Page 56 of Danger and Dominance (Black Fox Security Doms #1)

“It’s Black Fox,” she said, handing the phone to him.

David frowned, too. He was off all this week.

Normally, he’d be chafing at the bit to go back, but it was Friday after all, so he could excuse it as a three-day weekend…

a three-day weekend with his girl, who he was trying to convince to move in with him.

He hadn’t expected to hear from them until Monday at the earliest, which meant something had happened.

“Hello?” He pressed the phone to his ear.

“You need to come into the office.” Lincoln’s voice was tense, tight. “We got a bouquet of roses here with a note that says 11 o’clock and has a TV channel on it. I want you here for whatever is about to happen.”

“Shit. Yes. I’ll be there.” David glanced at Cassidy. “Can Cassidy come?”

“I assumed she would. You shouldn’t be driving yet. Get here as soon as you can.”

Half an hour later, David and Cassidy walked through the office doors.

David frowned when he saw Zeus Apuzzio sitting with the rest of Black Fox in the lobby.

Well, not exactly with them. He wasn’t the only one frowning at the tall, bald man.

No one was sitting in the chair next to him or standing anywhere near him, setting him slightly apart.

Wearing a tailor-made suit, his dark beard neatly trimmed, he looked like he should have fit in, but he didn’t.

“David,” Lincoln said in greeting, looking up as soon as they walked in.

He was standing with Harris and Grant, both of who kept looking at the television even though it wasn’t time yet.

Lincoln’s gaze swept over him and briefly landed on where his and Cassidy’s hands were clasped together.

“Thanks for coming in. Sorry we had to interrupt your day.”

“It’s okay. Obviously, this is going to be important,” David said as he led Cassidy over to where Lincoln was standing.

He wanted to know what was going on, and he wanted Cassidy there with him in case whatever was going on affected her, too.

He glanced over at Zeus again, who was steadily ignoring all the glares and suspicious looks he was getting, keeping his focus on the television.

David lowered his voice. “I take it you decided to hire Zeus.”

“I did.” Lincoln nodded firmly, glancing at Harris, who also nodded in confirmation.

Grant’s expression was studiously blank.

David didn’t need to be able to read minds that, while the owners were willing to give Zeus a chance, neither he nor Grant were going to fall right into trusting someone who had been on Marshall’s team.

He was surprised Lincoln and Harris were.

“He left Marshall very soon after the split, and Marshall has blackballed him.”

Which would indicate that either the fallout was real, or Marshall wanted them to think the fallout was real.

“What’s wrong with him?” Cassidy whispered, sidling closer to David.

“I’ll explain later,” he murmured. Later, when Zeus wasn’t there within earshot.

He sighed. They did need a tech person, and Zeus had been a damn good one for Marshall’s team.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the guy; he just didn’t trust him because of who he’d been working with before.

Which might not be entirely fair, but there it was.

“It’s starting,” Claudia said, drawing all of their attention to the television.

The air in the room seemed to hum as they all focused, waiting to see what was going to happen.

The words Special Report swirled around the screen before settling at the bottom, beneath the reporter and a tall, broad-shouldered white man with dark hair.

He was dressed in a dark grey suit with a long red tie, the tip of which went down past his overly large belt buckle.

The man looked vaguely familiar, though David couldn’t place him immediately.

“Isn’t that the guy who cheated on his wife with a stripper, then married the stripper, and then divorced her so he could marry his son’s girlfriend, who he knocked up?” Jennifer asked.

“It’s Royce MacLeod,” Zeus said, staring at the screen. “He’s one of Marshall’s clients. And yes.”

But what the fuck did this have to do with the roses?

Unless…

“Hello, I’m Lesley Johnson, and this is a special news report coming to you live from the steps of Royce MacLeod’s headquarters, which is about to turn into a headquarters of a new kind. Mr. MacLeod, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.”

“Call me Royce, please, Lesley.” He smiled genially, not seeming to notice when her own smile froze in place at her first name… which she had not invited him to call her by. “Thank you for coming out to speak with me, as I have a very exciting announcement to make. I’m running for governor!”

Pitting him against the senator.

“Does he even have any experience in politics?” Jensen asked in disbelief.

“No, just business, which he’s very mediocre at... and he does a lot of shady shit with it,” Zeus replied. He was scowling.

Claudia scowled back at him. “Is he still one of Marshall’s clients?”

“How should I know? I have no idea what their client list looks like now, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The two of them are two peas in a shady pod.”

“He’s one of the clients Marshall and I argued about the most,” Lincoln chimed in.

With all the conversation in the room going on, it was impossible to hear the conversation on the television until Harris snapped out the word “Hush.”

Quiet fell again as Lesley asked him a few more questions, like why he wanted to run—‘to serve my state’—and what he was planning to run on—‘we’ll be rolling that information out over the coming weeks.’

“So, this is just an announcement without saying what he’s standing for?” Darcie murmured, wrinkling her nose. She was sitting in one of the chairs across from Zeus, arms crossed over her chest.

No one replied because of what happened next on screen.

“Let me introduce you to my team. My head of security and my right-hand man, Marshall Devlin.”

The room erupted with noise as the former third partner of Black Fox Security stepped up beside MacLeod, grinning widely and reaching up to brush his fingers against the black rose he was wearing in his lapel.

The threat was finally becoming clear. Devlin was still intent on taking down Lincoln, Harris, and the rest of the firm, and if he managed to get MacLeod elected, he might just be able to do it.