Beck: Hollywood Hitman Read Online Free

working for Estrella, and he’d been memorizing names and faces when Dex knocked on his door. “You’re from Texas. Former Navy.”
    Dex nodded. “And you’ve lived in nearly every state, once a Marine but then, who the hell knows? Guessing you can’t talk about what exactly you did.”
    “Might be a problem for me, if I remembered half of it.”
    “Got beat up pretty good?”
    “Middle East. Six tours and then South America.”
    “But you’re back now and here with us.” Dex rounded the corner to the rec room at the back of the house. Pool table, bar, two flat-screens on either side of the room. The Lakers were on one TV while two guys sat in front of another wearing headsets and playing a video game. Three guys and one woman watched the game and one guy leaned against the back wall with a beer in his hand. All of them, but the guy holding up the wall, sat with that stiff look like they were ready to jump to attention and salute at a moment’s notice.
    “What you drinking?” Dex asked.
    “Take a Sculpin IPA if you got it.”
    Dex walked around the end of the bar. “We got anything you could ever want at this place.” Pulled a beer from the refrigerator and popped it open. “Did you meet everyone?”
    Beck shook his head. He hadn’t met any of them, but he’d read their bios and seen their pictures.
    “Nah, you wouldn’t have if you missed dinner. Remi keeps you pretty busy before your first assignment. All kinds of formal shit, and I heard you were already assigned.” Dex took a long pull on his beer.
    Beck’s eyes skimmed over his new colleagues. Every one of them high-end elite services or former spooks. Each with a backstory they weren’t allowed to tell.
    “Takes a little while getting used to the idea that we can talk about what we do,” Dex said. “Took me six months before I felt like I wasn’t doing something wrong by talking about my assignment with anyone but Remi.”
    Beck nodded. Secrets had been his life. Now, here, these people were meant to be his colleagues, and according to Remi he was meant to utilize them as a resource. “How long have you been working for Estrella?”
    “Going on two years,” Dex said. “Best civilian security gig on the planet.”
    “She treats you well.”
    “She does. As long as you’re the right fit.”
    His belly churned with the conditional response. “Right fit?” He tilted his beer and the liquid flowed easily down his throat, maybe a little too easy. He was halfway finished with the first beer he’d had in nearly a year and he wanted another one already.
    “We’re a tight group. We take care of each other and Estrella takes care of us, but she demands loyalty, transparency, expects us to walk what we talk. No bullshit, no drama. You down with that?”
    Was he down with that? Hell yes. He’d built a career on doing what he was told and respecting his oath.
    “Everybody been here a while?” While the folder on his colleagues told of their specialties and what branches of the military they came from, the number that was missing was how long they’d worked with Estrella.
    “Most, yeah. Some come and go and others, well, they go.” Dex upended his beer. “Meet the rest of the crew. Except for those two boneheads over there.” He smiled and jerked his thumb toward the two guys on the couch playing Xbox. “That’s Trevor and Hudson, and they won’t get off that thing for at least another two hours.”
    Beck followed Dex to the giant couch in front of the TV. “You met Connor out front earlier today. That’s Fallon Mackenzie.” The woman with thick blonde hair was all muscle and sat beside Connor on the couch.
    “Welcome,” she drawled in a silken southern accent. She was tiny but looked to be a powder keg that could explode. Seven years in the foreign service, which meant spy and operative. “Heard you arrived today. Got a gig starting?”
    Beck nodded. Yeah, hard habit to break, that he couldn’t talk about his gig with his