Rook Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  Sequence had had women scream obscenities at him on his way out the door. He’d had dirty looks. He’d had tears. He’d had complete indifference. Never once had he had a woman be sad for him as he tore himself away from her.

  God. He’d been gone for twenty minutes and already she was haunting him. Little did he know, it was a feeling he was going to have to get used to.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Three Months Later

  There were three things that Naomi knew for certain. One, there was a man in a black car who had started following her almost everywhere she went. Two, if she so much as came within a mile of a mushroom, she would puke. And three, Sequence Bone wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.

  What a clusterfudge.

  It was one night in particular, a month ago, that she learned all three of those things at once. She’d been sitting on the floor of her bathroom, shell shocked, staring at a positive pregnancy test when her doorbell had rung.

  To her confusion, there had been two delivery men standing there. One had her dinner in his hand and the other had an armful of flowers. She’d signed for both.

  Her stupid, hopeful heart had clanged around in her chest as she’d reached for the card attached to the roses. What could it say? I’m sorry I’m a mess and can we please start over? Let’s go on a date? Will you be my girlfriend?

  Nope.

  It was simple note in a spiky, strange handwriting.

  Blue diamond roses for an equally unique woman. -Frank

  Her stomach had plummeted when she realized that Frank Bastone had sent her white roses that had been died to a gorgeous blue, to perfectly match the blue diamond he’d shown her. He knew where she lived and he was sending her flowers.

  At that particular moment, the scent of the mushroom pasta she’d ordered from the restaurant down the block had wafted up to her and Naomi had barely had time to make it to the toilet before she was worshiping the porcelain god.

  All in the span of ten minutes she learned that she was on Frank Bastone’s mind, pregnant, and the father—who had no interest in seeing her—was part of the team she paid to protect her from Frank Bastone.

  Once again: total clusterfudge.

  She knew that Sequence had no interest in seeing her because two hours after he’d torn out of her apartment, she’d sent him a text that he’d never replied to, despite the “delivered” stamp below it.

  So, does this mean that we’re not going to talk or text anymore either?

  His complete radio silence had answered that question.

  Now, it was a month past that fateful night of the flowers and the pregnancy test and the mushroom pasta and Naomi had even less of an idea of what to do to get herself out of this mess.

  She’d received flowers twice more from Bastone and had started getting phone calls from a restricted number. Not to mention the fairly obvious shadow in the black sedan that she’d picked up. She didn’t recognize him as one of Bastone’s regular bruisers, but she knew, with a deep certainty, that that’s who this man was working for. The fact that he didn’t even attempt to remain hidden worried her more than anything. Bastone was sending her a message. He wanted her to know that he was watching her.

  What she really wanted to do was reach out to Rook. He would know what to do next. He would keep her safe, no question. The thing was, reaching out to Rook meant inevitably interacting with Sequence.

  Honestly, Naomi didn’t think she was ready for that. She’d had a month to get used to the fact that she was pregnant with Sequence’s child. And she’d had a month to get used to the fact that she was going to have to tell him. But she really, really dreaded it.

  He hadn’t even wanted to text with her again. How was he going to feel about being cosmically linked to her for the rest of their lives?

  Not to mention the fact that she had no idea how he felt about children or about fatherhood or about… anything really.

  Bottom line was that she didn’t know the man. At all. She’d started to know him, really really liked him, and then been knocked on her ass by his freak-out of epic proportions.

  The fact that she’d been utterly shocked when he’d walked out on her was simply evidence that she didn’t know him. Sequence had seemed steady and reliable and down for the ride of getting to know her while they’d been flirting. She’d expected more of the same once they’d slept together. And instead she’d gotten a big old bowl of see you later, gator.

  That was life.

  Except, now, there was life growing inside of her. And Sequence was 50% responsible. She didn’t want to ask Rook for help without talking to Sequence. And she had to accept that at this point, she needed help regarding Bastone.

  It wasn’t just her that she was protecting. It was her baby as well.

  Naomi sat on her bed, locked into her apartment, with her phone in one hand. She stared at a blank text message, the cursor blinking.

  She just had to do it.

  Do you have a free minute this week that the two of us could talk?

  She sent the text off to Sequence. But no delivered note tagged onto the end. She frowned and tossed her phone aside. Maybe his phone was off.

  Naomi tossed her phone aside and went to make herself a bowl of oatmeal, the only thing that she could stomach these days, and put on an episode of Queer Eye on her Netflix account.

  One episode turned into two. She was dozing off on her couch when she finally forced herself to go see if he’d texted her back.

  Nope. Nothing. Naomi pulled back the covers and crawled into bed, frowning at her phone. And the text still didn’t indicate that it had been delivered.

  Taking a long, deep breath, Naomi called Sequence’s number. There was a strange clicking sound and then a robotic message. “This number is not accepting calls.”

  Frowning even further, Naomi hung up the call and googled that phrase. The blood whisked away from her face and made her fingers tingle. Google confirmed her fear. He’d blocked her number.

  Jesus. How long ago had he done that?

  Not only did he want to ignore her, he wanted her cut out of his life?

  Naomi curled onto her side and let tears come. She didn’t make a sound as she cried. She just pulled up a new google page and did a brand new search. She’d done this before. It was how she originally found Rook Securities.

  Well, screw Sequence Bone. She was going to give her business to a competitor.

  ***

  The Rook Securities team sat in their daily meeting while Rook passed out their assignments for the week. They weren’t on lockdown with a client, but Moreau Davy was once again staying in the crow’s nest in the bunker, and that always meant more time cooped up than any of the team enjoyed.

  From a security perspective, having your client in one secure location was infinitely easier. From a human perspective, it was also boring as hell.

  Besides, Moreau wasn’t exactly the easiest person in the world to get along with. Geo had not been a peach since he’d arrived. She’d been whatever the opposite of a peach is. It was starting to wear on the group.

  Not to mention the fact that Sequence had been a completely silent, completely dour, complete monster for the last three months.

  He was never chipper, but he’d been barely capable of even one-word answers. Only Elena had been able to bring out even a caveman level of politeness within him.

  If the group noticed that his black mood corresponded exactly with the end of their contract with Naomi, well, none of them were fool enough to mention it.

  Sequence sat in their daily meeting, his arms crossed and his eyes cast down toward their scheduling app on their iPads.

  Why he even needed to attend these meetings he had no idea. It’s not like his schedule ever changed.

  He was the recon/IT guy. His job was to make sure that Moreau Davy was safe in the digital world. It was everybody else’s job to make sure Moreau was safe in the physical world. Every single day, the only place that Sequence had to be was in his
office, behind a computer. The end. Copy and paste.

  “Sorry. Hold on.” Rook interrupted himself to squint down at his cell phone, he was obviously receiving a phone call. He frowned when he saw the caller ID. He stood up and paced to the other side of the room. “Rook.”

  Rook frowned hard and when Sequence looked up, he was looking right at him. Rook turned back around.

  “Did she give you any details of what she’s been experiencing?” Rook asked the man on the line. “Is she certain that it’s Bastone?”

  Ice slid down Sequence’s spine. He hated, hated, hated that whenever he heard Bastone’s name, he automatically thought of Naomi, but there you go. She was inextricably tied up with the city’s most dangerous mobster in Sequence’s mind. He hated that she’d ever even met the guy.

  Was Rook discussing Naomi? Was there another case they’d picked up that involved Bastone that Sequence didn’t know about? If this was about Naomi, then who the hell was Rook talking to?

  A few tense minutes later, Rook hung up the phone. He turned back to see four worried expressions on the faces of his team and reflected that it probably would have been a good idea to take that phone call outside.

  “Is Naomi all right?” Atlas asked, leaning forward on his elbows.

  Rook decided to cut straight to the chase. “Bastone is tailing her. Sending her flowers and notes. Calling her up. He hasn’t made physical contact yet, but he’s been getting more and more intense over the last few weeks.”

  Weeks? Sequence felt a band tighten around his chest. Bastone had been sending Naomi flowers and notes and tailing her for weeks and he was just now finding out about it?

  “How long?” Sequence asked, and the words were incredibly gravelly. He realized that he hadn’t spoken yet that day. Actually, he hadn’t spoken yesterday either.

  “Melker didn’t know exactly. But when she called him, she said something about a month.”

  “Wait,” Geo interjected. “Naomi called Melker Security for help with protection against Bastone?”

  The twist of her expression was enough to convince anyone exactly what she thought of Eric Melker and his security firm. They were… not good.

  Rook raised his eyebrows and nodded. “And she mentioned that she’d worked with us before so Melker called me to get her old file. He wants information on the work we did for her at the end of the summer.”

  “Why the hell would she downgrade to Melker?” Swift asked, leaning forward. A few seconds later, a light went on behind his confused expression and one by one, every member of the team turned to look at Sequence.

  No one had outright asked him if he’d hooked up with Naomi, and he’d done his part to stay out of her security footage when they’d entered her house. But yeah, it didn’t take a genius to connect the timeline.

  They’d had the hots for each other, then she’d disappeared from all their lives, now she was avoiding their firm.

  “Is there something I need to know?” Rook asked.

  Sequence chose his words very carefully. “Not in a professional capacity.”

  Rook strode to the window and strode back, his thoughts working a mile a minute. “Give us the room,” he said to the group.

  The other three members of the security team practically left whirlpools of dust in their wake as they hightailed it out of there. In fact, the swivel chair that Atlas had been sitting in was still spinning when Rook spoke again.

  “Are you telling me that you slept with Naomi Cutler?” Rook asked, his voice very low.

  Images wheeled through Sequence’s head. Red panties yanked to the side, the ruby cave of her hair surrounding him, sunlight everywhere, literal freaking rainbows, the satin of her mouth. “Yeah.”

  “When.” It wasn’t a question. It was a thinly veiled accusation.

  “After she was a client.”

  “How much after.”

  Sequence sighed. “It was right after her meeting with Bastone. When I dropped her off.”

  Rook stared at Sequence. Sequence stared back, but it took everything he had to maintain eye contact. He’d never felt more ashamed in his life. Rook had never looked at him this way before. Like he was disappointed and shocked and disgusted.

  “You slept with her hours after the scariest, most stressful experience of her life? When she was just minutes away from having been our client? When she was obviously extremely grateful to our team for protecting her?”

  Sequence wheeled back as if he’d been struck. Actually, he felt as if he had been. He felt sick, physically sick. “It wasn’t like that. I would never take advantage, Rook.”

  “Yet, she’s avoiding you so hard that she chose an inferior security firm to protect her life.”

  Was that what was happening? Sequence’s head spun. He had no idea. But of course he had no idea. He hadn’t spoken to her in three months. How was he supposed to know what she was or wasn’t thinking?

  He took a long, deep breath and went over the facts. It hadn’t gone down the way that Rook was making it sound. He needed to remember that. Sequence didn’t hate himself and he wasn’t going to let anyone talk him into starting.

  “Rook, it wasn’t the most… romantic experience of all time, but I didn’t take advantage and she wasn’t fucked up over the sex, okay? She wanted me to stay and, I don’t know, be her man. I wanted to leave. She let me go. The end.” Sequence shifted in his seat and scraped a hand over the back of his neck. He felt the need to explain a bit further. Even though it was none of Rook’s business, even though the words were tearing his throat like thumbtacks, even though it was humiliating. “She wasn’t mad at me. She was just kind of… sad for me. She thought it was sad that I was running away from her.”

  Sequence sighed hard and said the very sentence that he’d been running from for three months. “It is sad. It’s really fucking sad. But there you go. I didn’t abuse her. I was just… disappointing.”

  Rook was silent for a really long time.

  When Sequence finally looked up from the tabletop and into Rook’s eyes, he didn’t like the expression he saw there. He didn’t see the suspicion and rage he’d seen before. But there was something equally disturbing. There was pity in Rook’s eyes.

  When Sequence couldn’t stand it anymore, he uncharacteristically broke the silence. “So what do we do?”

  It seemed to break Rook’s spell and sent him pacing back to the window. “I’m going to call Naomi and try to convince her to use us instead of Melker. For her own good. And I’m going to swear on my mother’s bones that she won’t have to see you, hear you, or even fucking sense you if she doesn’t want to. And if she agrees to work with us, you’re going to do your job, in your office, and you’re going to avoid her like she’s the plague.”

  Sequence hung his head. He was dizzy with a nauseating cocktail of relief and shame.

  “And you,” Rook finished, “are going to start seeing Dr. Waters.”

  The therapist that was available under their insurance plan? “Uh…”

  “It’s a non-negotiable. If you want to stay under my employ, you’ll call her and get an appointment in the books.”

  “You’re sending me to mandatory therapy.”

  “Damn right.”

  Sequence stood up. He sat back down. He felt like a kid in the principal’s office and he didn’t freaking like it. “I’ve been to therapy, Rook.”

  “When?”

  “After my dad—After everything that happened with my dad.” Sequence knew that Atlas had divulged some of their past to Rook over the years. But he wasn’t exactly sure how much Rook knew, and he wasn’t about to be the one to break any news to him.

  “So, when you were eighteen?”

  Sequence cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

  “Well, you’re gonna try it again in your thirties. You might get a little bit further than when you were sneaking cigarettes and trying to get laid for the first time.”

  Despite the tension between them, Sequence’s lips twitched at the
visual. Seeing Sequence crack a little made Rook chuckle. Rook sagged down into the chair next to Sequence.

  Silence stretched out but it wasn’t unfriendly.

  Sequence cleared his throat again. “I really didn’t mean to hurt her. I actually did the only thing I could think to do to keep from hurting her. Lotta good that apparently did.”

  Rook sighed long and hard. “I know. I know the kind of man you are, Sequence. I know that you’re not out here making women hurt for shits and giggles.” Rook paused and in an uncharacteristic show of discomfort, he fiddled with his watchband. “I’m sorry for the big reaction. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”

  Sequence was quiet for a moment, his natural reticence kicking in, but he forced himself to engage. Rook was offering him an olive branch, he’d be a fool not to take it. “Anything you want to talk about.”

  “Not really,” Rook said. But then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up Instagram. He scrolled to his daughter’s page. “Take a look.”

  Sequence recognized Ricky, Rook’s daughter, immediately. She was all dressed up in laser tag gear. Next to her was May, Rook’s beautiful ex wife. And next to May was a man who Rook didn’t recognize. He was blonde and clean cut and grinning toothily at the camera. The three of them looked like they were having a blast.

  “Who’s the ken doll?” Sequence asked, passing the phone back, though he had a pretty good idea of who it was.

  “May’s new boyfriend. He’s been sniffing around for almost a year at this point, but they’re finally serious. Apparently. Serious enough to take my daughter out of school for laser tag.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  Rook never really talked about his ex-wife, Sequence had no idea what had gone wrong in their marriage. But to his knowledge, Rook had never dated anyone else, not in the five or six years that he and May had been split up. Sequence had wondered, once or twice, whether or not Rook was over his wife. The look on his face right now implied that he was very much not.

  Sequence said the only thing he could think to say. “Want me to do a work-up of this schmuck?”