Joss: Gray Wolf Security Volume One, #3

By Glenna Sinclair

This is the third book of Gray Wolf Security Volume One, with over 50,000 words of romantic suspense... 

 

Carrington: She doesn't talk... 

How the hell am I supposed to trust the life of my child to a woman who won't talk? I'm paying thousands of dollars to Gray Wolf Security to protect my child from potential kidnappers, and they give me this emotionally broken woman who won't speak.

Not only that, but she's so tiny she couldn't hurt a fly. Well, okay, so she knocked me to the ground. But I'm not a drug lord with a loaded pistol pointed at an innocent child.

Just because she's beautiful and she has these curves that I can't seem to get out of my mind doesn't mean that I'm okay with this situation...  

Joss: I haven't spoken in almost four years. Not since my husband and eighteen-month-old baby were killed in a tragic car accident. Because of this, I have only one rule about the cases that I'm assigned at Gray Wolf Security—no cases involving children.

Yet, when Ash asked me to protect an eight-year-old girl—and by default her father—I can't tell him no... 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glenna Sinclair
• Release date: May 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9798223398639

Glenna Sinclair

Experience the heart-racing novels of Glenna Sinclair, the master of romantic suspense. Sinclair's books feature strong male protagonists, many with a military background, who face real-world challenges that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Books2read.com/GlennaSinclair Facebook.com/AuthorGlennaSinclair GlennaSinclairAuthor at Gmail dot com

Book preview

Prologue

I was late. I was never late.

I pulled up to my daughter’s private school and slammed the SUV into park, stepping out before it had completely stopped moving.

Sorry I’m late picking her up. I had a meeting, I said breathlessly, as I approached the school’s headmistress. This almost never happens.

The woman looked at me as if she thought I’d gone insane. Had I mistaken the headmistress with a parent? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Your daughter’s been picked up, Mr. Matthews, she said.

No, I’m the only one authorized to pick her up.

Oh, my goodness, the man said there was a family emergency. He said he was an employee of yours and that you’d been injured at the dock. He showed me his employee badge. That’s him over there with McKelty! She looked panicked as she realized that she let a student be carted off by a stranger.

I turned and found myself looking into the eyes of a stranger wearing a gray jumpsuit, like some of my dock workers wear. The badge clipped to his left pocket was a clever duplicate of what my employees had. I had no idea who he was, but he knew me. His eyes widened, and he quickly turned, rushing to a car parked almost a block down. I chased after him, moving on instinct.

Daddy!

McKelty, my eight-year-old daughter, appeared in the back door of the car, fighting against someone I couldn’t quite see. I heard the headmistress behind me yell to someone to call 9-1-1, but I knew it was too late. They were taking my little girl.

I ran faster, trying to reach her before she disappeared for good. I couldn’t lose McKelty, too. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t believe this was happening.

The man in front of me reached the back of the car, but he was out of breath and couldn’t do much more than shove my daughter’s forehead back, making her head tilt back at an odd angle. Something about the movement, however, freed her from whomever was holding her in the car. She fell to her knees on the sidewalk, scrambled up, and rushed toward me. The first man reached for her, snagging her backpack, but the strap was broken—I’d been meaning to do something about that—and it snapped under the pressure of his grip. McKelty reached me just as one of the man’s partners revved the car’s engine and took off, away from the curb. The man in the gray jumpsuit managed to grab the door, running beside the car for a moment before someone grabbed him by his belt and pulled him into the backseat.

They were gone. For now.

The police have been called, the headmistress said, coming to stand behind me as I cradled my daughter in my arms.

But I knew the police couldn’t do anything. I knew who it was. They’d made threats against my daughter six months ago. I hired a security firm to watch over her, but they were next to useless. It was right after I fired them that the emails with pictures of McKelty going about her daily routine stopped coming.

I could protect her better than those fools. But then the emails started up again last week. Clearly, they were a more serious this time. I wasn’t enough to protect my little girl.

It was time to make another call to Gray Wolf Security. I’d been told that if they couldn’t keep McKelty safe, no one could.

They had better live up to their reputation. If I lost my daughter, I’d have nothing left.

No one wanted to deal with a man with nothing left to lose.

Chapter 1

Joss

––––––––

I was scrubbing the wax off my hands at the kitchen sink when Kirkland came up behind me. He pressed the side of his body against mine.

How’s it hanging, Joss?

I shrugged.

That bad?

I gestured at the wet suit I was wearing, and made a wave motion with my hand. Kirkland smiled.

As long as the waves are good.

I nodded.

He leaned in and kissed my cheek. Here’s to good waves, hot women, and another couple of weeks of easy jobs, huh?

I nodded again, enthusiastically. That made his smile widen as he turned and wandered off.

Kirkland is the most charming man I’ve ever known. And I’ve known quite a few. At five feet and four inches tall, and barely a hundred and twenty pounds, I’ve had my share of charming men tell me I can’t do the things I’ve done—and done quite well—in my life. Kirkland was one of them until I flipped him over my shoulder and got him in a chokehold on our first meeting. He hadn’t tested me since.

I work for Gray Wolf Security, a private security firm started by a buddy of mine from boot camp, Ashford Grayson. Ash. He started the company more than two years ago after his brother was involved in a car accident that took the lives of their parents and left his brother, David, in a wheelchair. Ash runs the office, with his office manager Rose, and David runs the technology side of the operation. It’s his job to design and oversee the installation of cameras in a target’s home, as well as to monitor the program that alerts him to any danger picked up by those cameras or the motion detectors installed with them. In turn, he alerts the operatives watching over that specific target. There were three of us all together: Kirkland, Donovan, and me.

Where Kirkland is a charmer, a lady’s man who never seems to lack for female attention, Donovan is the strong, silent type. He was part of Ash’s Green Beret A-Team over in Afghanistan. They often ran ops together, sometimes in conjunction with the CIA. Donovan was an explosives expert and witnessed a lot of things over there that no one should have to see. He might not have been formally diagnosed with PTSD—unlike many soldiers who came home—but he was messed up just the same. Personally, I thought he was headed down a bad road, but then he reconnected with his high school sweetheart and—after he was shot and went through weeks of rehabilitation—everything was different.

I was a big believer that true love could do that. Love had helped David, too. He was confined to a wheelchair because of damage to his spine. The doctors told him they could remove the bone fragments that were causing the paralysis, but he refused because he felt guilty for the death of his parents, and was worried about losing any further function. But then he met Ricki Dennison, and suddenly he was having the surgery. It was odd to look over at his workstation and see him standing.

But true love could also destroy everything.

Ash lost his fiancée over in Afghanistan. She was a CIA operative he’d worked with on multiple ops. She went missing during one of those ops and Ash, a vowed lifer, quit the Army to devote himself to searching for her. If it hadn’t been for his brother’s accident, he’d probably still be looking for her. In fact, I suspected that he was. Not full time. But occasionally, I caught him looking through a file folder that was filled with dead leads. He was obsessed with her. He wouldn’t let her go.

If I had the option, I wouldn’t either. But my love was gone, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back. And my life would never be the same again.

Joss? Meeting time.

I turned and forced a smile even though my thoughts had gone dark.

Everyone was gathering in the former dining room where a conference table had become the center of our regular meetings. Ash was standing at the head, as always, so tall, dark, and achingly familiar. We’d known each other for more than twelve years now. We met in boot camp. He helped me through some of my darkest moments, and I liked to think I did the same for him. He struggled, those first months in the Army, because the other recruits knew who his father was. They were fascinated with the novelty that a state senator’s son would go into the Army. I never understood why it mattered. Maybe that’s what made me the one person Ash turned to. The one he let in.

He told me once that he owed me his career. I owed him much more than that. I owed him my life.

Kirkland pulled out a chair and gestured for me to sit. I curled up in the chair, pulling my legs up underneath me and wrapping my arms around my chest. Donovan took a seat across from us, nodding when our eyes met. Then David . . . it was still so strange to see him out of his wheelchair!

We have three new cases this morning, Ash announced.

Kirkland groaned, as he leaned close and whispered, So much for wishes.

Kirkland, Ash said, forcing him to pay attention. He held up a file folder. We have a visiting dignitary who has requested a male escort while he’s in Los Angeles.

Male? Kirkland said with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

They can’t all be beautiful women, buddy, David said.

I saw the envy in David’s eyes. It made me wonder what he’d seen on the video feeds he monitored when Kirkland was on assignment. I’d heard rumors, but you couldn’t always be sure that rumors were true.

Ash tossed the file across the table toward Kirkland. Get familiar with it. You’re to report to the airport in an hour. Then he turned to Donovan, holding up a new folder. A lawyer has a former client who is making threats against her. She doesn’t believe the threats are credible, but she wants protection in case she’s wrong.

What kind of lawyer?

Family law.

Donovan took the file and began perusing its pages. A custody case? Sounds interesting.

Why can’t I have the female lawyer? Kirkland asked, his mouth pouting slightly.

Ash simply ignored him.

Get to work, people, he said. And don’t get dead.

Then Ash’s eyes fell on me, and I knew all too well the expression in them. He had something to tell me that he knew I wouldn’t like. I was pretty sure it had something to do with the remaining file folder he was holding between both hands.

See you later, sweetheart, Kirkland said, laying a hand on my shoulder before he walked away. I watched him go, watched him stop and chat with Donovan for a minute. David joined the conversation, the three of them, gorgeous men each one, talking like it was the most natural thing in the world. It used to be natural to me. My husband once told me I could talk circles around anyone. He insisted I could sell ice to an Inuit. But that was a long time ago.

Four years, six months, three weeks, and two days ago.

Joss, Ash said, laying his hand on my shoulder the same way Kirkland had done, will you come with me?

I got up and followed him across the wide, open space of Gray Wolf Security’s office. It was once a home belonging to a wealthy real estate developer, but Ash bought the property when he decided to begin the business. We used the first floor of the main house as the office and Ash lived upstairs. There were small cottages spread out over the property where Kirkland, David, Donovan, and I lived. The entire compound was protected by a wrought iron fence, nighttime security guards, and David’s state of the art security system. It was probably the safest place in Santa Monica.

Ash’s desk was some distance from the rest, sitting in a small alcove in the back corner. He gestured for me to have a seat in one the chairs placed strategically in front of his desk for clients.

We’ve had a new case come in this morning that’s a bit time sensitive.

I nodded.

I got a call months ago, the day David went in for his back surgery. An executive had a problem with some potential clients of his shipping business. I blew off the meeting when I got the call about David, and the meeting totally slipped my mind. The guy hired someone else and I thought that was that. But, this morning, he called because the problem’s come back.

I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. I understood his urgency to appease this client, but didn’t understand why he felt like he couldn’t talk to me about it in front of everyone else.

Ash watched me a long moment, something like fear, or maybe weariness, in his eyes.

I wouldn’t put you on this case if it weren’t for the fact that there’s no one else.

I gestured toward Donovan and Kirkland where they were still standing with David. Ash followed my gesture, but shook his head when he understood my meaning.

Kirkland would be totally inappropriate for this case. And Donovan . . . I promised Kate that I wouldn’t put him on high-risk cases right now, especially with the wedding coming up in November. After he got shot, I can’t blame her for being concerned. Can you?

My eyebrows rose. What danger? I wondered. Ash knew me well enough to understand what I was asking.

This case likely has ties to a drug cartel. He explained.

Now I was curious. I leaned forward, my hand held out for the file folder. But Ash pulled it out of my reach.

I need you to promise me you won’t freak out. I need you at your best on this one.

I shook my head. I wasn’t making promises.

Joss . . .

I shook my head again.

He sighed. Just come with me to meet the client.

I wanted to know what the catch was. I’d never shied away from a hard case. In fact, the harder the better. I enlisted in the Army because I had nowhere else to go. But I stayed because I loved the adrenaline that came with being in a dangerous situation. It was the promise of that adrenaline rush that brought me to Gray Wolf when Ash came to ask me to join the company. My only stipulation was that I wouldn’t take a case that involved children.

Children.

I suddenly sat up and reached across his desk, snatching a piece of paper and a pen.

It’s a kidnapping threat, right?

Ash read the note, hesitating before he finally looked up at me again. I didn’t need him to confirm, I could see it in his eyes.

I shook my head again.

No way was I doing this case.

I jumped to my feet and started across the room.

She’s eight, Ash said in a low, steady voice. A third grader at a private school in Los Angeles. A group of unidentified men tried to grab her from in front of the school yesterday afternoon.

I stopped, but I didn’t turn around.

"If there