Chapter 1
The number that lit up the screen of his cell phone wasn’t in his contacts, but Blade Sparks knew who was calling him. He reached for the phone that lay on the top of his desk, and he clicked to decline the call just as he had the other times she’d tried to reach him.
For what?
Not that he was actually curious about her reason for trying to contact him. He couldn’t imagine she would have anything nicer to say to him than she had in court all those years ago when she’d testified against him.
When she’d lied.
Even if she’d told the truth, he probably would have gotten prison time. Maybe.
But none of that mattered now. He couldn’t undo what he’d done. But he’d found a way to move past it with the help of the Kozminski brothers. He had a job that he enjoyed, working for and with a great group of people.
Milek Kozminski was so tall that Blade could see him over the wall of his cubicle.
The blond-haired guy gestured for Blade to join him and his brother.
So Blade hopped up from his desk and walked into Garek’s office.
Milek closed the door behind them, shutting him inside the room with its glass walls that looked out into the open area of the old warehouse that had been converted into the office of the newest franchise of the Payne Protection Agency.
The Kozminski brothers looked like a set of blond bookends while he looked like the odd man out.
Both of the brothers were tall and thin with longish hair and really pale eyes.
Blade was tall like they were but much broader, to the point that it was hard for him to find clothes that fit his muscular build.
His hair was dark. His eyes were blue, but a darker blue than theirs.
And he definitely didn’t have their perfect profiles.
His nose had been broken more than once even before he started boxing.
“Okay, let’s try this again,” Garek said as he dropped back into the chair behind his desk. “Maybe we can brief you on your new assignment before anyone else nearly gets killed.”
Since the agency opened, it seemed as if the bodyguards of this franchise had been in constant danger. But that was part of the job.
Blade didn’t mind at all. He was used to being in danger; at least now it was for a good cause. To protect others. And this time, protecting someone else wouldn’t send him to prison. Or so he hoped.
“The subject you’re being assigned to protect is Priscilla Pell, the widow of Dr. Alexander Pell, who’s famous for creating vaccines and medicines to treat all kinds of ailments,” Garek said.
“So the widow inherited a boatload of money,” Blade said, making a probably correct assumption.
“But I thought this franchise focused more on protecting things than people.” That was probably because when they were younger, people hadn’t been able to protect their things from some of them.
The Kozminskis were the sons of a notorious jewel thief and had been forced into stealing themselves when they were kids.
The same man, the godfather of River City, Michigan, had forced a couple of the other bodyguards into stealing in their youth as well.
Blade had also done some stealing himself as a kid, but he hadn’t been forced to do it.
He’d just been trying to support himself and his single mom.
It was better than her hooking up with the losers she had.
But theft wasn’t why he’d gone to prison.
He’d been a lot better at getting away with stealing than he had been with murder.
Actually manslaughter. He hadn’t meant to kill the brute.
“We are being hired to protect the valuables she inherited,” Milek said. “As well as being a biophysicist, Dr. Pell was also a collector of beautiful things. He has an extensive art collection and jewelry and antiquities from all over the world.”
Blade nodded. “Oh, okay.” Now he understood his mission.
“I need to set up a security system to protect the valuables.” During his training at the original office of the Payne Protection Agency, he’d quickly caught on to which systems were the most effective at keeping out criminals.
The part of his job that he enjoyed most was testing the clients’ current security systems to prove how accessible they were.
And he always insisted on going into those tests blind, with no knowledge beforehand of the system or even much knowledge of the client.
He was going to check out Mrs. Pell’s system this evening before meeting her in the morning at the appointment his bosses had scheduled with her.
Then he would be able to tell her where the deficiencies were and what needed improvement, and he would get filled in more thoroughly on his assignment and the client’s particular needs.
“You’re also going to have to move into her mansion to ensure that she and that collection stay safe,” Garek said.
Blade struggled to make sense of the necessity for that. “But why? A great security system will protect her and the house.”
Milek and Garek exchanged a look. Despite how much they looked alike, they weren’t twins, but they still seemed to share that twin thing, the intuition.
“Is there something I’m missing?” he asked as his own intuition kicked in with a warning that something wasn’t quite right with this assignment. Then he shook his head. “Never mind. I can get filled in more tomorrow during the meeting.”
Garek shrugged. “There’s not a lot more to fill you in on, actually. Hull, the CEO of the insurance company, who’s hiring us for these assignments, hasn’t told us much either. That makes me feel like there’s something we’re all missing. That there might be more going on than we realize.”
“With Hull and why he’s making his policyholders hire us for protection?” Blade asked. He didn’t trust the guy either. But then he’d learned long ago to never trust anyone. Despite the break they’d given him and his coworkers, Blade wasn’t even sure he trusted the Kozminskis completely.
“But I still don’t get why I have to move into the mansion,” Blade said, but then he shrugged, too. “I can wait though to figure it out.” And he hoped he would be able to prove his moving in was unnecessary once the estate had the correct security system.
“I don’t know either what the CEO is so worried about,” Garek admitted. “Maybe he’s concerned about another inside job going down, like what happened at Croft Custom Jewelry.”
Blade sucked in a breath. That case had been a doozy with an innocent child and his grandmother being kidnapped.
That was how Blade’s coworker Josh Stafford had learned he had a child; unbeknownst to him, his fiancée had been pregnant when he’d gone to prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.
Blade felt a pang of sympathy for his new friend, for having to do time for something he hadn’t done and for losing those precious years with his young son because of it.
At least Blade had done the crime he’d served time for. And despite how it had all turned out, he wasn’t sure even now that he would do anything different from what he’d done back then, a decade ago.
“A lot of people live in that house with Mrs. Pell,” Milek said. “Several Pell family members as well as around-the-clock staff and a personal assistant who’s always on call.”
Blade released a soft whistle. “So that’s how the rich live…
” With staff and assistants and all the family under one roof.
It sounded like a nightmare to him. After the eight years he’d spent in prison, he didn’t want to live with anyone else ever again.
In the couple of years since his release, he’d managed to keep that promise to himself.
But for this case, for the Kozminskis, he was willing to suck it up.
They had given him a second chance, and he would not let them down.
“I’m not sure that’s really the reason Hull wants a bodyguard in the house, though,” Garek said.
“But he did mention all those people living there. And he wants a bodyguard in residence for a while to make sure that the new security system is sufficient. I guess he really doesn’t want to pay out on any of the valuables he insures in that house. ”
“All those people there, all those possible thieves,” Blade remarked.
It was going to be damn hard to protect valuables from the people they potentially belonged to, though.
He blew out a breath and nodded. “Sure, I’ll bring some stuff with me tomorrow at the meeting, so that I can move into the mansion then. ”
He actually had an overnight bag in his vehicle now, but if this assignment lasted a while, he was going to need more than the toothbrush and the change of clothes that he had packed in his duffel.
“Theft might not be all that Hull is worried about,” Garek said.
“What else could he be worried about?” Blade asked with curiosity.
“Considering how our previous assignments for him have gone, Hull has a lot of reasons to be worried,” Garek admitted.
Croft Jewelry had had the inside job. Their last assignment, at an art gallery, had once done some money laundering but only under its previous ownership. What could be the CEO’s concerns about this case?
“You just need to be extra careful,” Milek said.
Every assignment for Midwest Property and Casualty had nearly caused some casualties for the Payne Protection Agency.
Maybe that was Hull’s real agenda; maybe the CEO wanted to get rid of some of the bodyguards.
But since they had no proof of that, the Kozminskis kept taking his assignments.
At least they had jobs for other clients that were much easier and safer, just installing security systems.
He nodded. “I’ll be careful.” He knew what happened if he wasn’t, if he got too involved or too emotional: somebody could wind up dead.
Blade did not want that to be him or the widow he was supposed to protect. Priscilla Pell. He was going to do everything within his power to make sure that they both survived this assignment.
* * *