Chapter 1 #2
Her big blue eyes brightened, a spark of excitement—she was fond of poking the prickly bear and just generally fond of Nic—but then she reined it in, asking cautiously, “How do we feel about that?”
While he and Nic hadn’t told any of their friends about their relationship, Lauren had intimated she’d figured something was brewing between them. They hadn’t confirmed or denied.
“Like I need something to show for a month of work,” he answered.
She pressed her lips together like she wanted to say more.
He glowered.
She rolled her eyes, then spun back around to the monitors, some of the long brown waves coming loose from her bun. “Curtis’s bank accounts continue to dwindle,” she said.
While they hadn’t been actively investigating, they had set up alerts on Curtis’s accounts and installed extra security at the properties he still owned.
“Any new loans?” he asked.
“Several. He’s barely afloat. Most were refis except this one.” She rotated the monitor closest to Cam so he could see the document open on the screen.
He rolled his chair closer, squinting at the long-form deed of trust.
“It was made back in May,” she went on. “But only recorded this week.”
May.
Five months ago, when the threats against Nic had quieted.
Her rainbow-painted nails directed his attention to the property description line. “You recognize that address?”
“Fucking hell. That’s the mansion in Hillsborough.”
“Yup, and the same company holds the mortgage on the office building in Burlingame.”
“Please tell me you’ve cracked that.”
The mortgage holder had a generic company name as did many real estate lenders and investment companies. Nic had claimed not to know who it traced back to. Cam didn’t buy it, suspecting that’s what Nic had been holding back.
“That’s where things get interesting,” Lauren said. He waved a hand, prompting her to go on. “There are other affiliate entities with loans on other Price properties and at the top of each company’s org chart is Vaughn Investments.”
“Who runs that?”
Her dark brows raced all the way to her hairline.
“I’m supposed to know?” Cam said.
“Vaughn Investments is run by Duncan Vaughn.”
“Who’s he?”
“Only one of the biggest real estate investors in the Valley. He’s like, all over the weekly business journal, opening this or that new project. I can’t believe you don’t know who he is.”
“I haven’t lived here my whole life, remember.
” He also avoided the local business journals and other reminders of how little money he made relatively.
In any event, his mind was making a more troubling connection.
“So you’re telling me one of this area’s biggest real estate investors might be behind the threats against Nic? ”
She nodded, not looking the least bit surprised. “I’m still tracing funds, but I doubt there’s any ‘might be’ to it.”
“Why’s that?”
She rapped her nails on the desk in a mock drumroll. Good news did not follow. “Because Duncan Vaughn is Silicon Valley’s version of a gangster.”
The gate agent called for Zone 5 passengers to board, and Nic heaved himself out of the vinyl chair with a sigh, in no hurry to race the other passengers to hell.
Ninety minutes of cramming his six-foot-three self into coach, then at the end of his journey waited a new apartment, a mountain of unpacked moving boxes, and a dark-haired, dark-eyed Bostonian whose mood Nic couldn’t predict after five weeks apart.
Don’t run to your death, the SEAL saying went. When he’d been a SEAL, Nic took the saying seriously. Calm, methodical, well-scoped-out missions saved lives; uninformed, reckless ones cost them.
He still took it seriously post-military.
Accepting Cam’s offer to move in with him would have been reckless, no matter how much he’d wanted to say yes.
With his father’s creditors looming, Nic might have been running them both to their deaths.
He wouldn’t have that, wouldn’t risk Cam.
So, as Cam rightly accused, he’d run the opposite direction, making true the other SEAL saying inked on his torso.
The only easy day was yesterday.
Because each day away from Cam had hurt.
He’d missed his Southie drawl and hungry kisses, his bed with the so-worn-they-were-soft sheets, and even his big-as-a-dog cat named Bird.
He’d also missed their friends who’d been steadily expanding Nic’s world beyond Gravity and the US Attorney’s Office.
He’d missed them all—his life—more than he cared to admit.
But facing them anew after he’d cut and run, no matter how good the reason, was going to make yesterday, as miserable as it had been between trial and transitioning cases, somehow easier.
“Excuse me, Mr. Price?”
Nic turned toward the lilting British accent, finding an unfamiliar older gentleman standing behind him.
Gray hair styled, expensive suit tailored, he carried himself with the impeccable air of a professional butler or steward, Nic familiar with the sort from when his father had had a staff of more than two.
The stranger also carried Nic’s checked suit bag over his arm.
“That’s me,” Nic said. “Is there a problem, Mr. . . .?”
“Chase. Jeremy Chase,” the man said with a polite nod. “You’ve been rebooked onto another flight.” Jeremy held out a business card emblazoned with a star and clover logo Nic knew well. “I think you’ll find it a much more comfortable transport to San Francisco.”
Nic took the card, flipped it over, and read the note on the back.
He couldn’t tell from the two-word order—Follow Jeremy—if the author was furious with him or not.
Commands were her normal default. But there was no doubt that what she was offering, even if it came with a side of recriminations, would be more comfortable than Seat 25D.
He pocketed the card, shouldered his messenger bag, and grabbed the handle of his carry-on.
“The lady wants me to follow you, Jeremy.”
“The lady is best not ignored.”
One side of Nic’s mouth hitched up. “Too true.”
Jeremy led him out of the main terminal and into a waiting town car.
They drove around to a separate terminal on the south side of the airport and directly into a hangar where a G-5 was being fueled and readied for takeoff.
At the top of the jet’s stairs stood imposing, beautiful Melissa Cruz, in a dark pencil skirt and cream-colored shell.
Formerly a Special Agent in Charge at the FBI and more recently Chief of Security for Talley Enterprises and bounty hunter on the side, she was definitely not a woman you ignored if you wanted to keep all your bodily bits.
“Price,” she greeted, when he reached the bottom of the steps.
“You gonna give me a lift?”
She crossed her toned brown arms, biceps flexing. “I shouldn’t after that disappearing act you pulled.”
Recriminations it was, then.
“But I’m the last person to judge,” she added. “You had your reasons.”
Jeremy, who’d finished loading his luggage, closed the hold door just as the pilot called from the side window, “Ms. Cruz, we’re ready to go.”
“Thank you,” she returned. Then to Nic, “Your reasons, as it turns out, were also well-founded.”
Interest and apprehension warred. “You’ve learned more?”
With a nod, she beckoned him to follow her inside, and Jeremy held out an arm toward the stairs. “Mr. Price, if you would, please.”
He climbed the steps into the luxury private jet, and Jeremy secured the door behind them.
“Anything else, Agent”—Jeremy paused, correcting himself with a smile that Mel shared—“Ms. Cruz?”
“We’re good, Jeremy, thank you.”
The steward, who must have known Mel from her Bureau days, disappeared behind the cockpit door.
Nic sank into one of the swiveling leather chairs and strapped in. “Where’d you find Alfred?”
“Stole him from commercial,” she answered with a smirk.
“Well done.”
Thanks to priority takeoff, they were airborne in less than ten minutes, and Nic was out of his coat and tie five minutes after that, tossing them into one of the other empty chairs.
He stretched out his long legs, laced his hands over his middle, and leaned back in the plush seat, eyes slipping closed.
There were difficult conversations to be had, Mel had intimated as much, but he couldn’t help taking a brief respite for himself.
Definitely better than commercial. “How are you, Nic?”
Respite over.
He righted his head and swiveled to face the couch where she sat, one knee crossed over the other, red-soled designer heel bouncing. “Tired but it was a good stint there.”
“You considering having your own office one day?”
“It’s tempting,” he admitted.
Being out from under Bowers’s thumb had been re-energizing.
Having his own team, choosing his and approving the team’s cases, being able to direct efforts toward causes within Justice’s purview that were of particular interest to him versus merely trying to clear cases, had reminded him why he’d gotten into this in the first place.
Besides his gift for arguing, as his SEAL XO had put it.
In five weeks, he’d made a difference, a bigger one than a single prosecutor’s caseload.
There was no shortage of abusers to introduce to the full weight of the law and doing so at the opposite end of the state from his asshole boss had been all the better.
But the opposite end of the state had kept him from the things he’d missed most—Gravity, friends, Cam.
“I’m not sure where my future lies if I’m being honest.”
“Gravity?”
“Some part of it, most definitely.” But all of it? What about the courtroom?
“Kegs won’t keep your bed warm at night,” Mel said, making the next leap to the bedroom.
He chuckled. “I was going to say something noble about the carriage of justice, but marriage seems to have turned you into the matchmaker.”
She poked him in the knee with her heel, smiling and unrepentant. “I want to see my friends happy too.”
If that constant ache he’d felt in the vicinity of his chest the past month was any indication, Nic knew what would make him happy. But he wouldn’t let his happiness come at the expense of those he cared for.
“I need to know how to protect the future,” he said. “No matter what or who is in it.”
The seat belt light dinged off and the pilot interrupted to report they’d reached cruising altitude. When the intercom clicked off, Mel unclasped her seat belt and stood, gesturing to the chairs a row back on either side of a table. “Then I need to bring you up to speed,” she said, all business.
And the business wasn’t good.
Thirty minutes later, the table was covered with documents and Nic was pacing the length of the cabin, his hands in his hair, which had more gray in it every day. Warp speed, if this shit kept up. “That’s why they laid off.”
“Mostly likely. But this”—she nudged the damning deed of trust on his childhood home—“won’t keep them at bay forever. Not when Curtis still can’t pay his bills. The debts will outweigh the equity before long.”
“Did Vaughn take out insurance on it?”
From the folder of horrors that had produced only bad news, she pulled out another sheet of paper—an insurance certificate on the house. His gaze shot to the declared value box, and all the moisture in his mouth vanished. Double the assessed value, last time he’d checked the county land records.
He ran his hands down his face, groaning. “It’s as good as doused in lighter fluid.” He had to get his father and the staff out of there.
“Have you had any more calls?” Mel asked.
Nic shook his head. No more of the distracting calls from an Unknown number, the first having rung right as Vaughn’s goons attacked him. He pointed at the deed of trust. “Now we know why.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Swear to Christ, Cruz, you pull another nightmare out of that fucking hat”—he glared at the folder—“and I might just throw it out of this plane.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“I’ll get creative.”
She laughed, then pulled two pieces of paper from the Folder of Doom. He growled. “Easy, Price.” She set the papers on the table. “Jury’s still out on these.”
“Tell me where the calls originated from, and I’ll be the judge of that.”
She smirked and pointed at several highlighted entries on the first sheet—his phone record. “These are the unknown calls to you, all from a single burner phone like we suspected.”
“Did the calls originate from the same location?”
“Appears so. Took a bit of digging, but I traced them back to Jacksonville, North Carolina.”
Bracing his hands on either side of the table, he stared at the second sheet.
A map with a cluster of pinpoints, all in a familiar location.
“That’s Camp Lejeune.” He’d been based at Little Creek in Virginia, then Coronado in California, but he’d done joint special operations training with the Marines at Lejeune. Numerous times. “Someone from when I was in the service?”
“That would be the logical conclusion.”
Was a former teammate in trouble? He knew of at least one who was there in the area, an instructor now.
Or a Marine he’d crossed paths with? From his time as a SEAL, then in the JAG Corps, he had colleagues across branches, and if there was one thing the military engrained in him, it was never leave a teammate behind.
He had his own teammates’ names inked on his skin because they hadn’t left him behind when he’d been injured in the field.
If one of them was in trouble now . . . And was that trouble the Duncan Vaughn sort?
If it were, he’d either been betrayed or someone was up to their neck in shit with Vaughn.
Shit they probably didn’t grasp the full danger and extent of.
“You got enough fuel on this thing to take us to North Carolina?”
“I do. But it’s one in the morning there, and I’ve got a husband at home who will not be pleased if I’m gone another day.”
“Cruz.”
She covered his hand, which had formed a death grip on the table’s edge. “Priorities, Price. The base would’ve called you if it was serious. Or the caller would have left a message.”
“Maybe.” If it was something that would be escalated that high officially, then yes. If not, then no. And if the calls were connected to Vaughn, he doubted the matter would go through the base at all.
“Let me dig,” Mel offered. “Determine if it’s connected while you deal with the other issues first.”
She was right. The problems—with Vaughn and his father—were known.
Possibly—probably—worse and most definitely immediate.
As was his need to see a certain federal agent.
He loosened his grip and straightened. “All right, let’s go home.”