Overture (North Security 1)

He gives me a hard look, but his voice is light. “Okay, we can have a good time without the chance of human trafficking. If you insist.”

I wouldn’t be okay with strippers on a regular day.

Today is not a regular day.

After having the sex talk with Samantha, I have no desire to watch men reduced to animals over a pair of tits. Especially when all I can see is Samantha’s full lips forming my name, her eyes fluttering as she imagines me between her thighs.

“So what’s the plan?” I say, forcing my tone to be casual.

Josh pulls out his phone and texts me. The message contains only a photo of an ordinary brown rock holding down a one-dollar bill. The prize. “Jeff’s going to fly us over the desert,” he says, referring to our resident pilot. “We each get a parachute and a bottle of water. First one to find the prize wins.”

This is what happens when you put a bunch of over-muscled alpha men together. We have to compete to find out who’s the best, even if one of us has to die trying.

I glance down at my gray button-down and black slacks that I wore for a night in the city. “You could have told me before I got dressed.”

“There are a handful of not-quite-street-legal cars waiting for us at the rendezvous point. We’ll take them into the city. Drinks. Dinner. More drinks.”

Hassan joins us at the bar, throwing his arms over our shoulders. He’s already buzzed, which is maybe not ideal for jumping into the desert. “Let’s get this fucking party started,” he says.

I raise my eyebrow at Josh, who sighs. We’ll have to jump after Hassan and make sure he makes it to the rendezvous point. It wouldn’t do to have him die the night before his wedding. His fiancée would be pissed, for one thing. And all those hors d’oeuvres would go to waste.

CHAPTER NINE

The Helicopter Quartet was written by controversial composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. It involves sending four members of a string quartet into the sky in four separate helicopters and having each musician play their individual part. Meanwhile, they are recorded and broadcasted into an auditorium where they are all played simultaneously for an audience. Stockhausen reportedly composed the piece after a series of unusual dreams involving helicopters and a swarm of bees.

LIAM

The call comes when I’m ten thousand feet above the ground. A small buzz in my pocket, which reminds me to zip my phone and wallet into the harness so I don’t lose them on the way down. I glance at the screen. A notification that someone’s at the south rear exit.

Someone’s always coming and going at the compound. An overzealous security system monitors every single entry point. I’m anal enough to leave the notifications on even though I don’t usually need to see who it is. Except right now almost everyone is on a job or in the chopper. I left two men at North Security, one on guard duty, one off. I don’t expect trouble, but I’m a cautious man. Untrusting.

Which means there are very few people who could be leaving right now.

If I had to guess, it would be Cody in his beat-up truck that’s older than him with a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it. He probably visited Laney and Samantha, playing Mario Kart in the game room. There are a few people in front of me to jump, so I swipe to pull up the secure app that streams the video cameras.

Sure enough, there’s the white truck pulling to a stop.

The gate slides open, well-maintained and smooth. The truck pulls forward and disappears from view. Relief fills my chest, which is funny considering I’m about to jump out of the open side door of the chopper. This is an adrenaline jump. A good-time jump. A hundred times easier than having the sex talk with Samantha, pretending that I think of her as a daughter when I don’t.

Hassan jumps, and the men cheer.

The next few guys go quickly. They’re eager to get down on the ground so they can beat the groom-to-be. Either that or they’re hungry. Probably both.

Josh glances back at me, a question in his eyes. We’ve been through enough close calls that he can feel the unease inside me without me having to say a word. He can feel it even before I do.

Why the fuck am I uneasy?

Everything I do at home, the training and the security, it’s about precaution—not actual danger. That’s for South America and the Middle East. That’s for the fucking jungle that is Washington DC. In the hill country of Texas? This is my land. I shouldn’t be worried about a damn thing.

I give Josh a terse nod. Whatever it is, it can wait.

He offers a salute, lacking his usual ironic twist.

When it comes to the command structure, we don’t fuck around, not even on a bachelor party. He jumps, his movements as casual as stepping off a porch. The wind carries him sideways, so it looks like he’s floating. In the next moment a deepening fog swallows him whole. My stomach clenches into knots, but it has nothing to do with the men who just jumped out of the helicopter.

“Your turn,” comes a voice in my ear. The pilot.

“Sorry, Jeff. Looks like you’re our designated driver.”