Chapter 7
I gripped my phone after ending the call, studying the live camera feeds of my apartment as Kaia’s new nanny stood outside the doors of my office for a minute longer before hurrying over to where she’d carelessly dropped her bag on the floor twice now.
Lainey.
I’d been rolling her name around in my head ever since Ada had casually introduced us as if she hadn’t known exactly what she was doing. As if I hadn’t replayed those few minutes in the coffee shop every day for the past nine months. As if I hadn’t just admitted to Rush that I looked for her every time I went there.
But it was more than that . . .
I didn’t waste my time thinking about women, yet for nearly a year, that was exactly what I’d done. Wasted minutes and hours and days thinking about a woman who had only crossed my radar because her carelessness had put her in danger.
She wasn’t the first person I’d saved in one way or another and wouldn’t be the last, but she’d been the only one who stuck. And all this time, she was Ada’s great-niece.
Again...the irony of this entire situation and the timing wasn’t lost on me.
After searching through her bag and not seeming to find what she was looking for, Lainey glanced around the messy living room I was struggling not to pay attention to before quickly standing and looking all around before she caught sight of the camera I was watching her through.
The second her eyes so clearly narrowed at the camera, at me, her words from before echoed through my mind. “It’s a little intrusive.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt like I was invading on someone’s privacy before that moment, but I couldn’t shut down the feed fast enough. Once it was off my computer monitor, I raked my hands through my hair and down my face as I sank back in my chair.
I watched and studied people for a living. I protected people. The cameras had always been in my apartment as a security measure. And now that a virtual stranger was there with the last tie to my brother, it should be nothing to keep the feeds up to make sure Kaia was okay.
But I’d clicked into them as soon as the motion sensor had gone off in my office and had watched the way Lainey held herself and moved. The way she’d let her hair down and played with all those long, wild curls before putting them up in another equally messy pile on top of her head as she’d read through the contract portion of our employment form.
I hadn’t been able to stop watching her , and I needed to.
She was a distraction, and I couldn’t afford a distraction. Not when my careers had always been my life. Not when she was related to Ada, and I needed her for Kaia. Not when I was struggling to come to terms with my biggest failure.
With another harsh sigh, I leaned forward and tapped the intercom button on my desk phone. “Morning meeting in fifteen,” I said before disconnecting, the words holding an edge that wasn’t usually there.
If anyone else heard it, I hoped they assumed it was from everything else falling apart in my life and not because of the blonde clouding up my thoughts.
With a harsh shake of my head, I forced myself to focus on everything I’d missed—and the others had been handling—the past few days; making notes on what I needed to address in the meeting.
But by the time I left for it, I was more irritated than before because every time I got a notification that there was movement in my apartment, I found myself wanting to click into the feeds for more reasons than needing to assure myself that Kaia was okay. Dangerous reasons.
“We have the Ru Tech summit tomorrow afternoon,” I announced once I was in the room, then glanced at the five other members of my team. “They’re expecting four thousand people and have the typical security for the event. We’ll?—”
“Yeah, but can we talk about why you’re more irritated than usual?” Adam Thatcher asked from where he was sitting with his feet propped up on the conference room table. All casual indifference and a knowing smirk.
I glanced from him to the others’ expectant stares before setting my glare on him. “I hope you’re not dumb enough to ask me that right now.”
“You’re snapping,” Mallory Monroe said, loosely waving her stylus at Thatch as if to say she agreed with him.
“We’ll be escorting the CEO to and from the event, as well as in and out of the building,” I said instead, continuing with the meeting and ignoring their comments. When a few seconds passed without anyone adding anything else, I went on. “Gray and Evans, you’ll be driving in the convoy and staying with the vehicles during. Monroe, the CEO’s people left a note stating they heard we had a female and requested the biggest, scariest men only...”
“Every time,” she muttered irritably, tossing her stylus onto the table.
“So, you’ll be taking lead on this one,” I added, letting my mouth lift in the beginnings of a smirk. Thatch punched Monroe’s shoulder when she just sat there, trying to conceal her excitement, and I shrugged. “If they have something to say about it, they can take it up with me.”
“You sure that’s a good idea, Briggs?” Hudson Gray asked, his drawl bordering on taunting as he stared down Monroe from across the conference table. “The last time you let Monroe do detail for a high and mighty misogynist, he thought she was a gift for him.”
“And he quickly found out I wasn’t,” Monroe reminded Gray through clenched teeth.
Gray shrugged, not bothered in the least by her glare that promised so much pain for bringing up that lawsuit-filled nightmare. “Not your fault you’re so pretty,” he said with a wink, goading her.
“I’m going to kill you,” she whispered, sounding like she might be thinking of all the ways she wanted to. “Slowly.”
“Promise?”
“Taunt her all you want,” I muttered and flashed a warning look in Gray’s direction. “She’s lead tomorrow, and you’ll be outside because I can’t trust you if anything goes wrong concerning her.”
“That was one time,” Gray shot back defensively.
“One time,” I agreed. “Massive lawsuits. Monroe can take care of herself if someone gets handsy.”
“Never said she couldn’t,” he muttered, acceptance replacing the teasing in his voice. “But I was raised not to let those kinds of situations go unchecked.”
“It didn’t go unchecked,” I reminded him. “ She handled it. You made it worse when you stepped in and broke an ambassador’s jaw.”
“You also don’t see me knocking out the women who inappropriately touch all of you when we’re working,” Monroe added, reaching forward to grab and chuck her stylus at Gray, her eyes rolling when he easily caught it. “Respect me the same way I respect you.”
He pointed the stylus at her, an edgy laugh creeping from him as he held back whatever he clearly wanted to say.
“Gray respects you, Monroe,” Rush said with an annoyed sigh as he ran a hand over his short hair. “He wouldn’t have fought beside you and trusted you to have his back for all these years if he didn’t. But you’ve lived here long enough and have worked with us even longer, so you should know that Texas boys are raised a certain way. Stop taking offense. Gray, there will be jobs where Briggs separates you and Monroe; get over it.” Focusing on me, he made a face that I understood all too well.
It encompassed everything that was Gray and Monroe.
They’d always worked best together but couldn’t have a conversation without bickering, at the very least. Honestly, if Gray wasn’t bound to break her heart, and I wasn’t worried Monroe would try to kill him somewhere along the way, I would’ve begged them to get together long ago to save the rest of us the headache. But as it was, relationships were fleeting at best for the members of my team, and I didn’t think we could survive the fallout of their attempt at one.
“Everyone understand their assignments for the summit?” I asked, taking the time to look at each member of my team and ignoring Gray’s obvious discontent with it.
He would get over it.
“Great, now let’s talk about why you’re so irritated,” Thatch said as if that was his only reason for attending the meeting.
My hand slowly curled into a fist as my gaze dragged back to him. The grief that had become a constant thrum in my veins burned hotter as I tried forcing back the urge to yell.
Not at Thatch, just yell . Anything to relieve this pressure on my chest, making it difficult to breathe. Anything to get rid of the guilt I could feel sinking deeper into me, dragging me down, if even for a moment.
Once I was sure I could answer around the knot in my throat, I reminded him, “I’m burying my brother and sister-in-law in a couple days.”
“That isn’t?—”
“I’ve spent every day since they died doing whatever was necessary to make sure Kaia won’t ever go into the system,” I said over him. “I haven’t slept since I got the call that my brother overdosed, Thatch, what exactly do you want from me? To have us sit in a circle, hugging and sharing our feelings?”
Thatch’s perpetual smile had faded as I spoke, replaced with remorse. But with a visibly forced swallow, he still said, “I know you’re hurting, Briggs. We all know, and we’re hurting with you. But you know that wasn’t what I was talking about.”
“I clearly don’t.”
He quickly glanced at the others before releasing a harsh sigh and meeting my stare again. “The way you’ve been acting since you got the call about your brother was one thing. The stress of Kaia added onto your grief was another. Then this morning...” He gestured to me with his heavily tattooed arms as if there was nothing left to say.
And I hated that, in less than a second, I knew exactly what he was talking about. Who .
My jaw flexed as I fought every one of the flashes that burst to mind as if I had any right thinking about the girl who had tipped my life even more on its side by stepping back into it.
“Told you,” Rush murmured, a ghost of a smile curling at the edge of his mouth as he tapped on his tablet.
“Don’t,” I said in warning.
Beau Evans, the youngest and newest member of the team, looked between the rest of us before asking, “Wait, what happened this morning?”
When tense silence filled the conference room, Gray sighed exaggeratedly and explained, “Apparently, even the great Asher Briggs wasn’t immune to the new nanny.” He pointed at me with Monroe’s stylus. “But I called dibs as soon as I saw?—”
“No.” The word left me on a near snarl and had the rest of my team bursting into laughter. “She’s Ada’s great-niece and an employee,” I said over them, my tone low and grave and effectively shutting them up. “No one goes near her.”
“No one?” Thatch asked with an amused and meaningful look my way.
“No one.” Once I was sure no one else was going to comment on Lainey or the way I’d reacted at the thought of Gray going after her, I said, “Back to the meeting. I’m waiting on the rest of the information, but it looks like we’ll be adding a Donut. Depending on what I receive, it’ll need to be immediate and around-the-clock, which makes things tricky with Ru Tech.”
Gray and Monroe both tried to claim lead before falling into a new argument.
Thatch smacked his hands together as he lowered his feet to the floor. “Been a long time since we’ve done a job like this.”
“We have donuts? Wait, job like what ?” Evans asked slowly, even though excitement was creeping across his expression as he took in everyone else’s reactions. Then again, it didn’t matter what the job was, the kid was always excited.
He was the only one who hadn’t been with us from the very beginning. But I’d found him when he was going through the police academy and had convinced him to work for me instead because he was too good for them and exactly what we’d needed.
Rush was the only silent one—head slanted and eyebrows pulled close, stylus hovering over his tablet, always ready for information.
“Our company runs off being personal security for high-profile clients,” I began, getting Evans’ attention. “But there are plenty of everyday people who need higher levels of protection, so we provide that service without charge.”
“You’ve only been with us for about a year,” Rush picked up for me, “but we were trained to execute our overseas missions without alerting anyone we were there. And that’s how we carry out these unofficial cases—our Donuts. Silent. Undetected. Sometimes even without the victim knowing.”
“Without the person knowing?” Evans confirmed, glancing from Rush to me, and I subtly nodded. “How does that work?”
“In those instances, we find ways to let them know their problem has been taken care of,” I explained. “But they don’t know details of what was happening or that we were behind it.”
“Understood,” Evans said with a firm nod. “But why Donut ?”
Monroe snorted as Thatch eagerly explained, “First time we had one of these cases, Gray nearly choked to death on a donut trying to claim lead.”
“One time,” Gray defended exasperatedly.
“Never letting you live it down,” Monroe said before blowing a kiss at him.
Evans fought a smile as he asked, “So, what are we doing?”
“Depends on the rest of the information I receive,” I said. “The potential victim reached out to us. If this doesn’t end up being an exaggerated domestic dispute that the police can mediate, then it sounds like this woman might be in danger from her partner.”
“Area?” Rush asked as he quickly wrote on his tablet.
“Only a couple miles from your place, so you’ll be taking lead if we do this.”
Just as the email I’d been waiting on came through, Evans hesitantly asked, “Why didn’t she go to the police?”
I stopped halfway through the first line of the email, my stare lifting from the screen of my tablet to meet where Evans was looking between the five of us, clearly wondering why he was the only one to ask. “She probably already has.”
At that, Evans’ gaze snapped to me and narrowed.
Even though I’d managed to pull him away from his dream of becoming a cop, he still held a sense of loyalty to the badge he’d never worn. Then again, he came from generations of law enforcement.
“I told you how it was before you ever started working for me,” I reminded him softly. “In our previous line of work, we had to do things outside the law to protect the country. During cases like this one, we still do because, as unfortunate as it is, sometimes that’s the only way to protect someone.”
He held my stare for a moment longer before dipping his head in understanding and agreement.
Letting my attention fall back to my screen, I quickly scanned the email before forwarding it to my team. “We’re moving forward with the case. Again, Rush is lead.” Glancing at my best friend, I told him, “Figure out how we’re gonna juggle this and Ru Tech because we’re all needed at the summit, and she needs twenty-four-seven watch starting now.”
“Could always put her in your apartment and have the hot nanny watch her too,” Gray murmured sarcastically.
I kicked the back of his chair, forcing a scoffing laugh from him as he rolled away. “This is why you aren’t lead.”
“Obviously joking,” he teased as he moved back to the table. “Not that it’s the worst idea.”
“You, Monroe, and I are taking the partner. Before either of you leave here, I want everything on him from birth until now—I’ll find and shadow him until the summit tomorrow. Evans and Thatch are with Rush on the woman. Meeting over.”
Just as I started heading for the door, Rush’s voice brought me to an abrupt stop. “You’re out, Briggs.”
I twisted to look at where he sat, the tension filling the conference room a clear warning that he ignored as he continued furiously making notes. “Sorry?”
With a sigh, he lifted his head, the end of his stylus rapidly tapping on his screen before he met my stare. “You made me lead, and I’m telling you, you’re out.” Just as I started telling him he wasn’t allowed to make that call, he added, “With everything that’s already happened this week, everything still to come, and all the new changes in your house...” He lifted an eyebrow. “You’d pull any of us in the same situation.”
I nodded after a moment before stalking out of the room and to my office. Less than a minute after I made it in there, Rush was there.
“You know it’s the right call.”
A noncommittal grunt rumbled in my chest as I stared at my black computer screen, my body restless with the need to turn it on. To click into my camera’s feeds to see what that girl was doing for no other reason than I wanted to see her .
“Rush, I need this,” I said before meeting his surprised expression. “I need to get my mind off things. This case will do that.”
“You need to be there for Kaia.”
“She has a nanny now.”
“She needs you ,” he shot back. “If you were just gonna avoid her, you shouldn’t have torn apart the world to get custody.”
My head bobbed subtly before I admitted, “Not just Kaia I’m trying to avoid.”
In an instant, Rush’s frustration shifted back to surprise before morphing into a knowing smirk. “If this has anything to do with the way it looked like you were seeing the sun rise for the first time this morning...” He shrugged. “I’m not gonna help you avoid that either.”
“Rush—”
“Never seen you look at a woman the way you were looking at her.”
I hesitated for so long that Rush started lifting his hands placatingly just as I spoke. “It’s her.”
One of Rush’s eyebrows lifted in question.
“The nanny—Lainey. She’s the girl from the coffee shop. The one who nearly got tracked by Wreckers. Ada clearly knew,” I hurried to add when blatant shock stole across Rush’s face. “She must’ve known this entire time.”
His chest pitched with a short laugh as he glanced at my closed door before looking back at me. “Ada,” he murmured as if that explained it all.
And it did.
She inserted herself into everyone’s business and liked pulling strings almost as much as she liked pushing buttons just to see how much she could get away with.
“I need this case,” I told Rush again.
Amusement built in his chest. “I see that now,” he began as he reached for the handle of my door. “So, not only is the girl you saved suddenly back in your life, but Ada’s very obvious attempt at playing matchmaker is already working.”
“No.”
His grin widened. “Oh, I think it is.”
“She’s young,” I reminded him, reverting to the argument from my apartment.
“Yeah?” Rush asked on a laugh, then jerked his chin toward my computer, already knowing I would’ve gotten Lainey’s details by now. “How old is the nanny?”
My frustration and desperation grew in response to Rush’s amusement. “Twenty-four,” I said through gritted teeth, then added, “I’d already finished my military career and was starting Shadow at that age,” when a laugh burst from him.
He gave me a look to let me know I was reaching. “You keep saying she’s young like there’s at least a twenty-year age gap between y’all. Not seven years.”
My jaw ached from the pressure I was putting on it because the last thing I needed right then was Rush pushing for something he knew I didn’t want. Couldn’t want. “She’s my employee now, and I need her for Kaia.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” he said as he turned to leave my office, tapping the doorframe as he did. “Still off this case.”
I didn’t try arguing again, just threw myself into work for the rest of the day, all while managing to ignore every alert when there was movement in my apartment.
By the time I was slipping into my car to go home, I’d convinced myself that girl was nothing to me other than Kaia’s nanny. Last year had been nothing more than an impromptu case. This morning had been nothing more than a product of the wildest sleep-depravation torture in the form of a screaming baby. After all, I hated chaos and Lainey Pearson was the epitome of chaos.
Her lack of awareness and susceptibility for danger. The careless way she dropped her things. Her wildly curly hair I’d thought of hundreds of times. Those mesmerizing eyes that looked like a spring storm. The unruly effect she had on my thoughts and heart rate.
Frustration bled from me as my thoughts spiraled back to her all over again.
That woman was going to ruin me.