Always counting on Nevada and Connor to save us and provide for us wasn’t fair to them. Once I understood that fact, I worked sixty-hour weeks.
When we started, I had no idea how much capital went into maintaining a private security force. We had to house them, feed them, and provide them with equipment. We had to carry insurance and employ an accountant to issue paychecks and file taxes. We had to retain a lawyer to file all the necessary permits. It was like piling money into a heap and setting it on fire twice a month.
Once we gathered enough capital to hire our own security, Mom brought Lieutenant Abarca in to oversee it. They’d served together, and he’d needed a job. Abarca supervised the hiring and the training of our guards, and he seemed competent. He was approachable and friendly, but as time went on, the cracks in our security became more and more apparent.
Abarca dropped into a chair. “Hi Pen.”
Pen was not my mother’s favorite nickname.
“The security barriers weren’t up, George,” she said. “I sent the alert myself. You acknowledged it. And then my daughter almost got hit by a truck that shouldn’t have been on that road.”
“It was Justin’s truck. He delivers groceries to the DFAC, and he has done so for the last eight months. He was not a security risk and we were almost out of coffee. You know an army runs on coffee.” He grinned.
His smile bounced off my mother like rubber bullets off a tank. “This isn’t a joke. You put my children in danger. You put your own people in danger. Why was Kelly alone in the booth?”
“Merriweather’s daughter had a recital,” Abarca said. “These are people, Penelope. They have lives and families, just like you.”
My mom gave him her thousand-yard stare. “Their families don’t employ them, George. We do. And we have the right to demand a certain level of professionalism and discipline. Last night your people let an Illusion Prime roll right through the security checkpoint all the way to our front door.”
“That was an extraordinary case. Nobody could have foreseen that.”
“Really?” My mother leaned forward. “Our security personnel, who are supposed to maintain a log of departures and arrivals, didn’t realize that Catalina was already home or think it odd that she came back in a strange car driven by a chauffeur none of them had ever seen before?”
Abarca’s face took on a patient expression. “People are human. They make mistakes.”
“They can make mistakes on someone else’s dime.” Mom’s face held no mercy. “The two guards who let Montgomery through are fired.”
Abarca stared at her in stunned silence. A moment passed.
“You can’t mean that. Lopez is taking care of her sick mother and Walton has two kids.”
“I have five kids and a mother in this house, and I want to keep them all alive. Mistakes like that get people killed.”
Abarca shook his head. “I won’t do it, Pen. If you want them gone, you’re going to have to tell them yourself.”
He and Mom locked gazes.
“Either you fire them, or you can pack your shit and go with them.”
“We’re not at war anymore,” Abarca said.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “As of today, we are at war.”
“You’re dismissed,” Mom said. “Let me know your decision by tomorrow.”
Abarca looked at me, then at her, then at me again, stood up, and left.
I turned back to my mother.
“I know,” she said. “If we don’t fire him, he’s going to get himself killed and our people too.”
“Then let’s fire him and hire someone else.” We would give him a generous severance package. At this point, I would rather take a financial hit than keep at it. I knew everyone who worked for us. I didn’t want any of them to die because we failed to properly train them. We needed better leadership.
Mom sighed. “It’s not that simple. If we fire him, there is no telling how many of them will quit. They’re loyal to him.”
“Mom, they need to be loyal to us.”
“I know,” Mom said. “But at least they provide some protection. I don’t want to fire him until we have a replacement ready.”
“We could give Abarca a second chance,” Bern said.
Mom’s expression hardened. “We won’t get a second chance, Bernard. We will be dead. Second chances are given when someone is good but makes an honest mistake or their nerves get the better of them. I gave Abarca the authority to hire his own unit. I questioned his choices at the time and he