Page 21 of Justified Fear (TFH Team Bravo #2)

“In more ways than one,” Ian murmured. “I’m going to get a crew out here to do another assessment on security. I know we upped the install yesterday, but I want to be sure everything is working and that we didn’t miss anything.” He turned and moved away from them, his phone already out.

“I need everything to be as normal as possible.”

“No problem. Ian wasn’t lying to you. We can be very discreet.”

“Good.” She glanced at the house, hating everything that had happened. Her life was now in upheaval because of one night.

“Keely? Are you okay?”

She looked at the other woman. “One night and everything changed here.”

“That happens sometimes.”

“True. But I feel guilty being aggravated with the situation.”

“I think you have every right to feel that way.”

“I got off easy. The Kellys and their guests lost their lives. I got out of there just by sheer luck.”

Eden nodded. “I completely understand. Still, we’ll keep you safe until they run that bastard to ground.”

Keely nodded. “I’ll get that list of dinners I have scheduled for the next few weeks. I also need to call Nimitz and let them know I have helpers coming.” She sighed. “I figured it would be better if we just called you that while you’re there.”

“Good call.”

“Thanks. Let me grab my date book.”

Ian wasn’t feeling the new assignment. Something was tingling at the base of his spine.

After years in the MI-6—not to mention being raised by two MI-6 operatives—he knew there was something off about this situation.

He didn’t think Keely was holding back on them.

If she were, she would be a world-class actress.

Instead, he felt as if there was something they were all missing, and he needed to find that out so he could protect her.

He decided to call his connection at TFH. Well, the one he shared blood with.

“What are you doing?” Autumn asked.

Ian Smith sighed. His sister had no damned manners.

“Hello, Autumn. How are you?”

“I’m fine.” Then nothing. For a long, damned time. “Are you waiting for me to ask you how you’re doing?”

“Never.”

“Fine, how are you? So sensitive.”

“I’m fine. I have a new job. Protection for Keely Templeton.”

There was a long beat of silence.

“So, her father did take the advice Seth gave him. Good.”

“I’ll need the info on those Yakuza bastards.”

“I might be able to get that for you. For a favor.”

“What?”

“I would love to get to chat with Keely more.”

“About the case? I thought Bravo was handling it.”

“Like Bravo could handle it on their own.”

A male murmur sounded like his soon-to-be brother-in-law. His sister was on Alpha and never missed a chance to mess with her fiancé.

“Fine. First, though, I just want to chat more. She’s one of my YouTube crushes.”

Not in the romantic sense. His sister had spent her childhood in a cult, which did not always feed them that well. Now, she obsessed over food, and her favorite things to watch on YouTube are cooking videos.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you. Now here is Seth because he wants to talk to you.”

“Hey, Mix.” He bit back the growl. From the moment another agent had given him that nickname, he had hated it. If there were a way to get back at Emily, he would. “You’re guarding Keely?”

“Yeah. Have you found out anything else about those men?”

“Not much, and that’s with Hammer here helping Charity.”

That tingling got worse. If these bastards were regular Yakuza, there was always a trail. It might be buried, but with Charity, a genius, and her husband, who worked on cybercrimes for the FBI, working on it, it should be easy to find.

“How’s that bartender doing?”

“Okay. He wasn’t much help. In fact, I would say that Keely was a little more helpful than he was.

Well, other than they were intent on finding Keely.

Nope, that’s wrong. They were looking for the chef .

We still don’t know if they wanted to eliminate witnesses or if they were looking for her in particular. ”

When he didn’t say anything, Ian picked up on his mood. “What is bothering you about all of this?”

“It’s odd, right? They kidnap one of them but leave him in a house after beating the shit out of him. Why not kill him on the spot? And now the three guys that did the deed are gone.”

“Emily is digging, but I wanted her to have a jumping off point. She can do some things you can’t.” Meaning Emily would skirt the law more easily than Charity or her FBI husband would. If Emily thought a woman was in trouble, she would even step over the line.

“Cool. How’s Keely?”

He looked back at the house. From what Conner had said, Ian had been ready for her to fight them.

Sometimes, people were dumbasses. The threat to her safety was definitely real, and until they knew exactly what was going on, Ian wasn’t sure she should be alone at all.

He had been surprised that a former NFL player’s daughter didn’t have better protection.

Add in the wealth on her mother’s side of the family, and she was a sitting duck.

“Seems okay. We appreciate that you all recommended us. From what Conner said, her father was ready to head back to Hawai’i the moment he heard about Brothers.”

“Good. She’s tough.” He paused. Ian had learned to let Seth have a moment or two before speaking. The former SEAL did everything in his own time. Probably why he was a good foil for Autumn, who went from zero to sixty all the time. “Don’t be surprised if Ryan stops by.”

“Yeah, well, he was here when we showed up.”

“I figured. She was a little freaked out last night, and I had Cat there watching her until we cleared the scene.”

Ian filed that information away. “Was she really running around those woods all night?”

“Well, not all night, but long enough. She’s lucky she wasn’t afraid to climb up a tree. There were feral pigs in the area.”

“That’s not the normal area, right?”

“Not always, but with the drought this year, the game warden told me their patterns are changing.” Feral pigs and hunting them was highly regulated in Hawai’i.

To keep the population healthy and thriving, only a limited number of people were allowed to hunt the hogs.

“Her father told her if a pig was ever chasing her, to go up in the trees. His advice probably saved her life.”

“Sounds like it. As always, if we find anything we can share, we’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Mix.”

He growled, and Seth laughed, then hung up. There was a reason the guy was perfect for his sister. He was as much of an asshole as she was.

He texted Emily. As much as she irritated him, she was their best researcher. Once upon a time, she had planned to be a college history professor, or at least that’s what Eden told him.

Ian: TFH is going to send you all they have on the case.

He waited for her response, but of course, she had to do the unexpected. His phone vibrated in his hand. With a roll of his eyes, he clicked it on. If he didn’t, she would just keep calling. The woman had three older brothers and knew precisely how to handle men.

“Hey, Mix. I wanted to give you some more info.”

“That’s what emails and texts are for.”

“Dude, stop. You know you love talking to me. Anyway, since they found the bartender?—”

“You know about that already?”

She scoffed at him. “Of course I do. I had my scanner going and heard about the call for help. Seems like he has a concussion and is dehydrated.”

“How did you find that out? Did you already talk to TFH?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to know how you got into his records, do I?’

“I didn’t get into his records. I sent Aaron over to the hospital. Amazing what people talk about in the hallways at the hospital.”

That would be her brother, who was a Dillon Security operative too. Then it hit him. He had a sixth sense he’d learned while training for MI-6, but Emily seemed to have been born with hers.

“What did you find?”

“Nothing.”

“You said you had more information for me.”

She sighed. “Okay, so all the dudes and the one woman at the house had their dealings with the Yakuza, but they all dealt with business in Japan and beyond. You know how that goes.”

Depending on the business, it was sometimes hard to avoid the Yakuza in Japan. “But you said you found something.”

“No, I said I found nothing. As in this Ray dude didn’t exist until five years ago. Don’t get me wrong, there’s all kinds of stuff, like he was listed as going to high school, but the thing is, there are no pictures of him. Like anywhere.”

“Socials?”

“He has them. Lots of videos of him bartending, pretending he’s in that old movie Cocktail . Have you met him? He seems like a complete douche.”

“ Emily .”

“That’s all I could find. And those profiles were created in the last nine months. Which raised a lot of red flags.”

For someone of that generation to not have any kind of social media profiles as a kid was odd. Ian had none, but then he was a former spy with trust issues.

“Keep digging. Hopefully, working with TFH will give us some kind of idea how much trouble is coming Keely’s way.”

“10-4, my good buddy.”

“You’ve been watching Smokey and the Bandit again.”

She sighed. “It’s Aaron’s favorite movie.”

She and her brother shared a house.

“Talk later.”

“Bye, Mix.”

She hung up before he could say anything about using that idiotic nickname she’d given him. It would do no good, but he still hated it.

He had a terrible feeling that this assignment might just go FUBAR at any moment. Something was off about the whole situation. The last time that happened, he had to leave MI-6 after almost losing his life. Ian definitely didn’t want a repeat of that.