Blake was strong, intelligent, protective, sharp, and part of the most legendary protection and security agency for women in west-central Florida. Giancarlo would have definitely approved, had he gotten to know her. Even Blake’s quirky, aggravating humor would have charmed the old man. With a sigh, Brooke pushed her thoughts away. Thinking about Blake would lead to nothing but trouble. BrookeknewBlake was already suspicious there was something going on with her, so the very last thing she needed to do was give her any ammunition or a reason to dig deeper.
Besides, she still had some investigating to do on her own before she decided what her next steps would be. Suspicion of embezzlement didn’t mean embezzlement was actually occurring. However, she was positive, down to her very bones, that Thom and his partners were on track to strip Cask & Canvas bare before disappearing into thin air. She could only assume his partners were doing the same thing with the other microbreweries in their wheelhouse at the same time. Once all four microbreweries were dismantled and worthless, theywould escape without a backward glance—only to set up shop in another city and do the same thing all over again.
A rage she had never thought she was capable of rose up within her. By her own admission, Brooke had a wicked bad temper, although it was usually kept under control. It was bad enough the nefarious intentions of those four dolts could end up giving Brooke Marino Designs a black eye. But the fact that these sleazy motherfuckers were taking advantage of a man whose wife had been battling breast cancer—using his inattention because of his worry and stress to rob him blind—had her seeing red. Family waseverythingto Brooke. She would be goddamned if these assholes were going to destroy more lives than they probably already had onherwatch.
She closed her laptop and set it aside, then got up to wash out her empty wine glass and placed it on the drain board to dry. She had a lot to do behind the scenes while, at the same time, pretending she was nothing more than a clueless graphic artist who was only interested in graphic art for the craft beer industry. Once her own investigation was complete and she could see a path through this damn mess, she would lay her plans, then put them in motion—becoming the protective, territorial tigress Blake Seibert had insisted she was. Those soulless motherfuckers were goingdown.
Brooke smiled slightly as she went back into her living space, her gray eyes narrowing as she sat down again. In the meantime, she would stay away from APS, acting as though her palpable aggravation was merely client frustration, even as she quietly set a trap that would pull Thom Geralt and his crooked partners into her crosshairs.
Because Brooke Marino had some thieves to catch.
Chapter 1
In the control booth of the Utopia lab at Armstrong Protection Services, the enormous simulator created to generate realistic combat situations with full-size virtual enemies—allowing APS associates to practice weapons-based combat in a first-person perspective—Blake Seibert checked off the remaining item on her list for the next day’s training session before closing everything down for the day. Taking her concealed carry holster out of the small locker in the wall, she strapped it on and then shrugged on her leather jacket, flicking off the lab lights. The head of Utopia stepped out of the control booth, letting the dim nighttime illumination guide her to the lab door as she headed home.
When Utopia was in use, the dark walls and bare room lit up with different virtual scenes and lifelike, menacing “adversaries” via the sophisticated lighting system installed on the ceiling and around the perimeter. Numerous 360° combat simulations were programmed into the system, which Blake and her second, Blair Hightower, adjusted and changed continually. The “weapons” in the lab used laser light with pinpoint accuracy to record hits and strikes, all of which were captured by the complex system housed in the control booth.
Blake loved her lab, feeling enormous pride that she, along with a few others at APS and assisted by outside consultants, had created something so unique and effective. From the time she had been small, she’d loved video games of all kinds, quickly becoming a champion-level player even before she had hit high school. Had it not been for the dream of starting APS with her long-time best friends—Bryn and Riley Armstrong, TeaganMalloy, Trillian Dacanay, Jaime Quintero, Kennedy Weston, Casey Christiansen, and Drew Hollister—Blake would have most likely become a video game designer and developer, and a very successful one at that.
The hour late, Blake exited Utopia and started down the long, deserted hallways toward the front entrance of APS, lost in memories of the past as the events of the last few weeks hammered at her brain.
It was during their junior year of high school that the idea of Utopia had materialized for her and the future APS management team. Hanging out in the huge backyard of the house owned by Drew Hollister’s parents, Blake and her friends were doing their usual kicking around of ideas of how they would like to structure their organization, as well as what they would need in order to offer the services they had in mind.
“I wish—” Blake had started, then had stopped, uncharacteristically serious.
“You wish what?” Jaime had prompted, grinning as she’d continued, and had thrown a pinecone at Blake’s head. “That you hadn’t let Case kick your ass during your last sparring session?”
Blake had thrown the pinecone back. “Dipshit, no. Jesus.” She’d turned serious again. “I’ve been wishing there was a way we could create sims that were bigger than usual, to be used for training. We could have something custom-designed in standard video game size, no sweat…even for a big-ass wide-screen TV. But—”
“But imagine standing in the middle of a life-size 3D virtual game in a lab environment, fighting enemies that way.Fuck. That would be amazing,” Bryn had agreed. “Creating something like that would be outrageously expensive, but I don’t see why it couldn’t be possible.”
Tilting her head back to look up at the starry night sky, Teagan had said slowly, “That means one of the management teams we create needs to be some kind of gaming simulation team, to teach our associates the proper way to fight. Considering,” the corner of her mouth had quirked slightly, “it looks like we’re going to have a lot more than simple protection and security going on under the hood. Seibert, you would be the perfect person to head something like that up, because of your gaming knowledge.”
“Even if you are a fucking asshole sometimes.” Riley had snickered as Blake had shot her the finger.
Reaching the front door, Blake let herself out of the complex’s entrance, then strode down the front sidewalk and crossed the street toward the APS apartments. The Seven all lived in an exceptionally secure eight-unit apartment building directly across the street from APS headquarters. Each of them had their own two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment; the extra unit was used as a space called the Wendy House, where the APS femmes hung out together.
Each apartment was soundproof, wired to the gills with failover and other sophisticated wireless technology, and had an unprecedented security system. The best part was that the apartments were so close to the APS complex that any of the Seven could return to headquarters at a moment’s notice whenever it was necessary. Bryn and Riley Armstrong had separate apartments on the top floor of the headquarters complex itself, although they spent a great deal of time in the large house owned by their wives, sisters Rowan and Kelly, a few blocks away.
What none of the management team had ever done was bring a woman back to her apartment with her. Any femme who lived with one of the Seven was there because the couple was either in a seriously committed relationship, engaged, ormarried. Their homes were their sanctuaries, not a place where they took meaningless hookups.
Blake slid her keycard through the front door of the apartment building and punched in the pin code, then headed down the hallway to her apartment. There were four units on the south side of the building: Teagan and Delaney’s, Casey and Sabine’s, then the entrance to a small hallway that led to the north side. Past the little hall entrance was Trill and Nova’s apartment, then Kennedy and Piper’s at the end.
The APS team lead veered down the small perpendicular hallway to the four apartments on the north side. At the end to the left was Jaime and Alyssa’s apartment, then the Wendy House, with Blake and Drew’s apartments to the right. “The bachelor pads,” Blake liked to call them, prompting Drew to roll her eyes and call her an idiot. Smirking at the thought, Blake unlocked her apartment door and went in. The calm, quiet serenity of her apartment with its blue-gray walls and pale gray trim welcomed her, and she sighed, taking off her leather jacket and throwing it on one of the armchairs before unbuckling her shoulder holster and tossing it on her jacket.
A large floor-to-ceiling gaming center took up space on the far wall of the living room area. The small open kitchen, separated by a breakfast bar to the right, was well-furnished, even though Blake admitted she couldn’t much cook for shit. Her refrigerator was filled with fruits and vegetables, as well as things like raw chicken breasts and eggs, so she certainly didn’t starve—thankfully, baking a sweet potato, throwing some chicken in the oven, or fixing a salad didn’t take a rocket scientist. Nor did making a fast smoothie or scrambling some eggs.
Since she had eaten earlier at APS, she opened her refrigerator and took out a beer, figuring she would relax for ten minutes before she took a shower and went to bed. Besides—her brows lowered as she thought about the situation that had been gnawing at her for the past few weeks. Opening her beer and taking it into the living room, she sat down in the other armchair, setting the bottle down on the coffee table so she could pull off her boots, then relaxing back. After she had taken a few sips, Blake thought about the nagging sensation she had gotten whenever she’d thought about Brooke Marino recently. A sensation she didn’t like one bit.
Blake had known Brooke since the beginning of elementary school, both of them Whimsy natives who came from families that were also native to the area. Although their parents had always had a great deal of respect for each other, however, neither Bob and Dolly Seibert nor Alonzo and Pia Marino had ever known each other well. Consequently, Blake and Brooke had never really had the opportunity to hang out with each other until they started elementary school.
Promptly figuring out the pretty little girl with dark blonde hair and big gray eyes was anything but quiet and sedate, Blake had delighted in pushing her buttons at every opportunity. Although it hadn’t taken Brooke long to realize her new classmate was simply trying to get her attention, the young girl had pushed back, snorting as she made it perfectly clear she was no one’s pushover. Even with all her teasing, though, the first-grade tomboy had looked out for Brooke to ensure she was never teased or bullied—although Brooke had left little doubt she could defend herself when necessary.
As the years had passed, the two of them had dated other people on a fairly frequent basis—although never each other. In high school, Blake had started noticing that Brooke was always a little less than happy when she saw Blake standing with her arms wrapped around yet another girl, her auburn hair, gold-flecked, sunlit light green eyes, and tall, muscled frame attracting more than her fair share of attention. For her part, Blake had alwaysfelt the almost overwhelming urge to snatch Brooke away from anyone caught under the spirited blonde’s spell of fun and laughter.
When Brooke had recently come to her because of her worry and fear over Sabine, one of the APS femmes, who was keeping secrets from her butch Casey—also one of the Seven—regarding a sleazy pimp who had her in his crosshairs, Blake had been astonished. The last thing she would have expected was Brooke’s confidence and reluctant admission of her concerns. When the upset femme had shockingly started to cry—because Brooke Marino didn’t break down in front ofanybody—Blake had automatically lifted her onto her lap and wrapped her arms around her to soothe her.
After Brooke had calmed, Blake had told her she’d called an emergency meeting of the APS management team to tell them about Sabine, but she had insisted Brooke crawl into her bed and rest while she was gone, where Blake knew she would be safe. That night, when Blake went to sleep, Brooke’s light scent of soap and woman filled her senses, igniting a heat she knew had irrevocably seared her soul and laid claim. Brooke, she vowed, wouldalwaysbe hers.
