Chapter 5
Earlier That Morning
Zeus
Jogging along the street, Zeus slowed when his dog, Tiger, pulled on the leash.
Some people thought it was odd to have a dog named Tiger, but with his burnt-orange coat and black brindle stripes, he did vaguely resemble one.
Plus, when Zeus had gotten him from the shelter, that had been his name, and he answered to it.
Zeus hadn’t seen the point in changing a name the dog was already used to.
Enough about Tiger’s life had already changed.
He’d gone from living with a family who had loved and trained him to ending up on the street to Zeus’ house.
At least, Zeus supposed Tiger had been with a family who had loved and trained him because he was well-trained, and he showed all the signs of a dog who had been a pampered family pet.
Sometimes, Zeus wondered what had happened to change his circumstances.
He wished he could tell whoever had trained the dog that he was still loved and well cared for.
They were almost home, but Tiger liked to walk the last block and sniff at his usual places.
On his own, Zeus would have done a light jog home, but walking was fine when Tiger got in this mood.
Weighing in at about fifty pounds, Tiger was made up of a lot of lean muscle.
Zeus could force the issue, but he preferred not to if it wasn’t necessary.
Stretching his neck to the right and to the left, Zeus automatically scanned the neighborhood. It was a nice neighborhood, and things were looking about the same as always.
Farther down the street, he could see his next-door neighbor, Sarah, out walking her dog, Hope.
He raised his hand to greet her, and Tiger’s head lifted at the same time, his whippy tail starting to wag when he saw who was also outside.
He and Hope got along well, although Zeus was getting worried about Hope’s health because she’d become more and more lethargic over the past year since Sarah had gotten her.
Sarah had been trying to get a diagnosis of what was going on, but they hadn’t run into each other in a while, so Zeus didn’t know if she had a conclusion yet.
Sarah’s arm went up in greeting, but it faltered, and she brought it down to her chest. Even at this distance, Zeus could see the frown on her face. Instinct prickled his senses. Something was wrong with Sarah.
“Tiger, come,” he barked out the command even before Sarah started to fall to her knees, her grey hair falling forward as her head bowed and she went down. Tiger dashed along with him, as if sensing the urgency, while Hope whined and pawed at her owner.
The two dogs nosed at Sarah while Zeus tried to pull them off with one hand, his other going into his pocket to grab his phone and call 9-1-1.
“Sarah? Sarah, can you hear me?” he asked sharply, getting her turned onto her side. Seeing her in such distress brought back memories of his mother, but he quickly shoved them to the side, focusing on the woman in front of him.
“I… can’t… breathe…” The frown on her face, the confusion and panic in her eyes as she gasped for air, made his own chest tighten.
Sarah was a nice woman and an easy-going next-door neighbor.
About his mom’s age, living alone with her dog, she had been the only neighbor on the block to greet him when he’d moved in three years ago.
She’d baked him cookies. He’d done what he could to be a good and helpful neighbor ever since, but he was suddenly completely helpless other than calling for help.
“It’s okay, just try to relax,” he said reassuringly, even though he had no idea if it was okay or not. The dispatcher had picked up the phone, though, and he needed to get someone here who could help Sarah. That was the priority.
By the time he was done calling 9-1-1, several other neighbors had come out to see what they could do to help.
The young mother from across the street brought a pillow and blanket for Sarah while she waited; the older gentleman who lived on the other side of Sarah’s house held her hand while Zeus got the dogs into his own home.
He had a key to Sarah’s, but it was in one of his drawers, in case she locked herself out or went on a trip and asked him to water her plants and pick up her mail.
Zeus didn’t want to waste time getting the key and putting Hope in Sarah’s house while Sarah was still on the ground.
For a community of people he rarely did more than wave to, they all came together for Sarah.
Zeus met more of his neighbors while they were waiting for the ambulance, and in the aftermath once they got her loaded up, than he had in the entirety of the time he’d lived there.
It was nice to see everyone come together for her, even for a little bit, but also overwhelming.
He was happy to retreat to his house afterward once the crowd began to disperse. One of the EMTs had told Zeus they thought it looked like a heart attack and which hospital they were taking her to. He wasn’t her emergency contact or anything, so he’d have to call in later to see how she was doing.
His jaw clenched.
Fuck, he hoped she would be okay.
He hadn’t realized how attached he’d gotten to having her around until he saw her start to fall. It made him think…
Zeus shook his head, shaking the thoughts off, as he greeted Tiger, who acted as if he’d been gone for twenty days rather than twenty minutes. Hope stood back, wagging her tail, but also looking behind him, as though she thought Sarah was going to appear at any moment.
The two of them had come over a few times, usually for a drink in the backyard when the weather was nice, and Zeus had set up his fire pit.
Hope had never been here without Sarah, though, and he felt like a failure as he looked at her hopeful expression and realized he was going to disappoint her. He gently closed the door behind him.
When he walked away, Hope stood there in the front hall, still wagging her tail, staring at the door, while Tiger followed him deeper into the house. Shit. That dog was going to break his heart. He also had no idea if she’d been at the beginning or the end of her walk.
From talking to Sarah, he knew there was some health thing going on with Hope, and she couldn’t get too energetic or exert herself too much. Would it be a bad thing to take her for a short walk if she’d already had one? On the other hand, if she needed one…
Zeus reached for his phone again and dialed the first number in there, his boss, Lincoln Black.
He owned Black Fox Security, and right now, Zeus’ job position was a bit delicate.
Black Fox had originally been made up of three teams, each under a different partner—Lincoln Black, Harris Black, and Marshall Devlin.
Devlin’s team had been smaller and didn’t really go out in the field; he’d been more focused on running the business and the tech side of things.
Which was how Zeus had gotten his job with Devlin’s team originally.
He was former military, but he’d always had a knack for computers, and if he’d wanted to go to the dark side, he could have become a hacker.
Instead, he’d been working on Devlin’s team, finding and protecting computer breaches for their clients.
Even though he liked the company, eventually, Zeus had gotten a bad feeling about Devlin, hadn’t been able to transfer, and quit.
His bad feeling was confirmed when a few months later, Devlin was cut out of the business for embezzlement and fired.
Even though Zeus had originally worked for Devlin—who had been having an affair with Lincoln’s wife in addition to everything else—Lincoln had hired Zeus back as part of his team when he’d needed a tech geek.
The rest of the team didn’t trust Zeus too much, and Devlin had done his best to make Zeus look even more suspect recently, but Lincoln trusted him.
Despite everything. He’d not only given Zeus a chance, but he continued to back him, even when it turned out Zeus’ girlfriend was involved with Devlin.
He’d dumped Noelle immediately, but it was still enough to make the rest of the team look at him even more warily.
Lincoln refused to fire him, though, and that meant there was no way Zeus was going to quit.
The rest of the team just had to deal with it.
Eventually, they’d realize he didn’t have anything to do with Devlin anymore. Or maybe they wouldn’t.
Either way, he wasn’t going to let Lincoln down.
“Good morning, Zeus,” Lincoln greeted in the deep, calm voice he almost always had. Zeus had rarely heard his boss get angry about anything, unless it had to do with someone messing with his wife, Ashley.
“Morning, boss. I’ve got a bit of a situation.” He quickly explained what had happened. “I know we’ve got training this afternoon, but I’d like to work from home this morning, just to make sure I can get Hope settled and in case I hear anything from Sarah needing something from her house.”
“Of course.” Lincoln’s voice was full of warm sympathy. “There’s nothing going on this morning you can’t handle from home. You’re still doing the deep dive background checks on the senator’s new employees, correct?”
“Yes, it shouldn’t be a problem to handle from here.
” Black Fox Security had been hired as additional security for Senator Aditi Marlin after a series of threats were made following her announcement that she would run for governor of Pennsylvania.
Apparently, not everyone was happy about the idea of an Indian-American woman becoming governor.
The deeper background checks were necessary for anyone who might be in regular close contact with her to ensure they weren’t following a hidden agenda. As the tech guy on the team, Zeus was completely in charge of that.
“Great. Then just be here this afternoon for training, and you can go home early as soon as it’s over. I hope your neighbor is okay.”
“Me, too, thanks.” Relief filled him at Lincoln’s reaction.
Even though he’d come to realize his boss was pretty easy-going about certain things, part of him still didn’t really expect that kind of accommodation.
And not just because Devlin had been a control freak who wielded his power like a petty overlord.
Hanging up the phone, he turned when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Hope had abandoned the front door, but now she was walking around, sniffing, and whining, her big eyes full of accusation, as if he was hiding Sarah from her somewhere.
“Sorry, baby girl,” he murmured, going over to kneel beside her and give her ears a good scrub the way she liked it.
Her tail wagged slowly, even as Tiger came barreling in on Zeus’ other side, almost knocking him off balance as the dog demanded an equal amount of petting.
“Your momma’s not going to be home for a bit. ”
He just hoped she did come home.
Tension wound through him, and he rolled his shoulders to ease it, though it did nothing for the knot that had hardened in his gut. He ignored it because there was no reason to think the worst until he actually heard something.
“Alright.” He straightened. “Let’s take a little walk around the block just in case you need it, and then I’m going to get to work. Hopefully, we’ll hear something soon.”
Hope wagged her tail at him as if she understood.