Page 66 of Bastard

“You’ll still be in charge of Samantha, of course. Unless that’s not what you want.” Dombrowski hadn’t changed much. A little grumpier maybe, but I think the last few months were stressful enough that we could all say that.

“No, that works out perfectly.” I enjoyed how security combined all my skills. It suited me well. And there was no better use of those skills than making sure Sam, Georgia, and their companies were safe. Plus I liked working with Dombrowski. Every week my responsibilities shrank. Pretty soon it would be this and my handful of clients on the side. Devil’s Wrath was for fun. A good ride from time to time, friendship with my brothers, and absolutely no guns or drugs.

“We can’t get too relaxed. There’s too much at stake still.”

Dombrowski was right, of course. “For the most part, everyone has moved underground. They want nothing to do with this shit. The MCs will wait this out. Some are afraid they’re next. But once they feel safe? They’ll fill the vacuum Devil’s Wrath left behind.”

“But there are a handful of very pissed off people whose instinct is to fight back,” Dombrowski said.

“Which is why we take this slow. Riddick has taken over the Red Wrath Security. I’ll hire Storm to be my liaison here.” My friend begged for the job. How could I say no? As soon as I agreed he fucking proposed to Adriana. Fucker beat me to the next step.

Couldn’t blame him though. When your life flashes before your eyes it reminds you there’s no time to waste. Which was why I’d had a ring in my pocket for the last three days.

Things kept going wrong. Sam fell asleep before I got home. A meeting got scheduled. I got yanked into a deposition. Shit like that. But today? Nothing was going to stop me from finally putting a ring on Sam’s finger.

“So you’ll get the office at the end of the hall. It connects to another office. That can be Storm’s.”

“Aw, giving me actual space now? Real sweet, buddy.”

Dombrowski rolled his eyes. “Don’t get too excited. They’re in the security section so they’re grey and ugly.”

Nothing a nice piece of art couldn’t fix. Or a bunch of pictures. I’d come up with something. “I’m not picky. Just glad to be moving on.” Besides, Sam wouldn’t be here all the time. It’s not like this office would become my life.

“Here’s the current system we use for rotating passwords and encryption. You’ll be able to access our full security system now. Here, let’s visit the building’s surveillance room and you can run through everything.”

I followed Dombrowski down the hallway, around a corner, and into a medium sized room with lots of monitors. Three people typed away at computer stations. Dombrowski led me to an unused computer on the left.

“So follow these prompts and use these codes. It should work just fine.”

A moment later I could see every camera in the building, plus which badges had been used to access rooms and cabinets, and more. I started working my way through it all to familiarize myself with how it worked.

And then I froze. “What’s this?”

Dombrowski frowned. “The fuck?”

It looked to me like the elevators had all been shut down except one. And according to the security camera, that one contained five armed men.

Dombrowski toggled between different feeds before swearing and hitting the speed dial on his phone. “Someone hacked this room’s feed, but not the main feed. That’s why these numbnuts didn’t see what happened. Hello? It’s Dombrowski. We have a hostage situation at Stroman Tower.”

I tried calling Sam for the hundredth time. She didn’t answer. All we knew was that the gunmen stopped on her floor and killed the cameras. But the circumstances spoke for themselves. They were there for Sam.

“What the hell do they think they’re doing?” Storm swore. “I mean, they have to have an exit strategy. This can’t be a suicide mission.”

I took Storm’s words and immediately forgot them for the sake of my sanity. “How many people are supposed to be on that floor?”

Dombrowski checked his tablet. “Twenty. Including Jasmine Painter and Adriana Morales. All of them badged in and haven’t badged out.”

Georgia came flying around the corner, red faced and furious. “What the fucking hell is happening?”

Storm had gone white beside me so I put a hand on his shoulder and gave it two quick squeezes to bring him back to the present while Dombrowski gave Georgia the bad news.

One of the security people who’d been here the whole time rushed up. “I’ve checked all the records. There are eighteen on that floor today. Two called out.”

I had a bad feeling about that. “Names and home addresses. Now.”

Dombrowski nodded at them to do as I asked. “I’ll send a team to check them out. It’s possible they’re just sick.”

“It’s also possible they helped these assholes.” No one did a job like this without knowing everything about the field of play.

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