Mastiff Security: The Complete 5 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Zola?” Billy asked.

  “Zola’s a new operative we hired just a few weeks ago. She’s former military, Marines. And she has a bachelor’s in Criminal Justice.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Felicity said. “If she can act a little, she might be exactly what we need.”

  “I don’t know,” Axel said, still dragging his feet on the idea. “What if she’s not ready? What if she cracks? It wouldn’t just be in front of a client, but in front of the whole country.”

  “We delay the live shows by several seconds. If something goes wrong, we can stop the broadcast before it goes out over the airwaves.”

  “And I could go in on the production team,” Durango announced. “I’ll be there to help her if she runs into trouble.”

  Axel seemed alarmed by the mere suggestion. He immediately stood and gestured for Durango to follow him to the other side of the room. Durango went even though it was a slight in front of clients. Durango owned this firm. Axel had a lot of nerve pretending he was in charge!

  “They film in Chicago,” Axel said. “Are you sure you want to go back to Chicago with your past looming over you?”

  “I’m not wanted here. Besides, we both know my presence here has become a complication.”

  It was a challenge to see if Axel would stand on his side. Of course, he didn’t.

  “Getting you out of here isn’t the problem. Appearing like you’re running from something is.”

  “I’m doing my job. How could that look suspicious?”

  The thing was, Durango was a former cop. He knew what Axel was saying, but he needed this, needed the distraction of doing something other than sitting around waiting for the cops to knock on his door. He already had one detective gunning for him. And he had evidence in his hands that could save, or destroy Durango. If he left town . . . But he didn’t care anymore. He knew this wasn’t going his way. If his own staff, people he considered friends, didn’t believe in his innocence, why would anyone else?

  He wanted one last case before the worst happened. Was that so much to ask?

  “I’m taking the case, and I’m going in as Zola’s backup. You can either support this, or take yourself off this case, but this is how it’s going down.”

  Axel was quiet for a moment; then he nodded his head. “All right.”

  “All right?” Durango leaned into him. “I run this case.”

  “All right.”

  Durango inclined his head. “Call Zola.”

  Chapter 2

  Springfield, Illinois

  Mastiff Security Headquarters

  Zola hated this job, hated the cell phone that kept her prisoner to it and hated living in Springfield, Illinois of all places. She hated that she had to live a life that had absolutely nothing to do with the plans and dreams she’d laid out for herself when she decided to enlist in the Marines. She hated that Mitchell had gone and destroyed everything for her, and now she had to rely on a group of men, ignorant men who couldn’t see that the woman in human resources was running things from the shadows, for her livelihood.

  Damn men! If not for a man . . .

  But she wasn’t going to let herself go there. Not today. No, today she was heeding the call of men to hear about a new job they wanted her to take. She needed to pay her rent, so she had to at least hear them out. She was on salary, so she got paid no matter how many jobs she took, but she was also on probation, so she had to be willing to do just about anything they asked for the next six months.

  Wasn’t that just dandy?

  She’d never wanted to do something as cliché as private security. She wanted to be a real cop, to hunt down real criminals. Instead, her first job at Mastiff had her follow a real estate executive’s husband to find out if he was selling her corporate secrets to her enemies. It turned out he was, turned out she didn’t want to press charges. She just filed for divorce. It was a pointless assignment that did nothing but ruin a marriage that was already bad. No criminals got taken off the street, no crimes were stopped. Pointless.

  If this was what all her future assignments were going to be like, she might seriously consider another line of work. She just wasn’t sure what that might be. Thanks to Mitchell, her choices were severely limited.

  She stepped off the elevator on the executive floor and headed for Durango’s office. She’d never been in his office before. The last assignment had been sent to her desk via email with concise instructions. This one was different. She was hoping the difference meant that it would have a little more meat to it.

  There was no one sitting at the secretary’s desk outside the double doors of his office. She tapped on the door that was already partially open, a little surprised to find a whole group of people inside, including a tall, blond guy she was pretty sure she recognized from somewhere. She knew Axel Kinkaid and Durango Masters, of course. They’d both participated in her final interviews. But there were several other people she’d never met.

  “Zola,” Axel said, coming toward her with his hand outstretched, “thank you for joining us.”

  “Thank you.”

  He smiled, gesturing for her to join the group in a cozy corner of the office. Durango stood and offered her his chair. She stepped in front of it as Axel introduced the other three people in the room: Felicity Meeks, Cillian Christy, and Billy Chamberlain. She recognized that last name immediately. Billy was the star of a detective show some of her buddies in the Marines used to watch; they had never missed it when possible.

  Hollywood in Springfield. Who would have guessed?

  Everyone sat down except for Durango who leaned against a nearby wall.

  “Should we start from the beginning again?” the one called Felicity asked.

  Axel shook his head. “All you really need to know, Zola, is that Felicity, Cillian, and Billy are producers on a reality show that is currently filming in Chicago. Someone on set is sabotaging the challenges that they have their contestants participate in, and they need to find out who’s doing it.”

  Zola glanced at Billy, drawn by his celebrity status despite herself. He smiled politely, his eyes moving almost disinterestedly over her, moving instead to Durango. She found herself wondering if his sexual interests leaned toward the male persuasion rather than the female.

  “You want me to go to the set and investigate?”

  “We want you to take the place of one of the contestants.”

  Felicity’s words hung in the air, causing Zola to sit back and cross her arms over her chest. Her first thought was that what they were asking was impossible.

  “I thought the show had already begun.”

  “It has. But we’ve had to remove one of the female contestants because she was injured. We have the leeway to introduce a new contestant if we wish.”

  “But won’t that mess up the dynamics of the show?”

  Felicity glanced at Cillian. Cillian shook his head. “I think it’ll actually add some interest to the show, make it more interesting for the viewers to see how our contestants react to an outsider.”

  “What are the dynamics of the show?” Zola asked.

  They mentioned the name of the show then, Stranger’s Retreat. She’d never heard of it, but she wasn’t really into those kinds of shows. But when they said that it was like Big Brother, she began to understand. That was another show her buddies loved to watch. She used to sit in the bunks or Humvees and listen to them debate the relationships on that show until she wanted to scream.

  “You want me to join the show halfway through and join a partnership that’s three days from elimination?”

  “We’ll add another week to the elimination because of the change,” Felicity assured her.

  “Do you think it’s one of the contestants sabotaging the show?”

  Felicity and Cillian exchanged another look. “We’re not sure,” Felicity said. “We think it could be just about anyone who has access to the house or the competition props.”

  “How did the last girl get hurt?”
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  Again, they exchanged looks as if they weren’t sure how much they were allowed to express about their suspicions. That alone made Zola a little suspicious of them. What were they hiding? And why were they hiding it?

  “She was participating in a competition that required players to navigate an obstacle course. She was under a rope trap—you know, one of those things that they have in the military that forces a person to crawl on their belly—and the frame let go, dropping a heavy beam on her ankle. It crushed the ankle and broke several bones in her foot as well.”

  “And the frame? Did you see signs of sabotage afterward?”

  “It’d been sawed three-quarters of the way through, and the vibrations of five other people going through before her caused it to snap.”

  Zola could understand that. She’d done many obstacle courses during her basic training, including a belly crawl like the one Cillian was describing. She could imagine how it would snap and break. In fact, she’d worried about such a thing happening the first few times she did one. After that, she was too focused on getting a better time than her male counterparts to care.

  “That’s the sort of sabotaging that’s been going on?”

  Felicity nodded. “We’ve had a lot of frames snap, ropes break. But we can’t change the competitions that are planned because we already released a list on our website. If we change it now, viewers will complain.”

  “What about your safety people? I assume you have a crew that inspects the materials before they’re used.”

  “We do. But whoever is sabotaging the materials does it after inspection.”

  “Who has access to it at that point?”

  Felicity laughed. Cillian put a hand on her knee to calm her.

  “The set is closed. Only people directly related to the show are allowed through the doors, and the contestants have been locked inside since the beginning. Only people we’ve known for years and trust more than ourselves have access to the materials between inspection and film time, which is a window of less than two hours.”

  “What motive would someone have to sabotage your show?”

  “It’s a new show,” Felicity announced immediately. “The reality genre is a tight-knit community. The veterans don’t like having newbies come in and steal the limelight.”

  “Then you think someone from another show is inspiring this?”

  “Could be.”

  That made the list of suspects rather large in Zola’s opinion. That wasn’t helpful.

  “What exactly am I supposed to do as a contestant?”

  Cillian took over at this point. He leaned forward as if his stomach hurt, staring at the floor as he described the object of the entire show.

  “You’ll be teamed with a male contestant. You’ll be run through a bunch of competitions that will show the viewers how well you and your partner trust each other and know each other. At the end of the week, there will be a final, big competition that will inspire the vote. Then we have a live show where the contestants vote for which team should leave the house that week and which teams should be changed up. Then we add those votes to those that come in over Twitter and other social media from viewers. And then a couple leaves, and it all starts over.”

  “It’s a relationship sort of thing, then.”

  “Yes. We encourage romantic connections. The viewers like that.”

  Zola shook her head. “I’m not sure I’m up for that.”

  Axel joined into the conversation then. “We don’t expect you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. But this is basically an acting job. You’re just going to need to put on a show for the cameras while you investigate the other contestants and as many people behind the scenes as you have contact with.”

  “And what about those I don’t have contact with?”

  “That’s my job,” Durango announced.

  Zola looked at him, the idea of the big boss being on set with her a little more palatable than the idea of being stuck in a house full of horny millennials by herself. But she still didn’t like it.

  “I don’t have to . . . I mean, you don’t expect me to kiss on this partner or anything, do you?”

  “You’re only expected to do what’s necessary to stay on the show,” Axel told her.

  “But you will need to remain in the house until the suspect is identified and removed from the set,” Cillian said.

  Zola shook her head again, climbing to her feet. She crossed the room, her thoughts running wild. She’d survived four years at college and four more in the Marines. She’d fought off guys who thought they could touch her anywhere they wanted and put officers in their place when they thought she couldn’t do some of the same things her male counterparts could. She wasn’t about to slip backward and take a demeaning job that was going to make all of that moot.

  “This is an important job to me,” Durango said, moving up behind her and touching her elbow lightly. “That guy over there, Billy Chamberlain? He’s my brother, and he’s put a lot of money into this show.”

  “I’m sure he won’t hurt too badly if he loses it all.”

  “Maybe not. But he’s trying to prove himself in the world our father dominates. And I want to help him do that.”

  Zola glanced at him. “You don’t understand. I’ve fought all my life to avoid this sort of situation! I’m not some girl who gets by on her looks and her charms. I’m not interested in the whole country watching me act like the embodiment of a slut!”

  “I know.” Durango glanced over his shoulder then moved slightly closer, as though he didn’t want anyone to overhear what he had to say. “But you’re also very intelligent. I think you could pull this off without compromising your morals.”

  “Mr. Masters—”

  “Please, call me Durango.”

  She bit her bottom lip, not wanting to like him right now, but finding him very personable. And she hated herself for that.

  “Durango. I just . . . I don’t like this.”

  “I know. And if it starts to go bad, I promise I’ll have your back. I’ll get you out of there.”

  She tilted her head slightly. “I don’t know.”

  “We need an answer,” Felicity called from the other side of the room. “If you’re going to do this, we have to prep you tonight so that we can get you into the house first thing in the morning.”

  Zola focused on Durango, not Felicity or her partners. Not Axel, either.

  “You’ll get me out if it gets too uncomfortable?”

  “I promise.”

  She had to trust someone. She didn’t want it to be a man because the last man she trusted ruined her entire life. But . . .

  Durango studied her with his smoldering eyes, not trying to charm her, not trying to trick her into anything. He was being brutally honest. He didn’t lie and tell her she would be safe, and she wouldn’t have to make out with some stranger to make her cover work. She liked that. And, if she were honest with herself, if she’d gotten into the line of work she’d wanted to, she would have done worse than this to get the bad guy. She was acting like a hypocrite, and she hated that about herself, too.

  “Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll do it.”

  She just hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

  Chapter 3

  Chicago, Illinois

  Astoria Hotel

  “Jessica, Michelle, Lesley, Brian, Gunner, Josh, and Kirk,” Zola said for the fifth time, trying to memorize the names of the contestants who remained in the house. “Jessica, Michelle, Lesley . . .”

  Durango stepped out onto the balcony of the suite Mastiff had rented for them, his head aching from hours of prepping for this case. He was due on the set in less than three hours, so he didn’t see the point in trying to get any sleep. He worked better on no sleep than just a little sleep.

  He leaned against the railing, dangling his water bottle over the edge as he tried to clear his head. He hadn’t prepared for a case in a long time, and the frantic pace of this preparation had taken
its toll. They’d spent most of the flight and the first few hours here in Chicago going over the background information on everyone involved: the contestants, the support staff, the camera men, and the production people. Zola focused mostly on the contestants and camera people whom she’d come in contact with most often while Durango tried to pay attention to it all. And then they watched the majority of the fifteen episodes that had already aired and watched a little of the current live feeds that were streaming live over the internet.

  It was a lot of information and a whole world that was so alien from what Durango knew that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull off the bit of acting he’d have to do. But, again, he grew up in this world. He hated it, but he grew up in it.

  “You okay?”

  Durango glanced over his shoulder toward the French doors that opened into the living room. He could see Zola still sitting straight as an arrow on the couch, going over the information she needed to remember most with Felicity and Cillian. But closer, blocking part of the sight, was Gracie, the constant set of files still pressed against her chest like they were in the office instead of two hundred miles away.

  He’d been surprised to find her on the plane but realized he probably shouldn’t be. Axel would want someone to keep an eye on him and who better than Gracie? She was the backbone of Mastiff and the only thing that was keeping Durango from losing his mind, though he wasn’t sure Axel was aware of that. He wasn’t even sure Gracie herself knew it.

  “Would it change anything if I said I wasn’t okay?” he asked, turning his attention back to the cityscape spread out in front of him.

  “It would change everything.”

  He bit his lip, warning his heart not to take her words too seriously. This was the same woman who’d stood with Axel and Calder just the night before when they confronted him with the evidence against him in these strangler murders.

  “Why did you want to take this case, Durango?”

  He shrugged. “I needed to get out of the office, and I couldn’t just sit around my condo, waiting for that knock.”