Page 3 of Sawyer (Sabre Security Daddies #6)

T wo and a half years later…

Reid and Sawyer sat at the darkest corner table and watched the woman with long corkscrew curls behind the counter as she served drinks to the patrons of Videotopia, Elk Jaw’s only adult gaming bar. The lighting was dim, but her bright smile made up for it.

Lele Cortez’s smile grated on his already frayed nerves. How could a woman like that still wear such an innocent smile?

Reid Nolan, the head of Sabre Security, had come to see how things were going and sat in the chair to Sawyer’s right. He didn’t mind the check-in. It never hurt to have more than one set of eyes on a problem.

“Any news on Jaxon? How’s he doing?” Sawyer asked without looking Reid’s way.

“Bones said they have him in a room and he’s resting comfortably. As comfortably as he can after three fucking stab wounds. ”

That was the whole reason Sawyer was here. He’d been planning an op, but Jaxon getting stabbed had ramped up the timeline.

Sawyer had almost lost his mind. Instead, he forced himself to focus. It was time to make something happen because the people behind Jaxon’s arrest and conviction had decided to play hardball.

“That’s her? Leyla Catalina Cortez?” Reid asked.

“That’s her, but the people here and her brother call her Lele.”

Sawyer had found this out the first time he’d come into the bar when she bounced on her toes and informed him of that fact.

Reid’s gaze shot to him, as if he’d just said something stupid. Which he had. Why the hell would Reid care about the target’s nickname?

At least he hadn’t said anything about how much Sawyer had fucked up. Sawyer had returned to Darling six years ago to help exonerate his friend Jaxon. His one condition when Reid had asked him to join Sabre was that he’d work behind the scenes.

He’d done his due service to his country. Now he used his hacker skills to find and do the things his brothers at Sabre needed to get the jobs done. Except he missed something that could have gotten Jaxon freed two years earlier.

He’d dropped the ball when it came to monitoring Lele Cortez’s release date.

She’d been sentenced to ten years. He’d known in the back of his mind she might be released early, but he’d never thought it would be the earliest possible day.

He’d investigated it two weeks ago since the five-year mark was close, only to find out she’d been released two years earlier.

Sawyer had been watching Lele for over a week now.

He’d broken into her house the first day he arrived in Elk Jaw while she was at work.

He used the term broke in loosely. All he’d had to do was twist the nob and open the fucking unlocked door.

It crossed his mind that, had she been his Little, he would have waited for her to arrive home after work and made sitting a very uncomfortable prospect for her .

As it was, it had taken less than an hour to plant the cameras because her house only had three rooms, and that was counting the bathroom.

Her backyard, which, from what he could tell, was where plants went to die, held two cameras.

From each front corner of her house, he could see the front yard and the street.

There was no place she could be in her home or yard where he didn’t have eyes on her.

That was how he’d seen her struggle to rip the bars off her windows.

It appeared she would give a half-hearted attempt to remove at least one of them every day or so, never making any progress.

Each attempt ended in her kicking the front steps and hurting herself.

Why didn’t she call someone and ask for help?

It seemed to him this was a project that had been going on for a while. She saw her stepbrother every day where she worked. Why hadn’t he ever come over to help her?

Eventually, Sawyer had had enough. He took the bars down himself the next time she left for work. It wasn’t that seeing her struggle bothered him. No, it wasn’t that. But if she kept going, she was going to wind up really injuring herself, and for some reason, that didn’t sit well with him.

He worried a little that Lele would wonder who had removed the bars, but fortunately, through the cameras, he discovered she had attributed it to her brother hiring someone to do it.

“Have you been tracking her?” asked Reid.

Sawyer looked at him with incredulity, “I’m not a fucking amateur, Reid, of course I’m tracking her.”

He’d managed to place a tracker on the crazy moped she drove. She’d taken a fairly decent mini motorbike, painted it Pepto Bismol pink, and turned it into a shrine to Bugs Bunny’s girlfriend, Lola Bunny. She’d even named it Lola Motor-Bunny.

Who the hell would create a Lola Bunny sticker kit for a motorcycle, even a moped version like the Honda Navi? He shuddered every time he saw it. Honda engineers everywhere must be rolling in their graves. And maybe puking.

“Were the work cameras a problem?” Reid asked.

What was with all the questions? Screw up one detail and you’re branded for life. “The cameras at Videotopia were an easy hack. All I had to do was scan for the network address. Like so many, they hadn’t bothered to change the Wi-Fi password from the manufacturer's default.”

Reid nodded, satisfied.

“Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping a very close eye on her,” said Sawyer.

And he had. When she wasn’t at home or work, he’d tailed her and watched. He’d spent hours watching her, waiting for her to make a mistake or slip in any way that would prove she was the villain her record indicated.

He managed to lift her phone after she had accidentally left it on the bar while serving another customer.

Within minutes he gained access and installed a remote agent.

Since then, he’d spent any extra time he had scrolling through every detail of her life from his phone. The girl spent a lot of time on games.

Then again, it wasn’t like she had anything else to do.

Unlike her stepbrother, Hector, who seemed to be the town’s patron saint, the townspeople wanted nothing to do with Lele.

The other women in town were catty bitches to her.

The men pretended to ignore her, but they still came to have a few drinks at the video bar every night, now didn’t they?

Even those pricks knew she was easy on the eyes.

It did not escape him that her actions and appearance screamed Little.

At night, as was her nightly ritual, she carried a stuffed animal with her as she danced, literally, around her house with the lights on and the blinds wide open.

She left her doors unlocked as well. He’d checked.

After that, he went over once she was asleep and locked them. It didn’t appear she’d noticed .

In that neighborhood, she might as well be issuing an engraved invitation for uninvited “guests.” It was a miracle she hadn’t been robbed. Or worse. It was yet another thing that made his palm itch.

She went to bed after midnight most nights and was up again by five the next morning. So far, the closest thing to a vegetable he’d seen her eat was ketchup on the shark-shaped fish stick she ate every night with a side of microwaved mac and cheese.

So, yeah, Lele was a Little. He’d bet his life on it. He just wasn't sure if that made his mission easier or harder.

He hadn’t spoken to her yet, other than ordering beer and paying his tab. That would have to change soon.

“Is there anyone in town she’s close to? Other than the stepbrother? Best friends. Boyfriends? Lovers?” Reid asked.

Sawyer gritted his teeth when she bent over to grab a beer from the cooler under the bar, leaning over and showing much too much of her full, rounded breasts. “You mean other than every man with a dick? She sure seems to know how to get their attention. But no, there’s no one.”

“Careful,” Reid said. “Lower your voice, or you’re going to be the one catching someone’s attention. And why the fuck do you care if she’s had every man in town?”

Damn it! Sawyer took and released a deep breath before answering.

He never lost control of his emotions. Hell, he’d wondered if he even had them anymore.

“I didn’t say she had. Just that men like to hit on her.

I’ve never seen her take them up on it. They approach her with no respect, like she’s an easy lay.

It doesn’t get them far. And to answer your question, I don’t care.

” But that wasn’t entirely true, and he knew it.

It took all he could do to stay at the table, instead of tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her into the back room to have a conversation about proper dress when plying horny rednecks with beer .

She had to know every man in the bar ogled her every time. It seemed the only beer they were interested in was the one she had to bend over the farthest to reach. What was she thinking? Not that it was any of his business. What she did didn’t affect him. Not at all.

He adjusted his weight in his chair to get more comfortable.

She wasn’t his type. He wasn’t attracted to soft, curvy, wounded doves who needed someone to stand up for them when their lives were hard. What did it matter that her infrequent laugh wrapped around him like a soft, warm blanket on a chilly day? Whose kindness was only outdone by her stubbornness.

Nope. She wasn’t his type at all.

Fuck. He was so screwed.

“She’s faking all that innocence shit, you know?” he said aloud.

Fuck! Now he couldn’t even control his mouth. Reid looked at him, concerned curiosity growing in his eyes. “Do I need to call in someone else to take over this op? You sure you can handle this?”

“I’m handling it fine.” Sawyer snapped. “And who else are you going to get? Everyone else on the team now has a Little of their own who they don’t want to leave, remember.”

Reid took a deep swallow of his beer. “Okay, so you are the only one who can do this. But we need to figure something out because you seem to be personally affected by the mark.”