Chapter 4
The curved screen spanned nearly the entire wall, a seamless sweep of high-definition feeds layered across a dark interface. With a tap or a click, any of them could be expanded, isolated, and tracked. Thermal overlays, motion detection, perimeter alerts—all running quietly beneath the surface.
State of the art. Nick Devlin did nothing halfway, especially when it came to security.
Leland sat forward, one hand resting on the edge of the console, the other on the mouse.
A laptop sat open beside him, mirroring the system controls, giving him full access to every camera on the property.
Inside the house and the extensive grounds, from the patio to the dock, including the front gate, the outbuildings, and the perimeter.
His gaze moved through the feeds, not lingering anywhere for long, taking in the broader picture. Movement patterns. Entry points. The rhythm of the night as it unfolded over the grounds.
On the perimeter cam, Boone moved steadily along the fence line, flashlight low, posture relaxed but alert. He paused near the far corner, checked the gate then continued on.
Everything was as it should be.
His attention paused on the tree-line cam. A shadow shifted along the edge of the frame. Too quick to track, too indistinct to identify. Wind, maybe. Or a trick of the light.
He watched a few seconds longer. When he didn’t see it again, his focus shifted to the dock. A boat had tied off in a slip not ten minutes ago. Its occupants had never gotten off. He tapped the screen, enlarging the window. The scene came into sharper detail.
The mast had been rigged with ropes not meant for sailing.
A woman stood against it, wrists bound, her costume merely a suggestion—torn fabric, bare breasts and thighs gleaming in the moonlight.
The man with her, the self-appointed captain judging by his hat and swagger, circled her slowly, flicking a cat-o’-nine-tails against interesting stingy places.
Leland turned on the mic and listened to her beg for mercy. Her tone, posture, and the way she arched into each stroke told the story. This was role-play. Controlled and consensual. Typical member fun.
He moved on.
One feed wavered. A brief distortion in the image, gone almost as quickly as it appeared. His eyes tracked the timestamp, the adjacent feeds, checking for a corresponding disruption. Nothing.
As he jotted down the time and feed numbers on the incident log, the door opened.
Dev’s voice came from behind him. “Something wrong?”
Maintaining his forward focus, he shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
The door closed with a click. Dev took the chair beside him, taking in the display with a single, sweeping glance before settling his attention on the same section Leland had been watching.
“What are you seeing?”
“Intermittent glitching,” Leland said. “Brief. Different feeds.”
“Same zone?”
“No.”
Dev considered that as he studied the curved display. “Intermittent is harder to track,” he said. “Could be nothing. Could be the start of something.”
“No pattern I can lock onto yet.”
“I’ll have Callan take a look.”
“I already called him,” Leland replied. “He said I’m not the first to report it. He notified Strickland. A tech will be out tomorrow.”
“Evan’s here tonight. I’ll talk to him. For what we’re paying, someone should have been here already.”
“At the first flicker,” Leland grunted.
Silence settled between them, broken only by the hum of equipment and the audio from the playroom, never muted when in use but set to low.
No more than a minute passed. Without looking at him, Dev asked, “What’s with you?”
Leland’s jaw tightened. “Nothing’s with me. Why?”
Now he glanced over, one brow lifted slightly. “Since when do you sit on the sidelines instead of being in the middle of the action?”
Leland kept his focus. “Since tonight. I swapped with Russ. I needed a change.”
“Funny. I don’t recall you asking.”
His head swung toward his friend of nearly a decade. They’d worked together at the Bureau, and Leland was his first hire when he decided to go into business for himself. He had invested significant capital. They weren’t equal partners, but it was close.
“Funny. I don’t recall ever needing to.”
“You don’t,” Dev conceded. “But Russell is a less-experienced monitor.”
“Only way to get experience is to do it,” he said, eyes shifting back to the screen. “Was there a problem?”
“No. I’ve been keeping a close eye on him.”
Another flicker, longer this time. Leland’s attention snapped to it. This one on the patio cam. “There. On number nine. Did you see it?”
“I saw it.” Dev leaned back in his chair, studying him now instead of the screens. His gaze dropped briefly to Leland’s hand, the knuckles still bruised. He didn’t comment. “I’ve had complaints,” he said instead.
Leland’s attention stayed on the screen. “From who?”
“Take your pick. You’ve been short, snapping at people. Even the subs.” A pause. “Which is telling, considering how much they usually like you.”
Leland exhaled slowly. “Everyone’s fine.”
“I asked about you. Not everyone.”
Another stretch of silence.
“This wouldn’t be about a bubbly blonde who has been conspicuously absent of late, would it?”
“No,” he answered too fast.
Dev’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. He didn’t push; he never did. He let things sit and evolve in their own time.
Then, casually, “Maybe it’s for the best you’re up here tonight.”
Leland didn’t respond.
Dev’s gaze returned to the screen. “I’m going to find Evan and have a chat with him about our issues.”
A few clicks and a zoomed-in live feed of the bar popped up mid-screen. “Looks like he’s enjoying a bourbon,” Leland said. Evan Strickland, of Strickland Security Systems, was one of their two-dozen charter members.
Dev liked keeping business within the membership. Emily handled the catering. A domme owned a commercial cleaning company. Another member operated a fleet of charter planes under an exclusive contract with Devlin the casing clean, the seal unbroken. He moved on.
The fence line stretched along the sides and front of the property, partially obscured by dense landscaping designed as much for privacy as for aesthetics. Boone had passed through recently. His tracks remained faintly visible in the dew-damp ground.
Routine sweep. No deviation. Leland checked it anyway. His hand brushed the fence, not to steady himself but to feel it—tension, vibration, anything out of place.
At the river, he stopped. It was a natural barrier, but not an unguarded one.
There were cameras and motion sensors there too, as well as on the dock.
He looked toward the house. From here, warm light spilled from the upper two floors, the patio and playground hidden beyond the hedges.
It was a controlled environment. Carefully designed and closely monitored.
His looked toward the trees beyond the fence. Dark and still, aside from the movement of birds in the branches. Watching it too long was a good way to imagine things, and Leland didn’t deal in imagination. He dealt in predictability, in evidence, and right now, he had neither.
Leland continued the circuit. At the dock, familiar boats sat in their slips, the same as every Wednesday and Saturday—club night at Devil’s Pointe.
The mooring ropes appeared tight; the vessels, mostly cabin cruisers, bobbed gently with the current.
The weather was calm, nothing out of the ordinary.
He scanned the waterline and beyond it. All clear. He crouched briefly, checking the lower camera housing mounted near the dock’s edge. It showed no signs of interference. No loosened screws. No scoring.
He straightened slowly.
In all likelihood, it was a glitch in the system. A delay in processing. Something either Callan or the system tech would isolate and patch before morning.
Leland cut along the hedges toward the house.
The entrance to the labyrinth loomed ahead, the arbor casting a deeper shadow across the path.
He slowed without meaning to and stood for a moment, listening.
The distant music barely reached through the hedges, replaced by the closer, quieter sounds of movement, hushed voices, the occasional laugh, and the faint trickle of water at its center.
He didn’t go in. There were too many memories. The kind that led to thoughts he couldn’t afford. Of a future that wasn’t for him.
He mentally reset and stepped away. He’d found no disturbance. No forced entry. Nothing that justified escalation. He made a last pass along the side of the house before heading back toward the security office.
At the top of the stairs, he paused, one hand resting briefly against the frame. The grounds were secure. The systems were running. Everything checked out.
Yet, a nagging sense of unease remained. Whether it stemmed from system glitches or the blonde occupying too much space in his head, he wasn’t entirely sure.