Chapter 16

"Does Monica know she"s about to have a permanent houseguest?" Nash looked at him with a smirk.

Luke was back at the office after a busy morning. He had picked up Monica"s rental car and parked it a block away from her townhouse. Would it have been smarter to leave it at her office? Sure, but then he wouldn"t have the opportunity to pick her up and advise her of his plan to unofficially move in. He hadn"t told his friend his plan either, but he wasn"t surprised that Nash had put it together.

"Not yet. She wasn"t exactly in a talkative mood this morning, so I thought it best just to show up tonight and hope for the best."

Nash laughed and shook his head. "You are one brave motherfucker. I have a feeling she isn"t going to agree without an argument."

Neither did he and a huge part of him hoped that she didn"t. He liked that she gave him shit. It meant life was interesting, but it would make it harder to take things slow like he wanted. He knew several ways he could make her comply but every one of them required the two of them naked. And rolling around in the sheets. The opposite of his goal.

"Why exactly is Luke a brave motherfucker?" Caden joined them at the table. Setting his laptop down in front of him, Caden gave them half of his attention like normal when work was involved.

"Because he plans to move in with Monica without telling her," Nash helpfully answered.

Caden whistled. "That sounds like a stupid plan."

"I"m not moving in," he defended himself. "I"m just going to stay at her place until we find Fletcher and whoever vandalized her car."

"Still a stupid plan." Caden shook his head. "Especially since I got nothing off the footage I found this morning. Whoever the individual was wore all black and covered their face. There"s nothing for me to use for facial recognition. And I tried to find other cameras in the area, but whoever it was found the one block with no cameras and used that area to park their getaway vehicle."

"Did you see any vehicles leaving around that time frame?"

"Nope." Caden shook his head.

"So we have nothing," he confirmed.

"That"s correct."

Luke sat back in the chair and crossed his arms. That wasn"t the news he wanted to hear. Nor was it what he wanted to pass along to Monica. She had been mad when he dropped her off at work that morning. He had hoped that some good news would soften her up. It didn"t look like that was in the cards for him today.

"Do we have any news on Fletcher? Or maybe Samuel? Either one could be responsible. Hell, it could be both. Based on what we've learned, I wouldn"t be surprised if Samuel didn"t orchestrate something from inside prison."

"I thought of that." Caden pulled his laptop closer and started to type. "I have a buddy of mine accessing prison records and privileges. That"s more his area than mine, so I thought it best to pass along the task. So far we don"t have anything, but if there is something to find, he"ll get it for us."

"So nothing on that end either?" He was starting to sound like a broken record.

"Nope. Sorry, man."

"Not your fault." He cleared his throat and looked around the office. "Where is everyone else?"

"Dom and Ryker are watching Monica, per your request. They checked in and said she hasn"t left the office all day. Jayce and Austin are meeting with one of Jayce"s buddies from the Secret Service. His friend might have a job for us," Nash explained.

"What kind of job?"

The Secret Service wasn"t one of the government agencies they would usually work with because they liked to keep things in-house and were known to walk a very straight line.

"No clue." Nash lifted his shoulder. "His buddy didn"t say, so we will have to wait to ask him when they get back. They flew out to California today but should be back within a day or two."

Luke merely nodded his head. The office was almost completely ready, so it was good that his partners were starting to take assignments. Or potential assignments. They wouldn"t take anything official until they all agreed on it. There was no team leader. All seven of them had equal parts in the group and wanted to see it succeed.

"I should probably relieve Ryker and Dom of their duties. I"m betting they're bored stiff."

"Dom may have mentioned that Ryker was getting on his nerves." Nash chuckled.

Of course, he was. Ryker excelled at that. Always had. Even in their early days together in the Army.

Luke stood up and rapped his knuckles on the table before telling both of his friends goodbye.

He had just stepped out of the office when his phone rang from an unfamiliar number. According to the screen, the person was from Texas.

"Luke Matthews speaking."

"Matthews. Care to explain to me why a security company from Seattle that specializes in government contracts is looking at two of my men?"

He looked at the phone number again. "May I ask who this is?" he countered.

"Don"t play dumb with me. I"m well aware that your information provided you the name of their employer."

"Westley James, I presume, and just exactly how do you know what my search results were?"

The man on the other end of the line chuckled.

"Because no one gets information about me unless I want them to."

Interesting. He would need to remember to ask Caden about that just as soon as he ended this conversation.

"If that"s the case, then you probably already know why my team looked at Bentley and Erik."

"He prefers Falcon. Using his real name tends to piss him off."

Noted. This time he would be asking Monica more about that.

"Was there a point to this call? Because we both know why I was looking into them."

"A man who gets straight to the point. I like you."

Luke wasn"t sure he felt the same way. He was starting to feel like he was being tested, but for the life of him, he couldn"t figure out why.

"What"s your relationship to Monica Cole?"

Now things started to make sense. Monica"s friends were checking up on him, just like he had about them.

"What concern is it of yours?"

Wes was going to have to give him something before he would spill anything. He wasn"t a man who liked to share, and certainly not when it came to Monica.

"I protect my friends and I consider Monica one of them. Besides, Trista called you sexy and that pissed off my team leader. I"m not a fan of the people who piss Falcon off."

Luke barked out a laugh. Most of the time people didn"t live up to the legends that others created for them. Wes appeared to be the exception to the rule. He was exactly as people described him.

"Trista sounds like a troublemaker, but Falcon doesn"t need to worry about me. I"ve only got one woman on my mind."

"That"s what I wanted to hear. Keep it that way and we won"t have problems."

The phone call ended before he got a chance to respond. Luke debated his next move. He could go back inside the office and ask Caden about the search he did, but that could potentially lead to him staying longer than he wanted.

Instead, he moved to his truck and decided the conversation could happen over the phone.

"You could"ve come back in to talk to me since you stood outside for so long."

He should"ve known his friend was watching.

"This allowed me to kill two birds with one stone."

Caden laughed. "Did you need something?"

"How easy was it to get the information on Westley James" men?"

"Too easy. Someone made sure the information was available to me."

So Wes had been right.

"Why do you think he would do that?"

Luke had worked with Caden long enough to know the facial expressions his friend was making while he thought about that question.

"If I had to guess, one of his guys looked you up first and decided we weren"t a threat, so allowing us to do the same only seemed fair."

It made sense. If Falcon had been sitting there when he first pulled up to Monica"s place, he would"ve had ample time to run his plate and figure out who he was.

"Why are you asking?"

"I got a call from Wes."

Caden whistled. "Damn. How did that go?"

He thought back to their conversation. Now that he wasn"t right in the middle of having it, he could say it went normal. As expected, considering what he had heard about Wes.

"Just a friendly warning. The man protects his teams and those he cares about. Pretty much what one would expect."

"That"s good."

"I just pulled up in front of Monica"s building. I"ll talk to you later."

Ryker was on the move before Luke finished hanging up the phone.

His friend tapped on his window. Once he had it rolled down, Ryker leaned down and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Figured I would switch out with you guys. Give you a break since it would seem like Monica"s staying inside all day."

His friend could see right through his bullshit and smiled. "You just don"t want me near your girl."

Luke didn"t respond. There was no use. Ryker knew Monica was his. His friend slapped his palm on the door and gave him a wink. "Have fun. Catch you later."

He rolled the window back up and got comfortable. He had a feeling it would be a while before Monica finished with her day and there was no telling how she would react to him choosing to move in.

Was it bad that he looked forward to a potential fight?