“I’m not sure I could do it any other way,” RT answered. “Then again, it’s the only way I’ve ever known. My father and Casper were both in the military, which has helped, I think. They’ve maintained some connections that way.”
“You get much pushback from government agencies?”
“No. As a rule, we don’t impede.”
“But we have been known to sidestep when necessary,” Z added with a grin.
“Yes, we have been known to do that.” RT took a sip of his iced tea. “But we keep that on the DL. No sense upsettin’ the local LEOs if at all possible.”
“LEOs?” JJ asked, leaning forward, fully engaged in the conversation.
“Law enforcement officers,” Z supplied.
“Ah.” She grinned wide. “Got it.”
“I know a couple of guys who might be interested in any overseas positions you’ve got comin’ up,” Brantley said, setting his fork down. “Former SEAL teammates. One recently got out, the other’s got three months then he’ll be stateside again.”
Reese glanced at Brantley. “You keep in touch with them?”
“Of course.”
Interesting.
Although Reese wasn’t sure why he found it interesting. It made sense that Brantley would keep in touch with the guys he used to work with. Just because he left the military didn’t mean he no longer existed. They were friends, some he probably even considered family. Of course, he knew Brantley would still be leading his SEAL team if it weren’t for the fact he’d been forced into early retirement thanks to the medical discharge.
Then again, Reese hadn’t kept in touch—or vice versa—with the guys from his squadron. After he’d been assumed KIA and left for dead, he’d been pretty much on his own. After the torture he’d endured, he hadn’t been left with much loyalty for those he’d been abandoned by.
“Anyone up for dessert?” Reese’s mother asked when the conversation lulled and plates were pushed aside.
“Let’s give the food time to settle first, Mom,” Z told her with a smile. “Then we’ll be all up in the pie.”
“You okay?” Brantley asked, leaning in close, voice low.
Reese jerked his attention over. “Of course. Why?”
Brantley’s response was a simple eyebrow twitch, which meant Reese had been internalizing his thoughts and ignoring those around him.
He forced away the memories of that long-ago time. At some point, he would have to deal with the lingering anger he harbored along with the fear that seemed to be surfacing when he was asleep, coming in the form of nightmares that were becoming more frequent. But he certainly had no desire to ruin Christmas by getting lost in his own head by revisiting those hellish months when he’d all but prayed for death.
“Why don’t we move this party to the living room,” Hugh suggested. “I know there are at least a dozen presents under that tree.”
Presents.
Fun.
Several hours later, everyone went their separate ways, retiring for the evening.
RT and Z had left, going back to their house. Jensyn was staying the night, insisting she wanted to hang with JJ and spend more time with their mother, the girls likely gossiping about the rest of them.
Reese and Brantley had been given the larger of the two guest rooms despite their insistence they didn’t need more than a sleeping bag and a patch of hardwood. When Brantley had told Reese’s mother as much, Reese had laughed at the horror in her expression. Like Cindy Tavoularis would ever let a guest sleep on the floor.
But it’d been when Brantley offered to take the couch that Reese had spoken up, insisting they would be sharing a room. After all, they lived together. It wasn’t like he could pretend he wasn’t in a relationship with the man. And oddly enough, he found he didn’t want to. Not with his family, at least. Once he’d gotten over the initial concern that his brother would pass judgment on him for his recent realization that he wasn’t as straight as he’d originally thought, Reese had been getting a better grip on his new reality.
Not that he was ready to flaunt it to the world.
Well, mentally he was. When he sat back and thought about it, he had no concerns whatsoever with people knowing he was in love with Brantley. However, the same could not be said when push came to shove and he found himself in a position that required him to reveal that detail. He still clammed up, got overly anxious, and couldn’t bring himself to admit it aloud. But with Brantley’s help, he knew one day he would figure it all out.
Like Brantley always told him: it would take time.
Now as he lay in the darkened room beneath a thick, floral-patterned comforter, head resting on pillows that were just a little too soft, his shoulder and thigh brushed Brantley’s, and Reese found he wanted to be closer to the man. Maybe it had something to do with the fact he’d realized Brantley was keeping in touch with his former SEAL team and he hadn’t bothered to share that fact with him. Or maybe he simply wanted to be close because he craved him like he craved that Jack Daniel’s pecan pie his brother had introduced him to.
Whatever the reason, he knew he couldn’t wait until they were back home tomorrow night before he satisfied this urge by indulging in the most exquisite dessert in the house.
Without saying a word, Reese rolled to his side, shifted so that he was pressed against Brantley, and let his hand wander beneath the blanket, sliding over the smooth, hot skin he’d become intimately acquainted with lately.
“Mmm,” Brantley mumbled softly.
Reese pressed his lips to Brantley’s shoulder, smiled. “Shh.”
“I’ll do my best,” he whispered.
Leaning forward, he placed his mouth near Brantley’s ear. “As long as you’re quiet, I’ll continue.”
Brantley’s response was a nod, which made Reese smile more as he shifted, pushing the blankets down, uncovering them both.
He took his time, caressing, massaging Brantley with his hands and his mouth. The only sounds Brantley made were soft gasps, which spurred Reese to continue, pausing only long enough to get rid of the few clothes in the way and retrieve the lubricant from the overnight bag he’d left on the floor by the bed.
When he urged Brantley to roll onto his stomach, the man did so without question, without hesitation. Reese didn’t waste time, didn’t linger on the foreplay; instead, he slicked his cock, then slid deep inside Brantley.
Once he’d filled him completely, Reese laid out over him, covering his back, his hands snaking underneath to curl his fingers over Brantley’s shoulders. It took effort not to make the bedsprings squeak, but he managed, rocking his hips, fucking Brantley with long, deep strokes that had them both panting even as they kept the noise to a minimum.
“You ready to come?” he whispered in Brantley’s ear.
Brantley’s response came as he turned his head, nodded, then found Reese’s mouth with his own.
Making love to Brantley, tongues dueling, hearts pounding, Reese brought them both to climax.
The best Christmas present yet.
*
Brantley wouldn’t lie, he’d been eyeballing RT and Z the entire drive from Cindy’s house to the Sniper 1 Security building.
“I might just hafta get me one of those,” he told Reese when they pulled into the parking garage behind Z’s Yamaha YZF-R1 supersport bike and RT’s Kawasaki Ninja H2R.
“A motorcycle?” Reese snorted. “You’d kill yourself first chance you got.”
“I was a SEAL, you know.”
“Which translates to king of the adrenaline rush.”
“I can hold my own, thank you very much.”
Reese laughed. “I have no doubt, but it’s more about you pushin’ the limit that worries me.”
Oh, how he would push the limit if he had one of those. As far as he could. And then some.
“They’ve been ridin’ those things since they were kids,” Reese explained. “RT’s whole family’s got ’em.”
Considering how sleek and sexy they were�
�the bikes, not the men … although they weren’t half-bad, just not nearly as sexy as Reese—Brantley understood. Growing up in a small town, the middle child out of seven, there hadn’t been room for many vices. Brantley sometimes wondered if that was the reason he’d gone into the military. He’d already been familiar with the routine, and it gave him the freedom he wouldn’t get otherwise.
“Come on,” Reese said as he opened the truck door. “You’re the one who asked for a tour of the offices.”
Well, technically, Z had been the one to expand on their topic from dinner last night. Brantley had merely tossed the idea in there. He was curious, sure. Considering Sniper 1 Security was one of the largest and most successful private security firms in the country, he wanted to know what made it tick.
And yes, fine, he was curious about the infrastructure of a privately funded corporation of this nature. Considering he had no intention of letting the task force die, even if the governor opted to shut them down, Brantley figured the more knowledge he had, the better off they’d be.
But more accurately, he’d heard they had some super-secret spy stuff going on, and he was hoping for some firsthand access.
RT and Z were waiting at the elevators when they approached. He considered asking more questions about the motorcycles but decided to leave it alone. As much as he wanted to know, that wasn’t always a good thing. If he knew, he’d only want one, and Reese was right, pushing the envelope was his specialty. At this point in his life, Brantley probably didn’t need to take any more risks than he already did.
“You own the entire building?”
“We do,” RT answered. “Circumstance gave us a chance to redesign some of the space. We converted the ground floor to allow for customer-facing businesses like food services and retail, most on short-term leases. We have quite a few long-term leases with tenants on the lower floors. Sniper 1 now resides on the four highest floors.”
“Donuts and coffee every day,” Z joked.
“I’m bettin’ that’s a nice residual income,” Brantley mused. “The retail fronts, I mean. Not the donuts.”
“Don’t knock the donuts,” Z muttered with a chuckle.
After they all piled in, RT pressed the button for the seventh floor. “It helps, that’s for sure.”
“Do you get a lot of walk-in traffic?”
RT shook his head. “None, actually. One hundred percent of our business comes from word of mouth. Granted, it took us years to build a reputation, but now when we greet new clients, it’s because they heard about us from someone else.”
Brantley nodded, tossing around that information. He figured they would have to work toward that as well if the governor gave them the heave-ho.
For the next half hour, they went on a tour of the various floors that housed Sniper 1’s finance, operations, and marketing teams, their IT department, technology division, bullpens for field agents, client-facing meeting areas, as well as the main offices of their executives, including RT and Z.
While Brantley admired all they’d built, he could never see himself sitting at a desk in some fancy high-rise building. He wanted to be where the action was.
“So where’s the testing floor?” Brantley inquired when they’d stopped in one of the many oversized conference rooms.
“Testing?” RT asked, glancing over at Z, who in turn looked at Reese.
“That’s his polite way of sayin’ he wants to see your secret spy toys.”
Z’s eyes lit up with amusement.
“Don’t bother tellin’ me that’s a myth,” Brantley told RT. “Your husband’s notorious for sharin’ his toys with us.”
RT glanced over at Z, clearly not in the loop on the sharing.
“What?” Z shrugged his enormous shoulders. “They needed stuff. We’ve got stuff.”
RT sighed.
“Why don’t you be a bit more specific on what you’re lookin’ for,” Reese suggested, nudging Brantley with his arm.
“I want to find Juliet Prince,” he stated, all humor gone.
“She’s the woman who kidnapped your cousin’s daughter, right?”
Brantley nodded. “JJ’s runnin’ software to track her, but so far we’ve got nothin’. The couple of leads it’s generated were bogus, so I’m not exactly confident we’re goin’ about it the right way.”
RT seemed to consider that before he spoke. “While we’ve taken on a few high-profile cases in the past, we don’t usually search for people. I wish I could tell you we had somethin’ that’ll give you her exact location at this very moment, but we’re not that good.”
“No one’s that good,” Z added.
RT shared a look with Z, then sighed again when Z nodded.
“Fine,” RT huffed softly, then peered over at Brantley. “We have been playin’ with some new software and algorithms related to facial recognition that might get you closer to findin’ her.”
“Facial recognition software’s not a new development,” Reese stated.
“Correct.” RT looked between them. “However, we’ve got teams workin’ to develop and refine a variety of options out there. While most facial recognition software already identifies matches based on a number of markers, such as distance between the eyes, height of the ears, compared to what’s in a database, we’re lookin’ to implement it against live feeds.”
“Big brother,” Reese noted.
“To a degree, yes.” It was obvious RT wasn’t too happy admitting that. “But it’s only as good as the data we can compare it to, so the more live feeds we have, the better off we are.”
“Which means we’re in bed with the government,” Z added quickly.
“In a sense,” RT said, shaking his head at Z’s outburst. “We’re also workin’ with various companies, like those who design the doorbells and personal security systems, to partner. If we can have access to their feeds, we’ll be able to get eyes everywhere. But the software is proprietary, and we intend to keep it that way.”
Brantley understood. However, he also understood the need for more information. Information the government and some businesses already compiled and maintained. When it came to looking for a missing child, Brantley would pull out all the stops. He didn’t give a shit what avenue they had to pursue as long as it brought that child back safely to their parents.
The same could be said for catching a crazed woman who had no qualms kidnapping a child in order to dole out punishment for a perceived slight.
“I’ll take whatever you’ve got,” Brantley told RT. “Every time we think we’ve got a bead on her, she’s not there.”
“Doesn’t mean she wasn’t,” Reese said. “We’re just not fast enough.”
Brantley wasn’t so optimistic in his thinking. There was nothing they’d uncovered that proved to him they’d been close to finding Juliet Prince since she abandoned Kate in a run-down house in Mississippi back in September, just two days after she abducted her. The leads they’d gotten had come from across the country, and while Juliet seemed quite adept at lying low, he didn’t believe she was blazing a path across the US. If she was, she wasn’t flying, because they had managed to pull some strings and get her on the TSA’s no-fly list.
It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Chapter Five
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Although everyone was on official holiday through the first of the year, Brantley wasn’t surprised that Governor Greenwood had summoned him to his office at the capitol building.
Nor was he surprised the governor had requested he come alone.
And he seriously doubted he would be surprised by the topic of the conversation they were going to have once he got there.
As it was, he’d been putting the governor off for days. Not because he’d been overloaded, more so because he was dragging his feet. He’d started by insisting Monday wasn’t good for him. The governor then requested Tuesday, which Brantley also shot down. However, when Governor Greenwood’s assistant had simply continued to
the next day, offering every hour on the hour from morning to evening, Brantley knew the meeting was inevitable.
The very reason he was walking through the mostly empty capitol building on this chilly Wednesday afternoon.
Unlike normal business hours, there was no one to greet him when he stepped into the ostentatious outer office with its wine-red carpet and dark wood everything. Rhonda, the governor’s persistent assistant, was usually perched behind that little desk, headset on, a smile on her face. Today her spot was empty, and if she was lucky, she was spending some quality time with her family.
Exactly where the governor should be, Brantley thought when he stopped at the partially closed door to the governor’s inner sanctum.
Before he could lift his hand to knock, he was called inside by a grumbling voice.
“Governor,” he greeted when he pushed open the door.
Brantley wouldn’t go so far as to call Governor Gerard Greenwood an imposing figure. He wasn’t a big man, nor did he have one of those bulldog faces that prevented people from wanting to argue with him. His hair was still thick, although the once inky black had taken on quite a bit of gray over the years, and with his high cheekbones, perfectly straight nose, and well-groomed eyebrows, Gerard was what some considered classically handsome. He stood less than six feet tall, which meant Brantley had a good five or six inches on him, but that didn’t seem to faze the man in the least.
“Thank you for coming, Brantley.” Governor Greenwood motioned toward the leather armchair across from his desk. “Have a seat, please.”
Brantley would’ve preferred to stand, but he knew when to pick his battles, so he eased into the chair.
“Relax,” the governor said. “You look like you’re gearing up for a firing squad.”
“I thought that was the reason I was here,” he answered snidely.
Gerard cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t make me the bad guy here.”
“If the shoe fits…”
Some would likely say he was pushing it with his rude comments directed at the man who was the chief executive of Texas and the commander-in-chief of the state’s military, not to mention his boss, but Brantley didn’t give a shit.
Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker: Off the Books Book 4) Page 6