Page 34 of Fierce Hope (Hope Landing: New Recruits #3)

The acid from that terrible diner coffee roiled in Jade’s stomach as she followed Deke through the main hangar at Knight Tactical headquarters and up the stairs to the command center.

How had her life veered so dramatically from spreadsheets and client meetings to covert operations with ex-special forces operators?

A week ago, her biggest concern had been finalizing tax projections for a local dentist. Now she was embroiled in what appeared to be organized crime.

As they rounded a corner, they nearly collided with two men deep in conversation. The shorter one—dark-haired with the physique of someone who spent serious time in the gym—looked up first.

“Well, look who it is,” he said, his eyes sliding from Deke to Jade with obvious interest. “The junior team returns.”

“Jack,” Deke acknowledged with a nod. “Austin.”

The second man, big, almost Deke’s size, with shrewd eyes, offered Jade a polite nod. “Hey, Jade. Nice to finally meet you. I’m Austin Daggett.”

“And I’m Jack Reese,” the other one added. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Have you?” Jade shot Deke a look.

Jack’s mouth quirked. “Not from Deke. Man’s tight-lipped as ever. But the betting pool on whether he’d actually call in backup for a client job reached four figures.”

“There’s no betting pool,” Deke said flatly.

“Not anymore,” Austin agreed. “Zara cleaned us out when you actually requested the full team.”

“How’s the mama-to-be?” Deke asked Austin.

Austin literally glowed. “Ready to have that baby. She’s already three days past her due date.”

Deke nodded. “Those last weeks are tough.”

“Only gets tougher,” Jack added.

A commanding voice cut through their banter. “If you gentlemen are finished gossiping in the hallway, some of us have operations to run.”

Jade turned to see an older man with steel-gray hair and the ramrod posture that screamed military. Even without introduction, she recognized Admiral Knight from the photos in the main conference area.

“Sir,” all three men responded simultaneously, straightening subtly.

Knight’s stern expression softened minutely as his gaze fell on Jade. “Ms. Villanueva. I’m John Knight. We’re glad you agreed to our help. I trust Mr. Williams and his team are treating you well?”

“They’ve been excellent,” she said, feeling like a student called on unexpectedly.

Knight nodded once. “Good. Deke doesn’t often request additional resources. When he does, I pay attention.” His eyes shifted to the other men. “You two. My office. Ten minutes.” Without waiting for a response, he continued down the hallway.

Jack smacked his friend in the stomach. “See? I told you he’s mad about us transporting that goat in the new helo.”

“She was about to give birth,” Austin protested. “Totally worth it.”

His friend sighed. “Agreed. Just don’t forget, you offered to take the damages out of your paycheck.” Jack nodded at Jade and hurried off down the hall.

“Don’t mind him,” Austin told her with a wry smile. “He’s got an inflated sense of humor and a deflated sense of decorum.”

“I heard that,” Jack called over his shoulder.

Deke guided her forward, but not before she caught Jack’s raised eyebrow—a look that clearly said they found Deke’s protectiveness interesting.

Strange how quickly she’d come to accept this world of operational briefings and tactical gear as her new normal. The thought was both troubling and oddly comforting.

Ten minutes later, Deke’s entire team was assembled around a conference table. Digital displays covered the walls, showing maps, data feeds, and surveillance images. Jade sat between Deke and Griff, feeling distinctly civilian in her simple blouse and slacks amid their tactical attire.

“Let’s start with the storage unit,” Deke said, nodding to Zara.

The tech specialist tapped her tablet, bringing up records on the main screen.

“Complete disaster from an information security standpoint,” she reported, disgust evident in her voice.

“The company’s system was migrated to new services three times in five years, with significant data corruption each time. ”

She pulled up a scanned document. “I found this buried in their backup archives—a scan of the original lease agreement from five years ago, signed by Kent Wycoff as Director of the Hope Landing Church Board.”

Jade studied the signature, recognizing it from church documents she’d reviewed. “That matches his signature on the financial authorizations I’ve seen,” she confirmed.

“What about access logs?” Axel asked.

Zara shook her head. “Current records are unavailable due to ‘system maintenance.’” Her air quotes made her opinion clear. “And security footage only goes back thirty days due to—surprise—storage limitations.”

“These companies always choose the lowest bidder for their data infrastructure,” Kenji added. “Bites them in the rear every time.”

“So intel from the storage unit is a dead end,” Jade concluded.

“For now,” Deke qualified. “But we have other angles. Kenji?”

Kenji nodded and took control of the displays. The screens changed to show surveillance photos, financial records, and intelligence reports.

“We dug deeper on Kent Wycoff,” he said. “And Gillian was right about one thing—the man has connections to some serious players. Nasty guys.”

The images on screen shifted to show Kent shaking hands with a man in an expensive suit. “This is Vincent Carelli, known associate of the Donatelli crime family in Los Angeles.”

Jade blinked in surprise. “How do you have access to this kind of intelligence?”

The room fell silent for a moment before Deke answered. “Knight Tactical maintains cooperative relationships with various federal agencies. Sometimes we share information.”

The casual way he referenced classified intelligence sources made Jade realize just how far out of her depth she truly was.

“The connection goes beyond a handshake,” Kenji continued, displaying financial records. “We’ve identified patterns consistent with money laundering through several shell companies. One of them made a substantial donation to the church three years ago.”

Jade’s accountant brain immediately engaged. “The building fund expansion,” she murmured. “There was an anonymous donation of two hundred thousand dollars. The paperwork was oddly structured.”

“Could the church be a laundering operation?” Griff asked.

Jade shook her head. “I doubt it. The financial controls are too transparent for effective laundering. But a one-time transaction with minimal questions asked? That’s possible.”

“What about his wife?” Axel asked. “Could she be telling the truth about not being involved?”

“Possible,” Deke said. “Kent could have set her up. Frame the wife, create leverage for divorce proceedings.”

“Save himself several million in the settlement,” Jade added, thinking like the accountant she was.

“Either way,” Deke concluded, “we need to get into that storage unit. Now.”

As the team began discussing tactical options, Jade found Deke watching her. His expression was unreadable, but something in his eyes made her heart rate accelerate. Was he worried for her safety? Or was he regretting taking on a client who was a magnet for trouble?

She looked away first, uncomfortable with the intensity of his gaze and her reaction to it. This wasn’t the time for whatever was developing between them. Lives were at stake—including her own.

When the tactical discussion concluded, Jade found herself alone with Deke for a moment as the others gathered equipment. “A week ago I was reconciling bank statements. Now I’m discussing mob connections and money laundering.”

“You’re handling it better than most civilians would.”

She made a face. “Not exactly your average civilian here.”

His expression softened. “Jade?—”

Whatever he had been about to say was cut short by Zara’s sharp intake of breath from across the room. Jade turned at once, drawn by the sudden tension in the tech specialist’s posture.

“I just found this in the local police and fire logs from a couple of hours ago,” Zara said, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Looks like a vehicle fire reported on Mountain Ridge Road, approximately seven miles north of junction 267. Call came in at almost 0900. Fire and rescue were dispatched.”

Jade wouldn’t have thought anything of it ordinarily, but the entire team had gone very still, each of them riveted by the data on Zara’s monitor. The sense of foreboding in the room spiked as Zara continued tapping at her screen.

“Follow-up notes indicate a male victim in the driver’s seat with an apparent gunshot wound to the head,” Zara went on, her voice carefully neutral. “Registration shows the vehicle belongs to Kent Wycoff.”

A chill coursed through Jade, as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees in an instant. She tried to process the information, but her thoughts slid around like ice cubes in a glass.

“Preliminary ID confirms it’s Wycoff,” Zara said after a moment, scanning further. “Shot before the vehicle was set on fire.”

Jade’s legs threatened to buckle, and she gripped the edge of the table to keep herself steady.

She forced a slow breath, but her mind kept looping back to that diner meeting—around the exact same window of time.

Gillian had been with Jade, sipping stale coffee and pushing a half-eaten piece of toast away.

She swallowed, her gaze flicking over the others. They looked as stunned as she felt. Kent Wycoff was dead. Murdered. Jade’s heart pounded painfully against her ribs, every scenario she could imagine skewing toward a grim possibility.

If the time of death was indeed accurate, Gillian couldn’t have shot her husband, obviously, but had she ordered the hit?