Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“Rumor has it that you asked a girl out,” Tash said with a smirk from the passenger seat of Xander’s Range Rover.
“Oh, holy shit,” Xander grumbled, readjusting his grip on the steering wheel.
“What?” Tash asked, the picture of innocence.
But they’d been teammates for nearly eight years, so he knew that I’m-so-innocent thing she did was a crock of shit.
“I heard from a very reliable source that you swooped in and rescued her from some douche, kissed her, charmed the shit out of her, and were all googly-eyed by the end of the night.”
“Moon-eyed,” Abbot chimed in from the back seat. “I’m pretty sure Carmichael said Xan was all moon-eyed.”
“Oh, pardon me. I stand corrected.” Tash grinned from ear to ear.
It was seven thirty in the morning and way too early for this bullshit. When he’d met up with the team he’d picked to review the security at Pacific View Resort, he’d hoped for a nice, quiet morning. No such luck.
Xander was the head of the personal security division for Hudson Security, an elite team of mostly former special forces and alphabet agency operatives.
They currently had three teams of three, and he led Team One, which consisted of himself, Natasha “Tash” Silver, and Bennett Wilson, who was following them in another Hudson Security vehicle with Carmichael, who was the lead for Team Two.
Samantha Abbot was the lead of Hudson Security’s four-person cyber group.
He glanced at Tash. “You know, Carmichael being your very reliable source is nothing but trouble.”
She shrugged. “You’re just salty because he’s not wrong. Besides, it’s not like you’ve denied any of his intel.”
“I’m sure I can pull the resort’s video footage once we’re there, and we can see it all firsthand,” Abbot said with a little too much enthusiasm in her voice.
“It’s way too freaking early for this,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his jaw.
“Oh, suck it up, bud. How are you not used to us by now?”
How, indeed? Tash was a damn fine operative.
The woman was a fierce fighter and lethal with any sort of blade.
All in all, an absolute badass he was happy to have watching his six.
Abbot’s talents were more focused on all things digital, and she was no less impressive.
He’d happily take a bullet for either woman.
However, put the two women together—a comical yin and yang of personalities—and they turned into annoying little sisters who were all about giving him shit.
He didn’t have any siblings, but he’d been reassured by their colleagues who did that this was normal.
Standard operating procedure even. Yay me.
All he knew was that he needed to shut this conversation down ASAP.
“Besides,” Abbot said, oblivious to his growing headache, “it’s your fault for being all moon-eyed in front of Carmichael. You know the only thing he loves more than gossip is pus—”
“Eww. Nope,” Tash cut in. “Do not finish that sentence. I swear, I don’t need that image in my head this early in the damn morning.”
Abbot laughed. “Sorry. You do have a point.” There were three blessed seconds of silence before she piped up again. “So you want me to run a check on this girl for you?”
“Holy shit, no.” He groaned, pulling into the Pacific View Resort’s parking lot.
He caught Abbot’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
“And make sure Bean and the rest of cyber don’t run one either.
” He put the car in park, thankful they’d arrived at their destination, and got out of the SUV.
Rounding the hood, he met the two women at the front.
“Now, can we not talk about this? We need to focus. Be professional and shit, okay?”
Abbot snorted while Tash chuckled and gestured with her hand. “After you, oh paragon of virtue.”
Rolling his eyes, he met Wilson and Carmichael in front of their vehicle.
“Thanks a lot, asshole,” he grumbled to Carmichael.
His supposed friend burst into laughter. Because of course he did.
“Hey,” Carmichael said with his hands raised. “Wasn’t it my duty to report to the team what we observed last night?”
Xander shook his head. “I’m sure you forgot to regale them with tales of you and the blonde, though.”
Abbot snickered, shouldering her laptop bag. “A blonde? Geez, could you be more predictable?”
Carmichael wrinkled his nose. “Nothing actually happened with Hazel last night.”
Xander snorted, slapping him on the shoulder. “Right, dude. We’re talking about the same chick, right? Tall, blond, dead ringer for Barbie, and looked like she wanted to devour you?”
“You know that no one here believes you, right?” Tash teased.
“I’m serious. Nothing happened,” Carmichael protested. “Yeah, she’s fucking hot, but . . .” He made a face. “I don’t know. Once I found out that she was in the salon during the shooting, it was weird. She was really aggressive and—”
“Like you have a problem with that?” Wilson asked, his skepticism written on his face.
“I don’t usually. But that place was shot to shit, and she was acting like she’d chipped a damn nail.” Carmichael shrugged. “Like I said, it was weird. Rubbed me the wrong way.”
“Aww,” Tash drawled, bumping her shoulder into Carmichael’s. “Our little guy’s growing up.”
Carmichael shot her a look of mock indignation. “You wound me, T.”
Tash grinned and met Xander’s gaze. “So getting back to this girl you like . . .”
“How about not?” he muttered.
She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. Story of his life with Tash. “So do you like her like her, or are you gonna pull a Carmichael on her?” Tash glanced at Carmichael. “Sorry, I meant pull an old Carmichael on her.”
“God, Xan.” Abbot groaned. “Please tell me you’ve outgrown your man-whore days.”
Heading back to his SUV, he grabbed a stack of tablets from the back of the vehicle. Closing the liftgate, he shook his head. Ridiculous. These people were ridiculous. “I’ll admit that I had a somewhat sketchy past—”
“I heard that back in the day, you could’ve made me look like a damn monk,” Carmichael said, taking one of the tablets from him.
Xander frowned. “Where the hell did you hear that from?” Not that it was a lie, but still.
“I don’t know,” Carmichael said, though he angled his head toward Wilson.
“Traitor,” he grumbled, handing Wilson a tablet.
His friend simply shrugged.
“Let’s just agree that both you and Carmichael are gross,” Tash said as she took a tablet and powered it up. “Now the question is, if we ever see this lady who has you all moon-eyed, do you want us to talk you up or make her run for the hills?”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “How about none of the above?”
Tash smiled, and it was all teeth. “Sorry, that’s not an option.”
Wilson groaned, and Xander met his gaze. “What? You have something to add?”
Wilson shook his head. “You guys gossip worse than the ladies in town. Can we actually get some work done?”
“Ugh. Always the voice of freaking reason,” Abbot muttered before turning to Tash. “How do you put up with his grumpy, sour mug?”
“You get used to it.” Tash shrugged and narrowed her eyes as Wilson took a step toward her. “Uh-uh. You try and put me in a headlock, I will lay you out flat, buddy. You know, just like I did this morning.”
Xander chuckled as Wilson held his hands up and took a step backward. Smart man. “Alright, kids.” Because swear to Christ, that’s what they were all acting like. “Time to be responsible fucking adults. Billionaire resort owner at one o’clock.”
Just like that, everyone straightened and donned their game faces. They crossed the parking lot in seconds, and as Xander approached Gabriel, he held out his hand.
“Gabriel, good morning.” He gestured between the man and his team.
“Everyone, this is Gabriel Ortiz, owner of Pacific View Resort. Gabriel, you remember Carmichael from yesterday. This is Tash Silver and Bennet Wilson. They, along with myself and Carmichael, will be looking at your grounds, operations, and processes.” As everyone shook hands, he continued, “This is Sam Abbot, one of our top cybersecurity experts. She’ll review your digital security and make appropriate recommendations. ”
“It’s nice to meet you all,” Gabriel said as a lean, familiar-looking man dressed in a Pacific View Resort polo approached. “I believe most of you already know Michael Kwon, our head of security.”
“Long time no see,” Xander joked, lifting his chin at the other man in greeting.
Aside from seeing the man yesterday while on-site, most of the team had worked out with Kwon the morning of the shooting.
The man was somewhere in his late forties, former Seattle PD, and one of the best Muay Thai practitioners Xander had ever seen in person.
After greeting the group, Kwon turned to Abbot and held out his hand. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Seeing as I’m cybersecurity and not a gym rat, that makes sense,” she said, shaking his hand. “Sam Abbot. We’ll be spending a lot of time together today going over the systems you have in place.”
“Looking forward to it,” he replied with a grin.
Sam chuckled. “You may think differently by the end of the day.”
“And that’s exactly why you’re here,” Gabriel said.
“I mentioned this to Xander and Carmichael yesterday, but I’d like us to start with a tour.
” As he spoke, an eight-passenger golf cart pulled up to the entrance.
“Our grounds are quite extensive, and we can show you them from both the guest and employee perspectives. It shouldn’t take too long, then you all can do your thing. ”
With nods of agreement, they loaded into the golf cart. Kwon was driving, and Gabriel sat shotgun in a rear-facing seat and donned a headset. He fiddled with it for a moment before chuckling. “Apologies, it’s been a while since I’ve done this.”