The Survivor - Cristin Harber Page 0,2
Chance update headquarters and Liam readying the kid to move out. Hagan set the woman into her chair. He wanted to tell her she’d done the right thing, that she’d met a higher calling and done what duty and service dictated she should, not a job or a paycheck.
But all he could think about was when his mother had lost his brother and when Hagan had realized that pain didn’t go away. It simply changed.
CHAPTER TWO
ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
As security project contracts went, Amanda Hearst couldn’t imagine a better company to work with than Titan Group, but as clients went, she didn’t know a soul more aggravating than her friend Jared Westin. Though maybe that wasn’t saying a lot.
As a rule, Amanda kept away from people. Of the few she was forced to interact with, she considered an even smaller number as friends. Jared had been a friend since she was an angsty, bleach-blonde, goth-makeup-wearing teenager.
It wasn’t that Amanda couldn’t make friends, but, rather, she knew better. Boss Man understood.
When he’d first asked her interest in designing a security system in Abu Dhabi, she hadn’t known it would be for Titan’s new headquarters in the United Arab Emirates.
When he casually mentioned the project would include two armored skyscrapers with SCIF rooms, Amanda salivated and crossed her fingers that he would see her as a security professional and not a family friend he had to protect.
Then, when he agreed to sign a contract that isolated her from all but essential personnel, she let out a loud whoop. They’d worked together on smaller jobs before using her security parameters. It hadn’t been easy, but they’d survived without strangling each other. Once again, the only problem with this project was Jared’s infuriating habit of worrying about her security.
Amanda’s stomach growled. She regretted skipping lunch to run an inspection with Parker Black, the brains behind Titan’s intel and security. If the late afternoon sun was any indication, she was about to work through dinner. They’d found a glitchy pass reader and a loose wire outside the second tower’s SCIF room.
Both were easy fixes that should’ve been corrected by now. But, as she approached the flagged pass reader, it only took a glance to see its yellow blinking light. The contractor hadn’t fixed it before he left for the day.
Her stomach growled again as an alert pinged on her tablet. Amanda groaned at the preview of Jared’s email.
We need to talk.
“Oh, fun…” She could tell he was in a mood and could’ve kicked herself for not eating earlier. There was no telling if Jared would harp on their ongoing disagreements or if he had another brilliant idea like bulletproof skylights. She made a mental note to keep snacks on hand and tapped out her reply.
Sounds good. Come and find me.
Amanda added a smiley face then hit send, confident that it would make Boss Man glower.
Now she needed to pick a location that would play to her advantage. She bypassed the malfunctioning door without swiping the necessary badge and walked to the nearest sky bridge. It connected the two hotel towers. The first tower’s renovation was nearly complete. The second tower remained on schedule, though nowhere near ready for business.
She swiped her badge to enter the second tower, then moved through an area of unfinished steel-framed walls. One day, they’d be impenetrable meeting rooms. But the exterior walls and windows still hadn’t been installed. It had taken an obscene amount of time to wire Titan’s LIDAR security system. But Amanda, pleased with their progress, was infatuated with their multiple fields of vision. It offered a certainty of knowing what was where at all times—precisely her life goal too.
Amanda continued to one of her favorite places to think. Fresh air overtook the omnipresent smell of construction. She stepped through the plastic tarps that hung from steel beams. The thin plastic swayed as wind drifted off the city, comforting her almost as much as standing near the ledge.
Warning signs and a bright orange mesh barrier marked the perimeter. A mere four millimeters of plastic served as the only barrier between her, the open sky, and the streets below. It was only when she could look down at danger that she felt in control of her life.
Her parents would freak out if they knew how she found peace. They’d rain a security detail from the heavens, ready to catch her if she fell. On the opposite side of caution, Amanda’s business partner and best friend Halle wouldn’t even