Jackal of All Trades (The Wild Operatives: MacArthur Security Book 1)

by Vivienne Savage

  “Oh, wow. That’s so generous of you.”

  “She’s my best friend and has been with me since the beginning. It’s the least I can do for her, and long overdue.”

  “You’re such a good friend, but…if I may be so bold, are you certain that’s the right idea?”

  No, you fucking may not, I thought, but the words that left my lips were a babbled, “Excuse me?” purely because her audacity ruined my train of thought.

  “Well, you work together. Don’t you enjoy the time apart?”

  The line of questioning made me uneasy. I couldn’t tell if she was just being nosy or actually trying to be helpful. She seemed earnest enough, her expression one of concern.

  “Originally Harper and I talked about being roommates, but now that we’re both involved in relationships, we thought it would get too crowded and awkward.”

  “Oh.” Amanda pushed her glasses up her nose. “Relationships, huh? I heard she and your bassist were spotted together a lot during the tour.”

  “Yeah.” That was all I was going to say about that. Anything else was nobody’s business unless Harper and Gregoire wanted to make things public knowledge.

  “And you? Should we be expecting a new resident soon?”

  “No, nothing like that. Not yet at least.”

  “I see. Well, I imagine whoever it is must be pretty special to have won you over.”

  “I’d really rather not talk about my private life. I’ll just come down to the office and put in an offer for the condo.” The uneasiness hadn’t gone away and all I wanted to do was get back to the safety of my place.

  “But I haven’t shown you the rest of the layout. The master bedroom is back here.”

  “I don’t need to see it. I mean, you’ve seen one bedroom, you’ve seen them all. Harper will love it.” I backed a few steps toward the door, pulling my phone from my pocket. “Thanks so much for taking the time, Amanda. I really do appreciate—”

  Click.

  The metallic sound froze me to the spot. My gaze lifted from the phone and stopped on the gun pointed directly at me.

  “I didn’t want it to be like this, Penny, I really didn’t, but you’re not giving me a choice.”

  “Amanda, what…what are you doing?”

  “Getting a moment with you. Trying to help you listen to reason. You don’t see how everyone else uses you, but I do.”

  “No one uses me.”

  “Of course they do!” The gun never wavered, even when Amanda’s voice took on a shrill edge and she paced forward. “You’re the real star. Look at you, spending your money to buy someone else a home. She should be a responsible adult and buy her own, like you did. And those two guys downstairs, you think they care about you? They were fucking each other in every city on your tour.”

  I already knew as much, of course, but how did she?

  “Drop the phone, Penny. I can’t have you calling anyone.”

  “Amanda—”

  “Do what I fucking said!”

  Damn. I was only one digit away from inputting my passcode, but with a crazy woman holding a gun, I didn’t dare take any chances. I set my phone on the floor and took a step back. Knew I should have set up the stupid facial recognition shit.

  “Good. Now then, you and I are going to go for a walk, okay?”

  “Please don’t do this.”

  “You’ll thank me soon.”

  I doubted it, but I wasn’t in any position to argue. With her gun aimed at my back, I left the penthouse and started slowly down the hallway with my hands up. Surely someone at MacArthur Security was still monitoring the video feeds. Or whoever was down in building security had an eye on it. I hoped so at least.

  “Put your hands down. You don’t have to be scared.”

  “You have a gun on me. Of course, I’m scared,” I spat back at her.

  “It’s the only way you’ll listen.”

  The elevator door dinged open and I saw my chance to delay a little, praying for someone to recognize that something was wrong. I balked before the open doors and made my breath shudder.

  “Get in.”

  “I need a minute. I…I really don’t like elevators lately.”

  “Don’t worry, Penny, I’d never let anything happen. You were never in any danger, and if those two lapdogs of yours hadn’t interfered, I’d have gotten the elevator back online for you.”

  “So you sabotaged it just to rescue me?” How had I never seen how crazy she was? Clarity popped through the bubble of panic as I pieced together the puzzle. “Randy never did anything, did he? You set it up to appear as if he’d done it all.”

  “I warned Randy to leave you alone. He should have listened to me. Now get the fuck inside the elevator.”

  “If I don’t get in, are you going to shoot me? What will that do?”

  “Better that you’re dead than with one of those fuckboys downstairs.”

  This time, my shaky breath wasn’t staged. I believed her, and I’d never been so afraid.

  Suraj

  Nothing pleased me more than cooking for those I loved. Now that life was settling into a more normal routine, and things between Nadir, Penny, and I were progressing at a comfortable pace, I finally felt as if I had found my place in the world.

  I never would have suspected that I would have to go halfway around the world to find it, but such was fate.

  The moment I arrived at the building I knew something was wrong. The doorman wasn’t at his post, and once I stepped inside a quick glance revealed no one at the front desk. Every sense went on high alert.

  “Hello?” My voice echoed around the empty room without any response.

  Setting my grocery bags on the concierge desk, I pulled out my phone, but stopped short when a muffled sound caught my attention. Following the noise led me into the administrative hall.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, thank God. In here!”

  “Harry?”

  Both Harry and the newest concierge, Carter, had been shoved into a supply closet.

  “Who did this? What happened?”

  “It’s Ms. Pierce,” Harry said. “Called me in to help her with something and then she put me in here at gunpoint.”

  “Same,” Carter said, loosening his tie. The man looked ready to puke. “No idea what came over her after Ms. Wallace asked to speak to her.”

  “Wait, Penny talked to her and then she did this? How long ago?”

  “I don’t know. Ten minutes, maybe?”

  I immediately called Nadir, but directed the two men to keep out of sight and call 911.

  “Nadir, we have a problem. I just found the lobby staff locked in a supply closet. It was Amanda. Where is Penny?”

  “What?” I heard him scramble from the couch, his footsteps pounding across the carpet. We weren’t required to monitor her 24/7 any longer, but that didn’t mean we didn’t keep tabs. “I don’t see any movement on the cameras and her cellphone is…shit, it’s not in her penthouse, but she’s on the floor.”

  “Tell me where. I’ll head up.”

  A chime pierced the silence of the lobby. Penny stepped out, followed by Amanda Pierce, a woman I knew in passing, but had had little contact with since my arrival to the complex. Penny’s petrified gaze met mine across the distance a split second before I realized a gun was trained on me.

  Time seemed to stop. Despite that, my reflexes as a human weren’t sharp enough to avoid the agony that slammed into my shoulder. Amanda pulled the trigger a second time as Penny shrieked and fought her for the gun. The shot went wild, into my gut and through my back. Blood rushed from the wounds and stained my shirt, tricking down to my jeans.

  Penny’s captor slapped her away to regain control of the handgun, and a frenzy took hold of me. More than I’d ever had to struggle in the past to control my powers, I fought with the tiger inside. If I shifted now with surveillance cameras on me, in a building lobby within view of pedestrians on the sidewalks, we’d be in a mess none of us could fix. />
  “Suraj!”

  I didn’t dare move from where I fell. Penny’s safety relied on it.

  Better to let Amanda think I was dead.

  Penny

  My body stumbled along woodenly at the prod from my abductor. I couldn't get the vision of Suraj falling out of my head, a crimson stain spreading across his shirt. Had she killed him? Would anyone find him before it was too late? Would Nadir?

  Amanda took me down the stairwell to the garage rather than wait for the elevator. Her heels clicked on the pavement, each staccato step adding to the nausea churning in my stomach.

  “Almost there,” she chirped. “Aren’t you excited?”

  Excited? I wanted to hurl.

  “It’s us, Penny. You can talk to me. You can admit that you’re excited.”

  “I’m—”

  The elevator opened, spilling a bright square of light into the garage. Amanda seized me by the arm and veered us to the left, into an empty parking spot.

  “Hello?” she called.

  No one appeared to be in the elevator, making my heart drop. So much for a chance for help.

  “Who’s there?”

  No one replied to her call, but I saw a shadow slip between two cars and my heart leapt into my throat. Hope flared again.

  “No one’s there,” I said, careful to keep the relief out of my voice.

  “Good, then no one will disturb us. Come on now, Penny, we’re almost there.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I told you. Home.”

  “But where is that?”

  I knew he was there. I knew he was listening. If this all went bad, I needed him to know where she was taking me.

  “Don’t you worry, it’s perfect for you. Quiet. There’s plenty of room for you to work on your music. You’ll see that the others have held you back when you get the chance to work alone.”

  Fuck. This was beyond crazy. This was some Misery-level obsession.

  A low, deep growl rumbled in the dark.

  “Goddamn idiots leaving their dogs down here. I keep telling them it's not allowed,” she grumbled, giving me another nudge. “You’d never do that. You’d never hurt anyone.”

  “But you would,” I snapped, my growing anger outweighing my self-preservation. “You shot Suraj in cold blood.”

  “He was going to stop us. I couldn't let that happen. Head for that red Chevy and then I’ll take you home.”

  “I am home.”

  The shadow paced alongside us, the soft pad of paws against cement. It was still hard to believe that Nadir and Suraj were more than they appeared, that real magic existed in the world and shapeshifters were more than a Hollywood creation. Seeing him now, knowing he was there while Amanda remained oblivious, gave me hope.

  All I had to do was give him an opening.

  The next time Amanda gave me a push, I stumbled and dropped to my knees on the ground. Pain shot through both legs and burned across my abraded knees.

  “Get up—ah!”

  Nadir leaped over me and slammed into Amanda, his angry snarl ripping through the air. As Amanda screamed, the gun went off, and I bolted for cover between a truck and an SUV. In the dimly lit garage, it was hard to see exactly what was happening, and I knew enough to stay down and out of sight.

  But she’d already hurt one man I loved. I couldn’t let her hurt another.

  The gun fired a second time. The bullet ricocheted against stone and struck a car. Its alarm went off. Before Amanda could endanger either of us, I dashed forward and kicked the hell out of her hand. She shrieked in pain, but the pistol clattered from her grip and skidded away. Amanda’s panicked cries and angry shouts could have awoken the dead.

  “Get off of me! Get off!”

  I scrambled to retrieve the gun before Amanda had a chance to get a hold of it again. Not that I needed to worry. Nadir had her pinned on the ground, his furry body on her back.

  “Penny, help me! Shoot it!”

  “No.”

  She tried to push up from the ground and Nadir snarled, his hackles raised and his lips drawn back to bare his teeth. Amanda’s entire body trembled. Then a warm hand covered mine, lowering the gun that had been shaking in my grip. I didn’t even remember pointing it at her.

  “It's over now,” Suraj said, the sound of his voice taking me by surprise. I released the gun and spun around, pressing myself against him, needing that contact to assure myself that he was alive and I wasn’t dreaming.

  “She shot you.”

  “She did, but I’m fine.” He kissed my brow, squeezed me close, and then gently urged me aside while he trained the handgun on Amanda. “Stay back for now. The police are on their way.”

  As much as I wanted to sag in relief, one question remained on my mind: what the hell were we going to tell them about my mysterious, four-legged savior?

  I glanced toward where I last saw Nadir, and saw only his tail vanishing around the corner toward the stairwell. When he returned mere minutes later, no one could ever tell the man had been a ferocious wild dog with blood on his teeth and fury in his eyes. He took me into his arms and he held me.

  As long as I was in his embrace, I knew everything would be okay.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fall

  Penny

  I’d always looked at moving day as a torturous process filled with stress as I directed strangers to carefully place my boxed items where I wanted them, followed by the inevitable frustration of discovering things not where they belonged. That wasn’t the case this time.

  Nadir and Suraj enlisted their teammates and friends to help empty their condo and haul everything upstairs to my place. During the same weekend, we even relocated Harper to the neighboring penthouse on my floor.

  Instead of frustration and annoyance, we shared laughter, beer, wine, and pizza. What would have otherwise taken a day, or even stretched over the course of a week, occupied us for a single afternoon.

  My fairly spartan condo looked more like a home now, decorated by Nadir’s rugs, ethnic carpets, and paintings acquired over a long life of travel during his U.S. military career. Suraj didn’t have much, but we’d all agreed that the kitchen would be his baby to decorate and fill up with whatever he wanted. While we drank ourselves silly on cocktails mixed by Esteban, Suraj and Harper scoured websites together and discussed which pans, knives, and various appliances worked best for his exquisite culinary talents.

  It felt like a home.

  Jada took a seat beside me after Nadir, Suraj, Taylor, and Esteban escaped our company to hang around the grill on the deck. Waiting for the steaks was murder, but Esteban was in charge of the grill.

  “I’m so happy for you three. Like, really happy. Until the lions got together, I had no idea polyamory was even a shifter thing, too.”

  I laughed. It was still so surreal to me, but I couldn’t get enough of waking up framed by the two sexiest men in Texas and wrapped in their arms. The best part about having two guys who were into each other, too, was the support system and lack of jealousy. They had each other even when I wasn’t in the mood or that time of the month put me down on the couch with a heating pad.

  “They came along just when I needed them.”

  “When Suraj first moved here to the States, I worried a little for him. He was always so focused on work. Seeing how he is with you and Nadir though…” Jada laughed and set her wine glass aside. “You know, years ago, my folks tried to hook Nadir and me up on a blind date. One of those ‘invite a family friend’s son over for dinner’ sort of things.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. Of course, I had other plans that night and then Taylor sort of took over my life. Nadir has always been cool about it. A good friend. I never imagined he and Suraj would have the bond they do now.” Her gaze turned toward the men chatting outside, the love in her eyes plain to see. “I’m just so happy, and so glad to have you as part of the family.”

  Part of the family. It felt good to hear it, and eve
n better to know deep down that Jada was absolutely genuine. It wasn’t Penny the superstar she was welcoming, it was Penny the person. Me.

  “I’m happy too. Happier than I ever imagined.”

  Nadir and Suraj had given me so much. Joy. A gang of new friends. Safety.

  And their hearts.

  Nadir

  The entire shitstorm with Amanda Pierce landed us in the newspapers for a long time. It turned out Amanda had some serious Anonymous-level hacker training and Penny wasn’t even her first obsession.

  Thankfully, Randy was released and even got his job back once it became apparent after authorities skimmed through her personal property that she had framed him for her wrongdoing.

  Suraj recovered without so much as a minor scar. My medic training alongside Sasha back during our covert ops days meant it didn’t take long to stabilize his wound. He wanted to refuse medical treatment from the pros on account of his regenerative abilities, but we were in luck.

  Sasha worked at the local hospital’s emergency room and was there on-call that evening. She wrote up some bullshit, rushed him through x-ray, and got us the proof we needed before shifter magic wiped away the evidence of her attempted murder.

  With Amanda behind bars and awaiting sentencing, Penny was finally safe. She didn’t need two of us on her detail anymore, but she felt that she owed MacArthur Security for our services, and we stayed on as her protective agents.

  Ian didn’t care as long as she continued to cut checks for the same amount.

  Her fans were another story. They speculated heavily about us, about Penny, about us and Penny. Every week we read a new theory, and some were so close to the mark we’d lie in bed and laugh.

  “Sometimes, I want to tell them,” Penny murmured drowsily, basking in the post-sex haze with us beside her in our new double king-sized bed. “I want to. Do you think I should?”

  “Mm. Maybe. It’d have to be something spectacular, though, wouldn’t it? You can’t drop a bombshell like that on them without excessive drama. It’ll boost record sales like mad.”