Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Izzy
My brother Donnie lays on my couch. No, that’s not correct. His feet are thrown up on the back of my couch, his nasty socks pressed against my new wall, leaving toe prints. I got here a few hours ago, and he’s already screwing it up. He scratches his belly under his T-shirt, and his track pants make a swishing sound as he shifts to get comfortable. “Your couch sucks.”
“That’s because you’re sitting on it wrong,” I say as I open another box. Sweatshirts and tiny football jerseys. Not my stuff.
My living room looks like a demo crew imploded a box fort. I should’ve done a better job labeling everything, but I was rushing to get myself and Drew out of there. Most of my stuff is still en route or in storage. Not sure whose guys they were, but someone came in and packed while I was at a Holiday Inn off of I-95 in North Carolina.
My cousin Joey crosses his arms. He always looks like he just walked into someone else’s fart cloud and is trying to protect their dignity by not reacting to it, but doing a piss-poor job. Even back when we were kids, my brother Donnie was the fuckup, and Joey was the realist. I was the future, until I became the fuckup.
My brother and cousin work with my dad in the family business. They might be hard-ass criminals ready to throw hands whenever, but I worked the late shift at a Waffle House, so we all know who’s the better fighter.
Joey punches Donnie in the shoulder. “Put your feet down, you animal.”
Donnie presses his feet against the wall and slides them down, making a squeaking sound. Gross, how sweaty are his feet?
I push the box with my foot, tweaking my ankle and causing a chain reaction of jerking and wincing as my ribs choose to remind me of their injuries. I must’ve made a groan because Joey rushes to my side. “See Izzy, you should’ve let us help you from the beginning.”
I squirm out of his grasp. “I don’t need your help. I need my kid to get his clothes.” Calling over my shoulder, “Drew, found your football stuff,” I cross my arms, discreetly hugging my ribs, and wait.
My little man walks out of his bedroom with an action figure in his hand, drops his head back, and whines, “Do I have to play football here?” He never liked football. Tackling and getting hurt isn’t his thing.
“Already signed you up for basketball.” We lost the hoop in the parking lot back home. The least I could do was make sure he could play here. He smiles as he bends over and pushes the box with all his weight.
Joey calls out, “Kiddo, shut your door. I’ve got to talk to your mom.”
Drew worships Joey like he is the sun and Spiderman wrapped in one. “Wanna see my room when I’m done getting it ready?”
“Absolutely.” Joey legit smiles. Once we hear the door latch, he turns to me. “I know you don’t like this.”
“Understatement of the year,” I say while bending over to go through another box. This one jiggles and clangs. “Move this into the kitchen.” Joey peers into it, at his perfectly pressed suit—not quite Armani, but custom tailored—and back at me.
I raise an eyebrow. “Try me, bro.” He sighs and heaves the box.
Placing the box on the counter, he starts unpacking it. “Listen, he’s dangerous.” Joey refuses to say my ex’s name. Like it gives him more power, like an orc or a wizard. Or it could be he’s been calling him Shithead for so long, he may have completely forgotten it.
I know my ex is a threat—my bruised ribs support that thesis. My mantra repeats. “I can handle it myself.”
Joey snorts as he stacks the plates I got from Target when I moved out on my own. There are only four plates because Drew’s were all plastic with cartoons on them and I wanted something to make me feel like an adult. Target dishware was the only thing in my budget, and since I didn’t have many friends, I only needed one plate. Having four meant I didn’t need to do dishes often.
“You’ve been on your own for so long, you don’t even remember what help feels like.” His eyes flash a softness he only shows to me, and only when it’s a quiet moment.
The action is sweet, and I appreciate it, but it goes against everything I believe in. “I don’t want this.” I spent the last ten years on my own and free. Now I’m trapped in my family’s prison, while they wrap it with good intentions.
“There are these things called conversations,” Donnie starts to say as he swings his leg off my couch. “If you tell us what you want, spoiler alert, we will know what you want.” My brother sits up for a second, rubs his forehead, and flops back down. “That’s the beauty of conversations.”
Joey’s jaw locks as he closes his eyes to regroup. “I reached out to a friend.”
“What kind of friend?” My gut twists. All my family’s friends come at a cost, and not always cash.
Joey opens one of the cabinets and places my four adult plates on the bottom shelf. “She runs a security company, and she’s sending over her best guy.”
“A bodyguard? Are you kidding me?” The last thing I want, or need, is some beefed-up alpha-hole bossing me around. “I don’t like being told what to do.”
Donnie snorts. “Joey makes like fifty percent of his income from people who get off on being told what to do.” Joey and I give Donnie the finger at the same time.
“Shut the fuck up.” Joey sighs and puts away more of the kitchen items, all in the wrong spots. Whenever they decide to leave, I’ll have to fix everything he did so it makes sense to a logical human being. “You’re in danger, and your ex could bring down the whole family, all four of them. I don’t like it. So, your personal protection agent will be here soon.”
I hate living in my cousin’s apartment, putting my kid through all of this. Mostly I hate that one stupid text message when I was sixteen changed my life forever.
Joey’s silent for a lingering moment. He bends over, ripping the tape off a box in one smooth motion. When he’s thinking about the right words, he buys himself more time by busying himself with mundane tasks. When he moves to another box and strips the tape off again, I know I’m in trouble.
Ugh, “What is it?”
He doesn’t take his attention from the box as he opens it and starts to remove my copy of The Knights of the Night, Book One . It’s the special edition with sprayed edges. I totally couldn’t afford it and ate Raman for a month while Drew ate his diet of the Mac and Cheese I could never catch on sale. But it’s so pretty. And did they continue the trend for books two and three? No. They resized the rest of the series, and now my bookshelf looks stupid.
Joey’s voice breaks me out of my fan stupor. “He’s one of the best, but he belongs to Alana.”
He holds a reverence for her name. Being out of the loop for a decade means I’ll be asking a lot of questions. I should make a list. Number 1: “Who’s Alana?”
You know how you forget something? Like it’s dead and buried, and then, boom, it instantly reanimates, and now there’s a zombie walking around your consciousness? The glance my brother and cousin share is the same expression Dad used to give my uncles whenever they had dark knowledge that needed to be spoken.
Donnie clues me in first. “She’s got ties to the most powerful families in the world, as well as celebrities, politicians, and CEOs. You name it, and she’s got her fingers in it.”
Translation, not to be fucked with. Got it. And her best agent is coming here? My stomach tightens, and the image of a grizzled man with hidden tattoos representing all the people he’s stabbed pops into my mind.
The front door rattles. “That’s him,” Joey says.
I move one of the smaller boxes out of the way so Joey can navigate the maze of cardboard and open the door.
And what the hell?
Okay, I expected some beefy douche with a neck the size of a tree. Someone who never missed arms, core, or calf day. But this was not the case. Sure, he’s taller than me. Most people are. Probably clocks in at six feet. But the suit looks like he was poured into it. His frame is wide, but not large and cumbersome. His hair leans closer to a muddy blond, darker than dirty blond. His blue tie touches his black leather belt. And I want to see what’s behind it. Is he a boxers or briefs kind of guy? Or that weird combination of both? His face—fuck, his face. Was he carved out of marble?
He smiles, and instantly I see the dimples. Dimples. Are you kidding me? How could anyone be that attractive and still have dimples? Oh, come on.
“Hello.” Ugh, his voice. Rich with a soft timbre to it, making my insides turn to jelly. He reaches his hand out to me, but I lift a box at the same moment, keeping my hands full. “I’m Lance. Can I get that for you, Isabella?” He tilts his head waiting for a response.
What the hell? Why is he offering to help? What sort of man just HELPS? I need to do a red flag test because first impressions have fucked me up before. I shove the box into his hands, and he’s unsure what to do with it. “Call me Izzy.”
“Noted. I’m from Mastodon Security.” He shifts the box onto his hip and extends his hand to me again. I reach out, expecting a handshake, but that’s not what it is. It feels more like a hand hug, tight and safe but moving in a slow, calming motion. Maybe it’s a trick he learned on the job. “I’ll need to do a quick inspection of your apartment.”
Joey offers, “It’s one of mine. I already did a security survey when I rebuilt it.”
Lance nods. “If you could send a report over to Alana’s office, that would be great. We don’t have the full schematics of the building. I’d like to know the weak areas.”
“I can get you a basic outline. I’m not giving you everything, for obvious reasons.”
There’s a microscopic change in Lance’s face, and my stomach twists. He shakes his head, and there’s an edge to his answer. “Unacceptable. If you won’t provide the information, I can’t protect her to the highest extent of my abilities. Which means Alana will have to find the information. And I’m sure you don’t want that.”
Joey pauses and dips his head in a nod, “I’ll have the blueprints sent over in the morning.”
Ugh, I hate this. They’re talking like I’m not here. But then his eyes bore into me. What is the color? Not just brown, but brown with warm undertones. Brown with flecks of gold. Pay attention? Oh, I am. But I shouldn’t be focusing on that.
He clears his throat. “I need to check out the apartment, windows, vents, that sort of thing. If there’s anything sitting out you would prefer to keep private, you should move it now.”
Donnie takes this moment to remind everyone he is still in the room. “Izzy, put your plastic boyfriend away. Lance doesn’t need to see your dildo modeled after some Fae Prince’s schlong.”
Jesus Christ. “Donnie!” Mortified doesn’t begin to cover it.
My asshole brother smirks. “Did you give the Etsy shop info to Joey? Maybe he could order ten for the club.”
Lance’s face remains neutral, but he throws his hand up. “I don’t judge.”
I need to regain control. “First of all, I spent all day moving boxes, packing, and unpacking. It sucks. I’m not in the mood to get myself off. Second, I don’t have a dildo, thank you very much.”
My Rabbit does me just fine, thank you. But some things are better left unsaid. I glare at my brother.
With a smug grin, Donnie says, “Shit, that’s the first thing I do whenever I go anywhere. Gotta mark my claim on the room.”
Gross!
But the words come out of Lance’s mouth first. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Get the hell off my couch,” I say while grabbing the box out of Lance’s hand. I need to leave this room.
I push on my bedroom door with my foot and dump the box on my bed. My room is a total mess. No sheets on the bed, boxes haphazardly thrown around, and my clothes look like an explosion from when I got distracted unpacking earlier. I stack the boxes in some sort of logical order. Sure, neaten it up a little, and this guy won’t think I’m a huge mess. Just a smallish one.