Bad Judgment

by Sidney Bell

  “Coop has other...responsibilities besides those you’re thinking of.”

  Vindler snorted, but it was wary. “He’s a rabid dog. Almost as dangerous as your assistant.”

  “I resent that,” Coop said, standing up to jab a finger in Vindler’s direction, and Brogan wasn’t sure what he was referring to—the idea that he was rabid or the idea that Embry was more dangerous than he was. Either way, the comment took Brogan by surprise as well—he only barely caught the way that Embry’s face and body went still, as if he intended to give nothing away.

  “It’s not an insult,” Vindler said, clearly meaning it as an insult. “You underestimate the power of a man who’s good with information.”

  “The hell it’s not an insult.”

  “Coop,” Henniton said. “He’s trying to rile you.”

  Coop subsided, glaring as he sat back down, and Vindler smirked like the kid on the playground who taunted the bullies because his older brother stood behind him. Brogan didn’t have that kind of confidence in Big-and-tall, but it didn’t pay to underestimate anyone likely to be armed, so he kept his attention on the guy.

  “Anytime you’d like a better job, Mr. Ford,” Vindler said.

  “I’m happy where I am, thanks,” Embry said, seemingly bored, though he hadn’t moved a centimeter since Vindler called him dangerous.

  Henniton’s expression soured. Vindler’s eyes narrowed.

  “Interesting,” Vindler said.

  “You’ll stay out of it,” Henniton said, his tone developing thunderclouds. “It’s our meeting.”

  “I can’t help it if a potential client sees the holes in your sales pitch. ‘Dibs’ isn’t really a valid approach to business these days, Joel.”

  “We have an offer in good faith. Don’t get in the middle, Vindler.”

  Vindler opened his mouth to spit something out, then hesitated. His eyes flickered toward the ceiling, and then he visibly changed his mind about what he planned to say.

  Brogan realized the room had been bugged—if Vindler wanted to use the tape to screw Henniton over, he couldn’t incriminate himself. Well, that explained the way no one was saying anything concrete while they were talking. Except for Embry’s rattled-off list of offenses, which were all to Touring’s benefit anyway.

  “Touring’s not squeaky clean,” Vindler said, mouth puckered like he’d eaten a lemon. “Don’t slip up. I’m more than content to leave you in the mud. Just give me an opening.”

  Henniton sighed as if put out, and gave Embry a nod before standing. Embry tucked his phone in his jacket pocket and pulled out a thin envelope. He slid it over to Vindler, who glowered at it before picking it up. He flipped through several stapled pages inside, tipping them away so no one else could see their contents, his face going whiter and whiter, and then he dropped the document and lunged across the table.

  “Got him,” Nora said, which Brogan had expected because she was closer, and Brogan heard the sound of her elbow meeting Vindler’s nose even as Brogan launched himself across the table, landing on his feet before Big-and-tall had begun to react.

  Brogan was right about his lack of agility—Brogan was faster, too, and all it took was a wrist lock and a strike to the back of his right knee to take him down. He eased the other bodyguard down onto his belly and used one knee in the center of the man’s back to hold him in place. Brogan trusted Nora, he did, but even so, once Big-and-tall was contained, he immediately glanced across the room to make sure Embry was safe.

  Well, and his client, too, he supposed. Jesus, his head was messed up—in that moment, he wasn’t sure what he would do if he had to choose between them.

  Henniton, Embry and Coop were all standing near the door, watching and unharmed.

  He could hear Nora in the background on her mic, talking to support, and in his earpiece Brogan heard support acknowledging. Dillon was already coming in from the corridor, the wide door hitting the wall with a clunk, and Parks had the car ready out front.

  Brogan patted the bodyguard down and helped himself to the semi-automatic in the guy’s shoulder holster. He ejected the magazine and let it fall to the floor, then pulled back the slide to pop the chambered round into the air. He slid the now-unloaded pistol into his own jacket pocket and checked for an ankle holster. Nothing.

  Dillon covered them with his own weapon as Brogan and Nora rose from their respective targets. Nora told Vindler to stay down or he’d get shot, and Brogan grabbed Henniton around his upper arm.

  From recon of the building they’d done in preparation for the meeting, they knew how to get to the fire stairs. Nora took point, her weapon half-concealed at her thigh—they were, after all, in a public office building that housed a gun manufacturer, so they couldn’t be too aggressive or some idiot carrying concealed would start trouble—and Dillon was at the rear about fifteen feet behind to ensure that neither Vindler nor his bodyguard followed. Brogan wasn’t worried—Big-and-tall seemed to know he was outclassed and Vindler’d had a little time to calm down now. Even so, Brogan stayed pressed to Henniton’s side as they clattered down four flights of cement stairs, then hurried him down a small corridor into the lobby.

  Brogan paused long enough to hand the empty pistol to a startled receptionist, and then they were pushing Henniton into the car and driving out with a weak squeal of tires.

  “Are you injured?” Brogan asked Henniton. He was pretty sure of the answer, but it never hurt to double check.

  “Do I look injured?” Henniton said. He ran a hand down his suit jacket, smoothing wrinkles, as if Brogan had done something unforgivable in crumpling the fabric.

  Shaking his head, Brogan thumbed his mic. “Support, be advised we’re all unharmed and en route to Touring.”

  “Copy. Is vehicular backup required?”

  “Not so far.” Support confirmed his response as he exchanged a look with Nora, who shrugged one shoulder, as if to say well, at least it broke up the monotony of the day. He avoided looking at Coop, who was putting off waves of displeasure at not being able to beat someone up, and then caught Embry’s eye. Which was easy to do because Embry was staring at him with a peculiar expression on his face—curious, almost wistful.

  It took a long moment for Embry to even notice that Brogan was returning his gaze, and then he startled and turned to stare out the window, flustered and turning red all the way to the tips of his ears. Under any other circumstances, if it were anyone else, Brogan would think that he’d interrupted a dirty fantasy.

  Nice as that idea was, he couldn’t afford to get distracted, so he kept his attention on Embry just long enough to rule out another asthma attack before focusing on the road behind them.

  “You should’ve told me what you planned,” Coop growled. “What was in that envelope?”

  “It worked,” Henniton said. “The rest doesn’t matter.”

  “The hell it doesn’t. If it’s going to make that little shit respond like that, it’ll step up the friction, not resolve it. Mr. Touring wanted him in check, not—”

  “He is in check,” Henniton snapped. “He’ll convince Grailer & McNeil to back off. The deal will be ours. He won’t risk—”

  “He jumped you in front of your bodyguards,” Coop explained, as if Henniton were a five-year-old. “His emotions will supersede his logic in this, so whatever you did that made him react like that was a misjudgment, and Mr. Touring won’t care for it.”

  Henniton shifted forward in his seat, bringing his big shoulders to bear in as obvious an attempt at intimidation as Brogan had ever seen. “Don’t you dare go tattling to him like this is—”

  “I don’t work for you,” Coop said, unimpressed. “I work for him.”

  Even as Henniton opened his mouth to argue, Embry interjected quietly. “We should go straight to Mr. Touring’s office and explain.” He gave Henniton a pointed
look. “We’ll be able to phrase it in our own words so that he understands why Vindler won’t take any kind of action beyond telling Grailer & McNeil they should back off.”

  “He was recording us,” Coop said.

  “Obviously,” Henniton said, the word so forceful that spittle flew. “But since we didn’t say anything incriminating, he has nothing. So it worked. Mr. Touring will see that.”

  Nora met Brogan’s eyes then went back to watching their tail, her expression blank. Brogan was struggling to keep his own thoughts off his face—between all the suspicion, double-talk and temper tantrums he’d witnessed today, he was pretty sure that Grailer & McNeil were in competition with Touring over a client that neither company should be selling guns to.

  Which went a long way toward explaining Embry’s fear of Henniton. Any man engaged in the illegal sale of firearms wasn’t someone who valued the safety of others. Brogan couldn’t say he was surprised at the idea, but he was bothered by the thought that Embry might be knowingly, or perhaps even willingly, involved.

  He stared at Embry hard, and Embry avoided his gaze.

  * * *

  The second they hit the Touring building, Embry, Henniton and Coop invaded Oriole Touring’s office. After checking the room, Nora and Brogan remained outside with the befuddled group of accountants who’d been summarily kicked out midaudit and whose twitchiness increased as people started yelling behind the closed doors. Hard to blame them. If Brogan were resuming a meeting with the CEO after this mess concluded, he’d be nervous, too.

  It took a while, but eventually something slammed and Henniton stalked out, Embry silent behind him. Coop lingered in the doorway, smirking. Brogan and Nora followed them upstairs to Henniton’s office, which Brogan cleared before beating a hasty retreat to reception. Henniton in a tantrum was about as pleasant as a plague, and just as indiscriminate in choosing targets.

  The tantrum proved unavoidable, however. Henniton slammed the door so hard that it bounced off the jamb instead of latching and swung half-open again. Embry turned back to close it, but before he could, Henniton grabbed him by the lapel and snapped, “What the fuck was that?”

  Embry appeared impressively unflustered considering all the aggression aimed at him. “That was necessary. Touring’s not going to agree with us on this, he just isn’t. We should cede the ground and move on to discrediting—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it,” Henniton growled, yanking hard enough on Embry’s jacket that Embry was forced to his toes.

  “I didn’t have time to ask,” Embry replied, still calm. “I knew—”

  “You knew? You knew? You knew better than me, you mean.”

  “No,” Embry said, clutching Henniton’s wrists to stabilize himself. Henniton shook him, and Brogan shifted his weight, struggling to tamp down on the need to run in there and knock Henniton back a few steps. Preferably in a manner that drew blood. “No, Joel. You’re—”

  That wasn’t fear driving the mounting rebellion on Embry’s features, Brogan realized. It was anger. Contained, yes, but anger all the same.

  Henniton didn’t see it. He shook Embry again, hard enough that his head wobbled on his neck, and Brogan winced, half expecting Embry to shove him off, perhaps even break Henniton’s finger—he knew how, after all—but he didn’t. He stood there and took it.

  “You think you can do this better? You think you’re smarter than me?”

  Embry exhaled through clenched teeth and bit out, “That’s not it at all. I had the data, I was right, damn it, and it was better to admit it than let Touring double check the figures later and think that you’d lied or—”

  Ah. Embry must have corrected something Henniton had said in the meeting. That explained the temper tantrum. And while Brogan was sure that Embry’d had a sound strategic reason to do what he did, that didn’t mean it’d do him any good while Henniton’s ego was smarting. He would see it as an embarrassment, a stab in the back by his own executive assistant in front of his boss and Coop, of all people.

  “After everything I’ve done for you, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a little fucking loyalty,” Henniton said, and he hauled Embry around and slammed him against the wall, hard enough that Embry’s breath was knocked from him.

  Brogan took an involuntary step forward with his teeth bared and his hands in fists. He almost entered, almost—almost—interceded then. He glanced back at Nora, who was behind him now, drawn by the sound of the altercation. Her eyebrows were drawn together in a rare uncertain expression. But Henniton let Embry go abruptly, leaving the smaller man to stumble and regain his feet, and Brogan hesitated, furious, but thinking it was over.

  Embry said, “I’m doing my job.”

  Henniton said, “Your job is to spread your fucking legs when I tell you to.”

  Embry’s eyes flashed with humiliation and fury, and he said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be hiring whores to be your assistants if that’s all you want.”

  Henniton whirled around and hit him with the closed back of his fist. Hard. He was a damn big guy, probably outweighed Embry by a good eighty pounds, and he was strong—it was no surprise that Embry went down. Henniton loomed over him and hit him again, his fist connecting with the dull sound of a melon hitting the floor, before Brogan was on him.

  He was fighting the urge to put his forearm against Henniton’s throat, fighting to believe that it was enough to keep the fucker shoved against the wall until he regained control—until they both regained control, really—and to remember that he was here to protect the man, not murder him.

  Nora pulled on his arm once and said, “Brogan.”

  Brogan was shaking, he realized, and he dropped his hands with such careful slowness that he knew Nora saw it for what it was—proof that it was taking all his self-control not to break this fucker’s face. He clamped down on all of it, making his expression professionally neutral again as he released Henniton.

  Nora gave him a tiny nod, and Brogan could only be grateful that Henniton appeared oblivious to Brogan’s emotional involvement. If he’d slipped up in front of Coop, Brogan suspected this would’ve gone differently.

  “Embry,” Henniton said. “Embry, I’m sorry.”

  As one, Brogan and Nora turned to face Embry, who was sitting up as if he expected his bones to cave from under him at any moment. He’d pressed the back of one hand against his mouth, although it didn’t conceal the bright red blood dripping from his nose over his chin. The outside corner of his right eye was already swelling and purpling, and a cut marred the edge of his eyebrow, deep enough to send jagged lines of blood tracing down his cheek. At the very least, he was going to need stitches, and that was if he didn’t have a broken nose or cheekbone.

  Nora said, “I’ll call for emergency services.”

  “Don’t. I’m all right.” Embry said it to the carpet more than any of them, and it was hard to hear him. Or maybe he said it at a perfectly audible volume and Brogan was just having a difficult time catching any words over the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears.

  Nora bit her lip hard, probably to avoid speaking. A pity, since she might’ve said what Brogan wanted to say but couldn’t, which was that Henniton should be thrown in jail while Embry got treated at the hospital. Nora was soft-eyed and hardmouthed, no doubt mirroring Brogan’s expression, so Embry might know that he had people who would back him up if he were to look at them, but he didn’t.

  He looked at Henniton. “It’s fine,” he said, and he sounded about fifty years older than he was. Exhausted and empty. He lowered his hand, and his lips were slick and red, although it was hard to tell if the blood came from his nose or his eyebrow—and there was a lot of blood. It dripped over his fingers and down onto his chest and leg.

  “Embry,” Henniton said again, donning so much pathetic guilt that Brogan wanted to punch him in the
face all over again. “I didn’t mean to. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

  Embry went back to staring at the carpet. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Mr. Ford,” Nora said, her voice strangled, like she had to keep more inappropriate words from escaping, “would you like someone to take you to the emergency room?”

  “No,” Embry said, moving as if to get up.

  “Yes,” Henniton said at the same time. “Smith, take him to the hospital.”

  Brogan jolted forward. He wasn’t shocked that Henniton hadn’t cued to Brogan’s emotional involvement—Brogan was furniture in Henniton’s eyes, after all—but he couldn’t be offended when it meant he got to take care of Embry.

  “I’m fine,” Embry muttered, trying to jerk loose when Brogan took his arm to assist.

  “Okay,” Brogan said, and helped him up anyway. “Nora—”

  “I’ll let support know. Go.”

  “I’m not going to the fucking hospital,” Embry bit out. Henniton came tentatively toward them, his body language so restrained that Brogan didn’t bother stepping in between them, although he wanted to.

  “I’m sorry. It just makes me angry when you call yourself that. Because you matter to me,” Henniton whispered. He lifted a hand and Embry tensed but didn’t flinch. Henniton stroked his jaw and said, “Please, pet. Get checked out. For me?”

  Some vicious thought along the lines of fuck you crossed Embry’s face, then faded. His shoulders sagged. “All right.”

  “Good boy,” Henniton said.

  I hate your fucking guts, Brogan thought. Out loud, he said, “This way, Mr. Ford.”

  Embry followed him, but Henniton said, “Mr. Smith, a word?”

  Brogan went back, leaving Embry staring into space at the door. “Yes?” In the background he could hear Nora notifying support.

  Henniton’s mouth was set in a flat line. “If they ask what happened—”