“You can skip those parts. Get to the bloody parts. Did anyone get eaten by a gator? That happened to Alex once. Not him, but to some bad people chasing him. I always miss the gator attacks.” He frowned. “And I don’t like any of this. I hate hiring people. It means I have to talk to them and I fucking hate talking to new people. Everything is changing and I don’t like that either. I want to know who to blame. How the hell did this nightmare start?”

Remy sat back, ready to begin his tale. “Well, boss, like almost all really good stories, it started with a woman…”

Chapter One

Dallas, TX

One month earlier

Remy Guidry sat back in the comfortable chair he’d claimed only moments ago in the main conference room of McKay-Taggart. He wasn’t sure why they were having this very normal weekly briefing in the main office instead of their man cave, but when the big guy called, he moved his team into place—whether that meant moving them into sniper positions or hauling them up a floor and making sure they weren’t in work-out clothes.

His team. It was weird to think of them that way and to think about a potential future where they weren’t around. He would miss them. He hadn’t expected that when he’d taken the job a few years ago. He’d merely planned to use this time to his betterment. McKay-Taggart paid well and he didn’t spend much. He’d figured a few years of putting his body on the line and he could buy his cousin’s bar back in Papillon. It was a piece-of-shit nothing hole-in-the-wall, but once it had been Remy’s whole damn world, that bar. He’d grown up watching his pop-pop mix drinks and sell bait out the back. He would sit on that dock and watch the boats go by and wonder when it would be him on that boat, heading out.

Now all he wanted to do was go home.

Except he’d been surprised to find a group of friends here. He hadn’t meant to make them. They’d been like barnacles, slow growing and when not cut off, somehow becoming a part of him.

“Any idea why we’re here?” Declan asked, sitting his massive frame in one of the chairs. “New assignments?”