Page 5 of Knight's Desire

“Thanks. Stella told me to tell you to come by for dinner sometime this week. She promised to make her famous shrimp bake.”

Brick never broke his stride as he headed to the elevator. “Who is it this time?”

Jordan chuckled. “Someone she met at the grocery store. She swears she’s your perfect match. Just say the word, and I’ll tell Stella to stop with the matchmaking. You should be able to come for dinner without her trying to marry you off.”

Brick depressed the elevator button and turned to flash Jordan a smirk. “No way. I get a free meal and a hot date. Keep the matchmaking coming.” The elevator doors opened, and he stepped inside, holding the open-door button so he could continue his conversation. “It’s Stella’s way of showing she cares. It’s nice. That she’s so happy, she wants other people to be too. But if you tell her I said that, I’ll kick your ass.”

He released the button and allowed the elevator doors to close on Jordan’s full laugh. He’d been a regular at the Raines’ home since Jordan came to work at KSI. The two of them had struck up an easy friendship, and when Brick met Stella, he’d fallen in love with the feisty woman who turned his tough friend to mush with just a smile. Brick liked to surround himself with that kind of love even if he wasn’t looking for it himself.

He stepped off the elevator, stopping off at the receptionist’s desk to deliver a pastry to Sarah before moving to the Command Center, the base of operation for the computer analysts, where he would find Kat. He didn’t make it halfway down the hallway before he saw Jay Colter step from Brick’s office, his expression an unreadable mask. Brick’s good mood took a tumble, and he adjusted the direction of his steps to move into his office.

Though Tristin Knight was the owner of Knight Security and Investigations, Jay and Brick supervised the two divisions of the company. Brick oversaw the private security and investigations side of the house. Jay oversaw the company’s two covert operations teams and led the original ops group, the Alpha Team. The private security and investigations side was the public face of the company, so the Alpha and Delta Teams could operate in secret for the protection of the team members as well as their clients. The private investigators provided support to the teams when needed, but for the most part, the sensitive and risky cases that traditional law enforcement or government agencies couldn’t handle, for a variety of reasons, were reserved strictly for Alpha and Delta.

Brick crossed the office to sit behind his desk as Jay sat in one of the chairs across from him. He held up the box of pastries before dropping it to the top of the desk.

“I’m guessing you don’t want a pastry before you tell me why you’re waiting for me.”

Jay shook his head. “Maybe later. Sorry to ambush you just as you’re back from lunch. There are a couple of things I needed to run by you.”

“They must be bad if you’re turning down the diner’s pastries.”

“Not bad. Just important.”

Brick nodded. “Okay. Shoot.”

Jay reached over to tap a red folder on the edge of Brick’s desk. “There are two candidates in there to fill in for Kat after she has the babies. Sydney’s already run the background checks, and Kat’s signed off on them. Tryst said he thought you knew one of them, so I wanted to get your input.”

Brick flipped open the folder, shuffled through the paper and paused when he spotted a familiar name. “Owen Bridges? I’ll be damned. I haven’t heard that name in a while.”

“What do you know about him?”

“We worked a case together several years ago. He was part of the FBI’s cybercrimes division. He has skills, but he’s kind of a practical joker. I thought he was going to drive his director to retire early, but I think the guy fired Owen instead.”

Jay smirked. “Think it’s worth calling him in for an interview?”

Brick scanned the employment summary in the file, impressed to see how Owen’s skills and knowledge had only grown since he left the FBI. “Yeah. It can’t hurt. We won’t know if he’ll fit unless we talk to him. He’s got experience to do the job. If I had a concern, it would be about his discretion. The hacker I knew wasn’t much of a rule follower.”

“I’ll have Sarah schedule the interview with you, me and Tryst. We’ll let Tryst handle the discretion part of the job.”

Brick flipped the folder closed before leaning back far enough in his chair for the hydraulic mechanism to creak under his weight. “And the other thing?”

“You talk to Sam?”

Brick scowled. “We just ate lunch together. Why?”

“He talked to me and Rock recently. He told us to keep him in mind if for some reason we were adding to the teams in the future.”

Adam “Rock” Davis led the Delta Team while Jay led the Alpha Team. Sam Montgomery was once a member of the Alpha Team before stepping down into the role of private investigator.

“What? When did he tell you this?”

“This morning. I thought he’d tell you at lunch.”

“Gennessey was with us, so that may be why he didn’t say anything. But why would he want back in? After what happened when he went undercover, I thought he’d promised Monica he wouldn’t put himself in danger like that again.”

When Sam was a member of the Alpha Team, he’d gone undercover on a case, but he was tortured after his cover was blown. Monica had given birth while he was undercover, and when the Alpha Team brought him home, beaten and near death, she made him promise to leave the Alpha Team for good. He’d seemed content with being an investigator for the last few years. Though his job still held some risk, he was able to be home for Monica and Aidan when needed.

“He didn’t explain, but I get the impression things aren’t going so well at home.”

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