approaching men. His movements are fluid, calculated. Nothing wasted. I catch the outline of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket.

“You’ve made a mistake,” he calls to them, voice carrying across the platform without shouting. “Walk away.”

The four men exchange glances. No hesitation. No fear. The leader, a tight-faced man with cold gray eyes, smirks. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“It does now.” My defender’s tone is almost conversational.

I press against the wall, every nerve humming with adrenaline. The approaching train’s vibration intensifies beneath my feet, but it’s still too far away. The few commuters on the platform have noticed the tension—they edge away, gazes averted, unwilling to become involved.

“Last chance,” says Gray Eyes, hand slipping inside his coat.

My protector shifts his weight to the balls of his feet. “Four against one. Not great odds.” A beat. “For you.”

The first man rushes him.

The stranger moves like water. A sidestep, then a precise strike to the attacker’s throat. The man crumples, gasping. Second attacker comes in low—my defender drives a knee up, catches him under the chin. Bone cracks. The man drops.

Gray Eyes pulls a knife. The blade catches the fluorescent light—five inches of serrated steel. He lunges. The stranger deflects, twists, and suddenly the knife is in his hand. He slashes backward, opening a red line across his attacker’s chest.

The fourth man has circled behind. He reaches for me. I scream, ducking away. The stranger spins, hurls the knife. It embeds in the wall an inch from the man’s ear—a warning.

“Next one goes in your eye,” my defender promises.

The train roars into the station, brakes screeching. Doors slide open. The commuters hurry on, desperate to escape the violence.

Gray Eyes clutches his bleeding chest, face contorted with fury. “This isn’t over.”

“Wrong.” My protector growls, low and ominous. “You’re outmatched, out-skilled, and half your team is down. Whatever they’re paying you, it’s not enough.”