Saving Serena (Hawk Security #1)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Serena

My eyes lingered on Duke as he walked to the door with Constance. The man he’d become was even more magnetic than the boy had been. I rubbed my hand, still feeling the echo of his touch.

After they left to visit with Lucas, the large man who’d been sitting across the hall stepped out a moment and then returned with a huge first aid bag. He set it on the table and opened it up. “Hi. Like Cobra said, I’m Winston.”

“Serena.” I left off my last name, as I usually did. “Is it a job requirement that you guys all be six-three and two-twenty or something?”

“Sometimes it helps, but Constance stands five-three, and she can sometimes kick my ass. I don’t dare ask her weight.”

Appropriately chastised for making generalizations, I nodded and stayed quiet.

He retrieved glasses with a magnifier and flipped on the attached bright light. I relaxed as he took his time examining my injuries. I was safe here. He sat back after finishing. “Car accident?”

I nodded. “Is it that obvious?”

He tapped the bridge of his nose. “A cut from glasses being hit by the airbag is not uncommon. You should’ve gone to the emergency room.”

I didn’t appreciate the lecture. Serena, you should have… I tried truth for a change. “I did, but was too scared to stay.”

“Ahhhhh,” he drew out the sound. “Cobra and Constance will keep you safe.”

“Is he that good? I mean, are they?”

“Yup. The best.” Winston nodded and pulled out tweezers. “Just don’t tell Cobra I said that,” he whispered.

I liked this guy’s easygoing approach. “Deal.”

He brought the tweezers up to my face. “Close your eyes and hold still. You have some debris I want to remove.”

I did as I was told and only felt two light pricks.

“This will sting a little,” Winston said.

When I opened my eyes, an antiseptic pad hovered near the cut on the bridge of my nose. I nodded and closed my eyes.

It did sting, but not as much as all the accusing eyes and questions had today. Serena, that doesn’t make sense. Are you sure, Serena? I’d heard every variation of the comments and questions. You’d think I had something tattooed on my forehead that said believe at own risk .

After my nose had been addressed, I opened my eyes to watch. “That’s a pretty big kit.”

Winston wiped my next cut. “In this line of work, we need more than the usual office does.” He carefully applied antiseptic ointment and a bandage. “Shirt off.” The next cut was on my side.

I heard the word deer come from Lucas’s office and tensed up. I knew what I had to do. They still didn’t believe me. “I think I’d rather have a nurse?—”

He backed away and raised his hands. “If you’d prefer a woman, that’s okay.”

I improvised. “Cobra said to go home, but I don’t have any money on me. He said you could get me an Uber?”

Winston zipped up his bag. “I’ll set up the Uber to take you by the emergency room first and wait to take you home. That wound needs to be treated.”

“Thank you.” Anything to speed up my escape.

A minute later, outside the Hawk Security building, I climbed into the back of the Uber Winston had called and closed the door. It had been a mistake to tell them about the deer. Now, if Bill Covington was right, I needed to start over again and find a replacement bodyguard service.

As the car pulled away from the curb, my heart raced. I couldn’t help but look behind us for the black SUV. It might not be rational, but fear gripped me.

The driver checked me out in the mirror. It only took her two blocks to ask, “What happened to you?”

Why was my life like Groundhog Day, everybody asking me the same questions over and over? “Car accident.” It sounded more believable than escaped a murder attempt . That’s what it was, though, right? I discarded that thought. I couldn’t let Lucas’s skepticism cloud my judgment.

“Ah. That’s why the hospital first.”

“No. I changed my mind. Home, please.”

She shook her head. Everybody was judging me today.

I tried deep breathing. It didn’t help. My heart felt like it wanted to burst out of my chest. How had Black Jacket Guy known to follow me up onto the hill road? Had I just not seen him? Was I paranoid? Fuck no, I’d been scared out of my wits—almost dying tended to do that to you.

As we drove, I thought back to being in the meeting room with Duke. The moment our hands touched... How could such a big man’s touch be so gentle? It brought back memories of summer camp—not that I’d had his hands on me back then. But I did remember the kindness of his smile, the kindness in his eyes. Kindness was a trait that fit him. That’s why I’d written the note. Yes, up until that last day, it had been a good summer.

Duke

I could see that Lucas was about to lose it. He’d brought Constance and me in to listen to Mr. Zolotarev rant about us “walking away” while his daughter was attacked, and I’d calmly explained my side of the tale. But then just as it seemed like the Russian was winding down, he ramped back up again.

“How can you let this happen?” he exploded through the phone, his accent thicker than usual. “She has cut on face. How can actress work with cut on face?”

“She fired us when I tried to pull her out of a dangerous situation,” I explained again. “She told me to leave, and I did.”

“She not hire you,” Zolotarev yelled. “I hire you. I fire you.”

Now I was getting pissed. He had no right to talk to me that way.

“I’ll put a different man on her,” Lucas offered.

“No.” The word was loud across the phone line.

“Mr. Zolotarev?—”

“I say no. I find others. You filth.”

“Then have a nice day.” Lucas punched the squawk box off. “Fucking asswipe, calling us filth. I should have never taken him on.” He shook his head and turned to Constance.

“She had nothing to do with this,” I explained. “I told her we’d been fired from the account and to come back to the office.”

“Right.” Lucas was back to shaking his head. “Before I forget—about the new girl, a deer?” he asked. “What do you make of that?”

I shrugged. “Too early to know for sure, but I believe her.”

“Seems fishy to me,” Lucas said.

“It does, but if she wanted to lie, wouldn’t she choose something more believable?”

Lucas shrugged. “Probably.”

The desk phone rang.

“Zolotarev again,” Lucas said wearily. He accepted the call and put it on the squawk box. “Hawk here.”

“What you do to punish this man for he not protect my daughter? He needs pay.”

Lucas’s face twisted into a snarl. “How I deal with my employees is my business, not yours.”

“Your man will pay for letting this happen my daughter, and you will pay.”

“Mr. Zolotarev, you are no longer a client of ours. Do not call again.” Lucas punched the phone hard to end the call. “That’s one angry mother.” He looked up at me.

The full weight of his glare landed on me as his scary-motherfucker face took shape. There was a reason the name Lucas Hawk struck fear in anyone who knew him—or of him. “That is not acceptable. Protection means you protect at all costs, and the last person you let scare you away is the client. You don’t need to like her. You don’t need to respect her. You need to stay and protect her no matter what until I—” He punched the table with a finger. “—say not to. Me and nobody else. Am I clear?”

I nodded. “Yes, sir,” Constance and I said simultaneously.

I prided myself on not being scared of anybody, but right now, my brother was the exception. When his voice took on that tone, the former Delta operator could scare you to death without raising his deadly finger.

Everyone in the spec ops community knew the story. It was a documented fact that he’d once killed an enemy with a single, well-placed stab of that finger. The battlefield was littered with men who’d underestimated my brother.

His voice grew louder. “If you’re not strong enough to stand up to a little woman who tells you to piss off, I don’t need you. You get me?” he said, pointing.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” I’d never felt worse for letting a man down.

“Duke, don’t ever pull out of an assignment again. You sure screwed the pooch. And you’d better watch your back. That is one pissed off Russian father, and in my experience, they can be fucking unpredictable.”

My stomach churned. “Understood.” This was not the kind of lecture you survived a second time.

He looked between the two of us. “Now. Moving on, keep the Benson girl safe and find the asshole. This job is important to both the Covingtons and the Bensons, so do us proud. They are not families I want to be on the wrong side of.”

“Copy that,” I said, standing. Both families had infinite money and powerful connections.

“Yes, sir,” Constance echoed.

Once out of the office, I sighed. Lesson learned: stick with the client, period.

“Do you need to change your pants?” Constance asked with a giggle. “I don’t have spare men’s underwear, but I do have some sweats in the desk and wet wipes.”

“Very funny.” It had gotten close to being that bad.

“What the hell did you do?” Winston asked in a hushed voice when we reached his desk.

“You heard that?”

“Hard not to when he’s pissed.”

I opened the door to the conference room. It was empty. “Where’d you stash the girl?”

He lifted a shoulder. “She said you told her to leave, so I arranged an Uber to the hospital and then home.”

“Fuck. Text me the home address. Constance, you’ve got the hospital.” I ran down the hall.

Fuck me. A few minutes into the case, and I’d already lost track of my new client. Lucas was going to skin me alive.

Once I was in the car and on the way, I called Winston. “Hey, man, find out where they towed her car. We need to check it out. Serena said she was hit from behind and swerved off the road because of a deer.”

“You don’t believe her?” he asked.

“Lucas is skeptical, so we trust but verify. It was in the hills, so?—”

“Start with the sheriff’s office,” Winston said, continuing my thought. “Also, paint transfer might give us a clue once we narrow down the suspect pool.”

“Exactly.” I loved that we were often on the same wavelength in investigations.

“On it.”

I pressed the gas pedal harder. I was getting eyes back on Serena pronto before she did something stupid and got herself hurt.

Serena

It was eerily quiet on the street after the Uber drove away. I checked both directions down the street for that black SUV, then walked to the side yard, lifted the fake stone, and pulled out the spare key my brother and I kept there. He only stayed here occasionally, so it made things easier. And at least one thing had gone right today—I didn’t have to break a window to get back into our house.

Closing the front door behind me, I flipped the deadbolt. Finally, relief settled over me. I was safe. I froze when the landline rang. We almost never used it, but Dad had insisted we have it in case of an earthquake, power outage, or dead cell phone battery.

I picked up when the caller ID indicated my brother Zach. “Hello?” I answered tentatively, in case it had been spoofed.

“I heard you had an accident,” Zach said. “And you’re not answering your cell. What happened? Are you okay? Do you need anything? I could loan you a car.”

I waited until the barrage of questions ended. “That fink Vincent told you, didn’t he?” I was going to get back to him for not keeping this to himself.

“He worries about you. We all do. So what happened?”

“Car accident in the hills. I’m a little banged up, but nothing time won’t heal, and it was a work car, so my wheels are fine. The only thing you can do to help is make sure it doesn’t go any further. I don’t want Mom or Dad to hear about this.”

“I get ya. They won’t hear it from me,” he promised. Zach had seen Dad’s smothering first hand.

“I gotta go, Zach. But everything’s good. Thanks for calling.”

“Later.”

I put the phone back in its cradle. Yes, I was safe here, but I had to figure out my next steps. I needed to call work. That was a given, but inhaling some food was higher on my priority list.

I checked the fridge and decided a yogurt was the quickest way to take the edge off my hunger. My shoulder hurt, and a peek inside my shirt showed I was going to have a nice seatbelt bruise as well.

Dad’s advice echoed in my head, “ First things first .” The question of why me didn’t have an easy answer, so it would have to wait. I needed to get cleaned up and call work. Plus, I needed to get my purse and phone, and get my life back on track.

Scraping the bottom of my yogurt cup, I pondered that. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to escape the hospital in a rush. Would my things be there, or in my car at some junkyard, waiting to be stolen?

After that would come the search for protection. Of all my brothers, Dennis and Vincent were the most likely to help me without tipping off our parents, but I now knew Vincent was negotiating for a job in Boston working for Bill Covington. He could be leaving any day, which made Dennis my best choice.

Since he was away on business, it probably made more sense to call Dennis this evening. A Benson always picks herself up and gets on with life. I’d learned the hard way that I had to face my fears and live. But I was safe here, and getting on with my life could wait a few hours.

Maybe a nice hot bath…

Ding .

The loud ding startled me, sending the almost empty yogurt cup and my spoon to the floor. I froze in place, my heart racing.

It was the front yard sensor—somebody was walking up to the house.

There had to be one or two good reasons for somebody to be at the door, but the one very bad one dominated my mind—I’d walked away from protection, and my pursuer had found me.