NASH SECURITY SOLUTIONS
By: Lola Silverman
Copyright © 2017
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
WRATH
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
CARSON
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
ANALISE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
QUENTIN
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
NASH
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
WRATH
Chapter One
Tegan Hyde-Pierson strode out of the library building at Boston College with a spring in her step. Why would she walk any other way? She was about to graduate top ranked with her MBA. Last semester, her blond hair, blue eyes, and slim figure had been enough to get her a five on the hot-or-not list at her college. The guys wanted to date her. The girls wanted to be her. And as soon as she graduated, she would walk right into management at her father’s financial firm. Yeah. Tegan’s life was more than awesome. It was charmed.
Her heels clicked on the sidewalk. She smiled at those she passed and checked the display on her mobile phone to see if she had enough time to walk to the restaurant where she was to meet her two best friends for a celebratory dinner. Her friend Hailey had just gotten a job offer from a well-known accounting firm. As soon as they graduated, Hailey would be making terrific money without having to budge from the Chestnut Hill apartment she’d managed to hang onto all through grad school.
The thought made Tegan smile. Her friends had apartments. Tegan had a townhouse. But then that was one of the perks of coming from a wealthy family that had been part of Boston’s high society since the colonial days. Hyde-Pierson wasn’t the kind of name anyone sneered at. Not with her father’s bank account balance.
Tegan glanced at the crossing signal before breaking into a little trot to make it across the street before the signal changed. There was a bum sitting on the corner. She felt the familiar tightening of her chest at the sight of the man in dirty, layered clothing with his cardboard sign.
GOD BLESS it said. Tegan bit her lip. She had a wad of bills in the pocket of her trendy designer jacket. The barista happened to have change for a fifty when she’d gotten her coffee earlier that morning. She hadn’t thought anything of it until this moment. Her father would ream her up one side and down the other if he knew that she’d given money to a bum. Stedman Hyde-Pierson often gave speeches about the laziness of modern American society when he saw homeless people begging on Boston’s streets.
The guy looked cold. It was nearly April, but Boston wasn’t exactly the friendliest climate to be out of doors day and night. The man looked so depressed. And maybe that’s what decided her. Tegan slipped the wad of bills from her pocket and pushed them into his cup.
“God bless,” he told her. The words seemed automatic, as if he were too tired and dull to react any other way.
“You’re welcome,” Tegan told him before walking on toward her destination.
The windows of the restaurant were lit with a welcoming orange glow. Tegan loved meeting at the Foursquare. It was just enough of a mix of college bar and restaurant to make it both busy and yet very acceptable in the service department. She unconsciously sped up as she saw Hailey’s distinctive red jacket enter the front doors. There was plenty of excitement and good conversation waiting! Why was she standing on a corner by a bum instead of with her friends?
The thought made her smile. Hailey and Jennifer had been her best friends since the first day they had started Boston College as freshman. They had shunned sororities and banded together. Now they were ready to graduate with master’s degrees and awards. Yes. Tegan’s life was quite charmed.
“Hey, lady!”
Tegan stopped walking and
turned to stare. “Excuse me?” She addressed the bum. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yeah. You.” The man got to his feet with a surprising amount of agility for someone who had looked almost lethargic and half dead not five seconds ago. “You’re Tegan, right?”
“You need to back off or I’m going to call the police,” Tegan informed him. What kind of place did the man think this was? Southie? She might expect this kind of behavior from someone in the South End, but not here. Not on her home turf.
What was he doing? Tegan could not stop staring. He was rummaging in his jacket. Ew. God knew what the guy had in that nasty garment. It looked like he’d fished it from a dumpster.
She had only the barest impression of a shiny object. Then from nowhere something hit her with the force of a locomotive. She went down hard. The pavement scraped her knees and ripped her pantyhose. She put her hands down to try and get back up, but a very large hand shoved her back down to the ground.
“Stay, stupid!”
The low voice was uncultured, rough, and bossy as hell. She took a breath to argue, but a loud bang made her cover her ears instead. What the hell was that? She rolled onto her back to try and see what was going on.
“Ohmigod, ohmigod!” she chanted as she realized the bum was aiming a gun at her. A gun! Who did that?
“Gotta move!”
The man—it was definitely a man—smashing her onto the ground now yanked her back upright. He grabbed her arm and pulled her after him. He was also… Holy shit, he had a gun too! He had it out and he was firing it at the bum! Firing a gun in the middle of a Boston street!
There was a groan from the bum. Tegan saw a bright red mist, and then there was red on the pavement only a dozen feet from where she had been moments before. Blood. It was blood. She was going to die.
They were running down an alley. Why were they running? Weren’t there police coming? Surely someone had called 911. Everyone had cell phones these days, right? There was a stitch in Tegan’s side. Her feet ached in her heels. They weren’t meant for running, and all at once, her body just quit. She sagged to the ground. Her abrupt movement ripped her arm out of the man’s hold. His nails scraped her jacket sleeve. He might have actually torn it, but Tegan was too shocked to care.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“The police will be here any minute. You shot a homeless man! He didn’t do anything. I just gave him money. What is your problem?” Tegan stared hard at the guy. “And what are you doing? I should be calling the cops on you!”
In hindsight, she probably should not have said that to him. She was just telling him that she was a threat. Would that not make him want to shoot her himself? Oh, that was a horrible thought! She put her hands up to cover her face. She was so not ready to die right now!
WRATH STARED AT the woman sitting on the ground and tried to remember that she was not a marine. In fact, she was pretty much nobody he would care about under any other circumstances in his life. Princess was the only word that came to mind. And it wasn’t meant as any kind of compliment in Wrath’s book.
“Get your ass off the ground and start moving. If he comes back with friends, you’re going to die.” Wrath pegged her with a hard stare. “Is that what you want?”
“To die?” She looked completely aghast. “Of course not! I’m—what are you even talking about? Why would anyone want to shoot me?”
“Because your father pissed off some very important people in the local mafia, and they’ve decided the best way to punish him is to kill the members of his family that mean the most.” Wrath gave this information grudgingly and with much impatience. He had little patience in general for civilians who had no notion of how to keep themselves safe. “So, once again. Get your ass off the ground if you want to live.”
Tegan. He thought he remembered her name to be Tegan, anyway. She put her hand up. Wrath stared at it and could not help but be amused. Was she actually trying to get him to pull her up? Really?
He heard movement behind them at the mouth of the alley. The man pretending to be a bum had been gut-shot. Wrath was certain. It would take time for him to call reinforcements from wherever they’d been hiding, but there was no time to lose. With that in mind, he reached down and yanked Tegan to her feet.
She weighed almost nothing. Her fancy skirt stopped at mid-thigh, which was probably good because the damn thing was so tight that she wouldn’t be able to do anything but prance if it had gone to her knees. Her heels were another matter.
“Kick off the shoes,” he ordered.
“Are you kidding me?” she snarled. “These are Manolo Blaniks!”
“Is he going to get his ass out here and save your life?” Wrath shot back. “Because unless he has a Gatling gun at the other end of this alley, I don’t want to hear about him.”
Her utter confusion was obvious. Wrath was done being nice. He had been nice. His boss—and former marine commander—Jason Nash had told Wrath more than once that he was a little on the rude side with their civilian clients. Wrath didn’t care. He kept them alive. That was his job. It wasn’t his job to be a nursemaid. Enabling these privileged assholes would only get them killed faster.
“Getting rid of my shoes will only make me get my feet cut on glass. That will slow us down more.” She made an impatient gesture. “You were the one bitching about hurrying. Are you ready? Or did you want to talk more?”
Wrath snorted. So, the little mouse had claws. Fine. That was good. She would need them. He turned around and kept hold of her hand as he took off at a ground-eating jog. His car was another two blocks over. They had to get there before anyone else spotted them.
At the end of the alley, he felt Tegan draw back in confusion. Then he slipped into a narrow alcove between buildings and squeezed his way down the passage to an adjoining alley on the opposite side that led to a different street a block over from where he had acquired her.
The two of them finally got through the tiny space, but Wrath paused at the exit and refused to let Tegan out into the open. He listened for the telltale signs of men looking for trouble in an urban setting. The movement of trashcans, the rustle of paper, the clink of gear as someone moved. It was all absent.
Close to his shoulder, he felt Tegan pressing against him. The scent of her was—unusual—pleasant even. How odd. She smelled like—he could not decide—coconut? Yes. Coconut. She smelled like summers spent at the beach with his mother and sisters. How odd to think of that now.
“Can you move?” Tegan whispered loudly. “I’m getting squished and I can’t breathe!”
His shoulders were twice as wide as her entire body. If he could breathe, so could she. But far be it from him to torture someone by making them endure close quarters. Wrath had been in a box enough times to know that panic set in fast.
With that in mind, he shoved himself forward and into the open alley. Tegan was right behind him. He took her hand once again and headed for the car. One more street to cross, up a fire escape, and then back down on the other side of the building to where he had left the car.
She balked when he pulled the fire escape ladder down. Wrath already had his hands on her waist and was lifting her up. She caught at the rungs automatically, but he could hear her taking a breath to protest.
“One more fucking word and I’ll leave you here and tell your father you were too stupid to survive,” Wrath growled. He did not have time for this shit.
Tegan gave a little squeak, but managed to climb. Wrath waited for her to get a few rungs up before he jumped and pulled himself up the ladder without bothering to use his feet. His body had been getting soft lately. If there was an opportunity to push himself, he needed to take it. Soft meant dead in his world.
At the top of the ladder, he didn’t speak a word. Wrath simply set out across the building to the ladder on the other side. Tegan followed meekly along. He noticed she was walking funny. The heel of her left shoe had broken off. Heels were the most impractical shoes a woman could wear. He
’d never understood them.
“Wait.” She stopped at the top of the next ladder and looked over the edge. “We came up to go down? Why not go around?”
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