Page 11 of In The Trenches (Owens Protective Services)

“When Sinner ditched the truck, whoever was after Vanessa found him. His truck was pushed into the river. Sinner almost didn’t make it out alive. Apparently, an older gentleman jumped in to save him when he didn’t come up. He dragged him out of the river, and after Sinner walked away, a news crew showed up and interviewed the man.”

“Shit,” he said as he realized what this meant.

“As soon as he shows up, you need to stash her. Adams is going to come at you hard.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Trust me,” he growled. “I’ll be hitting you up for a favor in the future.”

He hung up and I stared at Eli’s team. “Well, that could have gone better.”

Eli grunted from the corner of my office. “What do you wanna bet Sinner stays in Pennsylvania?”

Kavanaugh smirked. “There goes your idea to have only one close protection agent.”

4

CASH

“Where the fuck is Sinner?”I grumbled as I stalked into the conference room, glancing at the clock again. “He was supposed to be in an hour ago.” The man had been gone for a week and we needed to get back to work. When I called and told him to come in, that wasn’t a request.

I sat down at the head of the table while Eli’s team scattered along the whole fucking length of it. We had been digging into Adams, trying to find anything we could on the guy to take the heat off Reed Security. So far, we weren’t coming up with much.

“Do you really think a meeting with Adams is smart?” Eli asked.

“We won’t send in Sinner. As far as Adams knows, Sinner was still working for Reed Security when he took Vanessa.”

Scottie Thacker from team one came strolling in holding up a phone. “Hey, anyone got any idea where Sinner is? I found his phone in the parking lot.”

“He was supposed to be here a half hour ago,” I grumbled, irritated he was fucking off.

“Maybe he’s in the training room,” Eli suggested.

“Nah, I’ve already looked around. I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Goddamnit,” I muttered, shoving back from my chair. “If he’s fucking with us, I’m gonna kick his ass,” I said, storming out of the room. As much as I wanted to believe that he was screwing with me, my gut was churning, telling me that something was very wrong. I shoved open the front doors and stormed outside to the parking lot.

“Where was his phone?” I asked Scottie. I could tell everyone had followed me outside.

“Right over here,” he pointed to behind a car. “Fuck, tell me he’s just really clumsy.”

“Dammit, if he gets himself killed, who’s going to be the close protection agent?” Eli asked.

“Not it,” Kavanaugh and Red said at the same time.

“I hate you fuckers.”

I scanned the parking lot, seeing his rental at the back of the lot. “Everyone inside now. Lockdown procedures in place. No one goes anywhere until we find out what the fuck we’re dealing with.”

We all rushed back inside, and after everyone scattered, I slammed the alarm on the wall, letting everyone know we were under attack. Technically, we weren’t at the moment, but that could change. The alarms blared and everyone gathered in the conference room, as was our procedure in a situation like this.

“What the fuck is going on?” Rock asked as he rushed into the room, his gun in hand.

Now that everyone was gathering in the conference room, I silenced the alarm, though the lights on the walls were still flashing. They didn’t get turned off until we were sure the danger had passed.

“We believe Sinner has gone missing. When was the last time anyone heard from or saw him?”

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