Chapter One
Ross raised the glass of whiskey to his lips, but he never got to take a sip because a sexy woman wearing only a red, sheer thong shoved his drink aside.
She grabbed him by the western string tie he wore and leaned in close. “You want a piece of this, sugar?” She lifted one dainty foot sporting a red stiletto with feathers and planted it on the chair between his thighs, an inch from his balls.
His brothers, a couple cousins and his lifelong buddies at the table hooted and started tossing dollar bills his direction. Music pulsed and the women dancing onstage looked like disco balls with colored lights hitting their scanty costumes. Two were completely naked.
“Who picked this place for our weekly meeting anyway?” He snagged a handful of crumpled bills off the table. The dancer swished around to present her ass. With a coy glance over her shoulder, she bent over for him.
“Stick the bills in her thong!” his brother called when Ross sat immobile for a heartbeat too long.
He pulled the string out of the crack of her ass and wedged the bills under it. When he let it snap back in place, she whipped to face him with a glare.
She sashayed to the next table and straddled a businessman who was three sheets to the wind and probably had more money to waste.
Ross took his whiskey in hand and relished the slow burn slipping into his stomach. Christ, what a week. The guys who made up WEST Protection probably thought that holding their weekly meeting at a strip club would be a good way to unwind. But he didn’t need a silk-covered ass waving her goods in his face to let loose.
Hell, he partied at least once a…
He thought long and hard about the last time he knocked down more than a drink or two or took a beautiful woman up against a wall. His brows scrunched, and he caught his little brother, Boone, looking at him.
“What are you starin’ at?” He slugged down his whiskey and breathed through the flames.
“You didn’t even look twice at that woman. She was waving her ass in your face! Did you even notice her clit was pierced?” Boone’s white Stetson flashed with rainbow lights from the nearby stage.
“She had her clit pierced? How did I miss that?” His other little brother jumped to his feet and waved at the dancer to come back, but she simply blew him a kiss and moved on to another table.
“Shiiiiieeet, Ross. Running a company’s making you old before your time.” Boone motioned to a waitress to bring the table another round of Jameson. They’d shoved together four tables to make enough room for all ten of them working for WEST Protection security company.
Wynton, Shanie and Trace made up three of the letters of WEST. A short year ago, Ross, his cousin and his best buddy had formed the company that served the Western part of the US, and Ross’s brothers jumped on board.
But only he seemed to be on task tonight. The guys were all either drinking, eyeing up beautiful women or both.
Maybe Boone was right—he was getting old before his time. But that happened to men who were driven to reach goals, right? His plan to scale up in the course of a year had exploded them onto the map, and now they couldn’t even handle the calls they were receiving for security details, requests for personal protection officers and even help with guarding identities over the internet with their tech branch.
Wait until he told the guys about putting his next plan into action in order to take over the western US before spreading south.
Boone said something to him, and he blinked away his thoughts. “What was that?”
“You got too much manure in your ears, brother! If you’re not on the ranch, you’ve got your head in a business plan or a case file. I said that dancer was waving at you from across the room.”
He didn’t bother to look. He wasn’t interested in a woman who would wiggle her ass in the face of any man waving a buck. He sipped his whiskey and kicked back instead, watching his employees’ interest in the scheduled meeting fade fast.
A dancer with big, perky tits headed their way, and all nine of his men whipped off their white Stetsons in her honor. Ross grunted, watching their antics as they plied her with money in trade for a peek at those big, hard nipples up close.
They needed to discuss so many things. The agenda he’d memorized floated away as he realized they weren’t going to talk about protecting the governor from death threats, or even how to reduce the hundreds he received a day to a dozen. There wasn’t an opportunity to go over details about security at the banks being hit with armed robberies or the countless security systems they were being paid to plug holes in.
The dancer moved on, and the guys placed their hats on their heads.
He tugged the brim of his own white Stetson, a trademark of WEST Protection, and raised his voice. “I have an announcement.”
They all stopped talking and focused on him.
“I received a call from a woman who heads the planning team for the Grammys.”
Nobody spoke.
“As in Grammy Wynton?”
Ross’s lips twisted. “Not that type o’ Grammy. I mean the Grammys. The big awards that happen annually.”
Everyone blinked at him. All except for Boone, who stared at Ross as though he’d lost the ability to close his eyelids.
“You got…us a job…working security…for…the…Grammys?” Boone spaced out the words in a slow drawl.
He shook his head. “Nothing’s finalized. No contracts signed.”
“But they’ll offer,” Boone put in with stone-cold conviction.
Ross ducked his head in the Wynton nod handed down through the men of his family, along with a deep dimple in each of their cheeks. “Looks like it might happen. And if it does, we need more men. The best of the best, ya hear?” He pointed to his youngest brother Noah.
“Damn, brother, I admit I never believed you when you said WEST would be the biggest security company in the US.” His middle brother Josiah pinned a stare on him.
“Not yet we aren’t. And if we do reach the top—”
“Which we will,” interjected Boone.
Ross went on, “Then we can’t get lazy. We have to actually be the best. We haven’t invested in all this training, infrastructure, top-of-the-line computer systems and other high-priced gear only to let it all go with laziness.”
“Look around you, Ross. Is there a single man here you’d call lazy?” Josiah spoke up.
If their determined expressions and muscled shoulders didn’t say enough, he’d witnessed firsthand how damn lethal every man seated at this table was. Upon inception of the company, the first thing he did was fly everyone to Michigan to a top facility for training with elite soldiers from all over the world. At this point, they could handle everything including hostage rescues, reconnaissance, military combative techniques and could even treat trauma patients. And that was only the bodyguard division. The tech team had their own top training.
He started to answer Josiah, but his phone vibrated on the table next to his hand. He glanced at the number and didn’t recognize it.
But he never let a call go. As a result, he listened to a lot of spam calls about his car’s extended warranty. Often, the people who contacted him were clients sent to him by word of mouth.
“That the girl you were twirling around the dancefloor the other night, Ross?” his brother teased.