Watching From The Shadows: Trident Security Book 5

by Samantha A. Cole

  Taking his ID back from the armed guard at the gate, Darius Knight followed the man’s instructions to pass through the second gate and park his convertible next to the building which housed Trident Security. He had been here twice already during the Omega team’s selection process, and today was his first official day on the job. He’d been thrilled to be hired by Ian and Devon Sawyer, having been on SEAL Team Four with them for a year before both men retired to the private sector. Now five years later, he was looking forward to, once again, working with the six former SEALs who made up the original Trident team.

  He was supposed to have been here earlier in the day, but Ian’s secretary had called and advised him the boss was going to be delayed and Darius should arrive at noon to meet the others on his team. Climbing out of the vehicle, he stretched while taking in the surrounding compound. His buddies had done a great job with the facility, having recently added an obstacle course similar to the SEALs’ O-course, a helipad, and a training building. An outdoor ‘Hogan’s Alley’, otherwise known as a shooting gallery, had been erected using false store fronts with pop-up targets and bad guys. Instead of live guns and ammo, it utilized laser weapons, which allegedly felt, sounded, and responded like the real thing, and he couldn’t wait to try them out. The high-tech toys had been obtained under a prototype trial through one of Trident’s government contracts. The fictional town set-up sat next to the training building on the south side of the property while the helipad and O-course were on the north end.

  From what he could see, Brody ‘Egghead’ Evans had worked his magic with the compound’s security system, and a ‘tango’, or bad guy, would be nuts to try to gain entry. As far as Darius knew, two attempts on the lives of the team members and their women had been thwarted, thanks to what some people might call extreme security measures resulting from paranoia. But in their business, paranoia was usually based on reality.

  Striding toward the entrance to the offices, he froze when a large, black lab/pit mix came running full speed around the corner of the building on a mission, before sliding to a stop in front of him. The dog had been introduced to him during both his previous visits, but knowing it was a trained guard dog had him wary. He relaxed when the canine dropped a hard-rubber ball covered in slobber at his feet and looked up at him expectantly, its tail wagging furiously. “Beau, isn’t it?”

  The dog woofed in response to his name as he sat down, his rear end still twitching.

  “I thought you were supposed to be a bad-ass dog who only understands German.” He picked up the ball while Beau’s eyes tracked it in anticipation. “Look, I have no problem playing fetch with you, but next time, can you put on the brakes a little sooner and not two feet away from me? I thought you were about to take me down.”

  “Woof.”

  Darius chuckled. With the dog’s markings, it looked like he had a permanent smile and it was infectious. “All right. You only get one throw now, otherwise I’ll be late. But you can hit me up for a game of fetch later. Agreed?”

  “Woof.”

  Rearing back, he threw the ball toward the far west end of the compound with the dog hauling ass after it. Shaking his head, he started for the offices again. Inside, he reintroduced himself to the company secretary, Colleen McKinley. The petite blonde was a pretty woman, with luscious curves, and obviously engaged with a huge diamond ring on her tiny hand. That was probably a good thing since, although she was the typical girl-next-door he was normally attracted to, he’d be stupid to get involved with a Trident employee. He didn’t play in the same sandbox where he worked.

  “Hi, Darius. Nice to see you again. Welcome aboard.” Smiling, she handed him a large brown envelope. “In there is your ID, insurance paperwork, tax forms for the payroll, computer passwords, which you’ll need to change after signing in the first time, and a few other papers you need. Later, Brody will get your handprint scanned into the system, so you can access any locked area in the compound. If you have a seat in the conference room over there, Ian will be with you in a moment. Can I get you some coffee from the break room?”

  He grinned—the woman was damn efficient. “Thanks, but I can get it myself if you point the way.”

  “Sure. Down the hall, last door on the right.”

  After helping himself to a fresh cup of gourmet coffee from company’s Keurig machine, he wandered back to the conference room and took a seat. But he immediately stood again when two men and a woman entered the room, with the lead being his old teammate and new boss.

  “Hey, Batman.” Ian held out his hand and when Darius took it, pulled him into a man-hug, slapping him on the back a few times. “Glad to finally have you on board. Did you get settled in Reverend’s condo?”

  “Yeah. Since Jake left most of it furnished, I put my stuff in storage for now. I’ll have to thank him again for renting it to me.”

  “When he’s in town, he stays here in Nick’s place now, so he was glad to rent it to someone he knew.” Stepping away again, Ian gestured to the man who’d been standing behind him. “Darius Knight, Navy SEALs, this is one of your new teammates, Valentino Mancini, call sign ‘Romeo’, Army SF and FBI HRT.”

  Darius was impressed with the credentials—Special Forces, and then a gig with the Fed’s Hostage Rescue Team. He shook the tall, dark-haired man’s hand, and then turned to the woman who Ian introduced next. “And this is one of our new snipers, Lindsey Abbott, Marines, call sign ‘Costello’. She’ll be training with your team for a bit, before starting assignments with mine. She’ll be filling in for Reverend while he’s getting the west coast team up and running.”

  Holding out his hand, Darius gave her a nod. “Nice to meet you.”

  The brunette was about six inches shorter than his own height of six-foot-two, but her military training was noticeable with her straight spine, shoulders back, head up, and eyes directly focused on his. She shook his hand and smiled, which lit up her face. “Same here. Why Batman?”

  It was obvious to him how the others probably got their call signs. Abbott was ‘Costello’ from the old comedy duo, and Valentino had most likely gotten ‘Romeo’ due to his name being close to Valentine. However, Darius’s was a little more obscure, but just as amusing. “Stuck from basic training. Darius Knight…D. Knight…Dark Knight…Batman. My RDC—Recruit Division Commander—was a big fan of the movie.”

  The others laughed, then took seats at the table with Ian at the head. “Two of your teammates have been training with us for a few months while we’ve been waiting for you all to retire from your various careers. Cain Foster, Secret Service, and Tristan McCabe, also Army SF, have gone on a few assignments with us, but will begin training with you this week. We’ll be running you through your paces, so you can figure out each other’s weaknesses and strengths. You’ve all trained in teams before, so I don’t foresee any issues there. The rest of your team will be arriving next month and that’s when all bets will be off. We’re going to be dropping you off in the wilderness somewhere until you know each other inside and out. We also have a new helicopter pilot, Tempest VanBuren, who will be reporting in a few weeks. The bird we purchased was flown in last week and will be available as soon as she inspects and clears it. In the meantime, an unexpected situation involving Marco DeAngelis has cropped up and that will take precedent over the next few days until we know more.” Eyeing Mancini and Abbott, he added, “I believe you both met him already.”

  As they both nodded, Darius raised his brow. Although time and distance had come between them, he still knew DeAngelis pretty well and he couldn’t think of what trouble the straight-up guy might be in. “What’s going on with Polo?”

  Running a hand down his face, Ian sighed. “I usually don’t go dropping personal shit on newbies or contract agents, but you’ll need to know since we’re going to be using you all on guard duty. Marco just found out he’s a father to an infant. The mother, Harper Williams, is a longtime acquaintance of his and he had no clue about all this before yesterday, but that’s betwe
en them. I’m staying out of that part of it. Anyway, Harper was assaulted during a home invasion two nights ago. She’s getting out of the hospital today and will need guarding until we find out if this was a random attack or not. The baby is with Harper’s mother, at the moment, and that’s where McCabe is right now with one of our regular bodyguards. Foster is with Boomer and Marco on Harper. We’ll be rotating shifts between both teams as well as a few contract agents from Blackhawk Security—”

  “Ian? Sorry to interrupt…”

  The boss didn’t seem bothered by the secretary’s intruding on the meeting from where she stood in the doorway, especially when it was clear from her wide eyes and frown that something was wrong. “What is it, Colleen?”

  “Cain is on the phone. They’re at Harper’s house and he says it’s an emergency.”

  Grabbing the cordless handset from the land-line phone in front of him, Ian stabbed the button for the blinking light. “Sit-rep.”

  This couldn’t be good, because whatever was said over the line had the usually stoic man’s blood draining from his face. His voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Oh, shit.”

  * * *

  Thrilled to finally be discharged from the hospital, Harper climbed into the passenger seat of Marco’s truck. As much as she wanted to see Mara, she needed to see what was going on at her house first. She was sure she would have to clean up her office, bedroom, and foyer, between whatever the intruder had done, and what the police had to do during their investigation.

  She still couldn’t remember the attack or even arriving home that night. The last thing she could recall was leaving the restaurant with her secretary, Joanie, and paralegal, Monica, and stopping at the supermarket for the diapers. After that, everything was a blank until she woke up in the hospital with Marco watching over her. The doctors warned she may never remember what happened and not to get discouraged over it. The less she tried to force the memory, the better chance she had of it popping into her brain again. While her nausea was gone and her dizziness was under control as long as she didn’t move too fast, she still had a pounding headache. Her neck and back were also stiff, causing her more discomfort. The doctor said that should all disappear after another day or two, and would only allow her to have acetaminophen for the pain, which wasn’t making much of a difference.

  The police still didn’t have any leads on her attacker, and as a result, she was stuck with Marco being attached to her hip for the next few days. He’d told her he would be sleeping in her spare bedroom until they determined she wasn’t in any further danger. If it had just been her, she would have outright refused, but she couldn’t take a chance with her mother and daughter’s lives. She believed Marco was telling her the truth about not knowing about Mara, but then the big question was, who sent her that letter all those months ago and why?

  “Did you find out why your phone was unavailable to me?”

  Marco pulled into traffic with Boomer and Foster in a truck behind them. “Yeah. I spoke to Devon earlier. Someone called Trident’s cell provider, claiming to be me and put a block of your home, cell, and office numbers on my cell about two months after Nina’s funeral. Apparently, ‘I’ reported you were harassing me with phone calls. Devil Dog had them check the rest of the team’s phones and it was the same deal, so you couldn’t contact any of them.”

  This was crazy. “Who the hell would’ve done that? And then send me that damn letter?”

  “I don’t know, but when we find out who the bastard is, I’m going to put a serious hurt on him. It could be anyone who has a grudge against me and that list is pretty long with all the missions we’ve been on. Or it could be someone screwing with you. With your connections to Friends of Patty and being a lawyer specializing in divorces and family court, your list is pretty long, too.”

  It was. Over the past few years, she had helped about two dozen women start their lives over with new identities. Most of them had very little family and few friends after their husbands or boyfriends had isolated them during the never ending cycle of abuse, so it was rare to have a missing person report filed. Usually, the abusers gave up looking after a while and moved on to another poor soul, who would fall victim to their initial false charm, designed to draw them in. The women who had disappeared hadn’t been from Pinellas County only. Friends of Patty had contacts all over the state and country from coast to coast. There had been women leaving Florida for parts unknown to Harper, and others moving into the state to start a new life.

  It wasn’t long before Marco pulled into her driveway and parked next to the garage. Her keys were in her purse, which was somewhere in the house, but she had memorized the code to open her garage door. Her wallet apparently had been missing, so with her mother’s help yesterday, she’d canceled all her credit and debit cards, along with the few checks which had been left in there. The police had told her they hadn’t been able to find her cell phone either and she reported the theft to her provider, which was supposed to be overnighting a new one to her. A quick glance at her front porch showed it was empty of packages, so it hadn’t come yet. Marco exited the vehicle and came around to help her out. While they still had a lot of issues to iron out between them, she knew him well enough to know he genuinely wanted to take care of her. It was in his nature, which was probably why he was a Dom in the BDSM community. It wasn’t something they had ever talked about, but Nina had told Harper years ago that her brother admitted to being a Dominant. And, thankfully, her friend hadn’t told Marco about Harper being a submissive in the lifestyle.

  Stopping at the garage’s keypad, she punched in her code and the overhead door began to slide upward. After it was halfway up, they ducked underneath and strode to the inside door, where she hit the button to close the door again. She was surprised to see a new security panel on the wall where the old one had been. “Who put that in? Brody?”

  “Yeah,” he answered while entering a six-digit number Brody had texted him earlier, which resulted in the red light going out, indicating the system was now unarmed. “Egghead and Boomer did some upgrades and installed a few cameras. I’ll show you how to work everything after you check to see what’s missing.”

  He held the door open for her and after she stepped into the hallway, she decided to go grab her mail and started for the foyer. She needed to do something normal, before the fear of what could’ve happened took over and sent her into a panic attack.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Where are you going?” Marco asked as he closed the door to the garage and tossed his car keys on a hallway table.

  “I need to get my mail.”

  Taking hold of her arm, he stopped her in her tracks. “I’ll get it.”

  She rolled her eyes and, once again, he fought the impulse to reprimand her. She wasn’t his submissive. Hell, she wasn’t anyone’s submissive, although there had been times he wished she was. Since their one night together, dreams of playing with Harper had been a regular occurrence which, thankfully, had faded a little with time. Until last night. He’d had one hell of an erotic dream about her which had made him take matters into his own hand for some relief. Fuck. Don’t think about it.

  “It’s broad daylight, Marco. I highly doubt I have anything to worry about. Besides, despite what everyone thinks, I’m sure it was a random burglar whom I surprised. I don’t have any enemies, and the house and utilities are all in my first name, Millicent, so I’m not easy to locate even if I did.”

  He let go of her arm as the heat of her soft skin started to burn his fingers. Damn, the electricity between them was still there after all this time. “Yeah, about that. What’s with the first name and why don’t you use it? As far as I know, you’ve always been Harper.”

  “I have always gone by Harper. Millicent was my grandmother’s name and she died a few months before I was born. My father’s family was big on naming their kids after other family members, especially right after someone died, so he insisted that my first name be Millicent. My mother only agreed to it being my
legal name as long as they called me by my middle name.”

  Chuckling, he turned toward the door. “Well, if it helps, you look more like a Harper than a Millie or Millicent.”

  A sweet smile spread across her face for the first time since he’d been reunited with her. “And I thank my mother for that every time I have to put my legal name down somewhere.”

  “Why don’t you go see if anything looks like it’s missing while I get the mail?”

  She glanced around. “Who cleaned up? From what everyone told me, I figured it would be a mess.”

  “Kristen, Jenn, Angie, and Kat did it last night after the police released the crime scene. They came with Brody and Boomer because they didn’t want you to come home to a mess. Kristen said they put a lot of things in boxes and bags in your office for you to sort through. They were afraid to throw anything out, in case it was important or sentimental.”

  Reaching the new security panel in the foyer, Marco punched in the same six-digit code from the garage, then unlocked and opened the front door. A quick inspection of the front property told him nothing seemed to be amiss and Boomer’s truck was parked across the street, where he and Foster would be keeping an eye on things until their relief showed up. Taking a step out onto the wooden porch, he froze when a faint click, which was very out of place, reached his ears.

  Holy shit! Please, Lord, don’t let that be what I think it is.

  Eyeing the long driveway, he realized his teammates were too far away to hear him if he shouted and he couldn’t take the chance of retrieving his cell from his pocket. Using all his strength and will to keep perfectly still and not shift his weight, he called out, “Harper?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you come here for a minute?” he asked through a clenched jaw. Her footsteps announced her reentry to the foyer. “Stop right there and don’t come any closer. I need you to call Boomer’s cell phone and tell him I need him.”

  “What—”