Derrick's Choice (Titan Security Book 1)

by Cynthia P. O'Neill

  Cassidy raised her hand up to give me a high five. “You go, girl! God knows you and Derrick spend every waking hour here in this office trying to keep Dad’s legacy alive. It’s time you let your hair down a bit and enjoy life.” I was so relieved Cassidy wasn’t upset about all this transition stuff for too long, because I really did like her.

  It didn’t take long to get home, but I’d noticed a dark car had followed at a distance the entire way, before pulling on around us as we turned into the parking garage. I shook my head to dispel the notion that someone truly had followed us. I’d had that feeling a lot lately though, like I was being watched, but I couldn’t prove anything, only having the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and feeling a shiver run up my spine from time to time. All I knew was it was an uber creepy feeling.

  I thanked Cassidy for the ride and wished her a great weekend, before heading to the front desk of our complex to see if my car keys were waiting for me with the security guard. I’d already talked with the mechanic—some guy named Jay something or other. He’d told me it was just a loose wire and there wasn’t any charge. Yep, great weekend commencing, because the last time I had my car not work, it was a corroded battery cable; the guy charged me $50 just for driving out and another $20 to do five minutes worth of work. Geez. I wasn’t going to complain at Jay something or other’s sincerity. Maybe there were a few good guys still left in the world.

  My mind was already anticipating meeting with my Master. I hastily changed into the blue dress he’d sent me for our first official encounter, donning the G-string, my wig, the shoes he insisted I wear, and of course his collar. I glanced at the time and noticed it was only twenty minutes before we’d meet and it took fifteen to get to the club. Normally I take a taxi, but tonight I didn’t have the time to wait around, since I was told it would be at least a half-hour wait just to get one, thanks to some convention in town. So I decided to grab my overcoat, hop in my car, and hightail it there.

  I reached the club right on time and by pure luck found a parking spot across the street, just a block up from Rapture. At least I wouldn’t have to walk the dark street to my car afterwards. Not that I was worried, as Master always walked me out and saw me safely into a taxi he’d personally called on. Seriously, this weekend was going to rock. I couldn’t imagine what my time with Master was going to be like tonight.

  As I’d approached the corner of the building, I saw Master in his normal attire, talking with some woman that looked like a femme fatale with a silver wig. They seemed to be having a heated conversation, and then I heard her yell, “The man knows covert tactics—he’s escaped him numerous times. Jonas doesn’t lose people normally; that’s not his modus operandi. So give the man a break.” She poked him in the chest a couple of times before adding, “You should at least be thankful I watched your other party to ensure safe delivery.” Master nodded, said something to her, what I couldn’t hear, as she passed some information to him before closing her arms around his neck, giving him a hug and kissing him on the cheek.

  My mind was blown. He was supposed to be mine and mine alone. I wasn’t allowed to be around any other men, and he’d promised he wouldn’t be around any other women. How could I have been so naïve to believe he’d follow the same orders he’d given me? My spirit and heart were crushed. I managed to yell out, “You lying, two-timing bastard!” before turning on my heels and running toward my car. I needed to get away from there.

  I heard them both exclaim, “Oh, shit,” within moments of one another. I heard sets of footsteps following me. Why the hell was she coming after me too? Did she need to rub it in that she stole my man? He’s not your man, honey, and you know it. He only promised to train you as a submissive. There was only a chance he might want to claim you as his for longer than the training, but no guarantees. I wanted to tell my subconscious to fuck off and shut the hell up. I knew it was right, but still…

  “Jesse, stop where you are. Now!” It wasn’t a plea to do so; it was a command, and I was to follow. I stopped as he requested. “Turn around and face me. What you saw wasn’t what you think. We need to talk, with me telling you how things are and you listening.”

  I started to turn his direction when the key fob in my hand started beeping like crazy. “What the hell? It’s never done that before.”

  The woman, who was standing several feet away, yelled out, “Everyone down, it’s going to blow.”

  Master moved quickly to grab my keys and throw them toward my car, before grabbing me around the waist and throwing me down on the ground, his body covering mine in protection. I was just about to kick and scream at him, when an explosion erupted, rattling the ground underneath me as a blast of heat and debris scattered around us.

  I heard footsteps come toward us, her voice speaking again. “It’s safe, sir.”

  Master lifted off me. I felt myself being pulled to my feet and arms steadying me to make sure I could stand. My mind went numb as I took in the sight of my car, or what was left of it. There was twisted metal, parts scattered all over the ground, along with smoke and flames rising from the car’s remains. Had I been inside, I would surely be dead or severely burned.

  Master turned around to look, and I noticed a couple of cuts across his back from where debris had hit him, along with some black soot and ash from the flames. I heard him and the woman arguing up a storm, with him asking, “How the hell did this get past you guys? I want answers now.”

  I didn’t want to hear them arguing, and I certainly didn’t care anymore if they were a couple or not. My life had been turned completely on end within the past five minutes. I had no way of getting home, no arms to feel cocooned in, nothing. I found myself putting one foot in front of the other, walking into the street, before hearing more yelling.

  They say your life plays out in slow motion as you’re approaching death. I thought it was all hogwash, until I saw a car coming straight at me. The driver, with a determined look on his face, had a gun drawn and aimed my direction. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My feet seemed to be rooted to the ground. My mind was yelling: “Get out of there! Run!” but my body wasn’t responding to anything I was telling it to do.

  I turned back toward Master as he came barreling at me to push me out of the way, while I noticed the woman, her gun drawn, starting to shoot at the oncoming car. I watched as her bullet hit the man’s hand, causing him to lose his gun, and then another bullet entering him in the shoulder, forcing him to crash his vehicle.

  Master had reached me in the nick of time; otherwise, I’d be a splattered bug against the windshield of the man’s vehicle. The force in which I was moved from the path of the oncoming car took all the wind out of my lungs. We hit the pavement hard, with my shoulder hitting into the concrete and the back of my head bouncing off the edge of the curb.

  I looked up to my saving grace and noticed him saying something to me. My eyes were finding it difficult to focus in on his face. I finally heard the words, “Stay with me, darlin’.” His voice sounded sweet and melodic—like Derrick’s. Was I dreaming? Was I on the edge of death? “You’re not going to pass out on me. You keep your eyes on me and listen to my voice, sweetness. You will stay awake until I tell you it’s safe to sleep.” Okay, my mind was playing tricks on me. One minute I’m hearing Derrick talk to me, the next it’s Master.

  I fought to stay awake, listening to the commotion around me. I heard Master yell at a couple of people to have the car pulled around, how it’d be faster than waiting on an ambulance. “Cat, you call our doc and have him meet us at the back entrance. Jonas, help me lift her and be careful of her head and neck. I want to move her as little as possible to ensure we don’t do any further damage.”

  My eyes came into focus as the woman told Master, “Yes, sir.”

  I was a bit confused when the car pulled up and the driver that had normally taken me home from the club stepped out. He opened the door while Master cradled my head and shoulders. A huge shadow of a man grabbed around my center and
legs and shifted me into the car. I was stretched out between two laps and a bit alarmed by not knowing most of these people. The woman jumped into the front seat, and Master barked out a command, “Status report, now.”

  “He’s got a backboard, neck brace, and stretcher ready and waiting for us. You’ll want to be checked out too, sir. You have a couple of lacerations on your back, from the blast, that might need stitching and some definite road rash, from pushing your girl out of the way, that needs cleaning up.” So this Cat woman seemed to be someone who worked for Master, not someone he saw? Strange.

  I tried staying awake. Any time my eyes wanted to close, Master would bark out another command for me to keep my focus. “Stay with me, sweetness.” He shook his head—his eyes looked worried. “I’m so sorry for all this, little one. I should’ve never left you this afternoon. I should’ve had someone watching your car at all times, someone watching you at all times. Can you forgive me, darlin’?”

  My eyes focused in on his, and I tried to make sense of his words, but couldn’t. “You called me darlin’, like…” I was about to say the words, when he pulled out a couple of colored contacts and threw them on the floor of the car, and then untied the back of his mask, revealing himself to me. It was Derrick! MD wasn’t just short for Master of My Dreams, it also stood for Master Derrick. My mind wanted to process over everything, but things just seemed so jumbled together. All I heard were his words: “Stay with me. I can’t lose you, sweetness. You mean too much to me.”

  The wheels of the car screeched to a stop, and the doors flew open. Then everything went dark.

  The last couple of days had been my worst nightmare come to life. I’d come damn close to losing Jesse. She’d gone into shock at the back doors of the hospital. We’d been rushed to a private area, normally reserved for elite individuals, but we didn’t fucking care. We took over the floor and, thankfully, had some pull in getting Jesse taken care of.

  The doctor took her right into x-ray to ensure she didn’t have any broken bones. Her shoulder was scraped up pretty good, and there was a bit of road rash on her legs and arms. The worst was, as I suspected, a concussion. She wouldn’t need to stay overnight or anything; we’d promised the doctor to look after her at my place and wake her every hour on the hour, looking for the appropriate signs. He knew we’d all been special operatives at one point or another in various military operations, so we all had basic knowledge of medical care.

  Jesse had woken a little in the hospital before going back to sleep, which was normal for someone with a concussion. She’d hate us by the time the next 24 hours were over, because we’d have to wake her every hour to make sure she was doing okay.

  I didn’t want her in her apartment, given everything that had happened. I needed her safe, and I wanted to talk to her about the deceit of portraying two different people. The team didn’t think she’d be able to handle the truth or keep things secret, but I knew otherwise. She’d already proven to me the level of trust she had in me. It was my turn to return the favor and show her that I trusted her as well.

  Once we had Jesse situated, I sent Cat—another recent addition to our team, known for her ability to blend into backgrounds and for taking over identities of others to provide a decoy effect—over to fetch Jesse some clothes and toiletries she might need. We could always go in with her later and collect her other things, providing she wasn’t going to kick me to the curb.

  Jonas and I agreed we’d brainstorm at my place tonight, while him and Cat took turns catching some sleep at the extra apartment down the hall. If Jesse would let us, and we saw the need for it, we’d have Cat dress up like her and stay at her place to draw attention away from the real Jesse.

  Cat had grabbed Jesse some comfortable sleep clothes and helped me get her changed into them. I ended up changing into a t-shirt and sweatpants. I wanted to keep the material loose and away from everything. The doctor had treated the lacerations on my back which required a few stitches, but the rest just needed a good cleaning and some antibiotic cream.

  I tried bouncing back and forth between checking on Jesse in the bedroom and meeting with the team in the living room, where we could think of our next strategy and see what our other operatives uncovered regarding the explosion. It was working for the first hour, until Jesse latched on to me in her sleep and pulled me close, not wanting to let go, so they pulled a couple chairs close by, and we whispered our next plan of attack.

  The bomb had been planted by Jasper. His fingerprints had been all over the underside of the car. He’d purposefully ensured Jesse would make it to the club before the thing went off. An abbreviated message had been left for us, scratched into the muffler of the car.

  I called my brother, Rick, to let him know our security had been compromised. Jasper was our double agent, but not by choice. I didn’t want to risk any other members of Titan possibly being employed by the mystery man in charge. I had narrowed down a couple of potentials for this “puppet master” as I liked to refer to him, since he seemed to be holding all the strings and making people do things they normally wouldn’t. Hell, I didn’t even trust Dad right now because of some new information my brother had uncovered. I asked that he contact some of our old military connections, ones who still had some pull within the system, one’s we knew we could trust. We would be forced into a corner in a holding position until we could guarantee the safety of Jasper’s family.

  As for the guy behind the wheel of the car, he’d been nothing more than a hired gun, paid half up front to do the job and the remaining half once it was completed. Too bad he wouldn’t get his final payment and would probably need all he’d received in order to bail his ass out of jail. Our team had patched him up and was currently interrogating him—thanks to a contact at the local police department—to find out who employed him. So far he wasn’t talking, but we had ways of finding things out whether he wanted to or not.

  We’d been able to get a copy of his fingerprints and run it through every system known to man. He’d been quite busy with various “hits” on people throughout the world. He went by numerous names and had bounties on his head from several countries. But what’s interesting is his connection to one missing Pentagon man that had been giving Tennison a hard time. He’d been the last one on his hit list prior to Jesse’s name being added. So we now knew why our contact at the Pentagon went missing. He hadn’t been relieved of his duty; he was most likely dead and at the bottom of the Potomac River.

  The sound of Jonas’s phone vibrating broke our train of thought.

  “Yeah?” Jonas answered.

  His face went ashen. “He what?”

  After a long pause, Jonas hung up and filled us in, “The driver wouldn’t crack, so our guys left him in the interrogation room while they went to discuss another tactic. Turns out, he’d hidden a cyanide capsule and managed to crunch it when they’d left the room. He’s dead.”

  I wanted to scream and punch something, but I was still left holding Jesse close to my side, her arms wrapped around my waist, with her head in the crook of my shoulder. I could feel my frustration level rising, and I knew I needed to get a grip on it, or I might scare her if I triggered some of my PTSD issues. I could already sense her picking up on my anxiety, as she began to squirm. I looked at the clock and noticed it was time to wake her again, maybe try to get her to drink a little water and see if she needed assistance going to the bathroom.

  I tried to explain to her I needed Cat to help her, and she seemed to nod but didn’t really respond much. I’d be happy when she regained her full mental state, because we needed to have a heart-to-heart talk about everything.

  While Cat took her to the bathroom, I asked Jonas to spar with me for just a few moments, allowing me to get out some of my tension. I normally ran, worked out in the weight room, or fucked the tension out of my system, but tonight those weren’t options. A few minutes of rough and tumble would be all that I’d be able to manage. At least Jonas wouldn’t hold back. He knew what I would need t
o get my head focused. That’s one thing I liked about the guy—we seemed to get one another’s mental state. No wonder Rick sent him to me. So far Jonas had been more valuable than most of the team.

  He put me through the paces quickly. My hands were hurting from trying to punch him. I managed to get a few in, without him even flinching; he was built like a brick wall with reinforced steel. But it did the trick. I felt like I’d worked out for a couple of hours, despite it only being a few minutes of sparring.

  “She’s calling for you.” Cat’s voice broke our concentration, causing me to back away and look over her direction. Her face was full of concern. “She’s unsteady on her feet, and her pupils are starting to respond to light and dilate. She would only take a couple sips of water and then asked for you. She refuses to rest unless you’re beside her.”

  I went into the kitchen, throwing some water on my face to rinse off some of the sweat I’d worked up. Wanting to avoid the stares coming from Jonas and Cat, I gulped down some ice water to wet my throat. Jonas knew better than to confront me, but Cat didn’t hold back, “I think she’s in love with you, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say the feelings are mutual.”

  I slammed my glass down on the kitchen counter, causing water to splash everywhere. “You’re full of shit. Mind you own fucking business.”

  Cat took in my behavior as her arms crossed in front of her body, cocking her head to the side. “Hmm. Denial is the first sign. I’ve watched you with her over the past month. You’re different with her than you are anyone else. You’ve never taken a sub to train. Hell, you won’t even take on a woman for more than one night before you’re on to the next. Did Tennison know?”

  I felt confused, overwhelmed by her words. I turned toward Cat, ready to blast her one, but I couldn’t. I let my shoulders sag in defeat. “Tennison knew, even said he’d rather see her with me than to have her hurt by some of the dicks she’d tried dating. He asked me not to break her heart, but I don’t know if that’s possible.”