Derrick’s hand against my face made me feel grounded, like maybe this all had been a dream, but realization came crashing down on me when I turned my head and saw who all was here. I recognized Cat and knew Jasper was the one beside her; it was no secret that they were an item. If you spent enough time around the Prescott house or listened to my parents and my sister talk about what was going on around us with Titan Security, you got filled in quickly. The other guy at the table, who was handsome and muscular, seemed familiar in a way, but I couldn’t quite place him. Someone you wouldn’t mind finding with his arms wrapped around you. My mind was still scattered, so I internally told it to shut up. I didn’t have time to feel attracted to anyone, least of all an employee of Titan. I’d already flirted with one and got shot down instantly. Never again. Keep telling yourself that. This stud muffin might be the one person to help you get out of your mind for a bit.
“Well, now that we are all situated, let’s get down to business.” Derrick wasn’t one to mince words. He handed a large manila envelope to me and to the guy across the way. “We’ll go ahead and discuss what we need to with Cat and Jasper present; then, they’ll go ahead and finish getting everything ready while I address the two of you.” He motioned back and forth between me and whomever it was sitting at the opposite side of the table. Was he a new operative?
Derrick took a deep breath in and began. “We have three planes ready to take off in the next twenty minutes or less. Cat and Jasper will finish dressing to look like the two of you and will follow you down toward Miami. They’ll get off there and provide protection to get you to your location, where you’ll proceed to your final destination. They’ll only draw attention away from you if we discover someone has followed before they start their next assignment.”
Derrick motioned toward the door. “We have two other couples, special ops from MacDill Air Force Base, dressed identically to everyone here. They’ll each board one plane and will be sent off in an opposing direction. We’re hoping if we have eyes on the ground or in the sky, they’ll follow one of the false leads. We currently have two F-16 fighters circling the area to ensure a safe getaway.”
My eyes widened at the level of security Derrick was presenting. I guess it was a nice perk to be working for one of the best aeronautic and weaponry companies in the country. Not to mention his time spent in the Air Force, which probably helped to pull off this maneuver.
“Cat, Jasper, I need you to finish getting ready while I continue the briefing with these two. Make sure Captain Gibbons has arrived. He’ll be flying the plane the rest of the way down. He was given a special watch to identify him as belonging to our mission. That is all.” Derrick made a shooing motion with his hand.
I would’ve been pissed had he dismissed me in such a rude manner, but I guess this was how servicemen and operatives worked. Derrick remained silent until Cat and Jasper had left the room.
He looked between me and the other guy present. Why the hell is my body buzzing, and why do I feel like I know this guy? Derrick pointed to the envelopes. “In there, you’ll find your new identities. Erica, you’ll only go by your regular name behind closed doors and if you know the area to be secure and free of electronic bugs. From here on out, you’ll be known as Brittany Hampton. You have a passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, and so forth in order to prove who you are. Our team has set up information online to back up your story, so if anyone starts digging, you’ll have existed since the day you were born, only your birthday is one month later than your actual one.”
Derrick pointed to the guy. “Jonas…”
Damn. I pushed the chair out and wrapped the coat back around myself while screaming, “Hell no!” I pointed my hand Jonas’s direction, but he didn’t even flinch. “I didn’t realize that was Jonas.”
Shaking my head, I moved toward the door. “I think I’d rather take my life into my own hands and deal with whatever’s coming than to be put with that asshole.”
My hand had just covered the doorknob, but I didn’t have time to turn it before Jonas was on me, pressing me into the door, pulling my hands behind my back, and securing them with one of his. He leaned in close to whisper, where Derrick couldn’t hear. “This ain’t no party for me either, princess. I did everything in my power to find someone else to watch over your prissy little ass, but I have a job to do, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to get killed on my watch.”
I tried to fight him off, fight the smell of his strong, manly scent taking over my senses and causing my libido to respond. Rational thought was starting to escape me. Then I started to struggle against him again when I remembered how he’d treated me at his sister’s wedding: “Go annoy someone else, girly, cause I’m not interested.” He’d looked like I’d disgusted him.
All I’d tried to do was flirt a little bit and find someone to talk with. I was at a point in my life where I didn’t quite fit into the Prescott or Titan family, but I also didn’t fit in that well at school either. How I’d managed to have a few girlfriends to shop and hang with was beyond me. Growing up in the witness protection program had made me a little more anti-social than my sister, Dawn, who’d been a little older when everything happened. She remembered how life was before going into the program, whereas I was taught to always be leery of everyone. It had been hard to break out of that over the past year, but thanks to Jonas’s assiness, I was forced to accept a few people, besides family, into my circle. Look where it got me: right back to his royal hind ass.
Jonas, like me, had been standing outside the mulling crowd at the wedding not talking to anyone. I figured we could at least keep each other company. Was that too much to ask? I guess it was.
I became lost in thought long enough to give him the upper hand. Damn it! With my feet kicking and hands flailing about, he scooped me up and deposited me in a chair at the end of the table. Derrick moved to the corner seat on one side, while Jonas took the other corner. I tried standing up, but Jonas put a firm hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down in my seat.
Derrick slammed his fist down on the table before yelling, “Enough!”
My eyes instantly went to him, as my body responded immediately. I felt Jonas’s hand squeeze my shoulder lightly before giving it a pat. “Good, girl.” Why did my body get all warm and tingly at his words? I didn’t understand it.
I turned my head toward the asshole, ready to rip him a new one, when Derrick took care of it for me. “Stand down, Jonas. I’ve had enough with both of you.” He took a deep breath in and looked like he was counting to ten.
To say the stress in the room was palpable was an understatement of gargantuan proportions. The heat of the summer night and the tension inside the room felt like the building of a strong thunderstorm. The only question was which one of us would spawn a tornado first.
Derrick admitted, “I know this situation isn’t ideal for either of you, but your parents personally selected Jonas as the one they’d trust to take care of you, Erica.”
Confusion weighed heavily on me. I hiked a thumb in Jonas’s direction. “My parents picked him? Why?”
Derrick ran his hand through his hair and over his face. “Jonas has all-terrain training. He can survive under any circumstances. Your parents wanted you in an isolated area not easily accessible.” I started to open my mouth to argue over the word isolated, but he raised his hand to stop me. “You’ll have a comfortable living environment to enjoy most of the conveniences of home, but there might be a need to go through areas that you’re not familiar with, where Jonas can direct you and keep you safe.” Derrick shrugged his shoulders, “Besides, Jonas is the only operative we have available, so it’s either him or face this guy alone.”
Gulping audibly, I realized I didn’t have much of a choice. Having been exhausted from staying up nearly 40 hours straight, I slept the entire flight down, so I didn’t have much information regarding the situation. “Are there any updates on who this guy is and why he is so intent on hurting me and my friends? He’s already killed Alyssa, beat Hannah and left her for dead, and had Casey pushed down a flight of stairs. Where’s their protection? And what about the job I’m supposed to start in two weeks?”
I broke down in tears, finally letting things out for the first time in days. This was supposed to be my vacation, my last hurrah before taking my place in the workforce. I hadn’t wanted to go with my friends on this road trip up the east coast to New York City at first. I’d planned on spending the few weeks at either my sister’s house or with my parents, but the promises of spending time at a few of the beaches, some shopping, and finally getting away from everyone to spread my wings, so to speak, for the first time was too enticing not to say yes. My parents’ only request was that I call, text, or send a video to them here and there so they’d know we were okay. Wouldn’t you know, the first video we’d taken was when we had hit NYC. We’d decided to do it in front of one of the shopping districts with a distinctive looking bank. The architecture had been awe-inspiring. Who knew one video would be all it took to change the course of everyone’s life in less than 24 hours?
A handful of tissues appeared in front of my face. I looked up to see who’d handed them to me. To my surprise, it was Jonas, sporting a concerned look on his face.
With shaking hands, I took the tissues from him. “Thank you.”
He gave me a pat on the arm. “Don’t mention it.”
Derrick spoke up, causing me to turn my head his direction. “I’m sorry for the loss of one of your friends. I wish we’d caught the issues in your video early; maybe we could’ve prevented this.” He shook his head before adding, “Maybe not. Who knows? As for Hannah and Casey, we reached out to another security firm in the area and asked for their assistance. The FBI is still watching the girls, but we have the other security team watching the FBI to assure no further harm comes to your friends.”
“What the…?” The words came out of my mouth before I even realized.
Derrick took one of my hands and squeezed it. “Why do you think we pulled you out of the safe house they had you in and took you elsewhere? As soon as your mom identified the issue in the tape, we took the appropriate measures and notified authorities in New York City. Given the nature of the crime, the death of two people exiting the bank and carrying a large amount of money in a briefcase, along with a piece of advanced technology stolen, we had to report it. You managed to capture the whole thing on film, unknowingly of course.
“Turns out, the thief did it in broad daylight. There were very few people walking about, and he had a silencer on the gun, so with all the noise associated with a big city, no one was the wiser, until they realized the two people sitting up against the bank weren’t breathing.” Derrick paused and reached back to rub the obvious tension out of his neck.
“Do we know who this guy is? Did he have accomplices?” Jonas asked.
Derrick nodded, pulling out a picture of the man from the file in front of him. “The man’s name is Victor Yoknovich. He started out in the Krisnikoff Bratva as a Shestyorka, or associate, and worked his way up to Obshchak, who ran the books and made sure the local officials looked the other way. So he was pretty high up there.”
Jonas butted in. “Was this a hit by the Krisnikoff group?”
Derrick shook his head. “Negative. The group got a new leader about six years ago. He realized the potential to make money on some legitimate businesses. When the test businesses succeeded beyond their imagination, the group did away with the old and started anew. Anyone who didn’t want to follow was kicked out. Victor was one of those removed from the group.
“At this point, we don’t know if Victor was hired to do the hit, steal the goods, or both. We’re trying to figure out if he’s a hired gun, since he’s done several jobs for other crime syndicate related groups in the area, if the Krisnikoff group is reassembling with some of the former disgruntled members, or what the deal is.”
My voice was barely audible, “Where do I come into all this?”
Derrick retrieved another photo from his folder and put it in the center of the table where both Jonas and I could see it. It was a picture taken from a security camera—where I don’t know—showing me holding out my phone so all of us could squeeze in and record the video to send to my parents.
Jonas broke the silence. “How did you get this?”
“Erica’s mom, Sophia, tapped into the cameras in the area to see if she could get any other angles showing the events in front of the bank. Turns out, all the cameras had been sent a loop during the time of the robbery and shooting. The actual feed had led back to a computer hookup at a coffee shop nearby. She began digging further, when she stumbled across an email coming out of the coffee shop with this picture attached. Here’s the email for you to read.” I swallowed hard while Derrick pulled out two copies of the email and handed them to us. It read:
I was trembling with fear after reading it. Jonas looked at me and then at Derrick. “What do these words mean?”
Turning to Jonas, I wadded up the paper and threw it past his head. “It means they want me dead or alive. They’re passing it off as concerned parents looking for their missing daughters, with the highest reward on my head. No wonder my parents want to stick me with you.”
Hell, just one look at Jonas would be enough to stop most people in their tracks. He always wore a scowl etched on his face, looking like he could kill the first person to piss him off. Anyone would probably think twice before approaching him. Why the hell I thought I could talk to him at his sister’s wedding, I have no idea.
Jonas looked surprised by my reaction and response to the email, so I filled him in. “You don’t grow up with a father who defected from Russia as a spy—in order to marry my mom and become an operative for the US instead—without learning a bit of his native tongue.” I went on to elaborate. “If you’d ever given yourself the chance to learn more about my family, you’d know that all of us speak at least four or five different languages. My parents aren’t just operatives, they’re great linguists too. My mom has to be in order to decipher some of the computer code in other countries.”
Looking over my shoulder at Derrick, I found him snickering. I turned my head back toward Jonas, who was opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water while he tried to find the right words to say but struggled.
Finally he held his hands up in surrender, shook his head, and apologized. “I’m sorry. I know the story of your mom and dad. I just didn’t realize how much of their work had rubbed off on you and your sister.”
Derrick cleared his throat, grabbing our attention. “As you can see, Erica, this is quite serious. Because of Victor’s former job in the brotherhood, he had access to some government connections. We aren’t trying to say the FBI or any other organization is tainted, per se, but we found it suspicious that once the FBI was called, all the accidents started happening to your friends.”
“You mean the FBI is taking bribes?”
Derrick made an indifferent style of nod. “We suspect, but haven’t any proof as of yet. In our last case, we’d found some high-ranking government officials who had been paid off to turn a blind eye to things. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found it again.”
“I thought all those government policing agencies were sworn to uphold and protect the laws of the United States? How can this be?” I guess I’d been sheltered to the point of not realizing how much corruption went on in the world. I knew my parents wanted my sister, Dawn, and I protected, but this was too much.
To my surprise, Jonas was the one to answer. “Anyone worth their weight in salt will decline a bribe, but after a while, there are some that get greedy and see how to work the system. It even happens in war.” He paused for a moment contemplating his next words, “Then again, some have no choice when crime families threaten the lives of the very people they love. I’ve seen it work both ways. I guess you just have to go with your gut instincts on whom you can trust and whom you can’t. If Derrick and your parents are saying we can’t trust anyone but Titan, so be it.”
Derrick explained. “This is why we pulled you out of New York and got you back here. Your mother, along with help from a couple of family friends, is working the computer side of things. They’ve got computer feeds set up to monitor activity and to alert on anything using your name, picture, or potential whereabouts so that we can pull you out and relocate you if necessary.”
He went on to add, “Your father and mine are working their contacts to try and determine who Victor’s working for, if he’s on his own, hired by someone, or part of some new brotherhood. So far we don’t have much, but everyone is pulling together to figure this out.
“To our advantage, Victor thinks the only copy of the video resides on your phone, so he’s desperately searching for it. He hasn’t a clue that your mom has a copy saved to a restricted access hard drive in Titan headquarters, along with a backup that no one but her knows where it is located. So that gives us time to further analyze the footage for clues.”
Okay, now I was totally lost. “What about the phone I handed over to the FBI yesterday right before your guys whisked me into hiding?”
Jonas was all smiles as he asked, “A bait and switch?”
Derrick nodded and grinned like a Cheshire cat who was up to no good. “Sophia told a couple guys we’re working with in New York the model of Erica’s phone. They went out and got one and hooked it up to a computer, where Sophia began to upload an almost duplicate copy of Erica’s phone, just minus the information they’re looking for. If they try calling any of the phone numbers, they’ll get disconnected responses. All of them have been changed.”
Jonas reached over and tugged at my lower lip. “Stop biting your lip; you’re about to draw blood.”
I blushed with embarrassment. I hadn’t realized I’d been doing that. Plus, his touch, why did it feel like a spark against my lip? I’d noticed his hand had jerked back. Had he felt it too?
“You’re wondering where your phone’s at, right?” Derrick asked.
I nodded, thankful for the interruption.
Derrick reached into his flight jacket’s pocket and retrieved my phone, handing it over to me. “Your mom hooked up with your phone remotely while we were still in New York City. She has all the information she needs. We were going to destroy it, but she noticed your notes, pictures, and music playlists and thought you might want the phone back while you’re in limbo. You won’t be able to call anyone with it, since the number has been deactivated along with the GPS system. We’ll provide you a satellite phone for check-ins with Titan from your remote area. We’ll include some burner phones so that in the event your position is compromised, you can use them to contact us when a cell signal is present. As of now, however, your phone is nothing more than a mp3 player.”
I smiled, knowing I’d have the photos of my family and my music with me. That’s all I really needed to get through this ordeal. “So how long will this all take? A few days, maybe a week? And you never did answer about my job.”
Derrick’s face looked grim. “To be truthful, we don’t know how long this will take. We hope to resolve it as quickly as possible. I know this threat against you has your parents and sister out of sorts. Even your sisters-in-law and the Prescotts are offering any assistance to help you out. As for your job, Dr. Bradford, your mentor, has explained a ‘family emergency’ and has gotten you a lengthy extension on when you start work. We can’t guarantee how long the extension will last, but for now,” he reached over to pat my hand, “that’s the least of our worries.”
Derrick reached back inside his jacket to an inner pocket and pulled out something shiny. “I need each of you to hold out your left hands.”
Jonas and I looked at each other and shrugged before complying with Derrick’s request. To say we were shocked at Derrick sliding matching wedding bands onto our left ring fingers was an understatement. Then he proceeded to push a flashy engagement ring onto my finger.
“Oh hell no!” I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “You expect me to play wife to his royal hind ass?”
“Hey, watch who you’re calling an ass, little miss prissy. Don’t think I’m going to have any fun pretending to be married to a ball and chain like you.” Jonas complained.
Derrick couldn’t help but laugh. He was laughing so hard he even grabbed his sides, before taking a few minutes to recover. “Looks like I owe Cat twenty dollars. I thought you would both be professional about all this and accept the roles you had to play, even if for a little while, but she had a feeling you’d each do this.”
A knock sounded at the door before it opened. Cat snuck her head in the door. “Sorry to interrupt, just wanted to let you know we have movement in the brush across the way from the airfield. We have some officers three miles out and closing in on the culprit. We’ll let you know when the coast is clear.”
“Thanks, Cat. And the planes?” Derrick questioned.
She smiled, “They’re ready to go when you are.” She started to pull back and close the door, when she spotted the rings on our fingers and asked with a smile, “Am I up any money?”
I’d never seen Derrick break from his professional persona, but he shot her the bird. Cat crowed, “I’ll take that as a yes then,” before closing the door and leaving us to finish up.
Derrick finished explaining how Jonas’s folder contained the identification and information to a Micah Hampton, my pretend husband. Our folders would detail how and where we met, when we fell in love, where our wedding took place, and so forth. Jonas had the copy of the marriage license. “You’ll get your next packet when you arrive on the outskirts of Miami. It will give you detailed information to your final destination. We have a few clothes for you to take down with you. The rest has already been placed at your destination along with food, water, and any essentials you might need.
“You’ll have limited communication with us. All the details will be made available when you’re settled.” Derrick looked pointedly at me. “I expect you to follow Jonas’s lead. I know you two have some sort of issue that exists between you, but you’ll have to learn to work together. If there’s a need for you to go out in public, you’re to look the part and pretend you’re newlyweds on your honeymoon. I believe, in the long run, you might be helpful for one another, providing you don’t kill each other first.”
I wanted to argue with Derrick’s snarky comment, but didn’t. I was too tired to get pissed off any further. So what if I was stuck with the big lug. I guess there were worse things in life. Yeah, like being dead. Girl, you at least have some prime piece of beefcake to look at. Hey when my subconscious was right, it was right.