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CHAPTER1

Griffin

Iknow a woman in trouble when I see one, and that’s a woman in trouble.

The woman pulling up in the golf cart fifty yards away from me through the trees is none of my business. Still, I stop and lean against a tall, leafy alder, my phone propped under my chin, watching as the driver practically sprints around the cart to help her out and onto the footpath.

Strains of upbeat music and chatter from the crowd at the end of the path drown out most of the forest sounds.

“Griff?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” I say into my phone.

I straighten my tux’s lapels, trying to focus as my colleague and best friend Ford launches into an update of what I’ve missed since I left yesterday.

The woman’s holding herself stiffly, like she’s waiting for something—or someone—to jump out of the trees. To anyone else, I think it would look like she’s here to enjoy a wedding, just like me. Not that “enjoy” is a word I’d normally couple with “wedding.”

She smiles, saying something to the driver, who leans a little too casually against the roof of the cart, like he’s trying to be chill. I don’t blame him. This woman’s not just beautiful. She’s objectively stunning.

She looks around her person, then tucks the blond waves tumbling over her shoulders to one side as she reaches into the cart to grab something she must have forgotten. Whatever it is she’s looking for must be on the floor of the cart, because she leans way in, kicking up a bright pink heel that looks sharp enough to kill a man as she strains to reach. Her poofy pink dress barely reached mid-thigh when she was standing.

I grit my teeth as the driver gets an eyeful of whatever’s under her skirt. Luckily he immediately does the right thing by shoving his hands in his pockets and looking up at the sky.

“Good man,” I mutter.

“What?” Ford asks, pausing his reading.

“Nothing. Just wedding stuff.”

Just a beautiful woman I think is worried she’s being followed stuff.

Ford shuffles through papers on the other end of the line. “Okay, so like I say, at two-thirty, his goon leaves the building, heading south in the Escalade…”

It’s shitty of me not to give Ford my full attention. But the scene before me has superseded work.

The woman emerges with a purse in hand. As she stands up straight again, her face angles this way for the first time. I can’t see fine details, but I still clock high cheekbones and a heart-shaped face tinged pink from hanging practically upside down.

I also see the way she jerks at the sound of a twig snapping and how her fingers clutch the little purse so tightly it looks like she’s going to snap it in half.

I’m not worried anyone’s here. This wedding’s nestled in the trees in the far corner of my family resort’s golf course, well away from the public. I personally vetted the special security my sister, the hotel’s CEO, hired for the event. It’s a huge unit, and that’s on top of the bride’s personal detail. In fact, our regular resort staff were relieved from transport duty; that driver’s security personnel. On top of all of that, the guests had to sign NDAs.

But except for that last point, she doesn’t know all that.

Even from here, I can see the smile she gives him as she leaves is fucking dazzling. She gives him a little wave, and the driver—probably an ex-marine—grins and waves back like Forrest Gump as she takes off down the path on foot.

“Griff?”

Shit. Ford says my name in a way that I know means I missed something important.

“Sorry. A lot going on over here.”

I’m no better than the driver, who’s pulling away to head back to the resort, clearly reluctant to leave. His eyes dart one last time to the woman before he drives out of sight.

I run a hand over the back of my neck, turning away. It’s not like me to be distracted. Especially not when I want to hear what Ford has to say.

I picked up a bit, here and there. And as I return focus, one of those bits floats to the surface. “Wait, did you say something about Lionel?”

Lionel McCrae is the CEO of McCrae & Associates, the white-label protection firm Ford and I work for. Our boss.