Page 36 of Guarding Grace (Hawk Security #2)

Terry

Reaching the park, I shut down the engine and checked my phone.

WILDCAT: Thinking of you.

What was I supposed to do with that? It scared the shit out of me that I felt like sending the same thing back to her. Texting sentimental shit wasn’t the kind of thing I’d ever done. The women I’d seen before hadn’t expected it.

ME: Thinking of you too.

My finger hovered over the send icon, but instead, I deleted the line and started again.

ME: How are you feeling?

I sent that more manly message and pocketed the phone before getting out of the car.

The park was warm, with a light breeze off the ocean. Grace would like it here. Fuck me. That wasn’t it— I ’d like it if Grace was here with me .

Feeling guilty, I leaned against the car, pulled out my phone, and typed again. She was my woman and needed to feel it.

ME: I haven’t stopped thinking about you.

Satisfied, I sent it.

As I approached, Carol Hawk stood from a bench at the center of the large, nearly deserted park. Come lunchtime, with weather like this, it wouldn’t stay deserted for long.

Habit had me scanning the area for anyone who might be able to listen in, but I didn’t detect anything.

She’d chosen a good location for confidentiality.

“Thank you for coming, Terry.” She gave me the same hug she did every time we met, the same way she hugged Lucas and each of her children.

That thought warmed me. The Hawks had become the family I hadn’t had in a very long time. “How can I help you?” I followed her lead and sat on the bench.

She handed me a folder, keeping another back.

I opened it to find a power of attorney. “What’s this?”

“This is very difficult for me. I want you to handle a delicate matter,” she said. “But first, you must agree to not tell anyone about this unless I release you, not even the family. Not ever.”

I was in too deep to back out now. “Of course.” This had better not be a marital issue between her and Henry. I closed the folder and set it down.

She handed me the second folder. “I’ve been doing genealogy research, going back into our family trees.

Henry and I used one of those send-in-your-DNA sample kits.

I thought it would be interesting to see our backgrounds, like where our ancestors originated.

Henry remembers being told that his family had roots in Scandinavia. ”

I took in a relieved breath that this wasn’t a marital issue.

“I got a surprise result,” she continued. “A family member had also used the service, and requested to be notified if any family matches were found.” She tapped the folder I held.

I opened the folder. It contained a contact request from a male, thirty-eight years old with a family match to a sample number. “Who is this?”

Carol swallowed hard. “I don’t know. The company wants my approval before they will release information to either of us.”

I took her hand in both of mine. I didn’t know the structure of the extended family, but something about this was obviously difficult for her. “How can I help? ”

“I’ve read of scams where people steal DNA—like off straws from strangers—and then submit them to these services, claiming to be a long-lost family member.”

I hadn’t read that, but it certainly sounded like a possibility. “Is this what you’re afraid of?”

She took in a long breath. “There is another possibility. I had a sister, Wilma. She was wild.”

Neither Lucas nor any of his brothers had ever mentioned having an Aunt Wilma.

“Our father was a pastor, strict as could be, and he threw Wilma out of the house very young. She moved away, and we were never in touch after that. Father said she went to prison, and I was to never ask about her again. I was an only child, as far as he was concerned. She was dead to us. She never existed. I’m ashamed to admit I never mentioned her to Henry or any of my children. ”

I waited for her to go on as she tried to put the words together.

“It’s possible that I do have a relative out there, who I never met or even knew about.

I’d like you to look into this person and figure out if this is one of those scams, or if he’s possibly a nephew of mine.

And if he is, what does he want from me, from us?

Is he even the kind of person we want to know? ”

I squeezed her hand.

“Can you do this for me? Please?”

“I think it would be better if you asked Lucas.” Getting invited to dinner was one thing, but I wasn’t a blood relative.

She shook her head rapidly. “No. If this is person is really related, then I’ll get Lucas involved.

I’ll have to admit to Henry that I’ve lied to him all these years.

It will be hard, but I’ll do it for the sake of the family, for the sake of this nephew.

But…” She hesitated. “If he isn’t real, if this is one of those scams, I don’t want Henry, Lucas, any of the children to know. Can you understand that?”

“Of course.” She was scared. This was how a simple lie told once could live on to haunt a person for years. “If that’s the case, I’ll keep your secret.”

We said our goodbyes, and I left with the two folders of paperwork.

Grac e

I was rummaging through my purse in search of Tylenol when Peyton walked into my office. She closed the door with a wicked grin on her face. “I know why you look like crap this morning—no sleep.”

I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t bring my personal drama into the office. “I drank more than I should have last night.”

She ignored my comment. “Tell me it’s because he’s a tyrant in bed, too, isn’t he? Banging your brains out all night long?”

I wish I’d spent last night that way. “I wouldn’t know.

For your information, I didn’t sleep with him last night.

” Not in the way that she meant. “I look like shit because I feel like shit, because I have a shitty hangover from drinking way, way too much shitty wine last night.” That was absolutely true.

“And?” she prompted.

“And that’s it.”

She stood there, arms crossed.

“Don’t you have work to do?” I asked.

“What are you not telling me?”

“Perhaps we should talk about Zane?”

She huffed and left, closing the door behind her.

Her response solidified that I was on to something. Finding my aspirin bottle, I chased two more tablets with the remainder of my coffee.

I’d just had three customer calls in a row when Zane was polite enough to knock before he opened the door.

He smiled. “I have to take a call with the boss. I promise I won’t be long.”

I nodded. “Knock yourself out.” I noticed Peyton behind him, checking out his ass.

“Stay here with your door locked until I get back, okay?”

“Paranoid much?”

“It’s the job,” he said before closing the door.

I saluted him through the glass.

Terry

I drove up to Hawk Central, as I liked to call it, and hit the button to open the gate to our garage. Lucas had bought the building and moved us into it last year after upgrading it to his specifications .

I parked in the garage, next to my car with its bullet holes from the run-in with the Marku crew.

Joe, our mechanic, talked with Lucas, shaking his head and gesturing at the car. Joe treated our cars like his children. He had all the tools he needed to modify and keep our vehicles in top shape, including a car lift, and he hated seeing us bring one back banged up.

Lucas glanced at me, putting a finger to his lips as if I had to be reminded not to say anything a bug could pick up. Then pointed at me to stay in the car and wait for Jordy.

I’d been through this bug-search routine twice before with Lucas and Jordy, and both times the car had been clean.

“Aw, fuck. Where did that damned thing go?” I said, in case I was bugged and they wondered why I hadn’t shut off the engine yet.

Jordy appeared from the hallway that led to our guest accommodations for the dirtbags we occasionally had to detain.

We also had a full gym on this floor, and an indoor shooting range. Upstairs, we had room to grow with abundant office space and proper apartments for visiting clients or specialists from out of town.

Jordy joined Lucas, and they motioned for me to shut down.

After I killed the engine, Jordy timed his opening of the passenger-side door with me opening my door. He held his little sniffer that he claimed could detect any transmissions.

Lucas leaned over to watch.

Jordy smiled and pointed. The dial of his sniffer responded as he waved it under the dash on his side of the car.

Lucas pointed upward, and I followed him past our guest accommodations.

A janitor was disinfecting suite number two.

“The guy last night puked up his dinner when Duke questioned him,” Lucas deadpanned. “They just don’t make bad guys like they used to.”

I chuckled. Duke could make threats that would have a grown man’s balls shrink to the size of canary eggs. It was one of his superpowers.

Lucas turned as we reached the second floor. “We’ll keep that car on ice in case we want to send them a message later. Get a new one from Joe when you go out.”

“Sure.” It made sense to keep a misinformation channel open to the Russo gang in case we needed it.

“Review in my office in five,” he said as we neared his doorway. “Tell the others.”

“Roger.” I turned left .

“Hey, lover,” Constance chided as I walked by her on the way to my office.

I ignored the jibe. “Lucas wants a review in his office in five.”

“Good. I’ve got something.”

“What?”

“You’ll see.”

I made the rounds to tell Duke, Jordy, and Winston about the meeting and had enough time to make myself a cup of coffee before we got started. I made it to the conference room just in time to beat Jordy and not be the last one in.

Lucas swiveled to address the squawk box. “You there, Zane?”

“Yup,” came the response over the speaker.

“Hold fast,” the boss said. “We’re waiting on Jordy.”

“How are you sleeping?” Duke asked.

“Better,” was Zane’s response.

Winston lifted a brow. He also thought there was a story there.

“I’m not late,” Jordy grumbled as he closed the door behind him.

Lucas checked his watch and shrugged. “Close enough. Terry, summarize the attack last night for us.”

I did, including that Zane had been sent to guard Grace’s neighbor.

“If we’re doing that again tonight,” Zane said, “I nominate Constance. That old lady complained the entire time about not wanting a man in her space.”

The group chuckled.

“That won’t be necessary,” Lucas said. “Terry and I visited with Tall Tony this morning, and Tony agreed to back off. The interesting part is that the attacks on Grace were run by his son, Victor?—”

“A real piece of shit,” I interjected.

Lucas nodded. “He didn’t run them by his dad, and that fuckup got him sent back to Italy.” He pointed at Jordy. “And…”

“I confirmed that Junior is already in the air to JFK, connecting to Rome.”

“Wow,” Winston said. “Daddy doesn’t mess around.”

“I didn’t know early enough to affect the current flight, but I reseated him for his second leg,” Jordy noted. “Middle seat in the last row of the plane, right by the lavatories.” He threw a jelly bean in the air and caught it in his mouth like a fucking seal.

More laughter, and Winston fist-bumped Jordy.

Lucas pointed. “Constance, you have something?”

She nodded. “My Secret Service contacts are buzzing about a new round of counterfeit hundreds popping up in town. One guy that was caught on camera passing the bills is a runner for the Russo family.”

“That doesn’t mean Russo is printing them,” Duke pointed out. “He could be buying them, though.”

“That’s a risky play for them,” Lucas said. “Their entire strategy is to avoid federal entanglements, and counterfeiting is a federal case.”

“They could be the middleman,” I suggested. “It’s the final distributors passing the bills to merchants who end up getting caught.”

“Could that much bogus money be what’s in the case?” Zane asked.

Duke shrugged. “It makes more sense than drugs.”

“No way,” Constance said. “One million in bills is a forty-three-inch stack. Ten mill is about thirty-five feet. That much doesn’t fit in a case, and that’s before you factor in the discount, which means the case would have to hold something like forty million in bogus bills to have a street value of ten million. ”

Everybody nodded after Constance’s lesson.

“But,” she added, “it might not be the whole delivery. The buyer typically gets a sample before buying in bulk. What if Victor’s number is the worth of the total transaction at stake? Do we trust Victor that what was in the case was worth ten mill?”

Lucas shook his head. “In a word, no .” He looked around the room. “One more thing. Based on Tony’s response this morning, the missing case is one of the ones rigged with explosives.”

Winston shook his head. “I hate that shit.”

“I told Tony we’d help him find Elliot,” Lucas said. “We have one week.”

Duke raised a hand. “Do we think Elliot stole it and still has the case?”

I kept quiet.

“Most likely,” Lucas said. “The bombs in the cases were started when one of the couriers was caught stealing. They have enough C-4 in them to level a few houses. If he’d tried to open it, there would be a smoking hole in the ground somewhere and whatever was inside would be worthless.

So, best guess, he’s trying to open it without damaging the contents or killing himself. ”

“If Victor is on his way to Italy, and Papa Russo has backed off Grace, why are we spending so much time on this?” Jordy asked.

Lucas leveled his brother with a glare. “Because she’s Terry’s woman and one of us, that’s why. This isn’t over because Marku is in the mix.”

Jordy’s head jerked to me. “Your?—”

“My woman,” I said emphatically enough to settle that for everybody.

Duke high-fived me. “About fuckin’ time. ”

Constance turned a grimace on Lucas. “If he’s involved with the protectee, that could be a problem.”

Lucas raised a hand. “Not here it isn’t.”

Winston shook his head at her from across the table.

Constance clamped her mouth shut.

“Any luck finding where Elliot is hiding?” Lucas asked Jordy.

“I have him on camera several times down near the pier. I’m getting closer. Maybe by tomorrow.”

“Great. Anything else?” Lucas asked.

When nobody spoke up, he stood, and the meeting was over.

Outside the conference room, Constance pulled me aside. “What is it I don’t know? Why is it okay for you to be protecting the woman you just told us all you are involved with? That’s a clear violation of proper protocol.”

I waited until nobody else was within earshot. “Lucas has different rules. He married a woman he was protecting.”

Her mouth dropped open like I’d just proclaimed that the Earth revolved around the moon. “I never?—”

I stopped her. “We don’t talk about it…about her. It’s just too painful.”

“What happened?”

“It’s not my story to tell. And for Lucas’s sake, don’t ask.”

With that, I left her before I got myself in trouble.