by Wylder Stone
Smug grin still intact, James extended his wrist, rolling the face of his smartwatch toward her, “Same way I track everyone. Your watch.”
“Jesus, Force! Is that even legal?”
With a roll of his eyes, he was determined to stay on track and get to the bottom of what she was up to, despite her attempts to derail his back-alley interrogation. “I track everyone from Elite. You can never be too careful in our line of work, and you know that. It’s how we keep everyone safe and alive.”
“I didn’t realize you tracked us on our personal time too.”
“Red flags go up when I see a lot of late-night notifications, and the person receiving them is always on the move in response. Especially when it’s completely out of character,” he said. “You have access to very sensitive information, and you help care for my daughter. Of course, I want to know what you’re up to.”
“Even if it’s a date? What if this was a late-night…booty call?”
James looked around and chuckled. “You’re not dating anyone, and surely this isn’t a booty call. Not here.”
James infuriated her. She closed the space between them as she shot him down with a narrowed glare so sharp it could kill. “You couldn’t possibly know that, or does your little watch track my love life too?”
Taking a step closer, he came toe-to-toe with her, so close their body heat radiated off each other. He looked her in the eye and called her bluff. “First, you whispered booty call. You can barely say it, much less act on it. Also, look around. I think your standards are a bit higher than a guy living in an alley in the worst neighborhood in town.”
“Well, you don’t know me as well as you think, James Force.”
“I know you better.” James towered over her and dipped his head so she was certain to hear what he had to say despite the low rumbling timbre of a whisper.
Her breathing was weighted and heaving while her spine straightened. The closeness between them threatened to seduce her. “You…you don’t.”
James tucked a single lock of hair behind her ear, clearing it from her face before saying in a calm and steady tone, “This isn’t like you. It’s late and dangerous. You’re careful, too smart, and cautious. Why, Genevieve? What brought you out here?”
James was trying to charm her. It was a well-known trick of the Force brothers. He tried to use it to get her to throw caution to the wind and hang on his every word to make her sing. He had an effect on her, sure, but she was quick to catch on and realized the interrogation was still in full bloom, and he’d just changed his tactic. He wasn’t trying to appeal to her softer side. He was still grilling her. Two can play at that game.
Lightly brushing her chest to his earned a raised brow as she tilted her head and rested her hand on his already swelling cheek. Swiping beads of what she assumed was pain-induced sweat with the pad of her thumb, she said in a soft, sultry voice, “Why do you care so much, James?”
With a simple touch, she nearly had him entranced. He’d nearly fallen for the overwhelming intimacy of her intoxicating touch and inviting tone. But James was quick to remind himself where they were and why they were there. It spooked him to know just how easily he almost fell for her game. This wasn’t why he was here looking for her.
Provoking his vulnerabilities and primal feelings was more than he’d bargained for. There was a fine line she was crossing as an employee of the family business. It didn’t belong in their relationship, and he was quick to recall such. Besides, he was married – or had been. This wasn’t going to happen. Not today, not ever. He couldn’t and wouldn’t fall for it, or her.
Despite that realization, her question lingered between them. Why did he care? He let those sit for a moment too long before he settled with, “I don’t care, Genevieve.”
Usually, his cold words didn’t faze her because she was used to his unkind demeanor where she was concerned. But it still felt like a jagged cut with a dull knife. There wasn’t anything left to say – or do. If there was anyone there to meet her, per the message she’d received, they were gone now. James saw to that simply by being there. Genevieve pushed past him and left the alley without a word. Her abrupt departure said it all. She was done there.
James followed her several blocks to her car, despite the limp in his stride and the ache in his ribs with every step. Sure, he didn’t care, but he also wasn’t an ass and willing to let her walk alone in a dodgy part of town. Just as he hadn’t let her come here unattended, even if it was under the radar, initially.
As they approached her car, he said, “I’m several blocks down, and this leg you kindly cracked is killing me. Can you…?”
Before he could finish asking for a lift, Genevieve slammed her car door shut. She didn’t even look at him before starting her car and pulling away from the curb. She just took off and left him there to suffer through it.
Who the hell does he think he is? Genevieve asked herself. That man makes me absolutely crazy. One minute, he’s concerned and caring. The next, he’s a bulldozing jerk! Genevieve didn’t lose her cool. She had the patience of a saint – most of the time.
It wasn’t lost on her that James was still mourning the loss of his wife though it had been years. Her passing had changed him and not for the better. He lost his smile. He lost his spark. James had grown cold and scornful. Understandably so, to an extent, but he still had so much to live for. He just didn’t…live.
Then there were nights like tonight when Genevieve didn’t have it in her to nurture his emotional deficit and offer grace. Tonight was too much. He shouldn’t have followed her, and for all she knew, he brought harm to all of them by intercepting whatever was supposed to go down. He’d put himself and Elite Force front and center simply by showing up. They were undoubtedly on the radar now and being watched, just as she was.
Messages had been coming through for weeks – voicemail, email, you name it. Fear kept her following through with the requests from a distance as she tried to gauge just how serious her circumstance was. But she never saw him or whoever was threatening them. Tonight, she wasn’t going to stand in the shadows. Tonight, she’d planned to face her past head-on and find out why it was haunting her all these years later. Until James showed up.
She’d never been so confident and scared at the same time. A whirlwind of emotions settled over her as she played the night’s highlight reel back in her mind. James was right. She was out of her league. It was foolish to go alone, but she couldn’t tell anyone, not yet. She still didn’t know the entirety of what she was dealing with.
As she passed the dark alley where she met her would-be assailant, James, she noticed a man in a dark hood leaning against a tree that lined the sidewalk. It wasn’t uncommon to see someone hiding under hoods and hats in that area. It was standard uniform, but something stood out with this guy. His face was hidden, but she felt his stare as he watched her drive by.
Paranoia was beginning to follow Genevieve everywhere, and anyone who looked her way made her nervous. Great, now she was paranoid, and everyone along that road was out to get her. Thanks, James. She didn’t understand him. If he didn’t care, why was he watching her? And following her? He was completely disconnected on every level – as a brother, a son, a friend, and a father. Sure, he was serious by nature, but this was more than that. He was living in and consumed by constant grief in an unbreakable chain of misery.
Genevieve sympathized, she truly did, but it was hard to be around someone like that. It seemed he was showing an ounce of concern by showing up in that alley to watch out for her, only to have him revert into himself. James Force was as frustrating as they came.
Like his brothers, James loved fiercely and fought fiercely, albeit from behind a screen and keyboard. That was where the similarities ended, though. Where they were bold, fighters, and total diehards, James was gentle, soft-spoken, and reserved. His greatest quality was also his worst.
When times were tough or tragedy struck, his brothers forged on, turned their disappointment
into motivation, and fought harder. James shut down, unsure what to do with his feelings, and retreated within. He was emotionally broken – heartbroken – and neither he nor anyone else had the key to fixing it.
Like tonight. He worried about Genevieve and had been concerned to the point he took her beating rather than stopping her sooner. But the moment it seemed he was going to let her in, he shut down. He’d do anything to keep her at arm’s length, including acting like a first-class ass.
A question remained, however. Why was James following her, and what did he know?
James slowly made his way back to his car despite the throbbing knee. It wasn’t all that far, but the sharp pain and pulsating aches coursing through him with every step made it feel like miles. Karma was a selective bitch, and he seemed to be her number-one client because when he finally reached his vehicle, a drunken man was pissing all over the side of his car.
“Really fucking great,” he said under his breath as he stalked up next to the man.
It didn’t seem to matter he was standing there because the vagrant just looked James up and down over his shoulder and continued to relieve himself.
“This your car?” the man slurred with a little hop as he tucked himself away.
“The car you just pissed all over? Yeah,” James replied. The man reeked of booze and street as he swayed, eyes wide, trying to focus on James.
“Nice ride. Got one myself,” he said, words garbled.
If this were Derek or Jackson, the conversation would have gone in an entirely different direction – no talking, just a few grunts before they did him a favor and pushed him along. They were no bullshit types, and they loved their cars like they loved their women – fast and pretty. Not pissed on.
“I’m sure you do. If you’re…done, I’d like to leave.”
“It’s in the shop,” the man said as he staggered away.
James stood staring at the driver’s side of his car, contemplating whether he should open the door. Given how his night had gone thus far, there was a good chance there was a reservoir of hobo piss in the doorjamb, waiting to flood the plush interior of his car.
“Why does this shit happen to me?” he said. Tucking his hands in his pockets, he leaned in to see if it was safe to open the door.
He threw his hands in the air. “Fuck it. This is what I get for making sure everyone is safe?”
Walking to the other side of his car, he lit up the passenger side door with his cell phone flashlight to make sure he wasn’t about to stick his hand in any bodily fluids. In this part of town, there was no telling what his car faced while he was off, saving Genevieve’s ass.
Genevieve was well trained. The pain from his bruised and battered face and body as he gingerly climbed across the seat of his car attested to that. He just hadn’t realized how well. This is her fault, he thought as he climbed over the center console and slipped behind the wheel.
As a police officer slowed while he passed, James offered a wave, earning a nod from the familiar face. “Now it looks like I’m stealing my own car. Why not get arrested? It’s the perfect ending to a shitty night.” Uh, yeah. I was following a female employee, and a homeless guy pissed on my rig. Sounds legit.
Frustrated, he pulled his car into light traffic while he waited for his GPS to kick in and guide him to the nearest all-night, do-it-yourself, coin-operated car wash.
That was exactly what he wanted to spend his night doing – washing his car in a bad neighborhood while worrying about getting mugged and watching five-dollar hand jobs and drug deals go down. Karma was on Genevieve’s side tonight. They were both probably laughing at her.
What had she been up to? What could possibly drag her out at that hour to that part of town? Alone? Santa Marina didn’t host the kind of crime some of the bigger cities did, but it had its fair share. Trafficking – humans and drugs – were at the top of the list due to the easy interstate access that ran all the way to Mexico and ports all along the Western Seaboard. It wasn’t like her to gamble with statistics and become one.
He shouldn’t have followed her, but his conscience made him. Something was wrong, something that made her act out of character, and his gut said it was bad. Genevieve could’ve asked anyone at Elite for help – but didn’t. Given the fight she’d given him, she knew it was dangerous because she was prepared. That fight was premeditated and fully anticipated. Genevieve knew she was walking into the lion's den and came prepared to fight the lion. Who was the lion?
If it weren’t for his eleven-year-old daughter, he wouldn’t have cared. Genevieve and Ruby were tight. She watched over Ruby when James and his brothers were out of town on missions or when he just couldn’t cope. If anything bad happened to Genevieve, Ruby would feel the consequence, and she’d dealt with enough loss for a lifetime.
James loved his daughter, but the loss of his wife, her mother, put distance between them. That was where Genevieve came in. She helped fill the void and cover things he just couldn’t. He appreciated that, but she was nothing more. The worry he carried when he saw her leave their building, again, was for Ruby. He followed Genevieve to protect his daughter.
But trying to help her came with an attitude of massive proportions. She should have been grateful that he was looking after her, keeping her safe. But no. She was pissed and couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer a single fucking question.
As he approached the alleyway where he had his ass handed to him, a man in a black hoodie stepped out in front of his car from the shadowy wayside. James slammed on his brakes and honked his horn, stopping only inches from the man in the middle of the road. Despite looking directly at James, he couldn’t see the man's shadow-cloaked face, only felt his stare boring into him.
An icy chill coursed through James as intuition kicked in, and his gut said to stay right where he was. He sensed trouble, which was common in that part of town. With a swift movement, the man slammed his hands on the hood of James’s car before continuing to the other side of the street.
This was why Genevieve needed to stay away. It wasn’t safe. The nightlife was unpredictable. And God forbid she track any of this home with her and put all of them at risk. She knew better. Something was terribly wrong – he could feel it.
3
Genevieve made it back to the Elite Building before James. She was surprised to see he wasn’t there as she halfway expected him to break every law necessary to catch up and tail her home. As straitlaced as James was, he would bend his own rules to get what he wanted – or get the information he wanted.
Just because she left him in that dark alley didn’t mean their conversation was over. If anything, it was just the beginning because he was determined. Like his brothers, he was a protector, especially since he lost his wife. He wouldn’t stop until he knew what she was up to.
Too bad she didn’t have answers or know what was going on or how to explain it. All she had to go on were a few cryptic messages. If not for James, she’d likely have the answers he was searching for. She didn’t know any more than he did at the moment. She had her suspicions about who was looking for her, threatening her. Someone she thought was long since dead.
Her past was rising from the grave, and it scared the shit out of her. More for the people she cared about than for herself. It wouldn’t be easy to keep her suspicions from him, but she couldn't share anything until she knew what she was facing. It was too dangerous otherwise. He said he didn’t care, but he did – for his family and for his daughter, if not her. James wasn’t going to stop, which meant she needed to play the game harder.
He’d been watching her, which was code for cyberstalking. She too was a hacker and knew how this worked. She also knew how he operated. Getting to her office was priority one so she could better hide her personal accounts behind layers and layers of coding so he couldn’t unravel them. Once James returned home, Genevieve knew he would start digging into her life, looking for the answers she refused to share. He’d find the messages and unleash Elite Force on the p
erson behind them. But this was her battle. She couldn’t let them in until she knew what was threatening to land on their doorstep.
The elevator from the secure parking garage stopped at her floor, which she shared with James and his daughter. The Elite Building was one of the biggest buildings in Santa Marina’s oceanfront community, and while the ground level with street access housed businesses, the upper levels were mostly used for Elite Force Security – the Force brothers’ high-end security firm.
The Elite Building was named appropriately given the top-notch, state-of-the-art, technology-based security that protected it and those within. It rivaled any government or even super max prison – a regular Fort Knox – hence elite. It was there, but it wasn’t. It looked like a regular building with street-access retail and living quarters for several floors above in the middle of a thriving urban community, but it was more than that. It was unsuspecting, surrounded by urban lifestyle and the hustle and bustle of beach life, allowing them to hide their operation in plain sight.
Elite Force Security provided everything from personal security to cybersecurity for the rich and powerful, including off-grid federal agencies who held the largest contract of all. They were hiding in plain sight, didn’t advertise, weren’t publicly discussed or acknowledged, but those who needed them knew where to find them. What or who they protected, or hunted, was limitless.
As she stepped off the elevator, her phone buzzed, stopping her in her tracks. Genevieve closed her eyes and took a deep breath, anticipating the message and its sender. She wasn’t able to follow through and meet him – if it was him. James had interfered, and she bolted before anything could happen. It was back to hurry up and wait for the next message – if there was one. Hopefully, it wasn’t too late.
A brief sense of relief washed over her when she saw that it was only Ruby, but that relief quickly became concern when she read, Help, I need you. It had happened. He made good on his promise, somehow gaining access to the building and locating Ruby. Genevieve's past had landed on the most vulnerable target of all.