The Guardian Agency: Tyler (Brotherhood Protectors World)
Available April 14, 2020 ~ exclusively at Amazon
When hope is lost, truth is blurred, and your life is on the line, it’s time to call in the Guardian Agency…
She’s a vigilante on a mission…
Autumn Curley has no interest in changing her ways. After escaping her captors, her sole purpose is to destroy the gangs that prey on Native American women and make sure no one else suffers like she did. But she doesn’t know the gangs are closing in and about to spring a trap.
Can a helpful stranger save her from herself?
A former airman, Tyler Vidro now works as behind-the-scenes support for the Guardian Agency bodyguards. He’s been privately searching for Autumn since she disappeared after delivering testimony in an important trial against the violent gangs operating on tribal lands.
After months of analysis Tyler knows the gangs are determined to stop Autumn permanently. To save her life, he must step out of his comfort zone and into the field. If he can’t earn her trust, she’ll never have a chance to truly heal.
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~~~Enjoy an Excerpt~~~
Chapter One
Headline: Shoplifter Gift-wrapped and Delivered to Tribal Police
Alone in his office, Tyler Vidro laughed softly as he read the brief report from the Blackfeet reservation. A few days ago, someone had caught a shoplifter, hogtied him, and hauled both the offender and the stolen goods to the police station. The young man, listed as nineteen years old, had been deposited at the side of the building and found shivering and furious after a night of hard rain. He’d also been in possession of enough cocaine that authorities were charging him with intent to distribute.
This was her work. Had to be connected to the woman he was searching for. No one else had this particular combination of dark humor, strong sense of justice, and the ability to pull it off.
He scanned news articles daily as part of his role as an information and technical assistant with the Guardian Agency. The habit kept him sharp and helped him provide background and support for the agency bodyguards on their various cases. He also kept a close eye on petty crimes and mysterious instances of crimes averted near the Native American Indian reservations in and around Montana.
At one time he’d done it as part of a case, now it was solely a personal effort to find one lost needle in a haystack. A needle that refused to come out into the light.
Over a year ago, the law firm of Gamble and Swann, the team that served as the face of the Guardian Agency to shield the identity of its founder, had taken on a high-profile case as a favor to the Federal Prosecutor in Helena, Montana. Three women, all important witnesses in a major kidnapping and human trafficking case, had been flushed out of protective custody. Agency bodyguards had been sent to find them and make sure they survived to testify against the accused.
Thanks to the Guardian Agency, and the expert assistance of the Brotherhood Protectors, another security firm owned and operated by a retired Navy SEAL, everything had worked out for the prosecutor. She got her conviction in that case, as well as solid, actionable intel on a gang that was dealing Native American women and girls like any other illegal commodity.
The victory was huge but the celebration was muted. One witness, the woman who’d escaped her captors after nearly two years and blown the whistle on the previously unnamed leaders of the Native Mob, remained in the wind: Autumn Curley.
The woman who had surely delivered another petty thief to the tribal police.
She had miraculously survived without assistance after her secure location as a witness had been compromised. During the trial, she’d testified from a remote location, moving several members of the jury to tears as she recounted the kidnapping and captivity. She’d given the prosecutor every name and address and pattern she’d memorized along with detailed accounts of dreadful crimes she’d witnessed. And then she’d disappeared.
But Tyler knew better than most that, outside of mystery novels and thrillers, people didn’t just vanish. Not with cameras on nearly every street corner and cell phones that were always on and broadcasting to the internet. A person could consciously avoid social media, but any brush with the public was a potential for exposure.
Those random interactions were often Tyler’s hunting ground during a case, whether his bodyguard needed a clean escape route or an overview of the habits of a potential perp or victim.
And, unlike most people who were mystified by her disappearance, he had a better understanding of why Autumn didn’t want to be found. It was hard to face people, to participate in normal activities or feel any connection after a life-altering event. What she must have seen and survived as a captive in the Native Mob system was unfathomable. Horrific. He couldn’t imagine how she was coping with the emotional fallout. Recovering and moving on after a tragic experience was a big challenge even with a dedicated, attentive support team of compassionate family, friends, and professionals. He’d learned that the hard way.
The way Autumn cut herself off from family, friends, and basically the world in general worried him. Her sister, Summer, another witness in the case, had been desperate for a reunion, but when given the opportunity, Autumn had gone into hiding instead.
Tyler wanted to help. Whatever her reasons—shame or guilt or frustration or fear—he felt compelled to reassure her that she wasn’t alone. This case wouldn’t be closed for him until he knew she was all right. Safe from her trauma and memories and, more importantly, safe from the criminal organization she’d turned inside out.
After every bit of background he’d dug up on the Curley sisters through the course of the initial case, he suspected she stayed away from her dad and sister because she was afraid the gangs seeking vengeance would catch up with her and hurt them both. It might not be the primary reason, but it had to be a factor.
He told himself he couldn’t forget Autumn because Summer was now the wife of Colin, a Guardian Agency bodyguard Tyler often assisted. On busy days he almost believed it. But when things were too quiet in his office, or when his mind wandered during his down time, he had to face the truth: he’d become obsessed with finding her.
To that end, despite the official status of the case, he continued to scan the police blotters and obscure local news reports for leads. Whenever possible, he traveled to search an area personally for any sign of her. None of those treks had panned out. Yet. He took full advantage of the liberal Guardian Agency personal leave policy and he refused to give up on his quest.
Remaining isolated after what she’d endured couldn’t be healthy and if anyone deserved full restoration and renewed peace, she did.
Several months ago, Colin had asked if Tyler believed Autumn was still alive. Tyler was certain she was, if only because the Native Mob hadn’t done any boasting about capturing the woman they considered a mortal enemy to their individual gangs as well as the operation as a whole. More low- and mid-level members of Native American gangs in Montana and the surrounding area had been rounded up in the time since Autumn’s disappearance than in the previous two years of her captivity. Tyler didn’t think that was a coincidence.
Early in his search, when he failed to find Autumn by normal means, he’d resorted to a tactic they’d used to find the other two witnesses: track the gang’s movements and chatter. Although the strategy had paid off and he’d been close, he’d never able to make contact.
He had no way to prove that the anonymous tips and the occasional call to pick up a thief or vandal caught in the act were her work, but who else had the motivation to take those risks? No one condoned the crimes that ranged from petty theft to kidnapping, but no one else was taking a stand in the same way as this ghost-like vigilante.
Tyler had studied the lengthy history and evolution of the gangs that had grown up from the reservations. They weren’t the forgiving sort. Autumn had cost them money and stained the organization’s reputation. Retaliation wasn’t a troubling theory, it was a given.
His current assumption was that she was hiding somewhere on the reservations, but so far he hadn’t found any helpful clues in the Curley family past to guide him. The only property of record was the farm where her father still lived and that would’ve put her dad in harm’s way.
He returned to the article, pulled up a map of the area surrounding the station where the shoplifter had been dumped. Unlike the media frenzy that swirled around Autumn’s escape and the trial that followed, stories like the shoplifter barely made it to the local media outlets. He suspected the law enforcement offices on the receiving end believed she was behind the random drop-offs too. So far no one had called her by name, she was simply a legend, a ghost who tracked down the bad and the ugly and delivered them for justice.
No one complained about gangbangers getting caught for the petty stuff or serious crimes, they were just happy to take delivery and press charges. He wondered if anyone in the criminal justice system worried as much as he did that eventually Autumn wouldn’t be able to outmaneuver the Native Mob as well as she avoided security cameras around the police stations.
The mob would move on her. And soon, if he was reading the current chatter correctly. Dean Mosley was at the top of the food chain among the Native Mob in and around Montana and all signs pointed to his patience running out with Autumn’s interference. In the past month she’d trussed up and dropped off this shoplifter, one of Mosley’s most trusted managers, and one of his top drivers.
Either she was getting cocky or she was developing an outright death wish.
It was a miracle she wasn’t killing everyone she nabbed who was connected to Mosley’s trafficking ring, although he suspected she had that in mind for Mosley himself when she found him. Tyler needed to find her before that happened, before she reached the point of no return.
Though her citizen arrests seemed random, he’d discovered that her drop-offs did coincide with Mosley’s movements between reservations and city centers in the area. She tended to attack when he was elsewhere, exploiting the weaknesses of those he left in charge.
The shoplifter had been caught and delivered to authorities on the Blackfeet reservation, so she wouldn’t stay in that vicinity for long. She had to have some kind of base that provided good access between the reservations where she was hunting gangbangers. But when he’d crunched the numbers, the pin landed in Helena and though he’d searched via camera feeds and in person he’d never found her where he should have.
Which left him stuck in his office, watching and waiting for a new, viable lead. Doing his homework on the shoplifter, the connection to Mosley popped up quickly and left Tyler reeling. He rubbed his temples. “Damn it, Autumn. You’re playing with fire.”