Charlie Foxtrot

Chapter 1:

“We need an FO on the property—” I began, but was instantly interrupted by Eva, who insisted on being part of the meeting. As my girlfriend, and soon to be wife, she thought it was her place to understand my business. It was something I had yet to correct her on since I had finally gotten her to come around to my way of thinking.

“What is an FO?” she asked, raising her hand. Her eyes were trained on the paper in front of her…where she was taking fucking notes. 

I refrained from rolling my eyes at her. That wouldn’t help one bit. “It’s a forward observer,” I explained. “Someone that can be the lookout for us and let us know of any threats.”

I was about to continue when she raised her hand again. “But isn’t that what all the cameras and sensors are for? Didn’t Rafe install like a ten mile radius of shit for you?”

“Kitten,” I said, just to piss her off. “This is more about hiding in plain sight. We need a man not connected with OPS to be our eyes and ears.”

“Why don’t you just use one of your own guys? Wouldn’t you gather more intel that way?”

A few chuckles came up from around the room. My woman was a hell-raiser. They all knew she had me by the balls in every aspect of my life. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her, including sit here and explain in front of everyone why this was necessary. Especially when this was none of her goddamn business. She should be upstairs, doing her own shit. But I clenched my jaw and bit down the retort on the tip of my tongue.

“We’re creating a sort of made up world around us, one that will trick the rest of the town into thinking we’re just a normal business. Coming into town with twenty-five men isn’t exactly using discretion. So, we want to make it appear that we’re just another company, coming into town to build business and create job opportunities,” I mansplained.

“In Kansas,” she said blankly.

“Exactly. You can see how important it is to have the right cover.”

“So, what you’re really doing is creating a trojan horse.”

“Not exactly. We’re not attacking the town.”

“No, but you’re infiltrating the city in the hopes that no one will notice you’re here. Isn’t that the same thing?”

I narrowed my eyes at the chuckles coming from around the table. I could have sworn I heard Fox mutter burn, and I nearly tossed my pen at him. “I suppose you could say that.”

She nodded at me. “You know, you could just say that next time. No need to mansplain everything to me.”

I scratched my forehead, doing my best to not yell at her to get the fuck out. Deep breaths. I needed her to want to stick around. 

“Noted,” I answered. I glanced at the clock, seeing I had just wasted five minutes of everyone’s time. “Anyway, I’ve been looking into businesses in the area, people that might be trustworthy.” 

I swiped my hand across the glass conference table that also happened to work as a computer screen, sending all the information to anyone seated at the table. Now that I had a chance to play with all my new toys, I was quite happy with them, even if it came at the expense of working with Rafe.

“This is Duke Mason. He’s the current owner of the local auto mechanic’s shop in town. He’s owned it for the past five years after retiring from the military. I’ve already spoken to him and gotten a lay of the land. He’s a decent man, kind to the people in town, but watches everything around him like a hawk.”

“Are you recruiting him, boss?” IRIS asked.

“Not at this time. He seems content with his work, but it’s not completely out of the question. I’ve asked him to move his business to the property, working as a sort of front for OPS. He was thinking of expanding his shop anyway, so this would give him that opportunity. With our newly funded operation, we can afford to move his shop over here and get him up and running in no time.”

“But that’s only one business,” Eli pointed out. “Sure, it’ll give us some cover, but that won’t explain all the vehicles coming and going from the property at any given time.”

“The area will be largely gated off, with several buildings behind his garage. For the time being, we can use it for parking.”

“You mean, we don’t have to hot foot it a mile every day to work anymore?” FNG asked.

“Why? Is the mile too strenuous?” I retorted.

Rafe had built a tunnel off the silo, heading a mile away from the property to a mansion we were all currently living in. It was cramped to say the least, but would work until we could put up some ‘company housing’. That’s what we would tell the town so they didn’t try and buy housing around the facility. Unofficially, we were a construction company that worked mainly out of town, and would never bid on local jobs. It would explain our comings and goings without raising suspicion, and also allow us to build homes for our ‘workers’ without the town questioning us. 

Officially, OPS was still located in California. We were rebuilding our main office, which consisted of a lobby and a single back office that held nothing more than a computer that you could only play solitaire on. We had two secretaries whose jobs were to transfer the important calls to our office, and weed out the spam calls. They worked normal business hours of nine to five, and were allowed to do pretty much anything they wanted all day, so long as they answered the phones. One of them was an older college student with a child that she would bring to the office to save on daycare. The second was an older woman that was just looking to get out of the house. Security would be fully installed and there would be two guards on duty at all times while they were in the office.

“It just seems a little ridiculous,” Fucking New Guy said as he rolled his head back. “We walk all the way here, but if we need to go to lunch, we have to walk all the way back, then get our vehicles, then drive to lunch, then drive back to the house, then—”

“Yeah,” I held up my hand to stop him. “I get the point. You don’t like the extra walking and shit. Get over it. It won’t be too much longer before all this is taken care of. Now, back to Duke…he won’t know precisely what we do here, but he is aware that we’re a security company looking to work under the radar. He won’t ask any questions, and nobody here will under any circumstances discuss operations with him. If he doesn’t know anything, he can’t spill anything by accident.”

“I met him,” Eva chimed in with a smile. “He’s really nice. You know, he fixed my SUV last week.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean, he fixed it? There was nothing wrong with it.”

“Oh, there were these annoying tracking systems that were throwing off my GPS. Every time I tried to take a route out of town, it directed me back here.”

“Which would prevent you from going outside the radius of where I could keep an eye on you,” I retorted.

“And I didn’t like that,” she shot back. “I have my throwing knives on me at all times, and you always have someone following me, even though you assume I’m too dense to notice. I think Fox spends more time following me around than actually doing work.”

He snorted, nodding his head. “I should go with you. At least then I’d have someone to sing show tunes with.”

“That’s a hard no,” she pursed her lips. “If I’m going to live here with you and be your girlfriend—”

“Wife,” I corrected.

“That’s still to be determined.”

I smirked at her. “It’s funny you think you have a way out now.”

“It’s funny you think I won’t run.”

“You could try,” I answered, feeling my dick grow hard at the thought of chasing her down. 

She shifted in her chair, shooting me a withering glare. “And I’d have you chasing me all over the country. Do you really think Fox has just been teaching me to throw knives for the past nine months?”

God, I loved it when she talked dirty to me. My kitten was becoming a full-fledged cat, complete with razor-sharp claws. I adjusted my dick without thinking, ignoring the laughter that came from around the table.

“Should we leave you two alone?” Rae asked. 

“I think that would be best,” I gritted out.

They all instantly stood, but Rae walked over and leaned in to whisper, “Just remember the table is a computer. Don’t…accidentally video your ass or hers. Or anything else.”

And with the banging of the door as the last person left, I stalked over to my woman and claimed her right there on the goddamn table. Fuck the video feed and everything else.