Protected: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella

by Lexi Blake

  “Yes, you can, Master Adam. You can handle anything you like,” Tess said over the speaker system. “You’re the smartest Master in the world.”

  Adam flushed a bright red. “Yeah, I gotta fix that. Come on, man. We’ve got a report for you. Your girl’s ex is a massive douchebag. You need to deal with that.”

  “It’s what I’m trying to do.” It was good to know that Adam could even get in trouble with electronically programmed females. He had to wonder what Hutch could do if he, say, managed to get into Adam’s system and might feel like reprogramming Tess. That could be a fun day.

  He followed Adam into the lushly decorated conference room. Where McKay-Taggart was comfortable but utilitarian, MDWM was luxurious. It was the anti-Ian office. Someone had spent some cash on those chairs. Wade entered, noting the big screen at one end of the conference room and the lovely marble table that dominated the room. Simon and Chelsea were already seated. Jesse and his wife, Phoebe, stood by the coffee bar, speaking quietly to each other. Jake Dean strode in behind Adam.

  “How do you like the spa, Wade?” Jake asked, sliding into a seat at the end of the table. He had a tablet in his hand.

  Spa was a good description. “It’s very soothing. Tess seems to know who she likes.”

  Jake laughed. “Yeah, Serena hasn’t heard her yet. I can’t wait for her to meet Tess.”

  “I’m working on it,” Adam replied, obviously embarrassed.

  “She’s obnoxious.” Phoebe settled in, her husband taking the seat beside her. “She told me I should lose five pounds the other day and questioned the relevance of Hermione in the Harry Potter books. I will take down a bitch over my girl Hermione.”

  “She’s got issues,” Adam admitted.

  “Yes, she loathes everyone except you.” Jesse’s eyes were narrowed on Adam.

  “I wrote a protocol that allows her to grow and find her own style,” Adam explained as he found a seat at the head of the table. “Unfortunately, it turns out Tess is a bit of a misogynist and a little obsessive.”

  “She’s actually a lot like Geneva’s ex.” Chelsea allowed Simon to hold a chair out for her. He couldn’t tell from her slender figure that she was pregnant.

  He wondered how Genny looked when she was pregnant. Even in the last week, she’d started to fill out again, her skin looking less sallow because she was being properly fed. He would bet she’d been skipping meals, preferring to feed her son. She’d had to make that choice because she’d had no money for food.

  He was going to ensure that never happened again. “What have you found out? Brock was convicted of embezzling funds.”

  The team settled in. They specialized in missing persons and aiding the police in crimes where they had clues about a suspect but not the identity of said suspect. Adam Miles had developed a software that could discern the identity of almost anyone it could get a facial profile for.

  Almost being the key word. Wade was aware they’d tried to use the software to identify the group of six men known affectionately as the Lost Boys. Hope McDonald had done an excellent job of erasing the records of the men she’d chosen for her medical tests. She’d wiped their memories and their identities from the face of the earth. He was certain that had to kill Adam. Adam had been so sure he could solve the mystery once he got his facial recognition software updated.

  “Brock Howard the third,” Chelsea said with a grimace. “Even his name sounds terrible. He did a good job living up to it. Phoebe and I have been gathering information about him. I take it you understand he was awful to his wife. From what I’ve found, this was not a happy marriage. It got worse after Brock’s mother died. I think she had some kind of leash on him. When she passed, the incidents got more violent. Not that it’s easy to tell. He was careful about hiding his crimes.”

  “Not careful enough,” Adam added.

  “Genny turned him in,” Wade explained.

  Simon looked down at his files. “Yes, we’ve noted that. She found the proof after her own father died. He was the family business accountant. He knew where all the bodies were buried and yet he never came forward.”

  “I think her father enjoyed the perks of being associated with the town’s wealthiest family.” He’d always known her father hadn’t liked him. Her dad had been very unhappy when they’d started seeing each other. “I know he was at the meeting where they told her how things would go down. Yet he left her a clear path on how to send her husband to jail. I suspect he didn’t realize how bad it would get for her and Ash. I also suspect he wasn’t quite man enough to give up his cushy life to save them, but he was willing to help her out when it wouldn’t cost him.”

  Now that he thought about it, very few people had ever sacrificed to help Genny. She was always the one who had to give something up.

  “I would say that’s probably accurate,” Phoebe replied. “Are you sure you want to go over this?”

  Wade’s whole body tightened. “I know it was rough for her in an abstract sense. I want to hear everything. If I’m going to keep Genny safe, I need to know it all. Even if it hurts.”

  “You care about her? She’s not just another client then?” Simon asked, settling in beside his wife.

  “No, she was my high school girlfriend.” He wasn’t going to lie to anyone about their relationship. “I was planning on marrying her. She was going to join me after boot camp, but I got a Dear John letter explaining that she was leaving me to marry Brock because he could give her a better life. I bought it.”

  Phoebe shuffled through some of her records. “I was curious about that. From what I could find out, she had no interest in him prior to marrying him. Did you know shortly before the wedding, the Howard family bought the loan on your family ranch from the bank? That’s unusual for an individual to buy a loan. Banks sell them to each other all the time, but this was what I would call a highly suspect transaction. Did they do it to gain leverage against Genny?”

  Well, no one could say Phoebe Murdoch didn’t know how to do her job. “Yes, she basically sold herself to the Howards so my family could keep the ranch. I didn’t know it at the time or I would have stopped it. Instead I believed that stupid letter. I didn’t go home for a long time and when I did, I avoided her like the plague. I’m not proud of how I treated her. That’s why I need to make this right. Has Eve worked up a profile?”

  Jesse slid him a file folder. “Here’s a hard copy of Eve’s thoughts. I’ll email you a copy as well.”

  “Already done, Jesse,” Tess said. “I’ve just sent the file to Mr. Rycroft’s work email.”

  Jesse frowned as though he still wasn’t certain he liked having the walls talk to him. Wade was with him on that one. “Uhm, thanks, Tess.”

  “No need for thanks.” The computer’s tone had gone a little husky. “I merely enjoy serving. And might I add, Jesse, your workout this morning proves how much stamina you have…”

  “Tess, sign off now. And stop watching the men’s locker room,” Adam commanded.

  “But the men are pretty,” she said before going silent.

  A horny AI. He should have known that would be what happened when Adam was the man programming.

  “Adam, if you don’t get rid of her, I will,” Phoebe vowed.

  “Sorry,” Adam replied, turning to him. “Now as to Eve’s profile, she’s absolutely certain that he will come back for his wife after he gets out of jail.”

  “I know I’m not a psychologist, but it’s obvious to me that he’s obsessed with her. Eve believes his obsession began in childhood. From what she learned from his records, Genny was his only friend,” Jake said.

  “Because her father worked for the family, they were together a lot when they were kids. I don’t know what he was like when he was a little boy. I knew him as a preteen. By then he’d been shipped off to boarding school. He would only come home for summers,” Wade explained.

  “I managed to talk to some of the students he went to school with.” Chelsea leaned forward. “He attended sever
al boarding schools. He got kicked out a couple of times. Every time he got the boot it was for violence against another student. No one liked him. Most of the people I talked to remembered being afraid of him. They said everyone knew he was vicious, but he would squirm his way out of trouble until someone would bring the administrators undeniable proof. He’s skilled at getting people in authority in his debt.”

  Wade was certain that was something Brock’s momma had taught him. “I didn’t know how many schools he’d gone through. I do know when he would come back for the summers, he tried to get as much of Genny’s attention as he could. She never thought he was dangerous. I don’t think she truly understood that he wanted her the way he did. In her mind they were friends and nothing more. She couldn’t understand that he was twisted.”

  She’d been naïve. He’d been cynical. It had killed their relationship.

  Jake shook his head at something he read in the file in front of him. “Did you know she filed three separate restraining orders between the time they separated and he went to jail? All three were rejected by the county judge.”

  How vulnerable must she have felt? She’d tried to protect herself and her son and she’d been told at least three times that she wasn’t worth saving. “It doesn’t surprise me. The Howards pretty much owned the county until recently. I assure you that judge owed his seat to the family. As well as the mayor and the chief of police. She wouldn’t have had anyone in that town who would have helped her. Not if it meant going up against the Howards. It should be different now that the money is gone.”

  “But it isn’t.” Simon leaned forward. “I believe he’s got several hundred thousand in offshore accounts. They froze his US accounts and seized his assets, but they didn’t find the money his family held outside the US. I suspect Mr. Howard probably feels poor given the fact that he once had millions, but he still has enough to get out of the country and change his identity if he chooses to. And we believe he might have a backup plan.”

  “Backup plan?” He didn’t like the sound of that. At one point he’d thought he could be happy if Brock simply disappeared and left them alone. He was starting to believe that Genny wouldn’t be safe or secure unless her ex was either dead or in jail.

  Chelsea set her half-eaten croissant aside. “We found out some rather disturbing information. Brock took out a five-million-dollar life insurance policy before he was convicted. Now obviously he can’t cash in on that while he’s in jail, but from all accounts he’s been a model prisoner. There’s no way he doesn’t get out in the next few months.”

  “Maybe the next couple of weeks,” Jake added. “The Club Fed he’s at is known for letting white-collar criminals out early for time served and good behavior. He was in jail for a couple of months before he was sentenced. They could take that into consideration.”

  “But he left the country when he wasn’t allowed to leave the damn county.” How was Brock getting every privilege while he was locked up? It wasn’t fair.

  “I’m sure his lawyer will argue that he was only trying to save his business, the one that took care of his family. After all, he came back into the country. He wasn’t trying to flee.” Adam made it all sound reasonable. “The prisons are overcrowded these days. They like to let out nonviolent offenders.”

  “But he is violent.” Not that there was proof. Or maybe there was. “Did you check hospital records?”

  “Medical records are hard,” Adam explained. “I don’t like hacking medical systems unless I absolutely have to. We believe her, right? Because even if there are records, they would likely have notes in them that would describe how she got the injuries. If she’d told the doctors her husband beat her, they would have called the police.”

  So that was a dead end, too. “What do I do? If he’s got a five-million-dollar life insurance policy out on her, I’ve got to expect that he’s going to try to kill her. He’ll want that money. Should I just shoot him on sight?”

  “We’re working with Mitchell.” Phoebe looked at him, sympathy plain in her eyes. “We think we can make a case for a restraining order. We want to bring it to a judge here in Dallas where it’s more likely to stick. If he gets out, we want to have someone meet him and explain that Genny is off limits.”

  “I’d like to be in on that.” He would let Brock know exactly what he intended to do to him in vivid, violent detail.

  “I think that’s a bad idea,” Adam said. “You’re far too close to this and Eve is already worried that once Brock finds out his ex-wife is living with you, he could lose it. It could be what she calls an inciting incident. Read the file. While he’s obsessed with his wife, he also hates you.”

  “We had bad blood as kids. It doesn’t surprise me he would hold on to a grudge. I’ll stay away, but if he comes close to her, you have to know I’m going to deal with the situation,” Wade vowed.

  “And if we have a restraining order in place, you’ll have legal validation to do what you need to do.” Jake’s eyes had gone hard. “I know where you are. Adam and I had to deal with Serena’s ex. We’ll back you, but give us some time to set this up the right way. No one has to go to jail. I firmly believe no matter what we do, this man is going to come after her and you’ll be there. When he’s six feet under, she won’t have to worry anymore.”

  Wade nodded, pushing back from the table, the profile in his hand. “Thank you for everything. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

  Phoebe gave him a smile. “No problem. You’re kind of our first client. Most of them run when Tess starts in on them. We really need a human receptionist.”

  Chelsea stood. She’d gone a little green. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to do my morning purge. It comes before my afternoon and evening purges. I hate pregnancy. This is barbaric.”

  She ran out of the room.

  “I’ll go and let her yell at me for a while. It makes her feel better.” Simon followed his wife.

  “Oh, and you were wrong about one thing.” Jesse was looking down at the file in front of him. “The insurance policy isn’t on Genny. It’s on her son.”

  Now he knew how Chelsea felt. A five-million-dollar policy on Ash? Brock was planning on killing his own son for cash? “I’ll make sure he never collects.”

  He walked out of the office trying to keep control of his temper.

  Chapter Six

  “Hello, new girl. I hope you’re here longer than the last one.” An attractive young man stood over her desk, his arms on the top of her cubicle. “She seemed nice, but I could tell she wasn’t going to pass Big Tag’s new Phoebe protocols. I’m Hutch, by the way. Greg Hutchins, but no one calls me Greg. It was my father’s name. He turned out to be a horrific douchebag, therefore I go by Hutch.”

  “My dad helped his boss embezzle tons of cash.” Why had she said that?

  Hutch nodded. “Cool. You’re competitive. That’s going to work in your favor. I can play this game, new girl. When I got bad grades, Dad would put me on bread and water for three to five days, depending on how bad the grade was. I was in elementary school.”

  Damn. But still… “My dad sold me off to an abusive asshole.”

  “I ran away from my super-cold stepmom at the age of sixteen,” Hutch admitted. “She refused to acknowledge my existence when I got in trouble. In her defense, I had been arrested at the time. In the end, she signed away legal rights and gave me up to the Agency.”

  “At least you had a job,” she shot back. “I had to sleep with my asshole. Were you forced to sleep with your captors?”

  He frowned. “Nah, Ten didn’t swing that way, but he did make me run laps. Want some licorice? Pops never let me have sugar so now I’m kind of addicted.”

  “I didn’t get sugar or fat or soda. I don’t suppose you have any chocolate.” She wasn’t a big licorice fan.

  He huffed. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t be caught dead without chocolate. Maybe you want a kiss.”

  His voice had gone deep on the last sentence. Was he flirting with
her? She was fairly certain he was younger than she was. “I think I’ll pass on the kiss.” And she caught on to the joke. “Unless it’s covered in foil. I’ll take two of those and an explanation of who Phoebe was and why I’ve been punished because of her all day.”

  Hutch nodded. “Phoebe was a CIA operative who worked here at McKay-Taggart for years undercover.”

  She could totally understand that. “Because the CIA wanted to make sure Mr. Taggart wasn’t some kind of nut job serial killer? I could believe that.”

  He chuckled, a low sound that made her definitely think he was flirting. “Nah, though I’m pretty sure at one point in Tag’s life, murder was on his list of hobbies. He tries not to kill anyone around his kids. Phoebe was here to watch and report on the company itself, but Jesse Murdoch in particular. Big Tag finds out she’s not what she seemed, calls Ten who was her CIA handler and says he’s going to take care of it. What Big Tag doesn’t know is Phoebe was Ten’s sister and Ten flipped his shit. I know because I was CIA at the time and got to see said shit flipping. Needless to say he used some words I don’t think anyone should use, especially not when they’re said with a slow Southern accent. We end up raiding the office, and who would have guessed that they were having a baby shower. Yeah, we pointed the big guns at babies. Not my proudest moment. That’s why you’re going to catch hell. Big Tag’s got it in his head that the Agency is going to try to plant another operative, and if he’s obnoxious enough he can figure out who it is.”

  “I’m not a CIA agent.”

  “That’s exactly what you would say if you were a CIA agent. I should know. I took the training classes. Rule number one is to say you are definitely not a CIA agent.”

  She had to laugh at that. She turned and fed another document into the scanner. “Okay. How do I prove to him I’m not here to spy?”