Brass Angel: Gray Wolf Security Shifters New Mexico, #3

By Glenna Sinclair

This is the third book of the second series of Gray Wolf Security Shifters and contains over 50,000 words of paranormal romantic suspense. For the best reading experience, it is highly recommended to start from the beginning with Pack of Misfits, Gray Wolf Security Shifters.

 

Jessica's father started a biker club charter before she was born, a bioengineer with a passion for motorcycles who only wanted to change the public's opinion of such clubs. But his death sets Jessica on a path that she thought she'd escaped years ago. She finds herself right back inside a biker clubhouse with the same sort of men who'd populated her past. And the man whom Creed has pegged as their inside man, their informant, doesn't seem any different.

 

But there's some sort of mysterious connection between the two of them that seems to stem from the shifter nature they share in common. Jessica would rather forget she's a shifter, but can the past really be forgotten?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glenna Sinclair
• Release date: Feb 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224282593

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

Chapter 1: Creed

I stepped out of the shower, water dripping from my long hair. I glanced in the mirror as I prepared my toothbrush, catching sight of the scruff I’d allowed to grow over my chin and jaw. I wasn’t sure if I liked it, but I wasn’t in a hurry to shave it off. I normally kept my facial hair—when I had any—neat and trimmed, but I’d lost interest in the mundane of everyday life. Who cares how rough your face looks when there’s no one to look at it?

Fucking Trinity!

How could one woman get so far under my skin that she began dictating my emotions? I’d never cared that much for a woman who didn’t return the feelings. I’d thought... but clearly I’d been wrong.

Dibe got it. I could see it in her eyes when I’d escorted that man out of her apartment last month. She knew what it felt like to be betrayed by someone you thought you could trust. She knew what it was like to put all your eggs into one basket and have that basket destroy every one of them with no warning, with no clue of what was coming.

Dibe knew.

Maybe that was why I felt this misplaced sense of loyalty to her. I should have been tired of helping women, of helping women who claimed to be one thing but always turned out to be something else. But there was something different about Dibe.

But then again, those are always the famous last words of men who get their hearts crushed—right?

Not that this thing between me and Dibe was romantic. Dibe was the boss; I was the guy sent to... what was I here for? I still wasn’t entirely sure.

Almost as if he could read my thoughts, the bell on my computer that alerted me to a video call sounded. Time for the weekly chat with Ash Grayson.

I tugged on a pair of jeans and went to sit in front of the computer, lifting my still wet, dripping hair off my neck. Ash’s face filled the screen, an ugly mug that was becoming more and more familiar with each passing week.

My report will be in your inbox in a few hours, I said, launching right into business. We have nine active cases and three new clients coming in this week. Construction on the gym has begun again, paid for out of the monies I collected from former clients over the past few months. And the court just notified us that the goons working for Margulis—that adoption lawyer—will be going to trial in March.

Good, good. That’s really good news, Creed.

I think so. Things are really looking up over there.

And you’ve still got Dibe working in her usual role?

I glanced behind me, guilt resting heavy on my shoulders even though I was in my hotel room and there was no possibility that anyone could overhear me. But you never know with these dragons flying around, disguising themselves in the water vapor that was—miraculously—even present in this semi-arid desert.

Dibe has no idea that you asked me to remove her from the firm.

I still don’t understand your sense of loyalty toward her. She ran the firm into the ground, which is why I bought it out. As much as I like the idea of giving her a second chance—I’ve given her three or four, by the way—she continues to refuse to change her management ways, refuses to help you keep the firm’s treasury in the black, refuses to take any advice or direction from you or me. She should have been ousted long ago.

It’s her business. And her people are loyal to her. Do you really think Joshua Clinton or Carlos Martinez would work that hard for me? They don’t even know me.

Yes, well, I would have sent in someone else, someone with more managerial experience, if not for the unique nature of the people who work there. Ash was clearly referring to the fact that most of the people at Dibe’s office of Gray Wolf Security were shifters, a pack of dragons from all over the country. As a human, and relatively new to the concept, he was wary around those of us who could become something other than human. And his bias was clear in his comments. But you are doing a good job pulling them out of the red.

Thank you.

I expect your offices to be making a profit by summer. As it is, you’re still sucking too much from our coffers. Do you realize that adoption case cost us more than sixty thousand dollars? If it hadn’t ended in arrests, I might have had to call you on the carpet for that one.

It was a good case. It won us a lot of karma points with the local people, especially those living on the reservation. I think it will lead to more business.

Sixty thousand dollars’ worth, I hope. Ash sighed. I understand your desire to take that case and I’m glad it ended well, but let’s keep those types of pro bono cases to a minimum—all right? At least until you get the business back on its feet.

Yes, sir.

And if the improvements don’t continue, or if Dibe Haskie gets in the way of change again, I will personally fly in and relieve her of her duties.

I understand.

You are in charge there now, Creed. The buck stops with you. Don’t let me down.

I won’t.

I disconnected the call and sat back, once again lifting my wet hair off my neck. I hadn’t told Dibe that Ash had put me in charge of her business. In fact, there were a lot of things I hadn’t told her. Like the fact that her financial situation when I walked through the doors the first time was so precarious that Ash would have been better off shutting her down and selling the warehouse. At least that way he might have recouped some of his loss. The business was two hundred thousand dollars in debt despite Ash paying off the debts Dibe had racked up before he bought her out, most of the debt a result of Dibe’s failure to collect monies owed and the hemorrhaging of money through her tech department. There was also the fact that most of the cases Dibe liked to take had to be done on a pro bono basis because her clients had no significant means to pay with. I’d managed to collect more than half of what was owed to the business, and tone down the high-end purchases the tech department was making, but it was a fight to end the pro bono stuff. And it still wasn’t enough. Ash had to send us a check every month to allow us to make our monthly bills—just to keep the electricity on!—putting us further into debt.

We were struggling. I had a list of changes I wanted to implement, things I thought would help, but I was reluctant to bring it up to Dibe because of her fierce independent streak, the one that caused her to bite off my head when I did anything without talking to her first. It was complicated, working with this woman. Complicated, frustrating, and completely amazing. She might have been a bad businesswoman, but she was a pretty admirable leader.

Firing Dibe would be like shooting the business in the heart and expecting it to survive. Impossible. Half the operatives would walk out with her, and the other half would refuse to cooperate. Without Dibe, there was no firm.

That was why I told her I’d been given a permanent position with the firm, but didn’t tell her that I was now her boss. And I didn’t plan on telling her. I needed Dibe’s support, needed her way with the operatives, needed her to keep Joshua happy. Because without Dibe and Joshua, I wouldn’t be able to run the place.

I was walking on eggshells here. I’d already had a conversation with the head of the tech department, already talked to the office manager. Everything had to be filtered through me. Everything had to have my signature. Doing that without alerting Dibe was growing difficult, but it was the way things had to be. I was going to make this work, I was going to turn this firm around, and then I was going to hand it back to Dibe on a gold platter. Ash would just have to accept that.

But getting from point A to point B was going to be quite a ride.

***

I walked into the building less than an hour later, shoving my keys into my pocket as I crossed the narrow reception space just inside the double glass doors. The office manager was talking to some woman at the reception desk, speaking low in a soothing voice. It was clear the woman was upset.

What’s going on, Margaret? I asked, touching her shoulder as I approached.

This is Creed Jones, Margaret immediately said. Perhaps he could help you, Mrs. Vaultor.

The woman—a middle-aged woman with a certain Midwest paleness about her—looked up at me, her blue eyes red and swollen from her tears.

As I was telling her, my daughter went missing from her school a few months ago. My husband and I have been in contact with the Albuquerque Police Department in our attempts to find her. After weeks of no news, I flew out here to speak to them myself and found out that they’ve found her, they know where she is, but they refuse to tell me! She’s my daughter!

The last little bit was said at the top of the woman’s lungs in a voice shaken by emotion and tears. I moved closer to her, rubbing her upper arm in what I hoped was a comforting gesture.

Why don’t you come back to the office and we’ll talk about this.

The woman nodded, reaching up to press a wet tissue to her eye. Someone at my hotel recommended this firm, said that you might be able to do things the police won’t. I just... I just want to know where my daughter is, know that she’s safe. I just want to talk to her!

Okay. Come with me. I glanced at Margaret and she shrugged ever so slightly. But there was relief in her eyes as she returned to her seat behind the reception desk.

I took the woman to Dibe’s office—I still hadn’t been assigned any sort of office space of my own, so I worked out of whatever space I could find, usually a corner of this office—and settled her in a chair. After offering coffee, and getting a polite refusal, I sat beside the woman and asked her name.

Gretta Vaultor.

I took her hand in mine and looked her in the eye. Tell me what happened.

We’re from Illinois. I’ve lived there all my life, never wanted to go anywhere else. Married my high school sweetheart and had five beautiful children—two girls and three boys. My husband grows soybeans and corn. It’s a good life. She sighed. Rosalie is my youngest. All the other kids attended the University of Illinois at Springfield. We assumed she’d go there, too, but she announced a month before her high school graduation that she’d been accepted to the University of New Mexico here in Albuquerque. We argued with her for weeks, but she wouldn’t budge, so my husband grudgingly allowed her to come. She’s been here barely two months when we get a notice that she’s withdrawn from her classes and taken the tuition refund. We called and called, didn’t get an answer. We flew out here and found her dorm room empty, her things all gone. No one knows where she’s gone.

She reached up to dab at her eye again. Her roommate says something about a biker she’d been hanging out with almost since the first day of classes, says that she might have gone off with him. But that’s all we know. She sighed. We went to the police and they said they’d check into it. We waited for weeks! So long... They finally called and said she’s safe. That’s all they’ll tell us. I fly out here and they tell me that she’s an adult. All of eighteen years old. Because of that, they can’t tell me where she is, just that she’s okay. I guess the detective talked to her, and she insisted she was fine and didn’t want to go home.

She shook her head. Rosalie was a good girl until we sent her out here.

I squeezed her hand lightly. What would you like us to do, Mrs. Vaultor?

She looked up at me. I want you to find my daughter and force her to talk to me. I want to see her face to face, just to know she’s okay.

I sat back and crossed an ankle over my knee. It seemed like a simple enough case.

What can you tell me about the biker she was seen with?

She shook her head. Not much. The roommate didn’t know anything about him except that his name was Shotgun. What kind of a name is that, anyway?

I tilted my head slightly. Do you think the roommate would be willing to talk to us?

I suppose. Her eyes lit up. Does that mean you’ll help me? I can pay anything you require. My husband might be a farmer, but his grandfather was an industrialist. We have more than enough money to allow you to do whatever you have to do.

That was the kind of thing I liked to hear, especially after the conversation I’d had with Ash this morning. We can. We just need to get a little more information from you. Would you mind waiting here while I go get my boss?

Of course!

I stepped out of the room, asking one of the young support operators to get Mrs. Vaultor a cup of tea before heading to the reception desk.

Didn’t I hear that Jessica has experience with motorcycle gangs? I asked Margaret.

Her father ran a gang in Southern California.

Could you get her in here? I might have a case for her.

Mrs. Vaultor? She seemed like such a nice lady.

She is a nice lady. And we’re going to help her get her daughter back. I dropped a wink. Things are looking up, Maggie.

I whistled as I made my way up the stairs to Dibe’s apartment.

Chapter 2: Jessica

When the call came, I was somewhere over Nevada.

I like to just wander. Close my eyes and feel the air rush past my face, a reminder of how it had felt to ride between my daddy’s legs on his massive 1979 Harley-Davidson Shovel Bobber. At least it’d seemed massive to me. He would take me out on Pacific Coast Highway and just let the bike open up and glide over the