Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “She’s secure,” Cedric said as he jogged down his corridor and slamming the security door behind him. He initiated the lockdown code and secured her inside. “Initiated lockdown for her sector,” he told the team. He wouldn’t actually say out loud where she was in the building for fear that they’d been hacked. But his team could check their watches and phones and know exactly which sector had just been locked down.

  “We’re running an outdoor breach protocol,” Rook told them, his relief at Elena’s safety only palpable to those who knew him best.

  “I’m closest to surveillance 1,” Atlas told them, referring to their main surveillance room.

  “The rest deploy to the outdoor sectors B and C. I’ll take A,” said Rook.

  Cedric skidded to a stop and jogged the other direction. He took two flights of stairs in just a few bounds and inputted the code to get through the B exit door. He turned and re-locked it and then slinked around the side of the building, hugging the wall and bouncing his eyes over every square inch of their property he could see. He met Geo at the corner of the building where C sector met B sector.

  They nodded to one another and their eyes tracked to the edge of the fencing where Sequence was just finishing his round.

  “I’ve got eyes,” Atlas said in all their ears. “He came through the A sector fencing and disappeared in a blind spot between cameras four and five.”

  In perfectly coordinated concert with one another, the team members split fast and took different directions around the building to get to the A sector, where Rook and the intruder apparently were.

  Cedric took the corner at a dead run. Their warehouse was a gray blur out the corner of his eye and the gravel lot it sat on stretched out interminably. The East river winked in the sunlight and the silver gray fencing around their bunker jutted up ugly and unforgiving. How had he gotten over it?

  And where the hell was he?

  Movement caught Cedric’s eye and he melted back against the building, hoping his quick run hadn’t drawn anyone’s attention to him.

  He saw Geo round the far corner, and there, halfway down the wall between them, was a coat dipping into an alcove. Either that was Rook or…

  Cedric used every inch of his military training and his athletic training and made the distance between him and the alcove disappear. Seconds later he was peering silently around the corner and watching as a disheveled man pawed at the access panel to the A sector security door. Something silver glinted in his hand and he moved to plug it in to the panel. He was going to hack it. Cedric lunged forward and, at the exact same second, so did Rook from the other side.

  Cedric grabbed the intruder by the neck and slammed him down onto the ground, pinning him in place. Rook calmly stood over top of the two of them, his gun steadily pointed at the heart of the intruder.

  The intruder was a man in his mid-thirties with a strange pattern of wrinkles on his forehead, as if he had too much skin and not enough face. He had dirt on his face and his hair was greasy. He gave Cedric and Rook a look that was pure rage until it melted into a carefully constructed confusion.

  He lifted his hand to his mouth and Cedric watched as the silver thing disappeared inside. Without thinking, Cedric grabbed at the man’s mouth, trying to keep him from swallowing whatever evidence he was desperately trying to hide.

  “Hey, man!” the intruder said, swallowing hard and disappearing the object. He made his eyes go blurry. “What’s going on, man?”

  The next hours were the most frustrating of Cedric’s life. He watched as the intruder successfully fooled the cops they called into thinking he was nothing but a drugged-out bum who’d wandered in by accident.

  He watched as the cops did a cursory search of the premises, just to verify what Rook’s team had already verified, there were no additional intruders. He watched as they carted the man away in a cruiser, about to book him for trespassing charges.

  They should have been booking him for attempted murder.

  Cedric knew, in his heart, that this had been an attempt at Elena’s life. Cedric ached to see her. To run his hands over her. To reassure her and himself. Geo had moved her from his room up to the much safer Crow’s nest two hours ago. She’d assured everyone that Elena had been all right. Calm even.

  Yeah. Cedric would believe when he saw it.

  But they were just sitting down to debrief the afternoon as a team when Rook got a call on his cell. He frowned at the caller ID and didn’t leave the room to answer.

  “Javier Rook speaking. Yes. When.” His brow furrowed even further. A look of anger and frustration crossed his face and Cedric couldn’t help but tense. “Yes. Of course. I’ll dispatch part of my team immediately. If you can, keep the cops from moving too many things. All right.”

  Rook hung up and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t make his team wait and for that Cedric was grateful. “Someone trashed Elena’s apartment. That was Miranda Leary. She’s apparently been going over there to water the plants and pick up Elena’s mail and when she arrived an hour ago, the place was wrecked. She called the cops first and us second.”

  Cedric was on his feet and slipping his phone into his pocket, his gun into its holster.

  Rook looked up. He knew what it looked like when a man had made up his mind. He didn’t feel the need to argue with a member of his team. “Swift, you and Sequence better go and see what you can learn.”

  Cedric was halfway out of the room when Atlas’s voice stopped him. “Swift. What do you want us to tell her?”

  He thought of Elena, alone upstairs in the crow’s nest, and the cinderblock wall that had started forming in his chest cracked at the mortar. Elena. He thought of her frantic fear for him. How tied up in each other they were. “Tell her I’ll be back before she goes to bed.”

  Cedric saw Rook’s eyes narrow and he knew that he’d have a lot to answer for when he returned from her apartment. He hadn’t told his boss that he’d gone to her last night. Slept in her bed off duty. And he certainly hadn’t told his boss that a client had kissed him back to high school. That she’d kissed his heart out from the woods and into the bright sunshine. That he’d kissed a client and his whole life had clicked right into place.

  And now he’d basically confirmed that something was going on without outright confirming it. Tell her I’ll be back before she goes to bed.

  That was not something a bodyguard said to a client. That was something a man said to a woman.

  Cedric couldn’t find it in him to contemplate the ramifications right now. Right now, someone had broken into Elena’s home and Cedric needed to see it. He needed to see it with his own eyes.

  He held Rook’s gaze for a moment, ducked his head once, acknowledgement that there was a conversation coming. And then Cedric was gone through the door, Sequence trailing behind him.

  ***

  Cedric let Sequence tell Rook what they’d found at Elena’s place. He didn’t have the words to describe it. Every single surface slashed and destroyed.

  He’d seen what it looked like when a place was tossed over in search of something. He’d seen rooms destroyed in anger. He’d seen places maliciously trashed.

  This was different than that.

  Every single possession of Elena’s had been completely and entirely destroyed. Her kitchen table a broken pile of sticks. Every dish in a pile of technicolor shards. Tapestries on the walls torn into threads. Every single item of clothing cut and torn. The carpet ripped up. The pages of every book scattered. Her toiletries dumped and trashed. Her plants ripped to pieces.

  And the worst part in Cedric’s eyes? The neighbors hadn’t seen or heard a thing. And not because they were too scared to say so. No. The neighbors legitimately hadn’t noticed anything amiss or heard any suspicious noises. Which meant that whoever had done this had done so quietly and carefully. For hours and hours.

  “It…” Cedric finally choked out, “It was almost like they did to her house what they wanted to do to her.”

 
; “Do you agree?” Rook asked Sequence.

  “Yeah,” Sequence agreed, his face grim. “It was creepy, boss. Whoever did this is a freak.”

  Rook nodded, had a little news on this end too. “The fake bum is out on bail. I had a friend of mine down at the precinct trail him. Any guesses where he headed?”

  “Sheepshead Bay,” Cedric guessed tonelessly. He knew in his gut that all of this was connected to the smugglers. They’d wasted six days tailing these guys only to think that they weren’t coming for Elena anytime soon. Then, bam. Two attacks in a matter of hours. Both of them potentially deadly for her if she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Cedric felt bile rise in his throat. He couldn’t begin to explain the horror he felt at the idea of Elena being physically harmed.

  Cedric was dimly aware of Rook dismissing them but Cedric stayed in his seat as Sequence filed out.

  Cedric and Rook just sort of stared at one another for a minute until Rook sighed and rose up from his chair.

  He went to a small cabinet under his window and pulled out two small glasses and a bottle of whiskey. He poured two fingers into each and handed one to Cedric. “I take it you’re here for confession.”

  “I didn’t mean to hide it from you, Rook. I mean, it really just happened. It’s just that everything else happened at the same time, you know?”

  Rook leaned against his desk and took a sip of his whiskey before he set the glass aside and stared down at his friend and employee. “You know you’re the most honest man I’ve ever met, right, Swift?”

  Cedric looked up at Rook, tried to read his expression. “The truth is important to me.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s important to a lot of people. You know what makes you stand apart?”

  Cedric shook his head no.

  “You stand apart because you’re honest with yourself too. Most people can’t do that. Or won’t.”

  Cedric took all the whiskey at once, right to the back of the throat then he set his glass on the desk next to Rook’s. “I’m in deep with her.”

  “That was expensive whiskey.” Rook frowned down at the empty glass.

  “Sorry.”

  “How deep?”

  “Deep enough that I probably will not be able to stay away from her for much longer.”

  “Cedric,” Rook said, calling him by his first name for the first time in years. He sat up and paced to the window, his whiskey in his hand. “Are you going to make me take you off this client?”

  Cedric slumped back into his seat and looked at the ceiling. “Is that what you’ll do?”

  “It depends on what you’ll do. Swift, you cannot sleep with a client.”

  Cedric’s head popped up. “And if I don’t sleep with her?”

  Rook’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly are we talking about here?”

  “I haven’t slept with her. And what if I gave you my word that I won’t sleep with her until she’s not our client anymore?”

  “But you’re involved with her.”

  “Yes,” Cedric admitted immediately. “And I won’t be anything but professional when I’m on duty. And even when I’m off duty, I won’t sleep with her.”

  “You’d do that?” Rook held Cedric’s gaze, trying like hell to get a read on him.

  “Yes,” he answered immediately, solemnly, honestly. “If it meant ensuring Elena’s safety and the safety of the team, I’d do anything. But I know that I can’t be close to her and pretend that I don’t feel this. That’s not gonna work. You can send me away. Or fire me. Or you can keep me here and take me at my word.”

  “Your word meaning that you’re not going to get my ass sued for letting one of my team members fuck a client?”

  “If that’s the rule, I won’t break it.” Cedric leaned forward and dragged his hands over his face. “And you have to know that I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize my relationship with her. You think I want her to think back on the bodyguard who took advantage while she was trying to put the pieces of her life back together? Hell no.”

  It might have been that, more than anything, that had Rook nodding. He believed in Cedric’s self control. Second to Rook himself, Cedric was the most controlled, thoughtful man he’d ever met. But even so, he didn’t see how a man could resist a woman in this situation. Where they both were dealing with feelings. Such close quarters. Add in all the adrenaline of a situation like this and… yeah. Rook trusted Cedric to at least try his hardest to follow Rook Securities protocol, but he trusted him not to screw things up with Elena a hell of a lot more.

  If Cedric thought sleeping with her threatened to screw things up between them, then he trusted Cedric not to do it.

  “What are you waiting for? My blessing?”

  Cedric stood up immediately, his eyes searching Rook’s. “Boss…”

  “Don’t do anything that I definitely, no question, have to fire you for, all right? And maybe don’t tell me everything either. Keep some of this shit to yourself.”

  Cedric flashed a quick, white smile and then was out the door and gone.

  Rook sighed deeply and set his half drunk whiskey aside. He opened up his phone and looked at the background. It was a picture of him and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Ricky, short for Victoria, at the top of zip line summit out in upstate New York last summer. They’d taken a two week camping trip together and ended it with Hudson’s three hour zip line tour. Rook was one tough mofo, and he’d seen some shit in special ops that would harden anyone’s heart, but watching his daughter plummet through the air, 600 feet above a mountainous valley floor had made him want to puke. He’d handled it fine in the end, and she’d loved every adrenaline-pounding minute of it, even if he’d been positive it had taken a decade off his life.

  He couldn’t help but smile at the picture now. Damn, he missed Ricky. He loved Rook Securities. There were only two things he loved more than Rook Securities in this entire world. But it was hard on a man when they were in lockdown. It got under his skin when he couldn’t see Ricky regularly. When he couldn’t check on her and her mom. Make sure they were all right.

  He also didn’t like that he was pretty sure that May, Ricky’s mom, loved when Rook was in lockdown. She hated Rook’s spontaneous visits. She hated sharing her daughter with Rook. And more than anything, she hated Rook.

  Rook opened up his Instagram app and couldn’t stop himself from going to his daughter’s Instagram. His heart gave a weird little stab in his chest when he saw that Ricky and May had apparently taken a little stay-cation this weekend and Ricky had posted about it. There were three posts. One was a selfie of Ricky and May with something pink and sticky all over their faces, some sort of makeover thingy that Rook would never understand. The next was a picture of the pile of rom-com DVDs that they were aiming to get through in a 48-hour period. And the last was a picture of two sets of perfectly manicured toes.

  A shooting star of longing and love burst through Rook’s chest. He remembered one set of those toes on the day she was born. Ricky had been so freaking little and so freaking perfect. He’d missed a lot of her childhood when he was overseas, but he was making up for it now, he hoped.

  The other set of toes looked just like they had when May had been in high school. He didn’t have a foot fetish or anything, but he’d always thought she had the cutest feet. Stubby little toes and blocky, square nails. She used to sneak her feet under his leg when she was cold in bed. He’d always let her.

  Rook exited out of the app and slugged back the rest of his whiskey. He thought of Cedric and Elena and raised his empty glass in salute to them. He wished them luck. He knew for a fact that no matter how much you loved someone, sometimes you needed luck.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Cedric ducked his head into the night duty room and nodded at Geo. She, with a knowing glint in her eye, nodded back and pointedly put her headphones on.

  Cedric rolled his eyes at her and stepped back out into the hallway. He took a deep breath and stared at Elena’s do
or much the same way as he had last night. He couldn’t help but feel as if their roles were reversed. Last night, Elena had been obsessed with confirming his safety and wellbeing and tonight that was Cedric’s role.

  He couldn’t un-see her house torn to literal shreds. He couldn’t stop imagining the knives and blades and razors that had done it. He couldn’t stop asking himself what would have happened if Elena had been there.

  Even now, knowing that she was safe and breathing in her room, Cedric felt all the blood rush away from his face. His fingers tingled. He needed to know she was okay. He needed to confirm it with every molecule in his being.

  He knocked gently and waited.

  She was starting to recognize a pattern here but didn’t bother trying to break it. She was across the room in two bounds and throwing the door open to see Cedric. She was weirdly calm. Apparently, on a good night’s rest, she wasn’t a teary, anxious mess. She was much closer to her old self, even though she’d been put through an insane amount of stress today. Either way, she’d slept well last night and seeing Cedric in her doorway didn’t inspire her to collapse into a clingy pile of tears.

  No. Not tonight. But it did stop her breath in her chest. It did make her heart bang a spoon against a pan somewhere in her ribs. It did bring color rushing to her cheeks.

  Twelve hours ago she’d been jamming her lady parts against his man parts and trying to swallow his tongue. And now, here he was, looking deliciously rumpled, and strangely tight about the mouth and eyes.

  He was staring down at her like he’d never seen her before, swallowing down her appearance as fast as he could.

  “Hi,” she said in a breathless, almost girlish voice. She resisted the urge to close her eyes in embarrassment. Who really cared if he found out that he was quickly reducing her to an adolescent mess of hormones? What more did she really have to lose in this situation? Might as well be upfront about who she was, right?

  He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him with his foot. He took a step forward. “You gotta put some pants on.”