Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  We got to the second floor and started walking to the car. There was someone standing near Jason’s car; at first I thought the person was just getting into the car next to his, but then I realized with a start that it was the guy we’d seen on our way out, the one who had been leering at us and smoking. I wasn’t sure if Jason had noticed him that first time around, but he didn’t seem to recognize him now.

  “Hey,” I started to whisper, but the guy had seen us by then and started walking toward us. There were two other men with him.

  “Are you Jason Armstrong?” the guy asked. Aside from seeing him earlier, he did not look familiar, but one of the other guys with him did, though I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before. Was he someone I’d passed on the street or seen in a café? Possibly, though I felt pretty sure it was something more than that. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, all good feelings dissolving into the cool night air.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” Jason said. “And you are...?”

  The guy smiled. “Great,” he said. “We’ve been looking for you. My name’s—” He had his right hand extended like he was going to offer it for a handshake. Right before he reached Jason though, he jerked it back, pulling his left hand out of his pocket. There was a bright flash of something on his hand, across his knuckles, and before I could really register what was happening, he had slammed his fist into Jason’s torso, doubling him over. I ran forward but only made it a few steps before the familiar-looking guy grabbed me, yanking my arms back.

  “You stay out of this,” he said. “Unless you want to end up like your man, there, you just stand here and keep quiet.”

  But I couldn’t keep quiet because the guy and his friend were hurting Jason, even though he was doing the best he could to fight back. Blood was already flowing down the side of his face and the guy kept hitting him with his left hand, his knuckles encased in that metal armor.

  “Let me go!” I screamed, yanking my arms out of the guy’s grasp. It was easier to do than I thought it would be, and that’s when I realized he’d been holding my wrists with only one hand because the other was holding his phone, filming the fight.

  I grabbed the phone out of his hand, and when he lunged for me, I swung out and hit him with it, catching him right on the nose. His phone was in some sort of metal casing, feeling solid and sleek in my hand, and I was pretty certain I’d felt the cartilage in his nose shatter. He screamed, his hands going to his nose, blood spurting from between his splayed fingers as he fell to his knees. The other two didn’t seem to realize what was happening; they were too focused on Jason, who was on the ground now.

  “Just lie there and take it like a good little bitch!” one of the guys shouted.

  “If you do, maybe we won’t kill you.”

  “Or maybe we will.”

  They both laughed, a sickening sound that was more like a growl.

  Fear flooded my body, but I had to do something.

  There was no way I’d be able to take those two guys on. One of them, maybe, if I got lucky and was able to keep the element of surprise, but with the two of them, that would be all but impossible. None of that mattered, though. I wasn’t just going to stand there and let Jason continue to take a beating like that, even if it meant I’d end up getting my ass kicked, too. Their backs were still to me, so I dropped the phone and grabbed a piece of concrete from the pile I’d seen when we were leaving the parking garage on our way to the show. It was about the size of a grapefruit, but jagged in places. I knew that I had to do this without overthinking it, without hesitating. I had to hit that guy in the head and hopefully at least stun him, and then try to hit the other guy, too, before he realized what was happening. Jason’s arms were up, trying to protect himself from the blows and kicks raining down, but he wasn’t fighting back anymore, and I didn’t know how much longer it would be before he wasn’t even able to do that.

  I clenched my hand around the piece of concrete and ran forward, my eyes on the back of the guy’s head, the one with the brass knuckles on. I’d hit him right on the back of the head, knock him over. I was maybe eight or ten feet away, so I closed the distance quickly, but in the last second he moved, because Jason tried to roll away, so when I struck him, it was lower, not in the back of the head but the back of the neck, and he dropped instantaneously.

  Everything got very still.

  The force that I had hit him with had knocked the concrete out of my hand, and it lay next to the guy, whose eyes and mouth were wide open as he stared up at the ceiling of the parking garage, blinking furiously. His chest heaved.

  “I can’t feel anything,” he gasped. “What the hell is happening—I can’t feel anything!”

  Jason was slowly pushing himself up to a sitting position, though when he saw me he forced himself to his feet and came over, swaying slightly, his face already swelling from the bruises and contusions.

  The guy’s phone that I’d tossed was a few feet away; I turned and grabbed it. It was still recording, though most of what it had been recording was the ceiling. I tapped the phone app and called 911, my hands shaking.

  “I need to sit down,” Jason said, his knees giving out.

  “We need an ambulance,” I said to the dispatcher. “Maybe two. There’s been... there was an altercation.”

  I gave her the address and she said both the police and ambulance would be on their way.

  I knelt down next to Jason. “An ambulance is on its way,” I said, looking at his face. He had a three-inch laceration right under his cheekbone that would probably need stitches, and his left eye was almost swollen shut. His lip was cut, the bridge of his nose skinned, and blood dripped from a wound on his head that was hidden by his hair.

  “I don’t need to go to hospital,” he said, though when he tried to move he winced, clutching at his side. “I think I’ve got a couple of cracked ribs.”

  “Then I think you do need to go to hospital.”

  “There’s not much they can do for cracked ribs.”

  The third guy in the group was just standing there, looking from his friend on the ground to the other guy with the broken nose, who had since stopped shrieking and was sitting there, a dazed expression on his face.

  “Max,” the third guy said, “where are the keys? We gotta bounce, man.”

  “I can’t feel my legs!” the guy on the ground shouted.

  And then I remembered where I knew the guy from—Max. He had been at Oddlands that first time that Jason and I had gone there, the one the woman had blamed for not locking the door. I went over to him.

  “Lucas Oddland sent you, didn’t he?” I said, looking down at him.

  He tilted his head back so he could meet my gaze, wincing. “Yes.” His voice sounded congested, like he was plugging his nose when he spoke. “Because that guy you’re with almost killed him. He’s my father, you know.”

  I bit my lip, resisting the urge to say I’m sorry. “Well, your father almost killed me. And that is the only reason Jason went after him like that. Who are these two? Your brothers?”

  “No,” Max said, almost scoffing. “Just some guys who work for my dad.”

  “Because it’s starting to seem like this is something that could go on and on until something really bad happens. And I don’t want that. I have a feeling your father probably doesn’t want that either—he probably wants to be able to get back to hosting his nasty little sex parties and filming porn. Right?”

  Max shrugged. “Probably,” he mumbled.

  “I’m sure your nose hurts, but I bet you’ll heal pretty quickly.” I held his phone up. “It all happens to be on video—which you know, since you were the one recording. It would be pretty bad to upload a video to YouTube of you getting your face smashed in with your own phone... by a girl, and all.”

  He blinked. “It didn’t record that.”

  “Sure, it did. Might not be the best picture, of course, but there’s definitely plenty of audio. People love that sort of thing. And when there’s no cle
ar picture, it leaves things wide open for some serious speculation. Which I’m sure your dad knows about, considering he’s so into making porn and everything.”

  “I don’t have much to do with that part,” Max said.

  “You have any sway with your father?”

  “Some.”

  “Then tell him to just drop it. I don’t want to have to be worried about running into his henchmen again, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to have to worry about what we might do to him. ’Cause I know he must think he’s the big badass and everything, but things didn’t work out so well for him in this situation. I already sent the video to myself, so even if you try to take the phone from me, it doesn’t matter.” This was a lie, but I had a feeling he’d fall for it.

  I didn’t have time to say anything else to him, though, because a police cruiser rolled in, followed by another one. In the distance, I could hear the blare of a siren. Suddenly, it seemed the police officers were everywhere, quickly assessing the scene, trying to figure out just what had happened.

  One of the officers talked with Max and the other guy; the second officer talked with Jason and me. The paramedics showed up not long after that and immediately began tending to the guy on the ground.

  “I was the one who hit him,” I said.

  I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but I was pretty certain the officer gave me a skeptical look as he glanced over at the guy, now with a neck brace on, about to be put onto the backboard.

  “I thought he was going to kill my boyfriend,” I said. I gestured to Jason, who was sitting down, talking with one of the paramedics. “They must’ve followed us here, or seen us or something, because we were coming back to the car and one of them asked my boyfriend who he was, which Jason told him, and then he acted like he was going to come over and try to shake his hand, but then he started punching him. And he had those brass knuckle things on his hand. The other guy was helping him, and then Max, that guy over there, he was trying to keep me back.”

  The officer turned and glanced at Max. “So did you do that to his face, too?”

  “Yes. But again, only because he wouldn’t let me go. He was holding my hands back and trying to keep me from going over there. I’m not a violent person, by any means. I couldn’t just stand there, though, and let them do what they were doing. I really thought they were going to kill him.”

  “Do you have any guesses as to why they would want to do that?”

  “It’s because the guy they work for—well, Max’s dad—attacked me, and Jason happened to show up at the right time and stepped in.”

  “You never reported that?”

  “No. I just... I’ve had a lot going on recently. My sister was missing and I’d been trying to find her, and it was taking me some places that I probably shouldn’t have gone, I realize now. I mean, I never would have stepped into a place like Oddlands if I hadn’t been looking for my sister.”

  The cop made a face. “Oh, Lucas Oddland?” he said.

  “You know him?”

  “There’s been a few incidents there. Nothing related to him directly, but, yeah, I know what you mean.” Now he looked at me more closely. “Your sister that girl on the flyers someone put up all over the place?”

  “Yeah. Isa. She’s been found, so I guess I should go take those down.” They were loading the guy into the back of the ambulance, and I watched as they slid him in then shut the doors, red and white lights flashing.

  The police officer went over and talked with one of the other officers, the one who had been speaking with Max. I went over to Jason, who was resisting being put onto a stretcher.

  “You’ve just suffered significant trauma,” one of the paramedics was saying. “And if we’re going to transport you to the hospital, you do need to be on the stretcher.”

  Jason looked as if he were going to put up a fight, but then he looked at me and he nodded. “Okay, fine,” he said.

  “Do you want me to come with you, or should I bring the car?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you bring the car? I don’t think anything is life-threatening.”

  He dug the keys out of his pocket and handed them to me. I leaned down and gave him a kiss on his cheek, tasting coppery blood on my lips.

  “I think the police officer might want to talk with me a little more,” I said. “But I’ll be there soon. Which hospital are you going to?” I asked one of the paramedics.

  “UCSF,” he said.

  I watched as they loaded Jason into the ambulance. When I turned, the officer I’d been talking to previously was there.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “What was your name?”

  “Emmeline Bender.”

  “The gentleman you hit in the face with the phone has corroborated your story. He mentioned there was a cell phone? His phone, he said?”

  “Yes.” I held it out to him. “It’s Max’s. He was filming the whole thing. He wasn’t involved in the altercation part. I grabbed the phone from him and hit him with it, but the camera kept filming, so you should at least be able to hear what’s happening.”

  I gave the officer my contact info. “We’re not going to bring you in,” he said. “Though we will be in touch if we need more information. Someone will be heading over to the hospital to talk to Mr. Harden.”

  “Mr. Harden?”

  “The man you hit.” He paused, and I was pretty sure the tiniest of smiles flickered across his face. “The second man you hit, I should say. But it would appear that was done in self-defense. Mr. Harden’s a known name around the force. He’s no stranger. Usually it’s him taking people down, though. But we will be in touch if we’ve got any more questions.”

  “So I can go?”

  “You can go. Drive safely.”

  My hands shook a little once I was in the car, trying to get the key into the ignition. I had to move the seat way forward. Once I was going, though, I let out a deep breath, tried to get my shoulders to relax a little; they felt like they were up near my ears. I kept seeing images of Jason on the ground, getting punched and kicked, over and over again; then relived the way it had felt when I’d grabbed the piece of concrete and hit the guy, how he’d dropped immediately.

  I thought about what Jason had said when we’d been walking to the show: Everything that happened with your sister... it’s behind us now. And I had believed that, had even repeated it to myself, had felt better because of it—yet it wasn’t true at all. Lucas Oddland had sent his henchmen after Jason because of what he’d done, which had only happened because Isa had disappeared. I hoped that it would be over now, that it wouldn’t continue on in a never-ending cycle of retaliation until someone ended up dead. I didn’t think that would be the case, though. I felt pretty certain that now it really was all behind us.

  ***

  I sat in the waiting room at UCSF while Jason was being examined by the doctor. There were maybe half a dozen other people there, no one making eye contact, most glued to their phones, though one guy was watching the CNN broadcast on the TV hanging up in the corner. As I sat there, I kept replaying the scene of our attack over and over in my head, particularly the part with Max Oddland. The girl who had smashed his face with his phone, who had told him she’d upload the video to YouTube if he didn’t convince his father to just let this whole thing go—that didn’t seem like something I would do, yet I had. And in a way, I almost felt as if I’d been channeling my sister—she would certainly have no problem at all doing anything like that. But me? No.

  I got up and walked down the hallway to the exit and stepped outside. Everything was quiet, much of the city asleep. I dug my phone out of my purse and called Isa. It rang several times and then went to voicemail, but instead of hanging up, I told her everything that had just happened.

  Chapter 27

  Jason

  “You’re sure this is okay?”

  Emmy had a skeptical look on her face as she regarded me, lying in my bed, propped up with some pillows. I wasn’t comfortable, per se, but it was the bes
t it was going to be, at least for tonight. We’d just gotten back from the hospital because I’d declined their offer for an overnight stay.

  “Much better than where I just was. Come here.”

  The skeptical look returned. “Next to you?”

  “Yes, please.” I held one arm out to her. “Curl up right here.”

  “But... is that okay? I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I’m a little banged up, sure. But you can still lie next to me.”

  She gingerly maneuvered herself alongside me, taking care not to jostle me, though it was still a bit painful.

  “This okay?” she asked softly.

  Just having her close to me was all the salve that I needed. “Yes,” I breathed. “It’s wonderful.”

  “I feel guilty,” she said. “I feel like this is all my fault, you getting hurt like this. If I hadn’t gone back there to talk with Lucas Oddland myself... they wouldn’t have done this to you.”

  “Please don’t blame yourself,” I said. “Knowing you feel that way is just going to make me feel worse. And, honestly, Emmy? I’d endure a lifetime of beatings if it meant I got to be with you.” And I absolutely meant it. My whole body ached—just drawing in a breath was excruciating—but she was worth it. I turned my face and we kissed, and that kiss melted away every bad feeling coursing through me.

  She was worth it.

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter 1

  Cole

  It was almost like being back in high school again, the way I kept checking the clock. Except instead of an analog wall clock with a second hand that seemed to move slower with each passing moment, I was instead tilting my phone up just enough so the screen would turn on and I could get an update on the agonizingly slow progress of numbers.

  This was not the countdown until school got out and the weekend could officially begin, though—almost a decade and a half had passed since my senior year, which was something I still sometimes had a hard time believing. Here I was, a grown man, out in the world, trying to be an adult the best I could, still counting down the minutes until I was free to leave to get the real party started.