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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

D oug sighed as he stared at the text message.

Ian

My office now!

“Here we go again,” he muttered under his breath before he tapped Stefan on the shoulder. “Boss-man wants me. You got this?”

He’d been helping Stefan with a class of police officers.

Trident offered training sessions to teach them tricks of the trade that the military and black ops teams used.

Many small-town police departments lacked SWAT or HRT teams and often had to wait for backup from larger agencies, which could sometimes arrive too late to save everyone during high-risk incidents.

The training the officers received at Trident could give them the chance to reduce the number of victims, even with limited resources.

Stefan was offered and accepted the position to oversee the new TS program after he was forced to retire from the Coast Guard for medical reasons.

Not taking his eyes off the cop shooting targets in the Hogan’s Alley setup on the vast property, Stefan nodded. “Yeah. All good.”

Doug jogged back to the main office. After leaving the conference room yesterday, he’d taken the rest of the day off and gone to talk to Jenn.

His schedule was already free of any appointments and meetings, so he left a message on Colleen's desk, instructing her to call him if an emergency arose. His team would contact him on his cell phone if they needed anything. Despite his bosses’ threat of dismissal, he still considered himself employed until he heard otherwise, so he’d arrived on time that morning, prepared to work.

Leaving Jenn to confront her uncles as she requested, he avoided going into the office and joined Stefan’s training session at the south end of the compound instead.

She’d already called him on her way to the spa to let him know she thought things had gone well with her uncles, but Doug might want to give them time to chill out after the dressing down she gave them.

With a smile on his face, he agreed, but damn, he wished he’d been a fly on the wall of the conference room when she went off on them.

It had taken a lot of convincing yesterday to keep her from reacting and going after her uncles immediately.

He hadn’t wanted her to say anything to them that she might regret.

Sleeping on it gave her a chance to calm down, regain control of her emotions, and consider how she wanted to approach them.

Thankfully, she’d heeded his advice before spending the night at his condo, letting him make sweet love to her.

When he strode into the reception area, wiping the sweat from his forehead, Colleen was at her desk.

She glanced up, grinned at him, and gestured toward Ian’s office.

“He said to send you in as soon as you got here. By the way, I’m happy for you and Jenn.

I always hoped you’d end up together. You’re good for each other. ”

“Thanks. Too bad her uncles don’t see it that way.”

“Mmm. I wouldn’t worry. They’ll come around soon.”

Doug wasn’t sure of that but hoped she was right.

He knocked on the closed door and opened it after Ian barked, “Get your ass in here!”

Surprisingly, the man was alone in his office. Doug half-expected the rest of Jenn’s uncles to be there too.

From behind his desk, Ian glared at him. “Sit down, tinsel-twat.”

Suppressing a grin, he sat in one of the guest chairs across from his boss.

It appeared Ian had given Doug a nickname off his infamous twat-roster, which likely meant death or loss of employment weren’t imminent.

Rumor had it that you were only blessed with an insulting moniker if the man cared for you and you screwed up, or if you required a swift kick in the ass.

Doug figured, in his case, it was a little of both.

“You need Jenn fighting your battles for you?”

Doug shook his head. “Nope. But it was never my battle. It was hers. You and the rest of them needed to hear from her that she’s an adult and can make her own decisions.

I could’ve talked until I was blue in the face, and it wouldn’t have made a difference to any of you.

But hearing it from her seems to have gotten the result she needed.

I love her, Boss-man. That’s not going to change because of an order or threat from you. ”

Leaning back in his chair, Ian nodded. “Understood. And I wasn’t really going to fire you—thought about it, but you could’ve successfully sued us, so.

..” He shrugged. “I also wouldn’t have fed you to the dogs—you’d give them indigestion, and Kat would have my head.

Those damn dogs eat better than I do. Anyway, at least I don’t have to worry about Jenn falling for some piece of shit I hate or someone from my club. ”

Doug smirked. “Nope. That’s your thing. Neither Jenn nor I have any desire to participate in the lifestyle.”

“Thank fuck for that. It’s bad enough to know you’re sleeping together. I don’t need thoughts of you two involved in any form of kink play bombarding my brain.”

He had to fuck with the man. Just had to. “Well, we’re not into a lot of the stuff that goes on at the club, but a little spank?—”

Ian slammed his hand down onto his desk so hard that it had to hurt. “No! I will fucking shoot you in the balls if you say one word about what happens between you and her behind closed doors, and I won’t think twice about it.”

Chuckling, Doug held up his hands in surrender. “Message received.”

“All right. This is the part where I say, if you hurt her, they’ll never find your body.

” When Doug just grinned, Ian gave him the finger and then changed the subject, handing him a blue folder.

“Fair warning, the rest of her uncles and I will grumble about this for a while, but as long as Jenn is happy, we’ll back off. ..for the most part.

Doug took that as a win and kept his mouth shut.

“Now, moving on. We have a new client in need of a bodyguard. Lainey Hall is a twenty-six-year-old,” Ian paused and glanced at a piece of paper on his desk, “ social media influencer , whatever the fuck that is, with a stalker. The police took a report but told her, since there were no threats or laws broken, there wasn’t much they could do.

So, she wants twenty-four-hour protection until the guy is stupid enough to do something and get arrested or smart enough to leave her alone. ”

While Doug knew what an influencer was, as did most people under sixty-five, Ian didn’t have a single social media app on his phone or computer.

He also resisted anyone’s attempt to educate him on the current trends.

His response was always that he paid his employees well to scour various sites or apps for intel on a target or client when needed, so he couldn’t care less about not knowing anything about them.

Opening the file, Doug scanned the intake form, which contained the client’s basic information that Colleen had collected during an initial phone call.

A few pages from Brody were under that. He’d tracked down the stalker’s name, date of birth, home address, driver’s license, vehicle information, and place of employment just from the guy’s TikTok handle, @4evrLaineys.

For TS’s head hacker, it was probably child’s play to get all that.

Their new client resided in nearby Palm Harbor, while her stalker lived in East Tampa—too close for comfort.

Usually, that type of creep was across the country or even on the other side of the world from their victim, and just harassed them online.

But so far, according to the intake form, he’d only made contact with Ms. Hall through direct messages on her social media accounts.

“Okay. This works out perfectly. Madsen, Spade, and Jacobson finished up their last detail on Saturday, so I’ll put them on it.

I’ll grab Spade now and head over to the client’s house for the interview, if she’s available, then set up the schedule. ”

“Good. Now get out of my sight, tinsel-twat. And yes, I’ve penciled you in on my twat-roster. If you don’t piss me off anymore, I may change it to ink in a year or two.”

Doug’s jaw clenched. He’d been the bodyguard for some brats and elitists before, but few compared to Lainey Hall, “Social Media Influencer, Extraordinaire.” Her words, not his.

He was surprised she knew any fourteen-letter words.

Most of her sentences included many of the current slang and buzzwords, as if she were filming a video to upload to the internet later.

She kept flirting with him and Nolan Spade, who would be her lead guard, while trying to impress them with her self-proclaimed celebrity status.

Through Trident, Doug knew several famous people—some well-known actors, a director, two record producers, a few professional athletes, and an internationally adored country music star—and this chick didn’t even come close to being in their league.

A glance at Spade said the man was no more impressed than Doug was, which was nil.

Granted, the woman was physically attractive, but she thought way too highly of herself, which was a huge turnoff—not that Doug was interested in her in any way, shape, or form.

She was dressed in a baby-pink cotton crop top, which showed off her tan abdomen and belly piercing, and a matching pair of shorts that were so skimpy, they were almost indecent.

Combined with her flirting, he was a little uncomfortable and kept biting his tongue to avoid telling her to go put on something more appropriate.

She had no situational awareness and appeared oblivious to the fact that she was alone while scantily dressed, with two strange men she’d only met a few minutes ago.

Doug had no doubt she would be a source of annoyance to the guards protecting her.