Chapter Two | TORIN
Chapter Two
TORIN
The basement gym at the Glasshouse never closed.
That had been one of the first things I’d noticed when Vance Landon hired me — that the building his private security firm occupied ran around the clock because the work ran around the clock, and the people who did it needed somewhere to put the hours when a job ended and the body hadn’t caught up yet.
The ten-day job in Seattle had wrapped clean — client safe, assignment closed, paperwork filed.
I’d gone home, slept eight hours for the first time in a week and a half, and come straight here that morning.
The bag, a ten-mile run, weights — whatever the day allowed.
On a job, routine bent around the work. Back home, it snapped back into place, and there was something right about that.
I was on my last set when the intercom above the door crackled and Evie March’s voice came through. She ran operations for Landon — his second, the person who kept the whole firm moving — and when she called down to the gym, it wasn’t a suggestion.
“Torin. Vance wants you upstairs.”
I set the bar down, showered fast, and dressed for work. Jeans, a fitted shirt, working boots. The jacket I’d had since my second month at HPG, worn in at the shoulders, shaped on the left side where I carried. I took the stairs.
The ops floor ran whether anyone was on it or not — live feeds along the far wall, the low hum of a space that never went quiet, the particular quality of air in a room where the lights had been on since before anyone on day shift arrived.
Landon was at the center console when I walked in, jacket on, the look on his face that meant the job he was about to hand me wasn’t going to be the straightforward kind.
“Dempsey.” He pulled up a file. “Strand the charm on it was a small cat mid-stride, already halfway somewhere else.
She had a duffel over one shoulder and she was pretty in the way that didn’t come at you — the kind you noticed on second glance and kept noticing.
I had about five seconds before she opened her mouth.
Kent looked up from her desk. “Noa Dahl, this is Torin Dempsey with Halo Protective Group.”
Noa’s gaze cut to Kent first.
“Halo Protective Group?”
“Protection,” Kent said.
Noa set the duffel down against the wall. “You hired private security.”
“Temporarily.”
“No.” Noa’s tone stayed flat. “Absolutely not.”
That got my attention faster than if she’d shouted.
Most people heard HPG and relaxed. This woman looked like she was deciding whether she could make the elevator before I caught her.
Kent folded her hands on the desk. “A federal prosecutor was shot through the forehead at your drop point last night.”
“I’m aware. I was there.”
“And you still have the package.”
“I also still have functioning legs. I can leave under my own power.”
Christ.
My cock tightened hard against my jeans.
Not because she was pretty. Because she was standing in the middle of a dangerous situation arguing like she intended to win.
I stood and crossed toward her. “Torin Dempsey.”
She looked at the hand I offered, then shook it. Her grip was brief and businesslike and told me nothing.
“Noa.”
“I know.”
Irritation moved across her face, sharp and undisguised.
Good. Easier to trust than fear.
“You’re not walking out alone,” I said.
Her dark eyes locked on mine. “Watch me.”
I laughed before I could help it.
Her gaze narrowed. “You finding this funny?”
“A little.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“It should be. Means I’m relaxed.”
“It means you’re irritating.”
“That too.”
The silence stretched a beat too long, her eyes still on mine.
Noa looked me over properly then, taking inventory the same way I’d taken inventory of her. Jacket. Boots. The left side where I carried.
“You always this pleased with yourself, or am I getting special treatment?” she asked.
“Only the difficult ones get special treatment.”
“I’m not difficult.”
“You told Kent no twice in under a minute.”
“I’m being accurate.”
“You keep the claws handy.”
The corner of her mouth threatened upward for half a second before she flattened it out again.
Kent stood before either of us could push the exchange further.
“Enough. Noa, listen carefully to me.”
That changed the room.
Noa went still.
“The man who died last night was Sawyer Price,” Kent said.
“Federal prosecutor. You already know that from the news. We don’t know whether the package had anything to do with his death yet.
What we do know is that you were supposed to meet him, he ended up dead before the exchange happened, and you still have the package. ”
Noa said nothing.
“The people behind this may know the delivery failed,” Kent continued. “They may know someone walked away from that park with what Price was supposed to receive. I would prefer they not discover where that person is.”
Noa glanced toward me. “And you think he helps with that.”
“I know he does.”
I leaned back against the arm of the chair. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about me all week.”
Noa ignored that entirely.
“How long?” she asked Kent.
“Until the situation clears.”
“And then?”
“Then he stops following you around when I’m satisfied you’re not about to get yourself shot.”
Noa’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Did she tell you to say that?”
“No. That one was all me.”
Her mouth twitched once before she shut it down.
Kent moved around the desk toward her. “I’m serious, sweetheart.”
Noa heard it too. Her shoulders shifted under the jacket.
“All right,” she said finally. “Fine.”
Then she looked at me.
“But I’m not doing the obedient-client thing.”
“Thank God,” I said. “I’d die of boredom inside the hour.”
That earned me a real reaction this time. Brief, unwilling, gone fast.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“First part’s easy. I get you somewhere harder to shoot.”
“And after that?”
“We figure out who murdered a federal prosecutor and whether it has anything to do with what you’re carrying.”