DAVID: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Read online

  DAVID

  A Gray Wolf Security Novel

  Glenna Sinclair

  Copyright © 2016

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Prologue

  The computer had always been my friend. When I didn’t have anyone to talk to, anyone to turn to in times of trouble, the computer was always there for me. I missed it sometimes. I used to spend all my waking hours staring at a computer screen, my fingers working magic over the keyboard. But those days disappeared the moment I went legit, the moment I decided to make money instead of building a stellar reputation among the hackers I counted as my friends.

  I’d never felt as though I belonged. As a small child, the other kids would make fun of me because we were poor and I never had the fancy shoes or the expensive jeans the other kids had. As a teen, I wore long sleeves to hide the scars, even in the heat of summer, and that created rumors and made me something of a laughing stock.

  A computer never judged.

  Computers got me through some of the darkest hours of my life. I could always count on a computer. It was people that always let me down. So I decided long ago that I would never put myself in a position of dependence on another person again. When Belle needed me…well, I did what I felt I needed to do. The rest was her problem.

  And now someone thought he or she could use my only friend, could use a computer, to hurt me. That was pretty ironic, wasn’t it? Someone had broken through the firewalls that I personally placed in my servers to farm information and hide it, hoping I would think my clients’ information was compromised. They thought I’d forgotten how to get around inside the code that ran our servers, our websites, and our very corporation. I hadn’t.

  But playing along with their game was probably the best way to go for the moment. And I knew exactly how to do it.

  Gray Wolf Security.

  I’d done my research. I knew all about the man who owned and ran the company. I knew more than he probably would have appreciated. After all, I had a personal interest in the company, but he didn’t need to know that right now, did he?

  Chapter 1

  David

  I watched them come in, one at a time, from behind my bank of computer monitors. They didn’t always realize how much attention I paid to what was going on around me. I was an afterthought, the guy they only noticed when something went wrong. But I noticed them.

  Rose was always the first to arrive in the mornings. She was the office manager and receptionist, but she also fancied herself as something of a mother to this ragtag bunch of operatives. She arrived just after seven to start the coffee and raise the blinds on the floor-to-ceiling windows that adorned the front and far side of the house. Sometimes she put sweet rolls in the oven or a fruit salad in the fridge. Sometimes she diced vegetables for her famous omelets. But she always had something for breakfast for those operatives who weren’t off on a case.

  Then Ash came from his rooms upstairs.

  He always came down at the same exact time. I could set a watch by him and never be late for an appointment. Seven fifteen. He came down in the same dark slacks and oxford shirt he always wore. Only the color of the shirt ever changed. Today it was black, like the slacks.

  Like my soul.

  Ash was my brother, the owner of this house, the property it sat on, and the business that was run out of it. The operatives affectionately called the place the Compound. I thought of it more as my prison.

  I was an analyst for the FBI. I spent my days figuring out if there was a terrorist threat in the computer files I was given each and every morning. I was doing a good thing, an honorable thing. It might not have been as honorable as fighting terror in Afghanistan like my brother, but it was still an honorable thing. I was good at my job. Terrorists were identified because of what I did.

  But then there was the accident.

  Ash and I grew up in Austin, Texas where our father was a member of the state senate. A little less than three years ago, Dad decided to run for Congress. He thought it was finally time to take his political ambitions to a higher level. People loved him. He won the election easily. I flew into Austin from Los Angeles to watch the numbers come in and celebrate with him and my mom. Ash was supposed to be there, too, but he was so wrapped up in himself after his fiancée disappeared during a mission in Afghanistan that he hardly ever had time for any of us.

  The accident changed that. Suddenly I couldn’t get him to leave. He followed me back to Los Angeles, practically moving in with me, insisting that I let him help me with everything. And by everything, I mean everything. He wouldn’t even let me get myself a glass of water by myself. It was almost a relief when he decided to start Gray Wolf Security, when he bought this property and flew all over the country recruiting former military to work as operatives in the business. But he couldn’t just leave it at that. He had to talk me into coming to work for him, too. I honestly believe I said yes because I was simply tired of him asking.

  I would never admit to him that the work was actually enjoyable. I liked creating the security program we used to protect our clients. I liked constantly upgrading it, constantly making it stronger. I even liked watching the video that streamed live from the homes and offices of our clients; I liked the feeling that I was actually capable of protecting someone in some small way despite the wheelchair that became my albatross after the accident.

  Not that I would ever admit that to Ash. He didn’t need to know.

  After Ash came strolling downstairs, popping into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, Donovan usually arrived if he wasn’t on a case. But, lately, he’s been coming in late, sometimes as late as eight or eight thirty. He has a girl now, a former client who just happened to be his high school crush. They’ve been together five months now, if you counted from the time she was a client. And she seemed to keep him quite occupied when he wasn’t on a case.

  After Donovan, Joss usually wandered in. Joss was the only lady who worked as an operative for us. She was a petite little wisp of a woman, blond and tan, the kind of woman you might imagine more on the cover of some fashion magazine than in Army greens. However, she served her time in the military just like the
rest of the primary team. She and Ash met in boot camp and reconnected a couple of years ago after her husband and kid were killed in a car accident. She was a surfer. She liked to catch the early morning waves, so she usually came into the office in a skintight wetsuit. It was quite a sight to behold. Not that it had ever crossed my mind to say that to her. I rather liked all my parts right where God had put them.

  The last to arrive was always Kirkland. He was a fine operative. His clients always came through their ordeal in one piece. But he was also…well, let’s just say Kirkland was a charmer. And that charm almost always had some beautiful woman chasing him up to the main house from his little cottage, or calling dozens of times a day, trying to get him to fulfill his promise to see her again. He was a classic Romeo, the kind of guy whom you could never quite figure out how he got so many women until you actually saw him in action. And then you might find yourself tempted to fall into bed with him, too.

  They were all here today, mostly on time. We hadn’t had a serious client in a few weeks, just a few quick jobs. A visit to a stalker to frighten him off. A few parties that required a special sort of security. An escort to a highly sensitive business meeting. Small things. But it was the big ones, the death threats and the potential kidnappings, that paid the bills.

  “Alright, everyone,” Ash called from the head of the conference table, “if you’ll join me, we have a few assignments to go over.”

  Donovan was in the kitchen, wolfing down a couple of cinnamon rolls Rose had brought in. Kirkland was with him, sipping at a cup of hot coffee and describing, in detail, the woman he’d been with the night before, trying to remind Donovan of all the fun he was missing out on now that he was in a committed relationship. Joss was at her desk, checking email before she headed back out to the beach to catch a few more waves. One by one, Donovan—an irritated expression on his face—the first, they all heeded Ash’s call.

  “You, too, David,” Ash called.

  I peeked around the end of my monitors. “Working on something.”

  “It’ll only take a minute.”

  I could feel all their eyes on me as I wheeled myself around my workstation and made my way to where they were all waiting. Resentment burned in my chest. Ever since my security program was hacked back in January I’d been working nonstop trying to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. I didn’t have time for this bullshit.

  I rolled myself just outside the little perimeter of the dining room—or what was once a dining room and was now something of an open conference room—and crossed my arms over my chest. Ash studied me a second, his eyes narrowing, but then he turned his attention to the business at hand.

  “As you know, we’ve recently gone through a little dry spell as far as cases are concerned. However, this seems to be changing. We had two new cases come in this morning.”

  Kirkland and Joss smiled, but Donovan just sat back and snuck a peek at his phone.

  Ash held up two file folders. “The first is an executive who has been getting death threats. He thinks it’s a competitor and that things will blow over after his company launches a new product next week.” He nodded to Joss. “This one’s right up your alley.”

  Joss reached over and took the folder. She silently flipped through it, nodding from time to time as she did.

  “Got it?” Ash asked.

  She nodded, silent as ever.

  “And the other,” Ash said, focusing on Donovan—even though Donovan wasn’t looking at Ash. He was still peeking at his phone. It was probably his girlfriend, Kate. He spent more time on that phone, texting her and sending and receiving pictures than he did anything else these days.

  “…the other,” Ash continued, “is a CEO who believes someone has breached the security system at her company.” He opened the file folder and glanced through it. “She has reason to believe someone is purposely targeting her company because they own and run several popular social networking and dating sites. She’s concerned that someone could gain access to their system and steal client information.”

  That caught my attention, despite myself. I didn’t want to care what he was talking about. I had my job, and I was good at it. I just wanted to concentrate on that. But this…my mind was already working the angles, finding holes in a system I never even seen.

  “This CEO, Ricki Dennison, wants to—”

  “Ricki Dennison?”

  Ash shot me a look that made his irritation at my interruption pretty obvious. It was coming off of him in a flood. However, this was the first time in months he’d said anything that truly interested me.

  “You do realize who she is, right?” I asked.

  “She’s a client.”

  “She’s a fucking genius! She creates the most elegant computer code I’ve ever seen. Some of her code changed the way hackers look at the simplest…” I stopped because I could already see everyone’s eyes glaze over the way they did when I talked computers. And Ash was getting even more annoyed. “Let’s just say she’s a genius,” I finished lamely.

  “Someone’s fangirling,” Kirkland said.

  “Hardcore,” Donovan agreed.

  I tilted my head slightly. “You have your celebrity crushes, I have mine.”

  “Wonder if she looks anything like Blake Lively,” Kirkland said. “If she does, then I could understand.”

  “Sometimes there’s more to a woman than looks, Kirkland,” I said.

  “Really? Since when?”

  Joss tossed a crumpled up piece of paper at Kirkland, a hard scowl on her face. He held up his hands in a surrender gesture.

  “Sorry, Jossie.”

  “Are we done acting like children?” Ash asked.

  I just crossed my arms over my chest again, focusing on Ash with a hard stare. What difference did all this make to me? It wasn’t as if I ever did anything but sit behind my monitors and send out the teams that saved all their asses.

  “As I was saying,” Ash continued, “Ms. Dennison feels there’s been a breach in her system and she wants us to find out if there was one, how bad the breach was, and attempt to identify who did it.”

  “Why us?” I asked. “Hasn’t her IT team already isolated the breach?”

  Ash focused on me again. “She has reason to feel she can’t trust her own team.”

  “Paranoid much?” Kirkland asked.

  “Apparently, Ms. Dennison has upset quite a few people in recent months when she announced that she plans to discontinue the employee compensation program she had in place. She thinks this could be some sort of revenge for that. For that reason, Donovan, she’d like for us to send someone in—undercover—to try to figure out which of her current employees might be out to sabotage the company.”

  Donovan nodded as he stood and took the file folder from Ash. “In the IT department?”

  “Yes. I figured you know enough about computers that you could fake your way through.”

  Donovan was an explosives expert. He knew how to blow shit up. How the hell was he going to fake his way through this sort of technology-based job?

  Ash leaned back against the wall and studied me. “I want you to meet with Ms. Dennison with Donovan,” he said. “We need you to find the breach and trace it back to the source. Ms. Dennison has agreed to give you access, but only if you do it from her office. She won’t authorize remote access.”

  Adrenaline suddenly rushed through my body, my heart beginning to pound and my muscles tightening.

  “Me?”

  “Of course. You’re our tech guy.”

  “Looks like you get to meet your hero, Davey boy,” Kirkland said.

  “I don’t go to client sites, Ash. You know that. And you know why.”

  There was no sympathy in Ash’s eyes. “It’s time for you to stop hiding behind your monitors, David.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t do this. I didn’t care how important the case was or that it had Ricki Dennison standing on the other side. I couldn’t leave this compound.

  I couldn�
�t get into a car.

  Chapter 2

  Ricki

  I miss writing code. I thought when I started this corporation that it was what I wanted. And the money…damn, that was nice! But I missed my little efficiency apartment and my homemade, cannibalized computer system, and the code that seemed to write itself each and every time I sat at my keyboard. I missed working with the basics. Now my life was all about promotion and public perception, about selling what I created years ago instead of creating new and more exciting code. My life was about being the corporate sellout I always swore I would never be.

  My life sucked.

  I stared out the window and watched the world go by below me, wondering about the people walking in clumps, sharing their lives with other people. I’d never been a really social person, but I’d had my close friends. However, that changed when I took my first social networking site, Friend or Foe, public. You never know whom you can trust when you suddenly find yourself with a bank account that held a balance in the millions.

  My phone buzzed. I turned and focused on the surface of my narrow, glass-topped desk. It was covered with paperwork that should have been presented to me in electronic form, but my lawyer was a little old fashioned. He felt that contracts should still be presented in paper form and photocopied. Seemed illogical to me. Unsafe. But it was easier to go along with him than to argue.

  The public believed that Friend or Foe Corporation was going strong. But it wasn’t. We’d been losing money steadily for almost a year. Interest in our social networking and dating sites was still fairly high, but people had such a large number of choices in those arenas these days that our popularity didn’t translate into as much revenue as one might think it should. Too many discounts and sales out there. Too many people using the free trials and then canceling their service. Too many customers just choosing to go in other directions.

  We were old news. We needed something fresh, something original to change things around. In the meantime, I had to cut costs somewhere. Taking away the employee compensation package seemed like the obvious place to cut the most excess, but my employees didn’t agree.