Desperate Girls (Wolfe Security #1)(5)

“I’m hiring protection,” Reggie said. “The best money can buy.”

“Bodyguards?” She blinked at him. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.” He checked his watch and picked up the phone.

“Wait, stop.” Brynn held up her hand. “Before you rush off and hire anyone, we need to talk to the sheriffs up there about protection. This falls on them, doesn’t it? Our courthouse is in their jurisdiction.”

Reggie gave her a dark look. “This law firm doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends up there. As you well know.”

“Reggie, they hate us up there,” Ross said.

“Exactly my point. We can’t count on the locals to do anything for us.”

“Yes, but it’s their job,” Brynn said.

“Yeah, and it’s our job to win this trial. I won’t have my two top attorneys worried and distracted.”

Brynn was still in shock. But not so much that she couldn’t imagine the major pain in the butt having a bodyguard trailing her around was going to be. This was the biggest case of her career. Reggie had put her in charge of everything, from jury selection to the closing statement. She’d spent countless hours preparing and still had work to do.

“Yes, but . . . bodyguards? As in plural?” She played the money card. “That sounds expensive.”

“It is.”

“Listen, Reggie, I appreciate the thought.” She glanced at Ross. “We both do, but—”

“No buts. And it’s not a thought. I already made the call.” He looked at Ross. “Now, about this Perez thing, did you get Bulldog on it?”

Ross shook his head, and Reggie jabbed at his desk phone.

Bulldog, aka Bull, aka John Kopek, was the private investigator Reggie kept on speed dial. Brynn shook her head. She felt like she’d been sucker punched, and her boss was already back to business.

“Bull, it’s Reggie. I need a locate.” He muffled the receiver against his shirt and gave Brynn a sharp look. “You’ve got a trial to prep for. Better get to it.”

Erik Morgan was almost out when everything went sideways.

An earsplitting boom.

A billow of smoke.

He halted in the narrow corridor and adjusted the body slung over his shoulder. The air around him swirled with grit. Sweat seeped into his eyes. But he pushed the distractions out of his mind as he and his teammates moved into position.

Weapon raised, Erik darted around the corner, instantly spotting two silhouettes. To his right, a man holding a pistol. To his left, a teenage girl holding a cell phone. Erik fired two rounds at the man, hitting him square in the chest.

“Clear!”

He ran for the door, stopping at the threshold to scan for hostiles.

“Clear!” he repeated, then took off down the stairs.

One flight. Two. A door slapped open above him.

Boom!

Dust rained down as Erik adjusted his load and kept moving. They were running out of time. He could feel it. More smoke, more shouting. He heard his teammates’ footsteps behind him.

“Go, go, go!” someone yelled.

Boots thundered as four men carrying more than eight hundred pounds of dead weight bounded down the stairwell. At ground level, Erik stopped at the plywood door. His teammate kicked it open and peered out to scan the area.

“All clear!” Hayes yelled.

Erik followed him through the door, exiting the kill house with a cloud of smoke and dust. He sprinted the last fifty yards to a concrete barricade, then dropped to a knee in the dirt and lowered his load to the ground.

“Two minutes, forty-six seconds.”

Erik glanced up to see Jeremy Owen looming over him with a stopwatch. The former Marine sharpshooter did not look happy.

The man playing the role of Erik’s protectee groaned and sat up. “What the fuck happened back there?”

Hayes shook his head. “I couldn’t see.” He glanced back at the kill house, a building made up of rooms, hallways, and stairwells where they practiced closed-quarters battle and rescue scenarios. Flash-bangs and smoke grenades were tossed into the mix to ramp up the chaos.

Erik had watched Hayes work, and visibility wasn’t his only problem. Hayes’s protectee had a paint splatter on his shirt the size of a soccer ball. If they’d been facing live rounds, the man would be dead.

“Okay, everybody up,” Jeremy ordered. “Hit the hoses, and we’ll reconvene on the south range at fifteen hundred.”

Erik got up and helped his teammate to his feet. He wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his arm and glanced at the sun. It was ninety-eight today—hotter inside the kill house—and his clothes were saturated.

Everyone grabbed the gear and moved out. Jeremy caught Erik’s eye and signaled for him to walk back with him on the trail.

“How’d it go with Becker?” Jeremy asked when they were deep in the woods.

Hayes Becker, twenty-six, of Roanoke, Virginia. As a team leader, it was Erik’s job to help evaluate candidates who wanted to join the elite ranks of Wolfe Security, and Hayes had made it to the final round.

“He’s not ready yet,” Erik said. “But he’s getting there.”

“What’s your take on his skills?”

“His tactical driving’s good. PT scores are off the charts. It’s his shooting that needs work.”