Redemption Crash Series Book Three

Skilled

Mason

“How could they do this much damage before the alarm went off?” I ask appalled by the sights before me.

“They were good, that’s how,” Dibb offers discouragingly.

“That or an inside job. Either way, we need to send the bomb squad through before we do anything further. My recommendation? Close the offices today." The chief looks grim, his face pulled tight our meeting has never been one of pleasure yet lately so frequent.

“Yeah, we will initiate remote work protocol for the next week. Excuse me I need to call Michelle, my assistant.” Walking off to the side I sigh, annoyed and nervous. We are taking another hit we can’t afford. More bad publicity, another news cycle with our name flashing the latest story in our string of bad luck.

My phone only rings three times before she answers her voice rough with sleep and age.“This is early even for you,”

“We’ve had an issue at the headquarters I want to transition to 100% remote work for the next week. I need you to head up a company-wide email and phone call and send it out.” Pacing I stare at the ground underneath my shiny dress shoes, the morning sun still hidden by the early morning moon. the flashing of red and blue is the only light needed to outline my path.

“Damn it what happened now?” She hisses the ruffle of the covers heard across the line.

“Nothing good. Someone broke in and trashed the place, the police are still here so I’ve got to go but get on that ASAP. I don’t want anyone showing up ready to work.” The press is already here flashing lights swinging, questions while filming it all. I don’t need to traumatize any more employees we lost enough already.

“Gotcha Boss.”

“Thanks, Michelle.” Now the call to Crash isn’t going to go so well. Not when our tensions are still running so high over last week's incident and fallout.

The problem I’m having is risk and probability. That woman has fought death and won how many times now throughout her life? Her luck will run out, the risk will win and her life will be the payment. She chanced death too many times and won to keep chancing it. The probability of getting lucky again is so low there isn't a risk I’m willing to take with her life. And this just furthers my gut feeling that I need her to get out here. Away from anything and everyone that’s after her, and us. This could have been Shirley's or the penthouse.

I don’t want to lose her but I need her alive. Getting that through her thick stubborn skull is almost impossible. She's right I should leave too but Dixie is too big of a company to abandon when it needs me the most. Needs us the most, if I go I would have to take Jaxson too, no way am I leaving my little brother as the next logical target.

Really all that leaves is staying and fighting. But how? How do I control this primal part of me that’s screaming to protect her at all costs even that of my heart?

If I sent her away who knows how long she would have to stay, I couldn’t ask her to wait for me that wouldn’t be fair to her. I would be a loose end, there would be no contact between the two of us for her safety so I would just have to trust that she was okay at all times.

It wouldn’t be pretty but she would be alive and well. She could build a new life, a good one with the money I could give her. Anything would be better than this constant worry, always waiting for the next shoe to drop. Dread, anxiety, stress. The human body can only handle so much, Aria may be excellent at handling stress but even she has a breaking point and I’m afraid I’m close to mine. She can't be too far behind. And when we break where will that leave us?

How do we get married in weeks with this looming and ruining everything?

How do I promise her forever when I need her safe more?

They broke right into my office here, Jaxsons too. I don’t know if it was the lingering members of the mob or someone from the press or some stupid i***t looking for secrets but they had good knowledge of our security to f**k it up the way they did.

It’s as if they waited until they were good and ready to set the alarm off. They had to of known how to get around it it's going to be one mind f**k trying to weed out who I can and can't trust on my staff now.

“Mason, Jaxson come here,” Dibb orders. He’s standing at the back of his trunk, computer opened Wyatt and Leo standing over him watching the security tapes.

Jaxsons hair is wild while his clothes are simple and plain, if I had to guess they're his gym clothes. His eyes are wide, his posture dip and dim, and the stress radiates off of him. Squeezing his shoulder I whisper, “We’ve got this.”

“I hate him,” he spits.

“I know. We wouldn’t be dealing with any of this is wasn’t for him. That’s why we’ve got to pin him down and make sure he knows we won't break. We won't let him take anything else from us.” I look him in his eyes hoping to reassure him.

“Has he tried calling you?”

“He's called you?” I can only imagine what he wants, nothing f*****g good.

“Yeah, I didn’t answer.” He shakes his head, running his hand through his hair.

“Good. Come on let's see what they found.” Dibbs standing off to the side looking aggravated and impatient as always. I've never seen him smile. Then again I usually only see the man when s**t is going down.

“Alright here's the cameras at 2 AM, everything looks good.” He speeds it up fast-forwarding straight through to 2:58 AM. We watch the floors all empty as nothing appears wrong until 3 AM on the dot when the cameras flash to a crazed mess. Every floor of Dixie was flipped and disorganized, papers spread all over staplers, pens, knick-knacks tossed, rolled, and thrown like an angry child walked through every desk angrily sweeping them all clean, including the desktops.

The damages were immense on every floor but on ours, on the executive's floor it's like someone came in with a sledgehammer, the destruction is that bad. Glass, paper, bottles full of priceless liquor. The couches were slashed and overturned, and the chair's fate was just as bad.

The alarm's lights flash illuminating all the damage in brief glimpses of horrifying clarity.

“They had to of hacked the whole security system. They shut down the cameras with an overlay so no one would notice and waited till the damage was complete to trigger the alarm. Whoever did this was highly skilled. More importantly, there isn’t anyone that would go through this amount of trouble to just trash the place they were looking for something among this chaos. We need to figure out what.”