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She curled her fingers into the strands of his beard. “Well, that’s a good thing, because wedodo this every day.”
He roared as he carried her up the stairs.
***
Toth took aseat at the ten-person table in the conference room of Backcountry Protection Services’ new office. The leather seat creaked beneath his weight. He loosened his tie. It had been only eight months since he took the job for Danny Carrington, but the business now earned enough that he and Rami could pay themselves decent salaries. Knowing how much money they’d spent on the lavish office space still made his blood pressure spike, though.
“I sure hope you’ve got something good,” Toth said, as he waited for Rami to fire up the projection screen.
“Have I ever steered you wrong?” Rami clicked off the light and drew down the shade on the window overlooking the cityscape.
“Not gonna answer that.”
Rami snorted then pressed a button on the remote in his hand and leaned against the table. “First up, we’ve got August Hick. Was part of black ops for six years. Thirty-four years old and from Houston, Texas.”
Toth froze. “I thought we were discussing a job.”
“Nope. We’re discussing expansion.” Rami’s gaze collided with Toth’s.
He pushed down his annoyance. Rami had brought up expansion after the dust had settled with Danny and they’d decided to wait. “We agreed to wait a year before hiring. Which means this topic is several months early.”
“Yeah, that was before. Now we can afford it. Hear me out,” Rami said, holding up his hand. “I’ve got four guys I think would be great—”
Toth’s jaw clicked open. “You want to hire four people? Dude. We’re just able to cover our own expenses.”
“Yeah, but how many jobs have we had to turn down due to lack of manpower?”
Toth swiped his tongue between his lip and top teeth.
“More than you want to admit,” Rami said. A beat passed. “Look, neither of us has had a vacation or time off since we opened two years ago. I’m fine with that, but we can’t grow and reduce our own time if we’re doing all the legwork. We need to think bigger.”
“And you think we can afford to staff four more guys?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Toth pinched the bridge of his nose. Having grown up in poverty, he’d never been one to squander money. But maybe his childhood programming was getting in the way of his success. “All right. Tell me about the others.”
“Next up are Taschen McAvery, Brick Slater, and Ghost.” Rami pressed a button and four profiles filled the screen.
Toth read each man’s credentials. “Ghost got a last name?” he asked.
“He wouldn’t supply it. I suspect that’s not his real name either.”
Toth twisted his face. “Sounds a little too secretive, don’t ya think? Where’d you find him?”
“August vouched for him, and that’s all the confirmation I need.”
“You trust these guys?” Toth asked, with hesitation.
“I trust August, and he helped put the team together.”
Toth tapped his fingertips on the wooden table and glanced at the clock. He’d promised to take Sav to lunch, and if he spent too much time arguing with Rami, he’d be late. “Fine. Set up in-person meetings and we’ll go from there.”
Rami smiled a rare smile, oozing confidence. “You’ll thank me.”
Toth smirked. “You’d better hope so.” But a little thrill of excitement raced through him.
In more ways than one, this was just the beginning.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Rami…