Chapter 1
Chapter One
Lance
Present Day
One look at him, and I can feel Delta’s anger in my bones. This isn’t the normal sort of pissed off he walks around with. This time it feels homicidal. He doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder, he has an iceberg. And as coworkers go, he fucking sucks. Delta’s rude to the clients and steals my lunch. Bro, get your own damn yogurt. He’s a hemorrhoid—makes getting shit done painful.
I’m catching the tail end of whatever the hell he’s ranting about, maintaining a safe distance by hovering between the boss’s door and the hallway.
“She’s such a fucking bitch,” he barks as he stalks out of our boss’s office. “She’s got no business being here.”
Oh, yeah, and he’s not loyal. Or should I say, he’s not loyal to Alana. I’m about to open my mouth, but he shoulder checks me as he rushes off. It hurts, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of rubbing it.
The prior meeting did not go as planned. Alana’s office is a blizzard of papers, and a chair is toppled over, resting a good ten feet from where it should be in front of her desk.
Thank God for small miracles, the box of artisan donuts on Alana’s desk remains untouched. I grab a blueberry crumble donut out of the box as I watch the surveillance footage on the big screen on the back wall. “Making friends and influencing people again?”
She shrugs, her arms crossed. “If I had a dollar for every time someone called me a bitch, I’d be able to get this company out of debt in a day.”
Righting the leather chair with my other hand, I pull it back across from her before settling into it. “Well, you wouldn’t get any cash from me.” I bite into the donut as sugar and heaven explode in my mouth.
She raises her perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Porto, three years ago.”
Oh, right. “Well, I apologized and bought you ten Pasteis de Natas…which mathematically is way more than a dollar.” I point over my shoulder. “What’s got Delta all grumpy?”
Alana’s vision drifts from the door behind me to her computer screen. “I’m pulling him from Chupacabra’s detail and reassigning him to the Arena.”
Yikes. To go from working on a high-profile client to a local venue—definitely a lifestyle change. The Arena requires no travel, no red carpets, and no paparazzi. Some guys like that. Apparently, Delta is not one of them.
Alana secured the contract for the Arena as a part of the work/life balance initiative she started when she bought the company from Delta’s best friend about a year ago. It doesn’t matter to me. My life is all work, but when she started bringing fancy donuts to the Monday Meetings, that’s what won her the respect from the rest of the guys.
Donut crumbles fall on my suit. “Damn it.”
“That’s what you get for liking messy things.” Her attention remains on the screen. “I’ve got to shift some people around. Delta wasn’t the only one who got moved. He’s just the only one unhappy about his new assignment. Marco is taking some PTO. I’m pulling you off of Honey Badger’s team and making Darren the lead.”
Darren is the next highest-ranking agent behind me—he’s a good guy, and Honey Badger likes him—but I’m instantly disappointed because she’s my favorite client. I know all her tics, and she buys me dinner at fancy restaurants.
I’m the senior lead in the celebrity division and I’ve seen it all. Honey Badger is a sweet gig. Not all money is good money or worth the headache. Some clients are stuck up attention starved divas, others are downright immature. Then there’s Phoenix. I’ve made my feelings about that client clear. My heart is always in my throat whenever my assignment gets switched.
But Alana never does anything for only one reason: there’s more to this last-minute change.
“Anything else?” I ask, taking another bite of my donut, savoring the rush of sugar and blueberry goo that explodes on my tongue.
Alana stays focused on the security screens until Delta drives away. Once he’s out of frame, her shoulders drop, and she turns to face me. She’s a few years younger than me but light-years smarter, with better training and problem-solving skills that aren’t in my wheelhouse.
She opens the desk drawer and drops a picture on the center of the scattered papers. I blink a few times. “What am I looking at?”
Alana rolls her eyes at me and finally sits in the fancy chair left over from the previous owner. “It’s the new company logo.”
Yes, I can see. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“What doesn’t make any sense?”
“ It doesn’t make any sense,” I repeat. “Why does the elephant have a hat and an umbrella like it’s from Mary Poppins’s time?”
“First of all, Mary Poppins isn’t a time period. Second, it’s closer to My Fair Lady. And third, it makes the elephant fancy.” She answers like it’s obvious.
“We’ve changed the company’s name from American Protection Agency to Mastodon Security because the female elephant is the most protective animal in the world. She doesn’t need to be fancy,” I say and push the picture toward Alana. She knows what I’m going to say, but she doesn’t stop me. “I liked the first one.”
“How do you know if it’s right if you have no other frame of reference?” She crosses her arms like she’s won.
“Because you just know.” I point to the folder on her filing cabinet which gets thicker every four days. “Or at least you don’t make the graphic designer create two hundred logos when the first one was perfect.”
Alana’s deep red lips frown as she snatches the paper off the desk. “Out of all the people who hate me, I think the graphic designer is the only one with a legitimate grievance.” The folder gets another addition. “Anyway, I’ve got a new assignment for you.”
Please don’t be Phoenix. Please not him.
“It’s from the Four Families. They requested you specifically.”
Ohhhh, so not in the celebrity division at all.
When Alana bought the company, she inherited a ton of debt, some of it owed to the largest criminal organization on the East Coast—the Four Families. They differ from every other syndicate because each family is a part of a different criminal organization: Italian, Russian, and Irish mobs and the Mexican Cartel. But the debt isn’t the only reason she works with them. Her ties to the families run deep.
“Oh, shit. Really?”
She sits back in her chair, her eyes darting from the screen to me. “The Four Families are the last line of defense keeping the Majesty Drug from hitting the streets. There’s a ton of money to be made, but it would be a thousand times worse than crack in the 1990s. And the Four Families have pissed off a lot of people in the drug syndicate because they won’t play along.” She opens her laptop and presses a few buttons. “This is where we come in. Isabella Marciano has returned to town. When she was sixteen, she got pregnant and went to live with the non-criminal side of the family. But her baby’s daddy, Mike Bringsea, is a low-level pain in the ass. He has a vendetta against the Four Families and has turned informant for the DEA.”
She pauses for a second, giving me time to absorb it all, and one thing sinks in quicker than everything else. “Is he dirty or clean?”
“Good, bad, morally gray, different meanings here. Her family doesn’t like him, and our person on the inside at the DEA thinks he’s shady. When two opposing sides of the law think you’re a piece of shit, you’re an elephant-sized shit, regardless of if the elephant is wearing a fancy hat.”
Alana reaches for her coffee and a chocolate donut. “I know for sure Isabella didn’t want him in her life. He arrived unannounced about a week ago and tried to get her to spill some tea about her dad. And when she wouldn’t, he kicked the shit out of her.”
The donut tastes bitter in my mouth. I fucking hate this guy already.
“He also had some stalking charges mysteriously cleared and wiped from his records,” Alana adds, leaning closer to her computer screen. “He might be clean or dirty.” She points to a cork board with a new face on it. “Either way, he’s our Twat-of-the-Month.”
Mafia princess, international drug ring, and an abusive ex. It’s the ulcer trifecta. And I’m sacrificing my first-class lifestyle for this? “What’s the duration of the contract?”
“Your primary objective is to keep the kid and Isabella safe. We don’t have a clear end date. This one gets a little fuzzy with law enforcement. It’s a sixteen-hour day, five days a week gig. Drew, the kid, will be going to Pine Valley Academy.”
“Fancy.” Both of Alana’s goddaughters go there.
Alana settles back in her chair, but she keeps her focus on the screen a little longer. “You will pick up Drew and his mother at the end of the day, provide evening protection, and drop them off at work and school the next morning.”
“What about Isabella’s place of employment?”
“She’ll be working for Joseph in his office. He already has his own security team. You’ll have the hours between nine in the morning and four in the afternoon to yourself. Plus, you’ll get overtime pay. Specs will take over when you aren’t there, and he has weekends.”
I don’t like this. “She needs a larger team.” Personal security normally works in two or four person teams. One-on-one assignments are risky. It leaves too many blind spots for the principal, too many opportunities for unsecure situations. Plus, there’s no buffer between me and the clients.
“Under normal circumstances, I would agree. But the family only wants an extra pair of eyes.”
“What makes me so lucky?”
She closes her laptop and shifts her weight in my direction. If I hadn’t known Alana for years, I might have missed the way her forehead tightened. Just like it did whenever she was about to give bad news. “Carpool. The Four Families have requested you to drive the grandkids to their after-school programs. Once the kids are at their activities, each family will provide their own security.”
“I’m babysitting?” What about my personality makes her think I would be good at this?
“These kids are the most valuable assets in the Four Families’ lives. It’s an honor they selected you.” She leans back in her chair before reaching for her donut. Her eyes narrow, and she’s reading me like I can read her. Her ploys aren’t working, and she knows it. “Besides, Ian will be excited to see a friendly face.”
Knife in gut twists upward. How could I possibly say no?
Alana pauses to tap her chin and glances up like the answers are written on the ceiling. “Let me contact Joseph. I’m not one hundred percent sure how much the client knows, understands, or wants you around.” She pinches her lips and returns to the computer screen. “Make sure they get codenames in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Should I do a meet and greet today?”
Please say no. I need time to research. I hate going into a situation blind.
“Yeah, go over today. Her file is on the printer. Study it.” She flashes me a halfhearted smile before her tone lightens, and she’s out of Boss Mode.
Behind closed doors, and when we’re alone, the invisible weighted blanket she wears as a cape lifts, and she can be herself—lighter, happier. She’s in Alana Friend Mode. “Hey, I’m going out to eat with Hadeon and Penny this week, want me to bring you home anything?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Michelin Star restaurants do take out?”
She curls her lips. “They do if you’re having dinner with the Olympians.”
“What’s it gonna cost me?” Everything comes with a price when it comes to Alana. And she knows she’s got me.
She plays with her fingers and shrinks a little. “Can you move my clothes from the washer to the dryer and feed Midge tonight?”
Housework and cat duty. Figures. Alana is my boss, my emergency contact, and my roommate. She’s saved my life countless times. I can’t say no to her. Not with chores, and not with this Four Families job.
It looks like I’m a babysitter to the mob for the foreseeable future. But at least I’ll get steak for dinner.