Bad Situation (Wolf Investigations and Securities Inc. #6)

Chapter 2

Ambushed

Grant usually took the jobs the furthest away. He had bought breakfast off of Jenna because it was easy, and she was the most reasonable with the prices. She was a good cook, and he liked her food. It was hard to admit, but there was nothing wrong with her. The only thing might be that she was human and not paranormal. Sometimes he thought she knew that he was a wolf. It was possible because many humans did know.

The drive was long, and he was thinking about the past even though he'd be better off forgetting it. His grandma had wanted to make sure he knew about the alpha that had sired him and the fact that he had killed Grant's mother. He'd been a toddler when his mother had sent him to his grandma. The reason she'd done it was because she didn't trust the pack alpha that she was seeing. She'd been afraid that he might kill the boy because he didn't consider him good enough. His mother was only half-wolf. That meant few wolves would want to mate her, and her boyfriend at the time was no exception.

George had not even noticed that he'd been sent to his grandmother right away. Once he did, he wanted him sent back. Grant's mother was named Marie. She had suspected that George would kill him because he didn't want to be the sire of a pup that was not a full blood. He had realized that he would never be able to get his hands on the pup. It made him go crazy much sooner. That was what had happened. He choked his mother to death.

His grandmother had proof that Grant was George's son. She had a letter from Marie stating that George had threatened to kill her and the pup. What she didn't have was proof that George had done it. The crime she could prove was that he had threatened his girlfriend and his son. Therefore, there was no way he could support the child. According to wolf law, he should have tried to support his child.

If there was an investigation, his grandmother had always said that they would know for sure that Marie had been killed by George. There was no doubt in her mind that her daughter had been ended by the Pack alpha, George. When Grant was a small child, the council had been so crooked that there had been no point in bringing it to their attention. Now that things had gotten better, so much time had passed, she was sure they wouldn't be willing to do anything.

A warden had come to talk to her and told her his name was Cage. He'd taken pictures of the letters Marie had sent her mother, but he told her that with so much time passing, it might be impossible to find the body. Grandma said that at least someone believed her story, and maybe they would try to find out what had happened.

Grant had little faith in others, and he doubted anything would come of it. His attitude wasn't good, and he knew it, but he was especially bad around Jenna. It made him feel bad afterward, but he was pushing her away. He was no good, and she had issues of her own, so they did not belong together. The way Grant looked at things, he was a bastard in more ways than one. That would probably never change, and he felt like she was a good person, too good for him.

Today wasn't going to be a good day. He had bought breakfast from Jenna, and it had been great. She'd even thrown in a little extra, and he was sure that was because he was about to have to deal with something bad. One of the new girls, Terra, wasn't making the grade. Her partner, Joseph, was complaining constantly. Now, she would be working with Grant, and he would decide if she could improve enough to stay or if she had to go. Jenna was just relieved that she wouldn't be the one to have to fire the girl.

The girl was nice and easy to get along with but if she couldn't do the job she would have to go. No one wanted to fire someone, it was not a pleasant duty. Tera had a lot of good points like she always came early to work unlike Joseph who barely made it. She was also pleasant and easy to deal with, but that didn't help if she couldn't do the job. Today he would see what her problem was and if he could help her at all.

He had just finished his breakfast and was getting ready to load the truck when Tera came in ready to go. She didn't act worried, which was surprising because people usually knew they were on their last leg when it was time to work with him. Maybe she didn't care if she kept the job or not? She grabbed their list and headed out the door to help him load the truck. That was another good point she had. She helped load the truck.

They both worked hard, and he saw that she was very good at loading the truck and that was probably because Joseph came late sometimes, and she had the truck loaded by the time he made it. That made him wonder if he was working with the right partner because the only reason, they were testing Tera was because Joseph complained that she wasn't holding up her end.

“Where do you want to go first?” Grant asked.

“Let's go out far and work our way back.”

That was what he usually did, so he didn't mind that at all. They got to the place, and it looked like a normal house, and they even had a dog. While he didn't feel concerned about the way the house looked, he still worried because they had been attacked a lot lately. He left her in the truck and headed to the house. A lady opened the door, and she didn't look like she was under any duress. Grant spoke to her for a minute and then headed back to get Tera. That's when the trouble started.

Two males jumped out of the grass and tried to attack him, but he took them down with no trouble. Now, he was concerned about Tera, but he didn't need to be. When he arrived at the truck, he saw four males restrained in the grass, looking unhappy. Grant was sure she had tasered them. Good for her! He'd heard Jenna was good at that and that she was training all the new recruits. Tera obviously learned her lessons well.

She helped him load up the males and they went through their pockets and pulled out massive amounts of money which he put in a bag and stuck behind the seat. They just went about the job in the normal way, and he was surprised by how fast she got her work done. He double checked it and found that she had done a great job. The girl was almost as good as he was. Joseph would be working with him tomorrow and he probably wouldn't be staying.

As they drove away, Tera called Moe and explained the problem.

“Where are you two headed?” Moe asked.

Tera gave her the address, and Moe told her that someone would be there to pick up the prisoners. It would be a relief to get rid of those guys. They were a problem, and they would be hard to check on while they were doing a job. It was great for them that they arrived about the same time that the warden did.

“Hey, my name is Joe. I'm a warden, and I heard you had something for me?”

“We have six of them in the back and while my partner gets started on the job, I'll help you move them.” Grant offered.

“Help is always appreciated.”

Tera went to the door to check on the job while the two guys began to move the prisoners to the warden's track. They heard a scream, and Tera fell.

“Looks like I may get some more guys," Joe observed.

“I'll go one way. You go the other.”

The males divided up and headed to opposite sides of the house as someone moved Tera inside. “We know you're out there. Come to the door if you don't want her hurt.”

“You think I'm stupid? I already know what you're going to do to her, and it doesn't matter what I do.”

“Fine, you'll get to listen to her suffer," the unidentified male said.

“Okay. Just know the toad princess is on her way and if you hurt her, you won't get changed back.” Grant informed.

“That's just a story.”

“Is it? You'll all be toads forever. You believe in wolves, but you don't believe in witches? You're a funny group of people. I'll call her again and tell her to hurry that you're all excited about joining the others at the pond.”

“Wait a minute. We've not done anything to her yet because she got knocked out, and some of the guys like to hear them yell. Give us a couple minutes to discuss it, and we'll let you know what we want to do.”

“Harry, Harry, Harry!” Grant whispered, and she appeared.

“What's happening now?” Harry demanded.

“They've got Tera, and they're threatening to hurt her.”

“I'll take care of this," Harry offered, walking up the steps.

As soon as she got to the door, it blew back.

“Who the hell are you?” A grouchy male demanded.

“You can call me the toad Princess. Where's my girl?” Harry asked.

“We've not hurt her. Just let us leave, and we'll never be back.”

“You think that's good enough?”

“Please?” One of the guys said.

“You're funny. You can go, but only you. The rest of you will be decided upon individually. Who knocked her out?”

All the guys pointed at one of them. He immediately became a toad. The others had a sick look on their faces. One of them began to cry. The guy that she had freed finally took off running. Grant decided that she wanted one witness to get away so that he could tell his story to everyone. He wasn't sure that was a good idea, and he wasn't sure the guy would tell anyone. That was okay because this was Harry's show, and he wasn't getting involved.

“Who are the sick guys that like to rape women and make them cry?”

The other guys pointed to two, and Harry did something, but he wasn't sure what. “What did you do to us?” One of the guys asked.

“You try to rape another woman, and your junk is going to fall off. It will hurt, too, and you will scream," Harry explained.

Grant thought that was fair. He was sure these guys couldn't enjoy sex if they couldn't hurt someone. This basically stopped them from having sex. Harry had just saved many women from suffering. Those two guys took off, and he bet the first thing they were going to do was test it. They would quickly find out that she was telling the truth, and sex was off the table for them.

“Any of you decent guys they just took on a job they didn't understand?”

“I'd like to think I was, but I have to admit that I stood by and let them do what they wanted even if it made me sick. I've never had much luck keeping a regular job, and I needed the money," one of the guys said.

“If I let you go, am I going to run into you again?” Harry asked.

“Not if I can help it. Maybe now that I'm in Alaska, I can find a regular job.”

“Go and be bad no more," Harry giggled.

“What about us?" One of the last three guys asked.

“What do you think I should do with you?”

“What about jail?”

“Do you know anything about the jail I would send you to?”

“Wouldn't the state troopers get us?” He asked.

“You're not that lucky. This jail is so bad people are trying to get the cops to kill them, so they don't have to go there. You do realize that what you have been doing is murder, rape, and mayhem?” Harry wondered.

“They told us it didn't count. You guys are some kind of monsters. Nothing we do to you is bad.”

“Really? Do I look like a monster? Do you think I don't feel pain? You think some of these people you hurt don't have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters that love them? Our kind was here before you were, and we tried to leave you alone and live in peace. What has that gotten us? We could have destroyed you and not have to deal with this. We still can destroy you. I feel like you need to be punished in some way. Come up with a better plan.”

“What about if we work it off?” One of the guys said.

“What can you do?” Harry asked.

“Should you do this, Harry? These guys are killers.”

“None of us have killed anyone. That’s why we gave up so quickly and didn’t run.” He admitted. “This work doesn't fit. None of us have liked it, and we don't really understand what they want us to do.”

“They want you to spread hate and rape and kill people," Harry explained.

“I don't like doing that. I'm ready to get a different job.”

“What can you do?”

“I worked at the last security company before it went under. It's hard to get a job when you can't get a reference because the company is no longer a going concern.” He observed.

“Get out of here. Why didn't you just try to get a job at this company?”

“They were bringing their own people in. I didn't think I had any chance.”

“What about the rest of you?” Harry asked.

“I worked with him at the security company. I don't know about Dan here.”

“I'm a hunter. It doesn't pay as well as it used to so it's hard to make a living. They told us it would be easy work, and we wouldn't have to do much, and we would make a whole bunch of money. We just started here today. We could already see it wasn't going to work out," Dan admitted.

“You guys got snookered. They are listed as a terrorist organization, and you could have ended up in jail for life or just killed outright. A lot of local citizens have started carrying guns," Harry informed.

“Harry, are you recruiting these guys?” Grant asked.

“Why not? These guys don't belong with that herd, and it's the best way to reduce their numbers. I'll just cast a little spell on them. If they don't behave, they'll become toads. How can you have a problem with that?”

“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds all right. I'll work with Dan and the team here will work with the other two. Maybe we'll get caught up and make up for time lost. Tera, you get that one.” He pointed.

“I’m Mike. This guy is Tom.”

“Tom needs to go back to the office, and Jenna can work with him," Grant directed.

“You're really trying to piss her off, aren't you?” Harry asked.

“This is your plan, so she'll be mad at you.”

“Thanks a lot.”

"Tyne, we'll be happy if this gets us caught up or even closer to it," Grant suggested.

“You may be right. Maybe we'll get a bonus or something. You guys are working free for today. If you do a good job, you'll start getting paid. Dan may not be because he's training. I'm not sure how Tyne will work that out.”

“Let's get these guys where they need to be, and Dan and I will start on this job.”

Everyone got where they needed to be, and Grant hoped and prayed that this would work out. It was crazy, but most of Harry's plans were. That didn't mean that her plans didn't work sometimes. He was willing to give it a shot and see how things turned out. At least these three were the least violent of the group, and they were spelled, so if they tried to go off their agreement, it wasn't going to be pretty for them. Jenna wasn't going to be happy, and he was sure that Harry was going to tell her that Grant had suggested she get one of the guys.

Even though the main plan was Harry's, sending one of the guys to Jenna so she would have to get out on the road and work in the field was his. Yeah, he was pushing her away with both hands. If he ever decided he wanted to do things differently, he wasn't sure there was any way to come back from this. The best thing he could do right now was to get to work and see how this new guy worked out. It would be best just to look at him as a trainee like any other trainee.

They got to work, and Dan was actually a pretty good worker. How he had ended up with those delinquents was hard to say. Even though he was training, he had given enough assistance so that they could get done early and move on to the next job. It looked like he was going to get caught up from all the time that he had lost. The job was done, and they had moved on to the next one. He was hungry, so they stopped to eat before they headed to the next job, and he paid for Dan even though he suspected he had some of the dirty money he'd been paid by the haters.

Their food was good, and when they finished eating, they moved on to their next job and worked quietly and quickly. One more job, and by the end of the day, he got done at about the time he would have gotten done had he not been interrupted or had any help. This guy might not have been a bad help because he seemed to learn quickly and move fast. Why would someone willing to work be involved with these people floored him?

He also wondered where they were going to put these three extra guys since they only had one empty room. Someone would be camping out on the couch, and it wasn't going to be him. Food would also be a problem, but he was sure they all had a little money, and they would be buying their own. For some reason, he thought about Jenna and wondered how things were working out for her with the new guy.

The guys had worked out things the best they could, taking turns sleeping on the couch, and a week had passed, and he had to admit all three of them had turned out to be a great help. What had surprised him was that the haters hadn't come to take those guys away since they had gone rogue. Work was starting to catch up, and Tyne approved the plan. Harry had gotten most of the credit, but those at the office had gotten a small bonus as well. That was only fair since the idea had been Harry's. It was odd that since the new guys had come there had been no more attacks or any issues at all.

Harry suggested losing some of their guys and having some turned into toads, which had been a hard hit, maybe one they wouldn't get over. Grant could only hope she was right. The other office wasn't experiencing the same lull that they were. That also seemed odd to him. Their new guys were behaving great because they were spelled. No one wanted to be a toad because that was just gross. Maybe a spell like that on all the haters would prevent everything that had been happening.

The problem was these people needed to be identified before they could be spelled. Once that happened, life could become normal. How did you identify a bunch of haters that were hiding wherever they could? It wasn't like they looked different than the average human. It was their behavior that made them different and the way they believed. There was no way, so they just kept working and catching up on their back orders, hoping to be left alone. Grant knew it was only a matter of time before something happened.

Grant wished that he didn't share a bedroom suite with Jenna because it just made things harder on him. Even when he tried to avoid her, he often saw her at different times throughout the day, especially in the evening as he prepared to go to sleep. He often bought food from her, and there was no way to avoid sitting at the table and eating it afterward. It would appear odd to others if he was the only one that left the table. There was no other place nearby to buy food, and he had to admit that she was an excellent cook. Her prices were also fair and a little bit lower than what he would pay anywhere else. Everyone in their group bought supper from Jenna. Some of them also bought breakfast, but lunch was usually bought on the road.

He couldn't deny that he wondered what she needed money for so badly. Maybe she was saving to buy a home, but single females usually didn't seem to worry about that. There might be some other need she had that he knew nothing about. That's when he remembered that she had secrets, and so did he. His grandma was still alive since she was a wolf, and she lived in the house that he had been raised in. It needed a lot of work, and that was what he wanted some of his extra money for. The rest he wanted to buy a home of his own, hopefully close to hers. As a mated male, someday, he couldn't imagine living in the same house with her because she was too nosy and interfered too much.

It was two weeks later when they finally caught up on their list. No one was surprised when Tyne extended their area, and they were behind again. The three guys they had added to their crew seemed pretty happy with their jobs, even though one of them had to sleep on the couch each night. They admitted that they had had to sleep in the woods more often than not while they had been with the haters the short time they had been there. When that was considered, the couch looked pretty good.

Moe called Jenna and told her they would be adding to the house. Four bedrooms and a storage room for equipment would all be added. Tyne’s construction crew that worked out of Wilde would be coming with a couple of campers and staying on site until the work was done. Eventually, he planned to build apartments to rent to the people working there. Until that was done, everyone would be living in the house rent free. Even when it was done, people with certain positions would be living in the house, but it would be part of their pay.

Grant wondered when the builders would arrive. It wouldn't really affect him or Jenna since they would stay in the suite unless a family joined them. Right now, that was unlikely. Tyne might try to recruit a family since he had a family space available. Still, this part of Alaska was not a place families usually moved to. He would have an easier time finding a local who wishes to learn the security business and work in a job that pays better than most jobs in the area.

Because of the three men they had added to their crew, men outnumbered the females two to one. He wondered if this was why most attacks were now in the central office. Many of those cowardly men preferred to attack females; the smaller, the better. Even though they had not done well in the attacks against those ladies, for some reason, they still felt they could win.

It was the next day when the construction guys arrived. No one at the office seemed to know any of them. That was okay because they didn't need to know them for them to do their jobs. It was also a good thing to have all these guys around so that they would not target Jenna in the office. Regardless of how much distance he had put between them, he still worried about her. A big surprise came when he got back early from a job. One of the construction workers had her cornered in the office, and she had her taser out.

“What's going on here?” Grant asked.

“I was just asking the little lady out. She got upset and pulled a Taser on me. That made me afraid to turn my back on her. At this point, I just want to walk away unharmed," the guy said.

“Then walk away. You don't need to come to the office again because everything you need to do is with Moe," Jenna replied.

The guy did exactly what he was asked and that made Grant wonder if Jenna had overreacted. “Are you okay?"

“I'm fine now that he's gone. Why are you back so early?”

“I got my list cleared. There was nothing left to do," Grant answered.

“Do you want another job?”

“I could take one if it's small.”

She handed him a paper. It was a nearby job. “There you go.”

“Thank you.”

He hurried away to get to the job. Grant still worried about what he had seen and wondered what was going on. If the guy was a bad guy, he now knew that Jenna had a Taser and might know how to take it away from her. Apparently, the guy didn't know that there were cameras in the office. Tonight, after everyone else went to bed, he was going to look at what had really happened.

Grant finished his extra job and still made it back before the others. They were all operating at the level of average security installers. His level was higher, and even alone, he managed to do well. Maybe it was true that he managed to do better alone than he would have had he had a partner. Tyne was happy even with the newbies, so that wasn't an issue. He ate supper with the others and lingered until they all disappeared. That was when he slipped into the video room where any videos could be viewed. Since this had happened today and only a few hours earlier, it was easy to pull up. He watched as the construction guy entered and began to talk to Jenna. At first, it seemed innocent, but it wasn't long before he began to get pushy and talk about how he wanted to have sex with her. That was not like asking someone on a date at all.

When the man began to move like he was going to come around the counter, Jenna pulled out a taser, and the guy backed off. That was when he was singing a different tune, but Grant had no doubt that he was afraid to turn his back on her. After what he had said to her, she should have tasered him anyway. In the next few days, he would have a chance to speak with this male and explain to him that he needed to leave Jenna alone and stay out of the office. The way Grant looked at things, part of his job was to make sure his people stayed safe.

The next morning, Grant was more tired than usual. He'd gotten to bed late because of his nocturnal activities, and when he had gotten to bed, sleep had not come easy. Never late, he'd not been late today either, and he'd made sure to get plenty of coffee. Whether it helped or not, it seemed to help, and that was good enough. He grabbed a sandwich he had in the refrigerator and took it with him. He would eat on the way. It was easy to notice that Jenna had put an extra job on his list. That made him smile, and he wondered if he would get it all done.

“Still working alone?” Dan asked.

“It suits me.”

“A bit of a lone wolf, huh?”

Dan was always trying to get him to take him on as a partner. If he did, that would leave someone else alone. Grant liked to work alone, and that was how things were going to stay. He only took on a partner if there was a reason that he had to do so. There was no reason right now because everyone else had a partner. Grant had to admit that working with these other people had made him truly appreciate Jenna. Not that he hadn't appreciated her before; he just refused to show it because he needed to keep her away from him.