The Mercenary Next Door (Rogues and Rescuers #2) - Lucy Leroux Page 0,26
have weighed on him something fierce. Torsten would have been helpless. He could have been killed, particularly since he’d gotten up close and personal with his assailant and could easily identify her. He was lucky she let him live.
Yeah, something like that would have been hard to shake off.
“I’ve explained to my insistent friend here that the woman didn’t steal anything of value,” Torsten said, indicating Chapman. “All she did was copy some information about one of my art purchases. Considering the lengths she went to get it, the details were pretty innocuous. I still have no idea why she wanted the data.”
“Are you concerned this Eileen will come back?”
“No. I’m sure she won’t,” Torsten said, sounding certain.
Mason raised a brow in question. “Then, are you worried about the integrity of your current security? Do you want us to vet your people?” Auric sometimes did that, although team leaders typically handled the assessments.
“Not exactly,” Chapman answered. “We want you to train us.”
Mason drew his head back. He raised an eyebrow at Quinn and Gardner, who nodded.
“We may not want to be involved in the day to day,” Chapman said. “But we do like to dive into companies to learn what makes them tick. It makes for more informed collaborations.”
That didn’t sound particularly hands-off to Mason, but Torsten’s story explained why they would want to ‘dive in’. Mason just hoped their involvement would end there. Auric wasn’t a boot camp for bored billionaires.
“So, you want me to take some time to run them through our training routines?” he asked politely, addressing his team lead and the big bosses.
“Actually, we want you to train them alongside your new team,” Quinn corrected.
Mason sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”
“That’s the real reason we brought you in today. We want to start recruiting a fourth team now, and we’d like you to take the lead—on a trial basis, of course.”
Gardner tapped his fingers on the table to get Mason’s attention. “We are evaluating a few candidates for team leads, but that’s for teams five and six. If we’re serious about expanding, we need to hit the ground running. It makes sense to promote from within. And given your performance, it would be stupid not to make you an offer.”
“That’s great,” Mason said. “At least, I think it’s great.”
“You’ve been with us a long time,” Gardner continued. “The men respect you. When Dom had to delegate the lead to someone else, you’ve stepped up with excellent results. If you’d stayed with the Rangers, you would have been promoted a long time ago.”
Mason blinked. He hadn’t thought about it that way, but then the military wasn’t something he’d signed up for because he was looking for a career. It had merely been a placeholder. Kind of like Auric. Or at least that was what he’d been telling himself up until now.
Gardner nodded to the two investors, drawing his attention back to the present. “Garrett and Rainer will only be with you through the first phase of training, where you run through candidates and put them through their paces. We wouldn’t finalize the new team until after. I don’t have to tell you how important it is for the group to gel. We wouldn’t want the presence of these two to interrupt the new group’s dynamics.”
No, Mason didn’t need that spelled out for him. Even more so than the army, Auric teams were well-oiled machines. Each one was a cohesive unit. They got that way through training, a polite phrase for the endless and grueling drills, courses, and exercises each team went through until they operated seamlessly.
Mason took a deep breath. Part of him was still reeling. Me a team leader?
“So, a crash course in hand-to-hand and marksmanship is all you’re looking for?” Mason asked Torsten with a raised brow. “It won’t change what happened to you,” he added a bit more gently.
“I know that,” Rainer Torsten said with a self-deprecating little shrug. There was an air to him—chagrin mingled with frustration.
He doubts his judgment. Mason could relate.
“Garrett thinks it’s high time I learned how to shoot and fight hand-to-hand,” Torsten said. “And I guess it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to handle myself a bit better, get some real offensive and defensive techniques down. When you have as much money as I do, it’s hard to find someone willing to hit you.”
Mason laughed despite himself. If he walloped the man during their sparring, he’d sure as hell be worried about it afterward.