23. Beck
CHAPTER 23
Beck
“You have another meet and greet downtown. A prospective client who doesn't trust anyone. I think it's some boy bander from the early aughts.” My assistant scanned his tablet to find the name. “Tyler James.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. He had just named the biggest male pop star of my teenage years.
“You don't know Tyler James?” I asked, just to be sure.
He lifted his head from where it was buried in his tablet. “No. Should I?”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath. My assistant just made me feel like an old man. “Make sure to run a thorough background on him and give me all the info his agent sent over. I need to play this right, or he’ll never go with us. Where are we meeting?”
“They keep changing the location.”
I knocked my knuckles on the desk. “Once they make a decision, make sure to get the driver to pick me up two hours early.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “Two hours?”
“Yes, I’m going to get there ridiculously early to scope out the place. I want to make sure my best crew is there too.” I rattled off three team members that would blend in with a former heartthrob. People that fit his age profile and could pass as friends. I threw in Margot Madison’s name for good measure and she’d either love me or hate me for it. By the end of our conversation, a plan had formed, and I knew if anyone was going to get Tyler to agree to protection, it was going to be me.
Spending the weekend upstate meant I had a mountain of work to address. I made my biweekly calls to each person on my team to check on them, see how their active assignments were going, and gauge their mental health. In this job we oscillated between the mundane and the life threatening. It was exactly the thing that brought adrenaline junkies to me for work and was also the reason I needed to keep an eye on them. They had me, personal coaches, and a therapist to support them.
A handful of staff also worked for the VA and understood what other resources were available to my team. These connections made a powerful support system.
It was the very thing that set me apart. People trusted people. My people could be trusted because they had that support.
Now that I had a minute to myself, I couldn’t help but wonder what I could find out about the fucker that dared to harm Luna by slipping a roofie into her drink. The no-good asshole who thought he deserved her body despite not getting permission.
Fuckers like that didn't deserve to live. While I wouldn't do anything drastic, it didn't mean I didn't want to slam my fist into the guy's face and cut off his hands and dick so he could never assault another person ever again.
People who prey on others were beyond my limit of compassion. I wrote down all I knew and sent it off to Sebastian for his expert-level sleuthing. If there was footage to be found, he’d dig it up.
* * *
“Daddy, whenarewegettingadog?” Alice asked the second she shoved some corn into her mouth.
“Finish chewing please.”
After an obligatory eye roll, she exaggerated her chewing until she swallowed. But that wasn't enough, no, she proceeded to open her mouth to show me that she had in fact finished chewing.
I crossed my arms.
“I'm done chewing now,” she said, opening her mouth again to prove it.
I gently closed her mouth. “I can see that.”
She beamed. “I was asking, when are we getting a dog?”
I swiped at the smile on my face. Frankly, the fact that she'd waited this long was a miracle.
“How about we go upstate next weekend to see if we can find a dog at the shelter Sebastian volunteers at?”
“Yes, please.”
“I'll call him and ask if he can give us the tour. He probably knows all about the dogs available.” Then I pointed to her half-eaten plate of food. “Make sure to finish eating. You had a busy day and need some good nutrients for your body.”
Alice dove into her dinner and I did the same. We picked up BBQ on the way home from school. It sounded good considering the warm weather and with the days getting longer, I figured we'd finally eat in the backyard. Especially since I managed to assemble the patio set that had been in boxes since we moved, too busy prioritizing the other rooms to pay much attention to the outside.
I cracked open a beer as Alice sipped on her lemonade while relaying the details of who likes who in her class. She loved regaling me with all the nitty-gritty details and despite my attempts to follow all the threads, I only managed to understand and retain about a quarter of the info volleyed at me.
Then a sliding door sounded from over the hedge, the side of the hedge that Luna was on.
Flip-flops cracked on the pavement, then the sound of something falling. Hard .
“Shit. Fuck,” said Luna, said quietly
“Luna.” I was out of my seat and trying to figure out the best way to scale the fence.
“I'm fine,” she murmured. It was muffled, probably by the concrete.
The wood planks between our properties were well made, sturdy enough to hold a trellis of Virginia Creeper. Still, I wasn't convinced it would hold my weight.
Luna groaned again.
“That does it.” I scaled the trellis and dropped down on the other side of the fence.
“You okay, Daddy?” Alice asked hesitantly.
My knees felt the shock of the fall and I suddenly felt my age. “Fine, honey.”
Then those same knees helped me swallow the distance between me and Luna. “Don't move.”
She waved me off, face still planted on the ground. “I think I'll just take a nice little nap here.”
I swept her hair out of her face, my fingers gently trailing her body checking for injuries. Seeing nothing obvious, I slid my hands underneath her. “This might hurt.”
Luna groaned as I lifted her from the ground, my thighs doing the heavy lifting.
Luna pushed me away once she was upright then pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and immediately flinched. She turned her hands over and sure enough they were skinned.
I encircled her wrist gently. “Come. I'm taking you to my place to get you cleaned up.”
She pulled her hand from me, and I let her. “I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“Daddy?” Alice whined.
“Luna’s okay,” I assured her. “Just a little scraped up.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “You have to come over to our house, Luna. I have Bluey Band-Aids.”
At my daughter's offer, Luna’s face softened. “That girl's trouble. She could probably convince me to do anything.”
I chuckled. “Trust me. I'm fully aware of her superpowers.” And I was well aware of the power the two of them could amass if they joined forces. They’d be unstoppable. I tilted my head toward my side of the fence. “So?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I don't suppose I have a choice, do I?”
“Nope!” chimed Alice.
Luna’s lips twitched, then glanced at me and her frown returned. “Lead the way and preferably not over the fence, thank you.”
I towed her through her house, out the front door, and up the stairs of my stoop where Alice waited for us. She'd rushed to get the first aid kit I’d stowed away in the downstairs bathroom.
“Oh look at your boo boos. Daddy is going to fix it up for you,” she promised. “He does this all the time.”
Luna lifted a brow, completely unimpressed. Still, I kept hold of her until she sat down on the leather couch. I bent at the knee to take a closer look at her, her face a hair's breadth away from mine. Her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“I'll get you a blanket!” Alice declared. It broke the spell Luna had cast over me. In a fluid motion, I stood and went to get some paper towels. The scrapes were an angry red.
“What happened?”
Luna flashed me a strange look. “I was trying to get some fresh air.”
“Instead you decided to faceplant on your patio?”
“It wasn't exactly planned. I forgot about the stupid step down out of my house.” She shook the hair out of her face as I wet a clean cloth from the kitchen and lathered some soap on it.
Luna was wearing a goddamn leather dress that molded perfectly to that tight body of hers.
“Something tells me you don't use that patio much,” I said as I started cleaning up her wounds.
“And here I thought it was the reason why I bought the house. Turns out wanting to have coffee outside in the backyard is something one aspires to do but never actually does.”
Alice came back into the room, her special pink blanket and favorite childhood stuffy in her hands. “These always make me feel better.”