~Chapter 17~

~June 28th, 2019- Josh Taske’s House in Eugene, Oregon
“Hey, Wraith just called in.”
Josh stood in the space between the living room and the kitchen, where the others sat eating breakfast. Scarlet sat at the far end of the kitchenette table, Lexy to her left and Emma to her right. Next to Emma sat Sniper; but Nathan was nowhere to be seen.
Josh noted the mercenary’s absence and looked questioningly at Scarlet, “Where’s Nathan?”
Scarlet gestured at the back door, “He ate a piece of bread and went outside. He was mumbling something about his motorcycle and the fact it has started to rain.”
Josh glanced at the window; it had indeed started to rain.
“Oh, yeah, his bike is in pieces all over the back walk. Anyways, Wraith will be here sometime tonight. He got the information we need, and said he has some troubling news for us when he gets here.”
Lexy looked up at her husband, “He didn’t say what it was?”
Josh shook his head and went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
“Nope, said he didn’t want to give any information over the phone.”
Lexy nodded, she had been involved with Josh and Wraith long enough to understand their concerns.
Emma got to her feet, “I think I’ll go see if Nathan wants help covering his bike. He’s been out there a while.”
Scarlet took a sip from a coffee cup that had “I <3 Coffee” printed on the side.
“Be careful, he’s in one of those moods where he’s about as likely to bite your head off as look at you.”

Nathan sat on the concrete step behind the garage, rain dripping from his hair and goatee. He had two blue tarps from the garage on the step next to him, but for some reason hadn’t used them yet. He just sat and stared at the scattered pieces of his cycle.
Emma came out and stood a few feet away from the merc, watching him with worry and a slight amount of fear.
“Nathan?”
Nathan nodded his head once, acknowledging her presence. She came over and, picking up the tarps, sat down next to Nathan and held the folded tarps on her lap.
“You okay?”
Nathan shrugged, “Damn thing doesn’t want to work for me. I had it fixed a few years ago, but it broke again about a year back.”
Emma ran her eyes over the guts of the machine, “Maybe it’s time to get a new one?”
Nathan shook his head, “No… can’t do that.”
Emma looked surprised at the ex-soldier, “Why not?”
Nathan looked uncomfortable, “Well… it was a kinda present. It belonged to the father of a girl I knew. He was killed protecting his family from a bunch of local thugs and left it abandoned in a mechanic’s shop.”
Emma nodded and looked back at the bike, “What happened to the girl?”
Nathan swallowed hard, “She, ah… she died, at the hands of the same men who killed her father.”
Emma’s head whipped around to stare at Nathan. She knew men like the one sitting next to her lead hard and tough lives, and that was what made them who they were. But still, the stories she heard from just one person with a similar life to Nathan was enough to send her into fits of deep depression.
“I’m sorry…”
Nathan shrugged, “Everyone is, but they don’t really understand it. It’s easy to be sorry, isn’t it? It’s much harder to actually understand why you are supposed to feel sorry.”
Emma didn’t have an answer for that. Instead, she stood up and dropped a tarp on Nathan’s lap. She began to shake out the other one and use it to cover the bike parts.
“Well, I’m sure you aren’t doing justice to her father’s memory by letting his bike rust in the rain.”
Nathan, smiling slightly, nodded and got to his feet.

Half-an-hour later, everyone was inside and occupied. Josh was upstairs in the Den talking to someone over the Telecom. The conversation was on arrangements for the Villa siege, but Josh hadn’t said anything to the rest of them yet.
Nathan, Sniper and Scarlet all sat around the TV and played “Star Wars: Republic Commandos 3” on the PS5. Nathan and Scarlet were the Commandos, while Sniper was the Mandolorian Bounty Hunter. So far the mercenary marksman was in the lead and not giving up ground.
Emma and Lexy were in the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast and just straightening the place up in general. The two women hadn’t talked much, Emma was almost afraid of Lexy. She was under the impression that any woman who had captured the heart of Josh Taske must be special. Little did she guess that Lexy was just a normal, everyday person who had been thrown into this life much like she had been.
Emma had elected to wash the pots and pans used for Nathan and Scarlet’s infamous “salsa y chile tortilla” chili omelets earlier that morning. The tortillas had partially burned, and it was quite a chore to scrub them out. But Emma was dogged and determined to pay her protectors back in any way she could.
Lexy had just finished drying off the knives and other utensils Nathan had mangled making breakfast.
“So, Emma, you are from Texas?”
Emma looked up from the blackened mess ingrained into the bottom of the pan she held.
“Yes, I do.”
Lexy smiled, “What city?”
“Decatur, its kinda one of those cities no one except people who live there or near there have heard of.”
Lexy laughed and nodded, “I hear you. My dad, Matt Gold, just was elected mayor of El Paso just recently.”
Emma cocked her head to one side, “Your father, he was President during that big thing a few years back, right?”
“Yeah, that’s also when I met Josh.”
Emma’s eyes widened in mild surprise, “Wow, really? What exactly happened? I know a little bit, I was in the Whitehouse when that car exploded outside the front gate. And I know that someone tried to kill your father, but I don’t know much else.”
Lexy dried her hands off with the dish towel and leaned against the counter.
“Well, my father made some power-plays into the Underworld. He had hired Josh when he was first elected to run his personal security team, and he got kinda paranoid and made him my personal bodyguard.”
Emma smiled, “From what I hear about Josh, that’s a pretty big move. Your dad obviously cares a lot about you.”
Lexy smiled, her eyes bright with memories of her father.
“Yes, he does. Anyways, Josh became my bodyguard a day or two my birthday, just in time to stop an assassin trying to kill me at my party. We found out later that the assassin wasn’t actually after me, but after Josh. See, Josh’s family is like America’s version of the Mafia, and they are about as mean. He did some things that made them mad a few years back and they wanted him dead.”
Emma nodded, “I heard about that from James. Didn’t they kill his wife and daughter?”
Lexy nodded sadly, “Yes, they thought that by teaching him a lesson would bring him back into the fold. Instead it just made him mad.”
“So I hear, I heard what he did after that. The Board and most of the Underworld still are terrified of him.”
Lexy grinned, “That’s my Josh!”
Emma smiled, once again glad she had picked the team she did.
“So what happened?”
“Well, Josh’s uncle, Regent, hired an assassin from Europe and then sent his own personal assassin to kill the two of us. Nathan and Scarlet showed up just before they launched this huge attack on my father’s house in Washington DC. My father was taken to a safe place and Josh and me escaped here where we met up with Wraith. Josh, Nathan, Wraith and Scarlet had to take out a few more assassins, and when Regent sent Josh’s own sister to kill him, Josh had enough and went turned Regent into the US Government. He proposed the same day his uncle was arrested.”
Emma stared at Lexy, her eyes wider than they had been.
“Wow…”
Lexy tilted her head to one side, her eyes shining.
“I know. He took more than a few bullets for me, he protected me and stayed by me when most men would have ran.”
“There are not many men like that, are there?”
Emma’s eyes were sad; her thoughts had turned to James.
Lexy noticed the change in her mood and put a hand on her arm.
“You okay?”
Emma nodded, a tear ran down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.
“Yes… I was just thinking of James… He was so nice, so charming when I first met him. He promised me everything, wealth, love, happiness… but he turned out to be so different. He only wanted me for the information I could give him. He would never have really loved me, never taken a bullet for me…”
Finally, the woman broke down and began to sob uncontrollably.
“All I wanted was to be happy, to be loved… I wanted a knight in shining armor…”
Lexy put her arm around the woman’s heaving shoulders.
“It’s all right, it will be okay.
Emma leaned her head on Lexy’s shoulder, “All I wanted was prince charming, and instead I got a conniving snake who just wanted to use me and then kill me!!!”
They stood there for a moment, Emma crying into Lexy’s sleeve and Lexy trying to come up with the proper words to comfort her.
Finally, “Emma, it’s alright. You are safe here, you are with people who care and you have me, my husband, Scarlet, Nathan, Wraith, and Sniper who are all willing to lay our lives on the line for you.”
Emma nodded, “I know. And I don’t know how I will ever be able to repay you.
Lexy smiled, remembering when she had thought the same thing about Josh.
“You won’t ever have to.”

~June 28th, 2019- Samuel Grayson’s Apartment, NY
Samuel stared at the wall of his apartment, his cloudy gray eyes flickering back and forth while his brain processed information.
He didn’t think Wraith had recognized him, it had been over two decades ago since they had last seen each other after all. Samuel’s appearance had changed since then, but you never knew what someone with a mind like Wraith’s would notice.
But Samuel had recognized Wraith. Even with his black hair and dressed in the garb of an unassuming computer technician, Samuel had recognized him.
And seeing Wraith in the Regency Building told Samuel two important things, the first being that Josh Taske and his team were every bit as good as the Underworld feared them to be. The second being that the game Samuel had been following carefully was about to come to a conclusion.
Samuel picked up his cell phone off the table where it lay next to his sidearm and hit a number on his speed-dial.
“Marcos, this is Grayson, pass on the word that Wraith has made his pickup and this is almost over.”
Samuel hung up and tapped his phone against his chin in quiet contemplation. Josh was moving as predicted, it was now time to prepare to make a few moves of his own.