Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
PRESENT
The hot midday sun beat down, the heat scorching in its intensity, and a trickle of sweat beaded at the nape of Luke’s neck before slithering down his spine and into the waistband of his cargo pants.
Shielding his eyes from the sun, Lucas Stone gazed at the decrepit storefront before turning to his one-time Lieutenant and friend. “Seriously, couldn’t you have found something a little nicer?”
A few streets away from the heart of industrial Miami, the building was situated amongst factories and warehouses, a decaying pile of wood and steel.
Luke could feel Knox Castillo’s black eyes bore into his even through the dark lenses of his Oakleys.
Knox gave a nonchalant shrug. “Got it cheap after the hurricane wiped everything out down here. Needs some refurbishing, but it has good bones.”
Luke grimaced. If by ‘bones’ Knox meant the structure needed to be placed six feet under, then he was inclined to agree. It would take nothing short of a miracle to salvage this place.
“Besides,” Knox continued, “we need to be close enough to the center of things to be reputable, but far enough away that no one reads too much into it.”
Well, Luke couldn’t argue with that. No one in their right mind would come near this place. He tipped his head in agreement and resumed studying the building. “Is it safe to go in?”
“Gonna find out.” Knox pulled the key from his pocket and pushed open the heavy steel door—or, rather, tried to. It was either blocked or swollen from the humidity and refused to budge more than a couple inches.
Knox put his shoulder against the door and threw his considerably bulky weight into it, but even though it groaned with effort, the door refused to move. Stepping forward, Luke added his own weight, and together they shoved the door open, inch by excruciating inch.
A mixture of foul smells greeted them—mildew and rot, followed closely by the smell of roadkill and feces.
Clearly, more than one animal had made its way in and expired, the smell permeating the warm, stale air.
Having been stationed all over the globe, they’d experienced worse in some of the third world countries they’d been in.
But at least no one was living here—not of the human variety anyway. He hoped.
“Great,” he remarked, sarcasm saturating his tone, and Knox smirked.
Debris littered the floor of the warehouse, a collection of things left over from a time when the building was operational, as well as junk washed in by the recent hurricane.
Luke imagined that the building had been vacant prior to the flooding; otherwise, the owners would have taken care of it.
Dampness hung in the air, except where it had managed to escape through several broken windows.
“Please tell me you’ve hired someone to clear this stuff out.” So help him, if he had to wade through four feet of garbage to refurbish this building, he was going to choke the life out of Knox.
“Going soft on me, Stone?” A smile flitted at the corners of Knox’s mouth. “To answer your question, yes, they’ll be in here next week, so we should be ready to go within the next month if all goes well.”
“Sounds good.”
To be honest, it sounded like a miracle, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He’d been looking for something to do since being discharged almost two months ago, but civilian life hadn’t appealed to him in the least. There was no way he could go from holding a rifle in the sandy, rocky mountains in the armpit of the world to sitting behind a desk eight hours a day.
He didn’t have the patience or people skills for that.
Knox had reached out to him one day, asking if he’d be interested in working personal security. Over the next several months, Vantage Security Group had been formed via FaceTime and several hundred emails—one of which was precisely how Knox had ended up with this Godforsaken building.
Halfway across the world at the time, a realtor had sent—he now realized—extremely doctored photos of the building they were now standing in. In an inch and a half of water, crap, and God only knew what else. Fantastic.
Still, the prospect was better than anything he could have dug up on his own, and he was grateful for that.
They had another handful of guys on the way, too, due stateside within the next couple of months.
Knox had connections all over the place; some were guys he’d grown up with, others were soldiers, paratroopers, or snipers he’d met and worked with over the years.
The goal was to land a government contract, but in the meantime, they’d start with small jobs, working security for high-end functions or as bodyguards to some of Miami’s elite.
They’d take whatever they could to get their name out there, but Knox had a ten-year plan and a vision of putting Vantage offices on each side of the country.
“Reception will go right over here”—Knox pointed to an open area immediately to the right—“conference rooms down this hallway. The gym will go upstairs so we can hold self-defense courses on site.”
“We’re going to have a receptionist?”
Knox nodded. “Vivi’s gonna take the calls, decide which scenario is best for which agent. She’ll consult with me in the beginning, of course, but ideally she’ll be able to take over that aspect of it so we won’t have to bother with the mundane everyday stuff.”
Luke nodded. Paperwork sucked. Better to let Knox’s little sister take care of that.
He loved Vivi like a sister, but the woman could talk a man to death.
She and Knox had been in constant communication while he’d been overseas, and the tiny spitfire had an opinion on everything.
He liked a smart woman who knew her own mind, but Vivi took things to a whole other level.
He couldn’t wait to meet the man who would one day take on the challenge.
“Why is the gym going upstairs and not in the basement or on the ground floor?”
Knox shook his head. “Not enough space on the first floor, and no basement. City won’t give us a permit to go so far underground in an existing building, and the previous owners didn’t want or need one.” Luke raised a brow, and Knox shrugged. “Something about excavating the terrain.”
That sounded like a whole bunch of crap to Luke, but what did he know? He’d grown up in Wisconsin, which was about as far away and as different from Florida that it may as well have been the moon.
His vision blurred as a bead of sweat slithered down his forehead and into his right eye. Whipping off his sunglasses, he used his sleeve to ease the burning sensation. It was hotter than Hades here.
Sliding his glasses back into place, he canted his head toward Knox. “Remind me again why you chose Florida?”
Knox grinned. “It’s home.”
Luke shook his head. “And you couldn’t even get someone to sign a permit to dig a basement?”
Knox’s expression turned serious. “I tried, believe me. But it’s actually better this way. All common areas and meeting rooms will be on the first floor so we won’t have the added expense of needing to install an elevator for any visitors with disabilities.”
Made sense. “So, what’s the plan for reconstruction?”
“Company’s coming in next week to clean up all the debris, then the construction workers will be here the week after to take a look around and see what’s salvageable.
We’ll need to move walls around anyway, so I anticipate that it’ll just be easier to gut the place and start fresh.
” Knox shrugged. “They could be here for two weeks or two months depending on what all needs to be done, but I’m hoping to be ready by the end of next month. ”
“Solid. What do you need from me?”
“Get our name out there. Talk to your friends, I’ll talk to mine.
Pick up any gigs you can find and get in touch with Vivi.
” Knox whipped out his phone and tapped it a few times.
Seconds later, Luke’s phone lit up with a message.
“I just sent you her contact info. Call that number and she can put it on the books. She’ll work remotely for now, until we’re ready to move her in here. ”
“And if we get any interest until the building’s ready?”
“Get their info, put them on the books with Vivi, and do what you can to spread the word. I don’t figure we’ll get anything major in the beginning, but if it sounds like a good gig, take it. I’ve ordered us some polo shirts, and I’ll get cards made up soon so we can start marketing ourselves.”
“When are the other guys landing?”
“Jaxon and Mason are still out of country, but both should be ready to take jobs in the next couple of months. Aiden and Roman are stateside, but I gave them a couple of weeks to tie up some loose ends.”
Luke dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “I’ll see what I can dig up. Ready to get out of here?”
Knox lifted one black brow. “Too soft to handle some dead rodents?”
Luke lifted his foot out of the water and examined his now stained boot. “Doesn’t this constitute hazard pay?”
Knox snorted. “Get outta here.”
Luke grinned. “Hey, it was worth a shot.”
All in all, he couldn’t complain. After everything they’d been through overseas, personal security seemed like a glorified babysitting gig.
How hard could it be?