Trusting Cade (Custos Securities Series Book 1)

by Luna, David

  As Cade got dressed, Sawyer approached and began to wrap his hands in fighter’s tape. He waited out Sawyer’s silence. Cade knew his friend hated it when he did that. When Cade’s hands were wrapped and he was ready to head out to the ring, Sawyer looked up and Cade raised a brow.

  Sawyer huffed. “You’ve got a few possibles in this batch. Keep an eye out for candidate Thompson. He’s been holding his cards close to his vest most of the day, but they’ll pick up a bit on the mic later from a few conversations he had with one or two of the guys. I’m assuming that he was mostly making sexually explicit and derogatory remarks regarding candidate Gardner. My bet is, just from this upcoming fight, you’re gonna count him out of the running. He didn’t do anything overt that would make me think he’s truly a threat, but there’s just something going on that I can’t get a bead on. When I talked about the upcoming fight he looked just a little too happy to be able to try to best you. My advice, don’t turn your back on him in the ring. He won’t be able to beat you, of that, I’m certain, but I don’t think the guy plays by the rules.”

  Cade knew advice from Sawyer should not be taken lightly. He made eye contact as he nodded, so his friend knew he’d taken every word seriously. He glanced behind Sawyer and watched as Jackson approached. “You’re both good to go for the day. Thank you for your help. If either of you has something to report, besides what you just provided, Sawyer, you can do it tomorrow. Toss something on our calendar and we’ll talk. We won’t be making any decisions until we’ve listened to all of the audio and Cooper and I have been able to get through all of the written tests.”

  Sawyer glanced at Jackson, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. Sawyer’s eyebrow lifted. “Mind if we observe the fights, sir?”

  Cade sighed. “Cooper is just as much your boss as I am, and yet you don’t call him sir.”

  Sawyer didn’t smile, as Cade had assumed he would. “Cooper wasn’t ever our captain, sir.”

  “I’m no longer your captain. Knock it off.”

  They both nodded. Sawyer’s response was automatic. “Yes, sir.”

  Cade rubbed his taped hands over his face and sighed once more. “Yeah, you can observe if you want.”

  Both men nodded, and they all left the locker room, but hung back and watched the gym from the locker room’s alcove. They heard Cooper talking with the possible new recruits as they sparred with each other and warmed up for the fights ahead. Cade knew Cooper would soon move on to discuss the actual fights they’d all partake in with him, and he’d do his best to both warn those who were rule followers and truly here for the right reasons, and incite those who weren’t. He smiled to himself as he watched each pairing. He could already glean who would be a small challenge, who would pose no challenge at all, and who would end up embarrassed and therefore very angry that he beat them.

  If he was being honest, Cade loved this portion of the testing. Everyone assumed, at this point, that they were here to try to beat Cade. No one had ever been able to do so at Custos. He’d bested a trained MMA fighter, a close personal friend of his and Cooper’s, and previous customer of Custos. Cade knew he had skills many people did not have when it came to fighting. From the age of four, he’d attended martial arts classes at a professional dojo and taken to it like a fish to water. He was extremely competitive, but even at an early age, hyper critical of himself, which he learned to turn into a healthy competitive drive against his own bests, keeping his focus inward, rather than outward.

  Cade silently observed for a few more minutes, he took in as much as he could, before the fights began. He tuned back into Cooper’s final remarks, and made his way to the center ring. Once there, he put on his headgear and mouth guard and warmed up a bit, aware that all eyes were upon him. He kept his gaze on his partner and ignored those around him as Cooper wound down.

  “As you all know, we’ve made it to the third and final round of today’s testing. Perhaps you’ve heard from those who have gone through this test before, you’ll be fighting Zavier McCade. Let me give you some free advice, kids, use your brain in that ring. Keep your head and your wits about you. You need to understand going into this test that this fight is not a challenge to see who can beat Cade. None of you can beat Cade. Let me repeat that, so that you can understand it: none of you can beat Cade. I know that some of you will ignore this advice and look at this as an opportunity to prove your worth as a fighter, but as strange as it may seem, that’s not what we’re interested in. I know that some of you are very well aware of who Cade is and the idea of going up against him is too much of a challenge to resist. Take my advice; resist. You’ll be glad you did.”

  Cooper swept his gaze across the recruits, some of whom looked skeptical. “Cade will not be fighting at 100%, meaning he will not be going for a TKO. Knocking you out isn’t his goal here and quite frankly, wouldn’t take much effort on his part. We want these matches to last. We want to see your skills in the ring and we can do that very easily, as long as you keep your head in the game and show us the breadth of your knowledge. Each of you will fight Cade for five minutes; if you’re well versed in MMA, that’s the length of one round. Because he will be fighting all eight of you, instead of the usual one minute between fights, he will receive 90 seconds of recovery time. First up will be candidate Brown.”

  Cade kept his game face on as he tilted his head left and then right to stretch it out and crack it. He rolled his shoulders and bounced on his feet a few times as he shook out his arms. Hand to hand combat was his forte. He fought two of the candidates without being impressed. They were both a bit vanilla when it came to technique, and neither of them used any creativity in their attacks. He didn’t need the 90 seconds before the next rounds, and he knew just from fighting them that Custos wouldn’t be offering them a job. While their guardians didn’t need to be professional fighters, they did need to be quick and think outside the box. The third fighter was quite the scrapper. He was average height, but very well built. He had a good floor game, and Cade was somewhat impressed with several of his attempts to get him in a hold. He was someone who would learn well, but always put his own spin on things. Cade liked that.

  Next up was candidate Gardner, and she had a wicked gleam in her eyes as she surveyed him. He liked her immediately. She was fairly tall, with sleek and well-honed muscles. He soon found out she was lightning fast. As they tussled, he had to put more effort into their fight than he’d had to with the first two men. She wasn’t trying to take him down, which showed him that she’d listened to Cooper and had taken his advice. With resourceful and creative moves, she kept him guessing.

  When their five minutes were up, her breath sawed in and out, and she had to bend over and rest her hands on her knees. His breathing was faster, and he’d finally broken a sweat. When she stood up she was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Damn, Mr. McCade, I haven’t had that much fun in a ring in a long time. I look forward to you teaching me how to do that flip move that had me on my back in about two seconds flat. Thank you for the experience.”

  They shook hands, and he couldn’t stop a smile from forming at her assurance that she’d make it to the end, and most likely get the chance for some of that training. He nodded. “You did well. I look forward to training you, if your other tests are as impressive as this one.”

  Her grin got even wider as she turned and hopped down out of the ring with more enthusiasm than she’d gotten into it, which was saying something. Cooper was just about to signal another fighter to enter when Cade heard a few uncomfortable chuckles and saw Thompson laugh and poke one of the other men in the side with his elbow, as he mock whispered, “I’d look forward to getting her on her back in two seconds flat, too.”

  Cade narrowed his eyes imperceptibly at the asshole and was about to speak up when Gardner made a choking noise while she laid a fluttering hand on her stomach and one over her mouth. “Sorry, I think I just threw up a little.”

  Everyone laughed with her at Thompson’s expense and he
got red in the face, muttering, “Bitch”, under his breath.

  Cade was even more impressed when she looked the jerk in the eye, merely raised an eyebrow at Thompson, as if to say, “Is that all you could come up with?” and stood her ground. She kept her shoulders straight and head held high and added insult to injury as she turned her back on him, letting him know she didn’t feel he was any type of threat.

  Cade made the decision right then and there to hire her and another decision not to waste any more of their time or resources on Thompson. He glanced at Cooper, raised a brow to see if his take was the same, and received a nod in response. Cade looked at Sawyer and spoke a few words in Dari the Persian dialect some members of his team had learned while on deployment in Afghanistan. His words had Sawyer walking towards the locker room to gather Thompson’s things. He didn’t want the asshole in their building any longer than necessary. He made eye contact with Thompson. “You’re dismissed.”

  The man’s jaw dropped and he narrowed his eyes. “The fuck? Why?”

  Cade’s perplexed expression spoke volumes to the onlookers. “Why? It’s really not clear? I’d be willing to bet every single person in this room could answer that question, so why is it that you can’t?”

  Thompson sneered and crossed his arms over his chest. “What? Can’t you people take a joke?”

  “Oh, everyone here can take a joke quite well, I believe. They all laughed when Gardner told everyone that your suggestion made her vomit in her mouth.”

  Done with the conversation, Cade turned to Cooper. “Who’s next?”

  Cooper looked at the roster in his hand, and was about to answer when Thompson interrupted. “Whatever, you’re just afraid to fight me.”

  Cade’s only reaction was to raise a brow at the douche bag’s audacity. His men didn’t say a word, but Cade could see they were fighting hard to keep a straight face. The candidates collectively groaned, which amused Cade no end. One of them spoke up. “Dude, you need to back off. Do you know who this guy is? He and his team are still the standard that everyone is held to when being trained for Special Forces. You’re gonna get messed up. Are you fucking crazy?”

  “He’s a fuckin’ pussy, that’s who he is.”

  “Come on then. You wanna fight me so badly, step into the ring.”

  It was obvious that Thompson straight up believed he was a better fighter; he wasn’t merely posturing. He got an excited gleam in his eyes, and Cade could see the adrenaline puffing him up as he hopped up into the ring. Cade centered himself and took a deep breath to reign in his annoyance. He’d need to dispatch this guy quickly and get on with the rest of the scheduled fights. He was frustrated that he’d let the idiot talk him into this pissing contest to begin with. He’d never been one for public humiliation, but the truth was, the asshole needed to be brought down a peg, and Cade wasn’t one to let sexual harassment of any kind occur at his company.

  Cooper rang the bell for the fight to begin. Cade’s posture became fluid and his muscles loosened to prepare for the upcoming bout. To Thompson’s credit, the joker wasn’t a terrible fighter. He had some solid training under his belt, but he was sloppy with it. He took shortcuts that kept him unbalanced and slow on his feet. Cade parried several blows that would have been solid hits, if he would use his head and keep his feet moving as fast as his fists. Cade spent five minutes deflecting Thompson’s blows and though his heart rate was up, he hadn’t put forth much effort to take the guy down. Cooper rang the bell for the end of that round, and Cade backed off and waited him out.

  Thompson was bouncing up and down and shaking out his arms. He looked like he had enough energy to go another round, so Cade kept his mouth shut and waited for the bell to begin the second round. He wasn’t going to waste his breath on the guy. He wasn’t worth it. He could tell his reticence was getting under the guy’s skin because he started running his mouth. “You’re supposed to be some big deal, you and your ‘legendary’ team. I don’t see it.”

  He swung wild, distracted by his own diatribe. Cade sidestepped easily and ignored the chatter.

  “So far you haven’t really even tried to hit anyone hard or take them down.”

  Thompson tried an uppercut, and Cade’s eyes flashed as he caught his hand on the upswing, but he kept the momentum going and gave a twist that had his opponent turning into him with his arm curled up towards the middle of his back. He tried to struggle out of Cade’s grasp and didn’t pay attention to his legs, which were swept out from under him. Cade followed him down to the ground and put his knee on his lower back and launched himself off of him. He backed up, as Thompson, a look of pure hatred and embarrassment shadowing his features, lunged and tried, quite unsuccessfully, to tackle him back down to the mat. Cade waited him out as he got up, again.

  Cooper rang the bell, which was good, because Thompson looked more than a little ragged at that point. Cade shook his head and finally spoke, “You can stop right now. Leave here and you’ll most likely never see anyone in this room ever again. This isn’t going to end well for you if you continue pushing yourself past your limits.”

  Thompson’s face was bright red from exertion and embarrassment. “Fuck you, asshole!”

  He charged toward Cade with more determination than sense. His head was down and Cade took advantage of his attack position, wrapped his upper arm around Thompson’s neck, slipped his forearm under Thompson’s chin against his throat and grabbed Thompson’s wrist with his free hand. Cade kept his arms locked around Thompson’s neck, used the guy’s momentum and fell with him, into his guard position. Cade crossed his legs around Thompson’s waist, drove his hips lower, and put pressure on his throat with his wrist and finished the guillotine chokehold on him. Thompson struggled and Cade pulled tighter around his neck, causing the man to whimper and finally submit by tapping out.

  Cade immediately released his grip on Thompson’s neck. The man pushed himself away, using Cade’s chest as leverage, and scrambled backward like a crab. Cade thought for sure he’d stand and try to come at him again, until he realized the man had been so scared he’d pissed himself. Cade moved to help him up, regretting that their sparring had deteriorated so quickly, but Thompson continued his backward momentum. He scooted himself down and out of the ring, successfully camouflaging his accident from the others, if not from Cade. On his way towards the exit, he hung his head in shame and embarrassment, but shoved a couple of the other candidates out of the way, trying to gain back some of his lost pride. As he neared the back door he almost attempted to push Sawyer, but must have thought better of it. Sawyer held out Thompson’s backpack and he grabbed it and ran.

  Cade made eye contact with Sawyer and spoke again in Dari. “Make sure he’s alright and that he leaves the premises. He’s humiliated enough that he’ll either hide or lash out. When we finish today, I want you to follow Gardner home and make sure Thompson isn’t waiting around offsite somewhere to do the same.”

  Sawyer nodded and left the building, followed quickly by Jackson. Cade settled his eyes on the rest of the group. “I’m sorry you had to witness that. Here at Custos we don’t tolerate the type of behavior he was displaying. Cooper, let’s continue.”

  There was nothing to do but finish the remainder of the testing. He looked at Cooper, who nodded and called the next guy into the ring. That fight was more like the first couple, but the two after that impressed him greatly. He saw potential in both candidates and enjoyed their different fighting styles. Overall he was happy with their take of possible recruits this round. He began to unravel the fighting tape on his hands.

  Cooper looked over the remainder of the group. “We’ll be in touch to let you know if you’ve made it to the next round of testing. Thank you for coming in to participate today.”

  As everyone made to leave the gym, Cade pointed to Gardner. “You watch yourself. He’s not blaming his dismissal and subsequent embarrassment on himself. That would mean he admits to his own failures, and we both know people like that never own up to th
eir shit.”

  Gardner nodded. “Yeah, I figured as much. I’ll be vigilant. Thanks.”

  Cade shook her proffered hand, and she headed to the women’s locker rooms to change and go home. Cooper let him know he was going up to finish some paperwork and Cade assured him that he’d stay and make sure everyone got out of there without issue. He hopped on a treadmill, turned the speed and incline up, and spent the better part of an hour burning off the remainder of his anger at Thompson and at himself for letting the situation get out of hand. When he was done, he showered and changed in the locker room and went home.

  Braden pricked his finger for the third time that day. He’d been testing out a new ginger scone recipe, and there was more sugar in his system than normal, so he needed to test his glucose levels more often and adjust his insulin injections with a correction dose, accordingly. Ever since he’d woken up he’d felt off. Hell, if he was honest with himself, he’d felt off for weeks now. He didn’t want to think too much on the whys of it, so he took his adjusted insulin dose, pulled his blondish brown, shoulder length hair back in a leather thong, washed his hands and headed back to his kitchen. He was at home there, like nowhere else really, and after a few deep breaths, he got back to it.

  He was always testing new recipes and trying them out with the customers. Sometimes he asked their regulars to taste test new muffins, scones, or other sweet treats and give their feedback on what was the best and should be on the regular menu. He liked to change things up, quite often. He updated his recipes with the seasons, of course, but in addition to that, he changed out the whole menu several times during any given season.

  He had no formal training, except the time that he spent at his grandmother’s side while he was growing up. He learned everything he knew about baking from her. He knew from a very young age that baking was her passion, and she was a natural at it. As soon as he was old enough to stand on a stool next to the kitchen counter, he was there by her side, proving he had the same natural talent. His grandmother and grandfather raised him because his mother, newly graduated from high school, had died during childbirth from a brain aneurism. His father had hightailed it out of town as soon as he heard the news that he was going to have a kid. His grandparents were young when they had their daughter, and their daughter was young when she had him; so it turned out that his grandparents were the same age as some of his friend’s parents, which meant their makeshift family didn’t feel that strange.