“You, too,” Bryce said, pointing at the two newcomers before disappearing back in the same direction he’d come from. “My office.”
All eyes turned to Trace as though he might know what the hell was going on. He merely shrugged. Their guess was as good as his.
Dumping his coffee in the sink because it wasn’t meshing well with the unsettling feeling in his gut, Trace followed Z through the living room and down the hall that led to Bryce’s office.
The door was open, and his father was casually sitting on the expensive burgundy leather sofa that had been placed in front of a bay of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the swimming pool. The room was bright, despite the dark colors of the drapes and the wood furniture, but it didn’t help to lift Trace’s spirits any. Whatever was going on wasn’t good.
“Sit,” Casper commanded, his tone only slightly less commanding than Bryce’s had been.
Of the two men, Casper could soften a blow significantly better than Bryce, although, after years in a business where they were required to maintain an unwavering control, that wasn’t saying much.
Trace joined his father on the couch, opting for the opposite end. Propping his right ankle on his left knee, he casually leaned against the armrest and watched Bryce pace the floor. Z braced a shoulder against the wall behind them. When Conner and RT joined them a minute later, Bryce closed the door and returned to the center of the room.
“What’s going on?” RT asked Bryce directly. “And why’re we doin’ this here? Not at the office?”
Trace noticed the way Bryce’s eyes darted to Casper, then dropped to the floor. He then thrust his hands in his pockets, inhaled deeply, and looked up at RT.
“As much as I hate to say this, I think we’ve got a leak in the office,” Bryce informed them.
Trace’s eyes scanned the faces of the others in the room as that information was processed.
“What?” Conner asked, his tone just shy of belligerent.
“Where’s everyone else?” RT asked at the same time.
And that—the last one—was the very question Trace wanted answered.
Between the Trexlers and the Kogans, there were fourteen Sniper 1 employees in total who would be keenly interested in this conversation. That was counting family only. Of course, there was Z, who’d been with them since he’d relocated to Dallas, looking for a job in security, nearly a decade ago. With him, that made fifteen interested people. Yet there were only six of them present and accounted for.
“I didn’t think it was necessary to pull everyone in,” Bryce said, locking eyes with RT. “Yet. And before you argue with me, hear me out.”
Surprisingly, RT leaned back in the armchair sitting opposite Bryce’s desk. To the casual observer, RT appeared relaxed, laid-back even. To Trace’s trained eye, the guy was a ticking time bomb, although he was doing a damn good job disguising it. If it weren’t for the slight twitch of RT’s left eyebrow and the muscles bunching in his jaw, RT would’ve pulled it off.
The decision to keep this discussion to a limited number of people was proof that Casper and Bryce were still involved in every decision regarding Sniper 1. It didn’t matter that RT was the guy they all looked to as the man in charge; he still answered to the big guys.
But that didn’t explain why the rest of them weren’t there.
“Right now, we need to keep moving forward, business as usual. The less they know, the better off they’ll be. However,” Bryce said, turning and walking behind his desk, “Marissa is the absolute top priority, which means that every single person employed by Sniper One is subject to being pulled from their current assignment if need be.”
No one argued with Bryce.
As of two weeks ago, Trace had been the only one coming off an assignment, which was the main reason he was tasked with shadowing Marissa. Not the only reason, but the main one. Not to mention, like the last time he intervened, it had been his idea. And he damn sure wasn’t going to go into the causes of that.
Trace felt the scrutiny as all eyes turned to him once again. “If you’re doubtin’ my abilities, screw every last one of you. I got her home in one piece, didn’t I?” He said the words without heat, didn’t move from his position, but he knew they could see the anger flashing in his eyes. He was fucking good at what he did, and they all knew it.
“There’s no doubt that you’re the right guy to look after my sister,” RT said reassuringly, turning his attention back to Bryce. “Now I want to know what makes you think there’s a leak.”
Bryce lowered his six-foot-four-inch frame into his high-back executive chair and steepled his hands on the polished mahogany. “You got a better idea on how the info on every goddamn safe house she’s been shuffled off to has gotten out?”
Bryce had a damn good point, and it was an angle Trace had been looking into on his own. The only person he’d shared his concern with was his father, though, and he figured that was where this had originated. But he didn’t say as much, wanting to hear RT’s take on things. The guy was incredibly perceptive, and he very well could have an entirely different theory.
Unfortunately, based on RT’s heavy sigh, Trace got the impression he didn’t.
And as far as Trace was concerned, that meant they were still chasing shadows in the dark.
Nine
Marissa could hear the muffled drone of voices coming from her father’s office as she made her way across the living room and into the kitchen. She was starving, even though she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep anything down. Ever since the night of the explosion, her insides were acting a little wonky. According to Dr. Janelle Miller, the physician on Sniper 1’s payroll who had paid Marissa a house visit late last night, Marissa’s gastrointestinal tract was merely a little upset from the anxiety.
Yeah, well, the good doc probably didn’t need a medical degree to figure that one out. Nor did Marissa.
Her stomach rumbled a warning—hunger or revulsion, Marissa wasn’t sure which—as she opened the refrigerator and peered inside. Nothing at all sounded appealing, but she knew she would have to eat something. As it was, she’d survived on mostly coffee for the last couple of days. Not a healthy meal selection by any means. Trace had attempted to force her to eat a few times, but she’d only managed a couple of bites, unable to stomach even the thought of food.
“Can I make you something, honey?” Lilah’s soft voice caused Marissa to close the door and turn to face the family’s longtime housekeeper.
“I’m not sure,” Marissa said honestly, moving to the breakfast bar and hoisting herself up onto one of the stools as Lilah donned her little white apron that read: I’d worry about getting older if I wasn’t so damn sexy. The apron had been a gift from Frank—Trace’s grandfather, who, on a good day, was quite a character—on Lilah’s seventieth birthday. “I’m hungry, but I’m not. Does that even make sense?”
“It does.” Lilah smiled, her aged eyes wrinkling near the corners. “I bet I can find something that’ll do the trick.”
“I’m open to whatever you suggest,” Marissa replied.
Lilah Snider was more than a housekeeper; she was a member of the family. Having worked for Marissa’s parents for longer than Marissa had been alive, they’d grown to trust Lilah with every aspect of their lives. At seventy-two, the woman was as spry as she’d been nearly thirty years ago—or so Marissa had been told.
Lilah had lost her husband, Richard, in 1967 after they’d been married for four years. Richard had asked for her hand on her twentieth birthday, and they’d married less than three months later, although he had rarely been home at the time. Based on the tales Lilah told, Richard had been drafted into the Army to fight for his country at the age of eighteen, during the Vietnam War. Over the years, Marissa had heard so much about him, and it was clear Lilah loved him more than life itself, which, according to her, was the reason she’d never remarried after.
“Tell me a story about Richard,” Marissa said now, needing something to take her
mind off the nightmare that had woken her a short while ago. She loved listening to Lilah’s stories, and she knew that Lilah loved telling them.
Lilah’s face lit up as she retrieved a pan from one of the cabinets.
“Oh, honey, he was so… You know the term tall, dark and handsome? I think that was created in reference to him.”
Marissa smiled.
“I still remember the day he asked me to marry him. He was so nervous. His hands were shaking and perspiration dotted his forehead.” Lilah momentarily disappeared into the walk-in pantry, returning with the canister of oatmeal. As she filled the pot with water from the spout above the stove, she glanced over at Marissa. “I remember every single thing about that day. He was wearing his tweed sports coat, the one his father had passed down to him. He loved that ol’ thing. Didn’t matter that it was July or that it happened to be the hottest day of the year; he wore it proudly.”
The things Lilah remembered had always astonished her. The old woman’s mind was like a steel trap.
“And boy, was it hot that day.” Lilah smiled as though she were remembering that day fondly. She pulled open another cabinet door, retrieving a bottle of vanilla extract and a couple of spice bottles. “But my sweet Richie wanted to look nice, so he wore the jacket. It was also the day that he introduced me to a band that changed my life.”
“The Beatles?” Marissa knew that Lilah adored The Beatles, always had. Even now she could be found listening to them on her iPod—the one the family had bought her for Christmas a few years back.
“Oh, yes,” Lilah said, her light brown eyes twinkling. “How he got it, I still don’t know, but he had their brand new record: Introducing the Beatles. Told me he wanted me to hear a song.”
Marissa already knew what the song was because she’d heard a version of this story numerous times over the years, but she didn’t interrupt.
“‘I Saw Her Standing There’ became my favorite song of all time,” Lilah said warmly, her voice soft. “Anyway.” Stirring the oats into the water as it began to slowly boil, Lilah glanced up at Marissa. “I was wearing my favorite dress. It flared out at the bottom”—Lilah set the wooden spoon down briefly so she could use her hands to explain—“and had a fabric belt. But I didn’t wear the belt, because I liked the way it belled out without it. Very popular back then. Richie said he loved when I wore red, so that was all I bought.”
Marissa could imagine Lilah’s closet full of red dresses.
“Like I said,” Lilah explained, placing a box of raisins and a bag of walnuts that she took from another cabinet on the counter, “I knew he was going to ask me. He told me he chose that day because he wanted me to always remember. That silly man, I would’ve remembered no matter what day it was.”
The sound of footsteps echoed from behind Marissa, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the men behind the voices in her father’s office stepping into the living room, still deep in conversation. Her eyes drifted to Trace, and before she could look away, he glanced up. For a brief, thrilling instant, their gazes locked, and she could’ve sworn she saw a flash of heat in those sexy white-gray eyes. But rather than dwell on what likely was just her imagination, Marissa turned back to face Lilah, who was finishing her oatmeal preparations.
“Eat this,” Lilah said, pushing a small glass bowl toward her. “My vanilla spice oatmeal. I put in honey instead of sugar. No milk.”
Marissa nodded and gripped the spoon, doing her best not to pay attention to what was being said behind her. When the conversation paused, she knew they would soon be scattering in various directions, something that was quite usual for the men she’d grown up around. They didn’t congregate much at the house, so their appearances there that morning were definitely worthy of questioning, but for now, Marissa was going to focus on eating. Anything but the fact that Trace was still standing there, watching her from her parents’ living room. She could feel his presence, sense his intense gaze on her.
“Good morning, honey,” Bryce greeted, his arm coming over her shoulder and gently pulling her toward him.
“Morning, Daddy,” Marissa replied, leaning into her father when he kissed her temple.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
No. “Yeah,” she lied.
She wasn’t feeling better, but she didn’t want him to know that. At least she wasn’t crying, but that hadn’t been the case last night when she’d walked into the house only to find her parents waiting for her in the living room. The instant they’d come over to her, the dam had broken, and Marissa had been hard-pressed to stop crying.
As for right now, Marissa knew her father was worried about her after her most recent ordeal, as was the rest of her family, and the last thing she wanted to do was give them more reason. If he knew that the nightmares had come back with a vengeance, he’d likely be pushing her to talk to someone.
She didn’t want to talk.
Nope, she didn’t want to open up, didn’t want to eat, couldn’t really sleep. Her life had coalesced into one big-ass nightmare—regardless of if her eyes were open or closed—and she just wanted it all to go back to normal. Back before people were trying to kidnap or kill her.
“Where’s Mom?” she asked her father when he walked to the coffee maker.
“Talking with Liz,” he explained, referring to Elizabeth Kogan, her mother’s best friend and Trace’s mother. Liz and Emily were rarely apart, and it’d been that way for Marissa’s entire life.
Now that they lived in a compound, albeit in separate houses dispersed over five hundred acres, it seemed that they were spending even more time together. Marissa had no idea what they were conspiring, but she figured they’d all find out soon enough.
The two women did whatever was necessary to keep the two families close. With so many kids, Marissa knew that wasn’t an easy feat, especially once they’d all grown up. Marissa’s parents, Bryce and Emily, had five children, and Marissa was the only girl. In her opinion, the only thing that could’ve been worse than being the only source of estrogen (besides her mother, of course) in the testosterone-driven world she lived in would’ve been for her to be the youngest. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. She had three older brothers: Ryan, Colby, and Clay, and one younger: Austin. Every member of her immediate family worked for Sniper 1 Security, with the exception of her. Even her mother was an employee, an accountant by trade whose sole customer was Sniper 1.
As for Liz and Casper, they had four kids: Conner, Hunter, Trace, and the youngest, Courtney, who, not surprisingly, was Marissa’s best friend. All of the Kogans worked for Sniper 1 Security. Even Casper’s wife, Liz, who worked alongside Emily, handling the financial end of things.
Then there was Marissa’s uncle TJ, and his family. TJ brought his own party to the mix with four kids of his own: Tanner, Evan, Kira, and Dominic, all four of whom worked at Sniper 1 also, although three-quarters of them worked in the office, rather than in the field. Stephanie, TJ’s wife, worked as a public relations consultant for the firm.
So, as it turned out, Marissa was the only stubborn one, seemingly bucking the system by refusing to take up a position within the globally known company. Marissa was the only one out of the thirteen kids who had chosen not to join the ranks. No one had ever held that against her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t respect what her family did. Quite the opposite, actually. She admired them for taking on the bad guys, most of them having bravely served in the military at some point only to venture deeper into the world that they now lived in. A world that, quite frankly, Marissa hadn’t seen herself quite fitting into.
The Kogans and both sets of Trexlers had lived close to each other for many years, and there was hardly a time when they weren’t all together unless, of course, one or more of them were on an op, which was an all-too-familiar phenomenon. These days, because of the escalating threat to Marissa, she suspected, everyone seemed to be sticking close to home. And in their case, home meant they were practically on top of each other within the
walls of the compound, as could be seen by the six towering males who were filling the living room now that her father had left her side and rejoined them.
Resting her spoon in her half-empty bowl, Marissa felt the need to get away from the testosterone overload while she still had the opportunity. Getting to her feet, she grabbed the bowl and took it to the sink. Lilah quickly retrieved it before Marissa had a chance to rinse it out.
“I’ve got it, honey. Go rest. And let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Marissa said, hugging Lilah gently before sneaking up the back stairs to the second floor rather than passing the others to get to the main staircase. After all, Marissa wasn’t just avoiding confrontation, she was avoiding the one man who’d plagued her for a hell of a lot longer than she was comfortable with.
She knew not to think too much about the fact that Trace was at her parents’ house. He was technically in charge of her, as he’d so kindly told her after he’d saved her ass from being blown to smithereens. He wasn’t there because he was worried. No, he was there because she was his assignment. This was his job.
Once in her bedroom, Marissa closed and locked the door to keep anyone from barging in. Although she was happy to be home after being hidden away for months on end, Marissa wasn’t interested in having a conversation about what had happened. Everyone wanted to talk about that, and truth was, Marissa only wanted to forget.
Wasn’t happening.
Returning to the chair she’d been occupying since she’d woken up in a cold sweat that morning, the one that sat directly in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the front lawn, Marissa pulled a blanket across her legs. Instead of sleeping and battling the nightmares, Marissa had busied herself by staring out the window, seeing nothing except for the memories of the last few days that flashed like a slide show on repeat through her mind. Since she couldn’t get away from the thoughts completely, she’d been forced to focus on those that involved her interactions with Trace. Despite his all-business demeanor—which she fully believed was the equivalent of body armor when he was around her—the guy was actually quite charming.
Wait for Morning (Sniper 1 Security #1) Page 8