The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Ten

L etters. A stalker. G oddamn it , I should’ve fucking guessed.

Goddamn it .

Shoving down anger at myself, shit clicked into place, and I knew what I needed to do. I needed to get my hands on those fucking letters. ASAP.

But putting my hands on her, putting my arm around her, I noticed something else.

The second I’d changed my tone, I saw a shift in her. But calling her security detail on his bullshit and getting my arm around her, I felt it.

Subtle, but instant.

She melted into my hold.

Submissive.

Naturally.

My dick fucking surged, but I ignored it. Leaning down, my mouth almost on her ear, I lowered my voice. “Are they threatening?”

She didn’t pretend to not know what I was talking about. “Not to me.”

I read between the lines. “Stalker? Psycho ex?” I kept my voice low as we walked down the hall. “What are we dealing with?”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “I-I’m not sure.”

Damn it. I didn’t like the stutter in her voice. “Is it escalating?” I tightened my hold on her.

She took two more steps then paused. The pile of mail clutched to her chest, she looked up at me. “I-I don’t know.”

It was. She was scared as hell. “When did it start?” Her clipped, reserved attitude at first made sense now. Her defensiveness had been fear, and her secrecy was probably in response to the content of the letters.

She looked up and down the large hallway.

Fuck this.

I wrapped my hand around her arm, led her to the end of the hall and tried the first door. It opened into a guest bathroom, and I pushed her inside. Following her in, I pulled the door shut behind me.

She turned, and her eyes got wide. “People will know we came in here together.”

“Good, then they’ll jump to all the wrong conclusions.” I reached for the pile of mail she was still clutching. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

She let me have the pile.

The very first envelope on top had only her name on it. Sophia . Printed carefully by hand in block letters, it looked like a man’s handwriting to me. I held up the envelope that looked like it came from a set of fancy stationery as I tossed the other mail on a small side table. “They all like this?”

She nodded.

I opened it and pulled a single sheet of paper out.

Then I got enraged.

Sophia,

Sophia, Sophia, Sophia. It’s almost time, you brazen little liar. Are you ready for tomorrow? Are you ready for me, Princess ? You better have done what I asked. You better be prepared. That was a waste of time last night in Miami Shores then on Collins Avenue. I’m done waiting. —Your Prince

Miami Shores was where Luna and Associates was located, and Collins Avenue was where Luna’s condo was.

Fuck. Fuck.

I looked up at her. “What did he ask you to prepare?”

“The boat.” Her voice wavered.

“The boat?”

She pointed to the window .

I looked out. The dock across the perfectly manicured yard didn’t have a boat. It had a fucking yacht. “He told you to get that prepared? For what?”

“He…” She cleared her throat. “He didn’t say. He only said enough supplies for a month.”

Jesus fucking Christ . “A yacht that size needs a crew.”

She hesitated. “Well, I can single-hand it.”

I looked at her. Really looked at her.

She bit her lip. “Drive solo?”

“I know what you’re saying.” But I was trying to wrap my head around it. She fucking drove that thing by herself ?

“It’s an Azimut 50 Flybridge,” she explained, as if I knew one fucking yacht from another. “I grew up on the water. We always had boats.”

A boat was a fucking dinghy. She didn’t have one of those. Not even close. “Did he specify getting a captain or crew ready?”

She shook her head.

So the crazy fuck either knew his way around a yacht, or he knew she did. “He tell you when you needed to have it ready by?”

“After the opening, during the party.”

My nostrils flared. “When were you going to tell me all of this?”

She dropped her gaze, but not before I saw the fear in her eyes. “Initially, I thought the letters were nothing.” Her hands twisted. “I wanted to ignore them.”

Knowing fear made people do irrational shit, I let it slide for now. “You have any idea who this is? Or suspect anyone? What about your staff or the people coming with the rental furniture?” I had to ask. I was assuming if she did, she would’ve gone to the police instead of Luna, but you never fucking knew with cases like this.

She looked back up at me. “The installers from the rental company are two men I have used before. One is barely out of high school, the other is married. I do not think either are suspect.” She drew her arms around herself tighter. “I swear, I have no idea who is behind this.”

The fear and helplessness etched into her face made me want to pull her into my arms. Instead, I tried to ease some of her tension with an ill-timed joke. “I thought you didn’t swear.”

She didn’t even crack a hint of a smile. “If I knew who it was, I would have gone to the police.”

“Not your security detail?”

The irritation I had seen earlier returned. “These letters are being left outside my office and my bedroom. My security detail has mentioned nothing to me about an unauthorized visitor being in the house. For all I know, Nikolas is unknowingly delivering them.”

My jaw ticked. “How many letters have you gotten?”

She took her purse from under her arm, pulled out a bundle of letters, and silently handed them to me.

There had to be twenty letters. I glanced at her as I took the rubber band off the pile. “What about video surveillance on the property? I saw cameras as we pulled in. Have they caught anyone coming or going?”

“No one. And I’ve been checking.”

“You have footage we can look at on your phone?”

She might not have been looking for the right thing. You could circumvent security cameras, but that didn’t mean your shadow didn’t, or a breeze that wasn’t anywhere else moved something.

“Yes.” She pulled her phone out. “Hold on.”

I waited, antsy as fuck as she brought up a less-than-useless app and showed me the few camera angles she had of the front. I took her phone, quickly scanning the past few hours. I saw her leave this morning and the cars in the driveway as they all pulled in, but nothing except the people with the vehicles were present in any footage.

I handed her phone back. “Your range of surveillance is too minimal.” That was the mistake most video surveillance systems made. You needed overlap coverage of the entire property.

“I have the entrance to the house covered.”

“The back of the property? The second floor? The side yards? The inside?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. The letter-writing fuck had his pick of a hundred different ways around her existing cameras .

Inhaling, she shook her head. “No, not inside, and not on the second floor either. It would be very hard to scale the wall to get in that way. And the back of the property is the intracoastal.”

She had no clue. “I could get in through the second floor in under two minutes.” But that was beside the point now. I glanced at the first letter on the folded pile. “These in chronological order?”

“Yes.” She twisted her hands together. “The top one is from yesterday.”

I opened it.

Sophia,

Or should I call you Calandra ? Such a bad girl, lying about who you are. But that won’t matter for long. After the opening, but before you say goodbye to your party guests, they will be saying goodbye to you. Remember what I told you, my Princess . I see you. I know who you talk to. I know where you go. Tell no one about us, or every one of your employees in that big house of yours will suffer. —Your Prince

I glanced at her as I flipped to the next one. “These aren’t nothing.” And just the two I’d read were more than enough to have me rethink who set that the car bomb.

She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself as her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know.”

“You tell anyone about these?”

She shook her head.

I bit back anger and frustration. “You should’ve told me and Luna right off, or come to us sooner.” It’d take days to set up any kind of real security system to catch this fuck. Days we didn’t have. “The opening is tomorrow.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Can you cancel it?”

She looked shocked. “No, and I wouldn’t even consider it. This is my gallery’s biggest show. It was an honor to be chosen to host a show for the international art festival.”

“Send your assistant in your place.” She could make the excuse she was sick.

“That would be terrible for business. ”

I pointed out the obvious. “You don’t need the money. Your family’s loaded.”

She looked at me like I had two heads. “I do not live off my family’s income. Not that it’s any of your business, but I did not come to the States empty-handed. However, I support myself now from the earnings I make off the gallery. Therefore, I am not canceling the event, nor am I going to not attend.”

I fought for patience. She was being threatened, the choice was fucking obvious, but I didn’t want to argue. I glanced down at the next letter.

Sophia,

Listen carefully, because we both know you do not always listen. Get your boat ready with enough supplies for one month. Do not disobey me on this. I am watching you. One month’s supplies. You have two days. —Your Prince

Jesus. I looked at her as I pulled my phone out. “I’m calling Luna. We need to get you situated with a better security system, which will take a few days. But in the meantime, I’m getting some backup on this. You have a guest list for the opening or the party?”

“Well…” She hesitated. “I have a guest list, but we didn’t request RSVPs.”

Shit. Of course she didn’t.

Luna answered on the first ring. “This isn’t going to be good, is it?”

“No. We have a situation.”

“ Mierda ,” Luna swore. “I knew it. What’s up?”

“Stalker.” I glanced at the letters. “Roughly twenty letters over the past…” I looked at her.

“Couple weeks,” she confirmed.

Jesus. “Two weeks.” Twenty plus letters over two weeks. “Escalating threats, letters left on premises inside the residence, demands, unstable language, potential K and R, nothing caught on current security system. Her own detail is unaware, or in on it. Stalker is threatening contact tomorrow after the art show.”

“You thinking this is our bomber?”

“Yes. ”

“ Jesucristo . I knew it’d been too easy. Okay, let’s keep this between us. Don’t alert the staff or her security. We’ll have Collins and Sawyer do a sweep of the property and get plans in place to upgrade her security. In the meantime, let’s find out who’s coming to the opening and party and start a list of potentials if we can. Otherwise we’ll be ready tomorrow. You think kidnap and ransom, or just potential kidnapping? Stalkers don’t usually ransom. And if the bomb was meant as a warning, as you said, then we have a whole other potential problem. Jealous and stalking is a bad fucking recipe.”

“Agree.” I didn’t want to answer his questions in front of her.

Luna paused. “Can’t talk freely?”

I glanced at her as she stared out the window and tightened her arms around her middle. “No.”

He swore again in Spanish. “How bad are the letters, on a scale of one to ten?”

They weren’t cut-her-up-in-little-pieces bad. I’d seen worse, but the perpetrator sounded unstable as fuck. He clearly had his sights on kidnapping her, and potentially he was the one who set the bomb off. “Nine.” Escalation was always a bad sign.

“Ask her if she’s encountered anyone she suspects, anything unusual.”

“Princess.” I waited till she looked up at me. “You have any strange encounters in the past few weeks? Anyone acting suspicious, anyone following you? Any crazy behavior from anyone at all? An ex who likes boats? Unstable artist, strange neighbor, anything?” I rattled off as many potential leads I could think of. “You ever have any problems in your country? Could someone have followed you here?”

She was shaking her head before I’d finished talking. “There’s no one. Nothing has been out of the ordinary, except the letters. No one I know is acting suspicious.”

“Has anyone been around the past two to three weeks that isn’t usually around? Have you had anyone at the house besides your staff?” Fuck, she could’ve brought this on picking up the wrong asshole in a bar.

“No, nothing. That’s why this is so strange. ”

Strange wasn’t what I’d call it. She was rich and gorgeous, and she was a royal. She was a walking magnet for this kind of shit. “Nothing,” I told Luna.

“Any identifying marks or anything unusual about the letters themselves?” Luna asked.

I glanced down at them. “Heavy weight stationery, but pretty generic looking. Block lettering.” I flipped through a few more letters. “He signs each one, your Prince , so he knows her status.”

“I do not purposely hide who I am,” Calandra interrupted. “My last name here is the same as my mother’s maiden name. I just don’t advertise where I am from. Outside of my staff and Nikolas, no one knows, at least not that I am aware of.”

“You catch that?” I asked Luna.

“Yeah.” He exhaled. “In other words, we have next to nothing to go on.”

“I’m going to have to let it play out.” I didn’t have a choice this late in the game.

“She won’t cancel?”

“Negative. Already asked.”

Luna sighed. “Of course not. All right, I texted Collins and Sawyer. They’re on their way. I gave them a heads-up to walk the property and get the layout going for a full system. I’ll send her a proposal once that’s done, but in the meantime, tell her to check her e-mail and sign the damn contract I sent.”

“Copy that.”

“I’ll check the feeds again from the security at the condo, but I reviewed them twice already. Whoever did it was either a slippery motherfucker, or the device wasn’t set while the vehicle was parked in front of my place. And it was either activated by remote or timer. Not much else I can tell from this end without any leads. We’re also maxed out this weekend. How much backup do you want at the opening and the party?”

“I should be good with Collins and Sawyer at the opening, but for the party, I’ll need additional support on the grounds. Preferably someone invisible like Jared or Dane, or both.”

“I’ll reach out. There’s comms and gear in the Escalade. Anything else for now?”

“All good.” I started to hang up.

“Tyler,” Luna clipped.

“Yeah?”

“I’m only seeing a few ways this plays out.”

“Already ahead of you.” We could surround her with security through all events and then get into a waiting game with the stalker, or we could stand back and let this play out, then react. “Preemptive or reactive.”

“Or you draw him out.”

My eyes on her, I knew what Luna was about to say. “Create a situation.”

“I don’t know what’s in the letters, but I can guess. Give the fucker something to actually be jealous of.”

I’d already thought of that. “Walking down that road already.”

“Professionally,” Luna warned.

“Absolutely,” I agreed, lying my ass off.