A muscle in my jaw ticked as I quickly took in the screen of my satellite cell phone. Eleven fourteen. My fingers moved deftly to the console, adjusting the clock to match the correct time.
One minute.
To some people, it would be nothing. But I knew that lives could be lost in mere seconds. A whole minute was the difference between safety and catastrophe.
My cell rang through my SUV’s speakers, and Jack’s name flashed on the console. My thumb hit the button on the steering wheel to accept.
“Everything okay?”
“If I told you the team was falling apart without you, would you get your ass back here?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. The team was falling apartwithme. I wasn’t sure whether it was my dad’s heart attack or the past finally coming back around for payback.
Jack let out an audible breath. “I know we’ve been hit with one tough case after another. But what happened to Castille wasn’t your fault.”
“My mission, my responsibility.” A single second and another person on my watch had almost lost their life. Months of rehab were helping, but he still had a long road to a complete recovery.
“Every single one of us knows that this job comes with risks.”
We did. Working private security around the world could mean anything: Working for private contractors in the Middle East, wealthy families in Europe, celebrities in Los Angeles, CEOs anywhere you could imagine—people whose lives were at risk for any number of reasons. Greed. Obsession. A hunger for power.
Between that and the war zones where I’d served my tours, I’d seen unparalleled levels of darkness. But nothing would ever touch what I’d seen in my sleepy hometown.
My gaze tracked the storefronts that had barely changed in my decade away—the rustic cabin-like shops and restaurants with their huge windows that beckoned you inside. I caught quick glimpses of the lake between the buildings. A little girl running down the street, her braids flying, laughing as her father chased her.
You would think that nothing bad could happen here, but you would be wrong.
“Holt?”
I jerked my focus back to my second-in-command, my brother in all the ways that mattered. “You know I didn’t leave because of Castille.” I could’ve lived with the guilt eating me alive. I was no stranger to that. “My family needs me.” And it was time for me to suck it up and be here.
“How’s the old man doing?” Jack asked.
“Nash said he’s grumpy as hell and driving my mom up the wall.”
Jack chuckled. “Doesn’t surprise me. He doesn’t strike me as the type to sit still for long.”
My dad had come to train my security team in search and rescue a few years ago and had left an impression on just about everyone. “No, sitting still is not his forte.”
The sound of a chair squeaking came across the line, and I pictured Jack in his office in Portland, staring out over the Hawthorne Bridge. “Have you seen her yet?”
A phantom fist gave my heart a vicious squeeze. “Who?”
Jack sighed. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the girl you won’t shut up about every time you drink a little too much whiskey.”
I let a slew of silent curses fly. Overindulging didn’t happen often, but it was unavoidable at times. Anniversaries—the good and the bad. Birthdays—hers and mine. The time Grae had thought she was helping by telling me all about theamazing guyWren was dating.
Just thinking her name lit a fire in my gut. The burn was a mixture of good and bad. Desire and destruction. Love and a soul-shredding guilt.
Jack kept pushing, not sensing the war playing out in my head. “Let me know when you have your run-in. I have a feeling it will be interesting.”
“We aren’t teenaged girls. I’m not feeding you gossip.”
“I’ll call Nash then. He’ll keep me in the loop.”
A curse slipped free, and Jack chuckled. I’d regret introducing my walking trouble of a younger brother to Jack for the rest of my days. “Piss off. And don’t sink my company while I’m gone.”
“Will do, Sarge. Let me know how long you’re thinking once you’re settled.”