Brooding Bodyguard Summer (Sunbreak Harbor Security #14)

Chapter One

Neko

I rather be anywhere else on earth than where I am.

I hate these parties, I hate these places, and I hate this crowd. What I hate most is the spoiled brat I work for. Well, at least, for tonight, I work for her. If you were to ask her, I am the problem here, not these awful people or the pomp and circumstance.

I am to blame for her having an awful night. The champagne is too warm, the valet took thirty seconds too long helping her out of her Porsche, and I am, apparently, ruining the aesthetic of her velvet clutch. Not that I have any idea what the clutch is or why I am holding it.

“I mean, seriously, Neko,” Chloe whines, even giving a stomp of her foot. “You could at least pretend to look like you belong in a private lounge. You look like you’re waiting for an attack.”

“I am,” I say smoothly, my eyes sweeping the mirrors, the teeming crowd, the flashing lights. “That’s what your father paid me for, Miss Montgomery.”

I check my watch. :59 PM. Tik tok.

I am on contract until midnight—twenty-four hours was her father's request. I put in the work in the last day I've spent with the spoiled hotel heiress, and I see no actual threat to her safety. The clock cannot strike midnight fast enough.

It is not that I mind the long hours or the intensity of being a bodyguard. Having someone else's life in your hands. In fact, I welcome most of what I do. What I do not welcome is superior attitudes or

She rolls her eyes, tossing her perfectly bleached curls. “You are completely dramatic. My father pays you way too much. Try to have some fun, Neko.”

These complaints go on for the rest of my time with her.

After I load her back in the Porsche after I cut her off her second bottle of bubbly, I am beat.

Not because of the work itself, just because of the people I deal with.

I hit the gas after I slide behind the wheel, in a rush to get this gig over with.

Outside the Montgomery Mansion, I shed the propriety of being employed by her the moment the clock strikes midnight. “My contract expires now, Miss Montgomery. Your usual team has you from here.”

She doesn't say thank you. She doesn't even look at me as she saunters past the gate, dropping her designer coat onto the driveway for a housekeeper to retrieve. The heavy iron doors slide shut behind her with a mechanical thud, locking her into her gilded cage and leaving me standing alone.

Turning on my heel, I stride away from the mansion, not looking back once. I never aspired to live the kind of life those I choose to protect. It seems emptier than the lone wolf life I lead if you ask me.

I make it about five blocks before it hits me.

The quiet. The calm. It is paid for with a hefty price tag in this area of Sunbreak Harbor.

Not being touched by the chaos or crisis of the rest of town is a luxury they think they deserve.

Only once I hear traffic, the sounds of night, the panic begins.

“Cool it, Neko. You been through this shit,” I hiss at myself as I stop at a corner, bending at the waist to get my bearings.

My chest tightens. My left hand starts to tremble, muscle memory searching for the weight of a rifle stock that isn't there.

Four years since I left the service, four years since the ambush in the mud that wiped out my entire squad, and the ghosts still wait for me the second I let my guard down.

If I go home to my empty apartment tonight, I won't sleep. I’ll sit on the floor with my back to the door, staring at the shadows until sunrise, drowning in blood that washed off my hands years ago.

These moments of panic drown me for days.

It’s as if I am an addict who falls off the wagon in the worst way.

I am in detox in the aftermath. Going through withdrawals from the pain and horror of my time at war.

It’s why I take on contract after contract for the protection agency I joined up with after I left the military.

I need a distraction. I need a fire to put out.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I snatch it out before the second ring. I ignore how my hand trembles, how my heart races. I ought to have a better handle on this shit by now. Some days are better than others—today is just not a good day.

“Tell me you have something,” I say, my voice raspier than I expect.

“You cleared the Montgomery job three seconds ago, Neko,” Mateo’s voice grates through the receiver. “Don't you take nights off like normal human beings?”

“I don't do downtime, Mateo. Who's next?”

A heavy sigh echoes over the line. “I have a new contract, yeah. Spoiled as the last one, richer too. Her name is Noemi. Noemi Vane.”

I lean against the cold hood of my J, my eyes still scanning the empty street out of pure instinct. “Give me the threat assessment.”

“Her father is Silas Lane,” Mateo says. “Real estate mogul on paper. Offshore accounts, dirty cartels, and political favors in reality. He’s built a fortune step-over-bodies style, and made some very loud, very dangerous enemies.”

“And the girl?”

“Twenty-two. Keeps her head down, studies art, stays away from her old man’s money as much as she can.

Still somehow managed to catch the eye of a very bad guy who is too much for her usual detail to handle.

They caught a shadow breaching her apartment complex three nights ago.

Left a bouquet of dead lilies on her counter and a hidden lens in her vent.

The stalker is escalating fast, so he gave us a call.

Guess he gives a damn about his daughter. ”

“Not enough to not be a piece of shit who put her in danger to begin with,” I hiss as my grip tightens on the phone. A dirty target with an active, hunting stalker. High risk. Zero margin for error.

“Silas wants a ghost,” Mateo continues. “24/7 close protection. Live-in. You don't sleep unless she’s behind a reinforced door, and even then, you keep one eye open. It’s a mess, Neko.”

“Send the address.”

“Neko, listen to me,” Mateo’s tone softens, dropping the handler facade for a brief second. “You’ve worked three back-to-back contracts. Last I laid eyes on you, you were a damn mess. You sound even worse. Go home for a few hours, get some sleep. We can talk about this…”

“Send the address, Mateo. Now.”

He knows better than to argue. A second later, my phone chimes with an encrypted dossier. Climbing behind the wheel, I pull from the curb to exit the gated community as quietly as I entered it. At the first light, I open the file he sent.

A photograph pops up on the screen. A lone figure sits on a bench in a sunlit park, dark hair hiding her face, a sketchbook open in her lap. Her head is tilted, just partly shown in buttery sunlight. There is no tension in the photo, no warning of a predator currently tracking her every move.

Sitting alone in darkness, I know a few things for sure.

I cannot go back to my apartment tonight, not with the edges of my sanity unraveling so fast. The tension in my body, the shakes coursing through me, the fog of a dark past that shrouds everything I do is too close tonight.

What I can do is make sure this innocent girl stays safe.

It might be all I know how to do anymore, really.

I forgot how to care about myself or anyone else a long time ago. I go through the motions of day-to-day life. Shower, eat, take on a mission. Repeat until that shroud and the painful memories fade a little. They won’t ever go away, I know that. It’s my penance and I will live with that.

“Don’t want to hear it, Atlas,” I bark the moment I answer a call before it rings a second time. I am in no mood for his lecture.

“Too bad. Listen anyway. I am going to make this call as many times as it takes. It was not on you, brother. Panama was not on you, Neko. What we lost…none of it was on you. It is part of the job. Part of what we do.”

“Stop. Talking. I said I do not want to hear it. It was on me, it was my fault, and I am the one who lost everything. We all know the truth.”

Heaving a sigh, he hesitates a moment before he says the same thing he has said a hundred times on these calls. “We do know the truth, brother. It’s a truth you have to get right with some day. It fucking sucks but we all knew what we were there for…she knew too.”

I punch through the red light, cutting off traffic as I shoot through an intersection. I end the call with a roar of curses. We do not talk about Panama. About what went down, who was to blame, or what was lost. Like I said to Atlas, it was my fault, and I am the one who lost the most.

It’s too late to turn back and listen to him or Mateo by the time I calm down.

I pull up to a secluded property set far back from the street and curse under my breath.

Exhaustion drags at me; the endless stream of contracts over the last few months has taken its toll.

But this time of year, work is survival.

If I'm not buried in a job, I'll end up six feet deep.

“Forget about Panama tonight,” I mutter to myself as I park at the curb.

Climbing out of the jeep, I do a quick perimeter check of the property.

Mateo was not wrong. The guys working here for Mr. Lane probably do fine work.

They just have no fucking clue about how to protect anything else but the bottom line.

They care about protecting the boss, the man who signs their paychecks.

I find weak spots that would grant me access to the staff entrance, a sizable guest house, and most importantly—the window where a soft light glows in the darkness.

Without a layout of the place or a view in daylight, I know that light comes from her room. Not sure how I know, but I do. Climbing up an iron and stone gate, I drop down atop the top ledge with a thud. I could swing down and break their perimeter to show them how worthless it is. I don’t.

Because the moment I sit atop that high wall, I see her. Sitting in the window with warm light glowing behind her. That dark hair, that gentle slope of her shoulder, I know it is her. My new contract. The woman who will keep me sane for however long it takes to keep her safe.

Why, then, do I feel terrified when I realize that woman is watching me right back?