“What?” Ryden studied Mason. Clearly, Ryden must have, or Jay wouldn’t have flown off the handle.
“Think about it. Every time Jay gets his tail up, you’ve said somethin’ that he interprets as you saying he’s weak or weaker than the rest of us.”
Ryden’s eyebrows flew up. “The fuck? I don’t think he’s weaker’n the rest of us. I was tryin’ to keep him safe because although he’s a hell of a lot stronger than he looks, he ain’t a fuckin’ Marine. These guys are dangerous.”
“I know that. You know that. Jay…” Mason shrugged, his expression going soft. “Bein’ seen as less than by guys like you is obviously a trigger. What does that tell you?”
Ryden frowned. His grip on his chair’s armrests turned white-knuckled. “Someone like me hurt him. Bad.” He should have known. “Then why work in a security company owned and run by former military personnel? There’s enough testosterone around here to choke a bull. He’s been here for how long? Has this been an issue before?”
“No.”
Great. So, after years of Jay working at Four Kings Security, he’d never had a problem with any former military personnel here, just him. “So why am I the asshole?”
Mason cocked his head to one side. “Good question. What makesyoudifferent? You get under his skin, Ry. Why is that?”
“The fuck should I know?” Ryden shook his head. This was not something he wanted to think about at the moment. “How’d Lucky’s meeting go?”
“Gibson never showed.”
“What the hell?” This day just got weirder and weirder. “Gibson’s been desperate for a meeting. Lucky had to move a bunch of clients around to make room for him, and he didn’t show?”
Before Mason could respond, Lucky swept into the room, closing the door behind him.
“Have you seen?” Lucky asked, grabbing the remote off Ryden’s desk and turning on the flatscreen on the wall. He changed the channel to a station showing a news flash.
“What’re we lookin’ at here?” Ryden frowned as the screen switched from the news reporter to a massive cloud of black smoke, the thrum of news helicopters circling filling the air. A ribbon scrolled the bottom of the screen.
Breaking news. Car explosion on A1A kills driver and at least one passenger.
Just as Ryden was about to ask, an image of a familiar man appeared on the screen. Holy shit.
“We’ve just received confirmation that one of the victims, Graham Gibson, owner of Gibson Global, a major import-export company in St. Augustine, was inside the vehicle at the time of the explosion. There’s no word yet on what might have caused the explosion, but an investigation?—”
Lucky muted the TV. “That is why my client never showed.”
“Fuck.” Ryden stared at him. His gut told him something was very wrong about all this. “What was Gibson comin’ in for?”
Lucky’s lips pressed into a thin line before he spoke up. “Executive protection.” He sat on the couch next to Mason and shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, but when I spoke to him, he sounded…off. Something was not right. He was scared.”
Mason and Ryden exchanged glances.
“What?” Lucky asked, looking from Ryden to Mason. “You know something?”
“It’s probably completely unrelated, but something weird happened at the wedding.” Ryden told Lucky everything he’d told Mason, minus his little spat with Jay.
Lucky jumped to his feet. “Are you kidding me? Impersonating a member of the military is a third-degree felonyin this state, and I know whatever that fuck he’s up to, it goes beyond misrepresentation.”
“You think the two are related?” Mason asked. “I mean, that would be a pretty big fuckin’ coincidence.”
Ryden paced as he tried to wrap his head around this. “Gibson owned an import and export company here in St. Augustine. He was comin’ here to discuss protection, and he was scared. Then, the same day, a fake Marine is in the area talkin’ ’bout how the asshole didn’t agree and, ‘after this,’ they had to move fast and get a shipment ready to go.” He looked up at the same time as Mason and Lucky.
“Jack,” all three said.
Ryden snorted. He headed for his desk to call Jack when Lucky raised his hand.
“Wait,” Lucky said. “Before we stick our noses into this, we need to talk to King.”
The three of them exchanged glances. Not what Ryden had been hoping to hear.
