Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
“What the hell, Lo,” I shook my head. “You on a suicide mission?”
“Nope. Just sick of being treated like a dog around this place.” He flashed his gaze down at the cash mug.
“All right. Fair enough. I’ll stop giving you shit, but only if you tell me what the hell happened behind McMurphy’s.”
He scoffed. “You’d be better off asking him. He’ll probably fill that cup with enough cash to buy Leo a new car to avoid that conversation.”
Interesting.
I’d absolutely circle back to that one later.
Apollo started toward the office, and I fell into stride behind him. We wove our way through the chocolate-brown leather sofas. I set the mug of cash on the mantle as we passed.
Despite being the country’s premier personal security firm, Guardian Protection’s office had been decorated for comfort.
It was a really great space. Rhion, Apollo’s sister, lived one floor up along with a few other private owners. Basically, if you had the money to afford four-thousand-square-feet of prime real estate in Downtown Chicago, residential or commercial, that building was the place to be.
The door to Leo’s office was open when we arrived. Nothing unusual there, but the hard set of his jaw put me on alert. Johnson stood behind him, their eyes glued to a computer screen.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked.
He waved me in without looking up. “Lo,” he called. “Get this shit up on the big screen for me, yeah?”
Apollo rolled his eyes, shuffling over to the computer. “So glad I’ve been forced into a life of servitude so I can be your personal assistant. Can I get you any coffee while I’m at it?”
Johnson fired off a loud snap of his fingers. “Not fucking today. We got two men dead. I do not have the time or patience for your bullshit.”
My spine shot straight as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “Who?”
Leo’s hollow brown eyes lifted to mine. The weight of his stare was so heavy it nearly knocked me back a step. “Not our men, but good men.”
I’d spent over a decade in personal protection, with most of my time in LA before being hired at Guardian. I had far too many friends, acquaintances, and enemies alike in the business to feel any relief that it wasn’t any of our men.
“Who?” I repeated.
Leo eyed me closely as he stated, “Derrick Flanigan and Marty Sowers.”
“Shit,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck.
“You know ‘em?”
“I knew Derrick in passing, but Marty was at Arrow Security when I first started. He taught me a lot before I branched off to work for Lev—” I closed my mouth, not willing to utter her name.
Leo didn’t need more than that one syllable to understand my abrupt silence. He nodded, “Right. About that.”
He rose from his seat and walked around his desk, parking his ass on the corner. “I need you to—”
“No,” I rumbled.
He cocked a warning eyebrow. “You suddenly a mind reader?”
“Nope. But if it has anything to do with…that person, then I know enough.”
Johnson let out a low whistle, causing Leo to glance over his shoulder at him. “Did you hear me ask a question?”
Johnson shook his head. “I wasn’t even aware you had question marks in your vocabulary.”
Leo hummed. “Right. Didn’t think so. As I was saying. I need you to head out to LA and—”
“No,” I stated firmly, squaring my shoulders for the war that I had all but declared with that one syllable.
Rising to his full height, he stood only inches away from me, looming ominously. “Men are dead, and you are still so up in your feelings over a woman who rejected you that you can’t even step foot in a city? Boo fucking hoo, Grant. This job doesn’t stop because you got a bruised ego. Man, the fuck up and get your ass to LA or march it to the unemployment line.”
I clenched my teeth. I didn’t have a career outside of Guardian. He knew that because he’d saved my ass after I’d fucked up…
In LA.
Over a woman.
I couldn’t go back.
“That’s not it,” I lied.
“Bullshit.” Leo jerked his chin toward the TV behind me. I turned just as a grainy surveillance video flickered to life on the big screen.
A woman burst into the frame, barefoot, clutching a child to her chest as she sprinted through a dimly lit living room. Her eyes were wide and frantic. The panic that doesn’t come from what-ifs but rather from the knowledge that the monster is hot on your heels.
I narrowed my eyes. “Is that…Lofton Beck?”
“The one and only. Marty had been her primary for years. She’d had a break-in recently, so he had her in a rental across town and had Derrick join them as a secondary.”
Bile burned up my throat as I watched her slip in a pool of blood as she stepped over a body, though I couldn’t tell which of the men it was. “They catch the fucker?”