Page 1 of Protecting Olivia

Prologue

“Are you sure?” Timothy Clark asked Violet Myers one more time.

“A hundred percent. The call logs initiated from the prison have been erased. I double checked,” Violet huffed.

She wasn’t an idiot. Not by a long shot. She’d worked at the FBI’s BAU for six years before she’d gone to the CIA where her propensity for information gathering and behavior analysis was put to better use. That was why’d she’d been chosen. That and she was weak. Too bad for her she wasn’t smart enough to get herself out of her current situation.

“Good,” Timothy spoke into the cellphone speaker in his hand before turning to me. “Everything is ready,” he unnecessarily told me, as if I couldn’t hear Violet over the speaker.

“Outstanding. May I?” I motioned for him to hand me the phone.

He easily obeyed handing me the phone. Timothy Clark was a fool and had no sense of self preservation. His usefulness had run out, and just like anything else that was no longer valuable, it was time to dispose of him. Setting the phone on the table careful not to disconnect the call, I pulled my Browning M1911 from the holster and raised it level with Timothy’s head.

The shot rang out in the room, and I relished the ringing in my ears. It reminded me of my days in the Army. When I had sworn allegiance to Bolivia, until my county had turned her back on me. And I found someone who could appreciate my abilities. Why had I been trained to kill, if not to kill?

“Oh God. What was that?” Violet asked.

“Plans have changed, Ms. Meyers. You will be dealing with me directly from now on,” I informed her.

“Where’s Timothy?” she asked.

Stupid woman. Why did people always feel the need to ask questions when they already knew the answers?

“Gone. I’ll be in touch soon.” Before she could inquire any further I disconnected and pocketed Timothy’s phone.

“Clean this up,” I yelled to Juan. “Wrap him in plastic and shove him in the wall.” I laughed at the thought of the girl sitting in a room with a rotting corpse in the wall. “Drywall the rest of the wall and use the extra wallpaper to finish it off.”

I chose this house because it was secluded and had been foreclosed on. The bank had turned the utilities on now that it had been placed on the market. It was perfect for what I needed. It looked like the previous owners had been in the middle of renovations. Three of the four walls had been wallpapered, but the forth had been stripped down to the studs. It could’ve been a beautiful home; too bad it wouldn’t be standing when I was done with it.

“Carlo?” I yelled to one of my men. “Are you ready? It’s time to get the girl and bring her home.”

Chapter one

Leo

Jesus H. Christ. I was going to kill my sister. She was always getting into some kind of crazy shit. She blamed her friends for the trouble they got themselves into, but I knew her ass was the ringleader. When Arabella crooked her finger, people ran – they always had. The older she became, the worse it got. Now at twenty-one, her ass was out of control.

My ma needed to hurry up and marry her off so someone else could drag their ass out of bed at midnight to bail her out of jail. Tonight’s bond was for trespassing and destruction of property. Pretty tame night for Bella. Her brand-new Jeep Wrangler was in police impound covered in mud after she and the lame brain pack, or Giamope as Ma likes to call them, decided to go mudding on private property. Her little ass was lucky I knew the desk sergeant, and he processed her paperwork fast. Another five minutes and I would’ve left her there to spend the night. I was exhausted and just wanted to get into bed.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I ignored it without even pulling it out. I did not want to listen to Ma tell me how she named her only daughter Arabella because it meant answered prayers, and after two boys, Ma thought that her prayers had indeed been answered when she had finally had a girl. Only now, Ma believed she should’ve named Arabella the devil. She was not wrong in that assessment. I adored my little sister, but she was a menace. We did this little song and dance every time Arabella was arrested.

The phone vibrated again, and against my better judgment, I pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. Fuck me, Garrett in the office at two in the morning was worse than Ma calling me to complain about her choice of names.

I slid my finger across the screen to unlock my phone and entered my security code.

“Yo.”

“Sorry to call in the middle of the night, but Tex called. He was poking around and came across some information. Looks like your case just broke wide open. Shit’s about to go nuclear. Meetup is at the barn house. I’m calling in Z,” Garrett rushed out.

I liked Garrett. He was no-nonsense, straight to the point. He could bullshit with the best of them but knew when it was time to cut the shit and work. Now was one of those times.

For the past three weeks, we’d been trying to track down Olivia Cox, the only daughter of Pamela Cox. Pam was the First Lady’s White House aide and best friend. This was not the type of operation that Z Corps would usually take. More than that, this type of case was not usually assigned to the company’s best-trained operatives. The Red Team was typically reserved for high-priority Ops; top secret missions that required our unique skill set. A missing persons case shouldn’t have been assigned to us. But when the POTUS asked Zane for a favor, he couldn’t turn him down. I was beginning to think the spoiled twenty-five-year-old party girl went on a bender and was in Las Vegas living it up. But her mother was worried sick, and that meant the First Lady, Clarissa Anderson, was worried, too. If Mrs. Anderson was worried, the President would fix it so his wife would rest easy.

Well shit, so much for sleep. I was so close my keys were already in the front door, yet I was so damn far away from my bed. “Copy that, I’ll be there in ten,” I responded.

The line went dead, and I pocketed my phone, pulled my keys from the lock, and headed back to my truck.

The drive through downtown Annapolis was easy this time of night. There was no traffic around the Capitol building or any midshipmen wandering the streets happy to be off the Naval Academy grounds, even if only for a few minutes of freedom. Once I was out of the narrow streets of downtown Annapolis, I gunned the engine, enjoying the loud rumble of my newly installed exhaust. I hoped like hell we’d be stateside long enough for me to enjoy a few road trips.