Wait for Morning (Sniper 1 Security #1) (8 page)

Another moment of silence and Barry
couldn’t help but wonder if his informant even knew what those words meant.
Maybe he should’ve used smaller words, something simpler to get his point
across.

“You understand me?” Barry snapped.

“Yes. I’ll call you back.”

The line disconnected. Barry drew the
phone away from his ear and stared at the screen.

This wasn’t working out the way he’d
planned. He should’ve grabbed Marissa Trexler himself, instead of letting
Dennis go in after her. If he had, he wouldn’t be sitting on the side of the
highway waiting for a snitch to feed him information.

The thought made him smile.

He hoped, when this was all done and the
girl was in his possession, that the snitch was identified. Hell, Barry didn’t
even know his name. Although the guy had provided him with information thus
far, that didn’t mean he liked the guy.

Barry’s cell phone vibrated in his hand,
his eyes darting back to the screen once more.

Shit.

He thumbed the button to silence the call.
He wasn’t prepared to talk to the cranky asshole right now. Actually, he wasn’t
prepared to talk to him ever again.

Luckily, he didn’t think he was going to
have to.

Wednesday morning

Thirty-four hours
later

Dallas, Texas

Trace stared at the iPad screen, watching
as Z drove through the massive iron security gate that Trace had opened with
the push of a button only seconds before.
Although
the compound was surrounded by an eight-foot-high stone wall—as well as another
gate that they could all access using a numeric code and their
fingerprint—Trace had opted to man the interior gate around Marissa’s parents’
house manually today.

Just as an added precaution, he told
himself.

Truth was, he was feeling a bit
overprotective ever since he’d arrived back in Dallas with Marissa yesterday evening,
and watching over her, keeping her safe, had become his one and only obsession.

Not that he liked the sound of that. Not
at all.

Admiring the sleek,
monochrome
Ducati 1199 Superleggera
idling as the gates slowly opened, Trace watched on the screen as the massive
guy on the bike punched the gas, the motorcycle launching forward as he headed
up the front drive.

That was one thing he admired about his
buddy Z … he had damn good taste in motorcycles.

Granted, unlike Trace’s family, Z hadn’t
always been into motorcycles. Not until he’d relocated from the small town of
Coyote Ridge to Dallas nearly a decade ago. Z had come to work for Sniper 1
Security when Trace had been in the Marines. It wasn’t until Trace left the
military that he’d been introduced to the man he now called friend. For the
first couple of years after Trace had joined the civilian ranks, working for
Sniper 1, he and Z had worked alongside one another. Within the first year, they’d
decided to go in on buying an old abandoned warehouse in the downtown area,
converting it to two loft apartments that they still shared.

From the get-go, the two of them had
gotten along well. It wasn’t too difficult considering they were so much alike.
They each wanted their own space, didn’t care to talk if they didn’t have to,
yet
enjoyed watching football and drinking beer on Sunday
when the opportunity arose.

Oh, and, of course, they both had a
fascination for motorcycles, although Z’s interest had come along long after
Trace’s. The entire Kogan and Trexler clans—at least the men anyway—were what
some would call fanatics when it came to bikes, each of them having one, if not
more, of their own. Until recently, Z had been sporting a used Yamaha R6 that
Clay had sold him, but he’d finally decided to invest in a new one. One that
had drawn quite a bit of attention.

Maybe if Z
was
nice
, Trace would give him a couple of
pointers on how to ride the damn thing. Grinning to himself, Trace stretched
and then made his way to the front door, pulling it open moments before his roommate
reached the porch.

“Did the office get relocated and no one
told me?” Trace asked, stepping out of the way so Z could come inside, bringing
a blast of cold air with him. Z scowled back at him and grunted, rubbing his
hands together, probably trying to feel his fingers again.

Z was one of those guys who managed to
make Trace feel small. Considering that didn’t happen often, it was saying
something about Z. At six foot six inches, the man towered over most people.

“Who else is here?” Z
probed
when he stopped in the entryway,
glancing around suspiciously.

“My father’s in Bryce’s office.” Pushing
the door closed, Trace faced Z. “My mother’s with Emily upstairs in the
library.”

“They’re
both
here?”

“Yup,” Trace replied. “That doesn’t
surprise me, though. What does is seeing you up at this hour. Must suck to have
to get out of bed so early,” Trace teased as he sidestepped the brooding man
and headed for the kitchen.

“I wouldn’t know. Isn’t that
your
area of expertise?” Z grumbled with
the hint of a smirk as he glanced around the house as though he wasn’t familiar
with where he was.

Trace wasn’t used to seeing Z quite so
early in the day—the guy tended to keep odd hours—so he’d been surprised when
he’d had to buzz him through the gate a few minutes ago. But seeing him out of
sorts was rarer than being in his presence at sunrise. Then again, neither of
them were used to hanging out at Bryce Trexler’s house on a weekday morning.
Trace had one reason and one reason only for why he was there: Marissa.

As for Z, it seemed as though he’d been
personally beckoned.

Trace could only assume something was up
because most of their meetings were held at the Sniper 1 Security offices, not
at the compound. Not to mention, based on Z’s appearance, he didn’t look like a
guy who intended to spend much time hanging out and shooting the shit. Dressed
head to toe in black—black fatigues, boots, and T-shirt beneath the black
textile jacket he wore ... hell, even the 9mm tucked into the holster on his
hip was black—the giant of a man looked like the enforcer that he was. Which
meant Z was on
assignment.

 
Maneuvering through the Trexlers’ enormous
kitchen, Trace headed to the coffeepot. “Coffee?”

“Yeah,” Z huffed as he took a seat at the
long breakfast bar that separated the working area from the oversized breakfast
nook.

“How’s that bike
treatin’
you?” Trace asked, nodding his head toward the front of
the house, where Z had parked the Ducati alongside Trace’s bike.

A genuine grin formed on the guy’s face.
“Pretty damn sweet. Got it up to one-twenty on the way over.”

“One-twenty, huh? Careful or you’ll be
eatin’
asphalt. We all know your old ass needs
some practice.”

“
Old?
Fuck off. Just wait, you’ll be thirty soon enough,” Z groused with a grin. “As
for practice, you name the time and the place. I’ll smoke your puny ass any
day.”

Trace laughed as he pulled the carafe from
the machine and poured the potent black liquid in two mugs.

“Where’s Lilah?” Z asked.

“Haven’t seen her since I got here,” Trace
told him.

The Trexlers’ full-time, live-in
housekeeper/cook was usually the first person to greet him anytime he came to
the house—which honestly wasn’t all that often—but not this morning. Not that
he didn’t know how to make his own coffee, but now that he thought about it,
Lilah’s absence was a little odd.

“How’s Marissa?” Z pinned Trace with a
glare
as if he knew Trace didn’t want to answer
that question.

“She hasn’t talked to me much since we got
back,” Trace admitted as he carried the two mugs over to where Z was sitting.
Passing one over and keeping the other for himself, Trace added, “So I’d say
things are pretty
normal
.”

“
She’s
not talking to
you
? Or
you’re
not talking to
her
?” Z asked, sipping his coffee and
meeting Trace’s gaze again.

No one ever said Z didn’t know Trace well.

Trace didn’t answer the question, though;
he merely continued to stare at his friend. That was the way it worked. Having
two brothers and one annoyingly nosy sister, Trace had learned to clam up when
he didn’t want to talk about something—and for the time being, a discussion
about Marissa was certainly off-limits. A simple look was usually all it took
for Z to get that Trace wasn’t going to confide his innermost secrets. It was
their code. Nine times out of
ten,
it was
effective,
and since Trace knew Z wasn’t
particularly interested in talking about his
own
personal issues, Trace figured the guy would return the favor.

Especially since there were a hundred
questions Trace had for Z these days. And they all revolved around Z’s apparent
interest in RT. That revelation had been quite surprising. No one pretended not
to know that Z and RT were gay, nor did anyone really care, but for the two of
them to now appear to be circling one another … that
was
new. Grinning to himself, he opted not to throw out the
question. Learning the details of Z’s love life wasn’t high on Trace’s list of
things to do on a good day. Hell, on any day, in fact.

“Did Casper call you, too?” Z asked,
setting his coffee mug down on the granite bar top.

“Nope.” Trace leaned his hip against the
counter. “Came by to keep an eye on the wild child,” he admitted, nodding his
head in the direction of the stairs.

That statement earned him a grin. At one
time, Marissa—Bryce and Emily’s one and only daughter—had been affectionately
known as the wild child, though she hadn’t been nearly as rebellious as her
four brothers. On the other hand, add Trace’s sister, Courtney, to the mix, and
the two of them had managed to stir up a shit ton of trouble.

However, as much of a pain as Marissa had
been in her teenage years, at twenty-six, she was no longer an unruly
adolescent, and they were all hoping she’d get some of that spark back. With
the situation she was currently ensnared in, they understood what had caused
the light in her
pretty
blue eyes to be
replaced by shadows, but they still held out hope that the fire would return.
Soon.

This last clusterfuck hadn’t helped one
fucking bit.

And even though Trace was personally
taking on the task of keeping an eye on Marissa, he did his
best
not to think about her unless he
absolutely had to. After the two
days
it had
taken to get back to Dallas, spending that much time alone with her had been
nearly more than he could bear. The woman was way too distracting, and the last
thing Trace needed was to let down his guard. It was bad enough that they were
under the same roof now.

Subtly changing the subject, Trace asked,
“What did Casper say when he called?” Referring to his father by his first name
had become second nature to all of them over the years. Working for the guy—or
rather
with
him, as was the case
these days—it was easier for everyone involved.

Trace had seen his father when he’d
arrived at Bryce’s nearly an hour ago, but they hadn’t talked.

“Elusive as ever, you know how he is. He
just said he wanted to talk. Told me to meet him here.”

Trace’s phone beeped, drawing his
attention away from Z. He snapped it off his belt and glanced down at the
screen. “Hold that thought,” he told his friend as he slipped back to the
formal dining room, where he’d left the iPad he’d been using to watch the
security cameras.

Punching a button to engage the
audio
, he smiled. “You got some ID?” he asked
the two men sitting at the gate, waiting for Trace to grant them entry.

“Yeah. Open the fucking gate and I’ll show
it to you, dipshit,” Conner told him, his middle finger reflected back on the
iPad screen.

Trace laughed and hit the button that
would retract the steel gate, allowing his oldest brother, Conner, as well as
Marissa’s oldest brother, RT, through. The face mask on Conner’s helmet flipped
down, and the rumble of engines revving was the last sound Trace
heard
before he cut the audio connection. He
watched as the two Yamahas hammered down, rocketing up the driveway before
coming to a halt right outside the front door.

With the door unlocked, Trace made his way
back to the kitchen to see Z pouring himself another cup of coffee.

“Who was that?” Z asked without looking
up.

“Con and RT.”

Z’s head jerked around, his gaze slamming
into Trace’s. “Seriously?”

“Yep. It’s officially a fucking party,”
Trace told him, trying to pretend he wasn’t as anxious to know what the hell
was going on as Z seemed to be.

“Glad you could make it,” a gruff voice
said.

Trace looked up to see Bryce coming toward
the kitchen, his face expressionless as always.

“Where’s Casper?” Trace asked.

“In my office. Get your coffee and join us
in there,” Bryce instructed in that no-nonsense tone Trace was familiar with.

Conner and RT appeared in the living room,
pulling their helmets from their heads and propping them on their hips as they
watched Bryce.

“You, too,” Bryce said, pointing at the
two newcomers before disappearing back in the same direction he’d come from.
“My office.”

All eyes turned to
Trace
as though he might know what the hell was going on. He merely shrugged. Their
guess was as good as his.

Dumping his coffee in the sink because it
wasn’t meshing well with the unsettling feeling in his gut, Trace followed Z
through the living room and down the hall that led to Bryce’s office.

The door was open, and his father was
casually sitting on the expensive burgundy leather sofa that had been placed in
front of a bay of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the swimming pool. The
room was bright, despite the dark colors of the drapes and the wood furniture,
but it didn’t help to lift Trace’s spirits any. Whatever was going on wasn’t
good.