Chapter 5
Chapter Five
JACK
Thirty-three years old – March
Arlo was hiding something.
At first I thought maybe he’d finally found a boyfriend. His phone was buzzing even more than usual, lighting up with notifications that would have him hurrying to hide his screen from me.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Arlo being with someone. Not because I didn’t want him to be happy—of course I did. But Arlo was…unique. He could light up a room like no other.
Unless, of course, he was having a dark day.
They were so frequent now that I’d have bet good money that he had an undiagnosed medical condition.
Not wanting to alert Kevin, who was oddly hypercritical of Arlo anyway, I’d started to do some quiet research of my own, trying to find someone or something… anything that might help him.
Arlo was struggling, and I hated it. It was my job to protect him. Surely that included protecting his mental well-being too?
So no, the idea of him having a boyfriend didn’t sit well with me. What if they didn’t spot the signs that Arlo was uncomfortable? What if they crowded him when he needed space? What if they gave up on him when he went through a dark spell?
Maybe I was being overprotective, but protecting Arlo was my job.
I didn’t know when it had become my obsession.
In this case, my concern was well-founded, but not for the reasons I’d initially thought.
After paying closer attention to his reactions to those messages, it had become clear they weren’t from a lover. They weren’t sweet nothings making him pale, or dirty thoughts making his hands tremble.
They were something far more sinister.
Then there were Arlo’s frequent trips to the bank, ones that might not seem unusual if he’d followed them up with any form of shopping. But no. If anything, Arlo had left the house less and less over the past few weeks, like he was hiding from something.
Or someone.
The temptation to steal his phone and read his messages was strong, but that sort of behaviour could see me fired for gross misconduct.
Not that Arlo would fire me, but Kevin would if he found out.
The closer I’d got to Arlo, the more the manager disliked me.
Arlo wouldn’t toe the line in terms of taking on extra commitments, something Kevin hated.
For some reason, he seemed to have been under the impression that I’d be easily manipulated.
That he could use me to get Arlo to do what he wanted.
No idea where Kevin had got that idea, but he’d been set straight in that regard. Arlo’s interests were what mattered to me, not Kevin’s, or the label’s.
I suspected Kevin was just waiting for an excuse to fire me, so I wasn’t about to hand him one on a platter. How could I protect Arlo if I wasn’t by his side?
Instead I was waiting for Arlo to either confess or slip up.
The funny thing was that Arlo was a good liar. A magnificent one, in fact. He lied to his bandmates almost daily when they asked him how he was. None of them knew the extent to which he was struggling.
I knew his tells though. Whether it was because of how long I’d been guarding him, or because he just struggled to hide it from me, it was obvious when he was lying.
When he’d told me he had no plans today and that I should absolutely take the day off, I’d had to stop myself calling him out there and then. Everything from his fidgeting hands to the fact that he couldn’t meet my eyes told me he definitely had plans.
Plans he definitely didn’t want me knowing about.
I’d spent the morning parked a street away from his house, my tracking software open on my laptop. Sure enough, at barely nine a.m., a time Arlo rarely saw unless required for work, Arlo’s phone showed him leaving his house.
Seconds later, the tracker in his red Aston Martin started moving.
I tapped my steering wheel. “Where you off to, Arlo?”
Laptop on the passenger seat, I traced his route through the streets. A knot of foreboding started to form in my chest as I realised where he was heading.
Why would Arlo be visiting his family?
He hadn’t opened up about them much, but the little I’d learned had me wanting to pay them a visit…the type that’d probably end with me being arrested.
Then fired.
Arlo never went to their place. Not for Christmas. Not for birthdays.
He spent those with me.
Making sure to keep distance between us, I tailed Arlo as he parked several streets away. He skulked along the pavements, hood over his head and hands deep in his pockets.
I hated how he was making himself unnoticeable. Insignificant, almost.
Arlo was anything but.
Thanks to the layout of the building, I had to linger at the bottom of the stairs for a few minutes, making sure Arlo had cleared them before following.
Part of me wanted to track him down before he even knocked on their door. To chuck him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and march him out of here.
I couldn’t do any of that though. Partly because it’d be crossing so many lines I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to retreat back over them. Mainly though, I wanted to know what he was up to. What he was going to such lengths to hide from me.
Once I was confident enough time had passed, I made my way to their floor. Thanks to my thorough digging into Arlo’s background after that fateful night in the club, I knew their address this time.
What’s the plan here, Jack?
In all honesty, I had no idea. I was treating this like a mission where we didn’t know what we were walking into. All I knew was that there was a chance Arlo might need me.
And I was going to be there when he did.
Perhaps I’d just loiter outside his parents’ door. I could grill him on the way home, find out just why he’d been hiding shit from me…
That idea flew out of the window as I opened the door to their floor. Even with three flats between myself and Arlo’s parents, I had no issue hearing the vile words being yelled.
“Useless fucking fairy. What about fifty k being fifty k is so fucking hard to understand?”
That was followed by a sharp cry from a voice I would have recognised anywhere.
Arlo.
I didn’t think, I just reacted.
A solid kick had their front door flying open, their piece-of-shit lock doing fuck all to keep me out.
Mind you, knowing Arlo was in here, being hurt?
A fucking army couldn’t have kept me out.
Several heads swivelled in my direction. I catalogued them the way I’d been trained to, searching out their weaknesses and pinpointing the dangers in the room.
The only face that didn’t seem to pay any attention to my entrance was Arlo. Other than his eyes widening briefly, he showed no emotion. It was like he’d shut down, some self-preservation system kicking in and forcing him deep within himself.
Because this has happened before. Repeatedly. His brain knows what to expect and is trying to protect itself.
My rage sharpened into something cold. Deadly.
I dragged my focus from him to the others. Three men, one woman. Two men had Arlo pinned to the wall. The third’s hand was still raised, poised to deliver another black eye to the one rapidly developing on Arlo’s face.
The woman, presumably Arlo’s mother, was frozen with bundles of cash in her hands.
She wore a ratty dressing gown, her hair greasy and a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth.
At her feet, a big black bag was open. I glimpsed more notes inside, my chest clenching as I put two and two together.
They were extorting Arlo for cash.
“Who the pissing hell are you?”
The speaker hadn’t lowered his hand. Judging by the fact he was an older and uglier version of Arlo, I was going to go out on a limb and assume he was his father.
The two guys holding Arlo didn’t look related. At my entrance, they’d loosened their grips on Arlo, letting him slide down the wall slightly.
The move gave me a grim satisfaction. It wouldn’t take much to make them run.
His dad though? He was a different story.
“I’m Arlo’s bodyguard,” I said, as much to myself as them. I needed to remind myself to handle this professionally, the way I’d been trained. “I suggest you unhand him before I’m forced to engage you.”
His dad lowered his hand, sauntering up to me with a deep sneer. “Bodyguard huh? Figures my pansy of a son needs a bodyguard. Not like he could ever fight his own battles.”
Behind him, Arlo’s face betrayed a flicker of emotion as a faint blush filled his cheeks.
Stepping up so I was toe to toe with the shorter man, I lowered my voice. “I suggest you watch your mouth. Carry on and I’m going to make you regret your words.”
“Fuck you.” He sneered. “I’m not scared of anyone, especially not a roided-up twat like you. Bet your muscles haven’t ever seen the outside of a gym. No fucking street sense, I swear. You wouldn’t have come barging in the way you did if you had any idea who you’re messing with.”
My expression remained blank, but internally I was rolling my eyes. Please. I’d dealt with bigger shits than this wanker before breakfast in Kabul.
“Arlo is my kid,” his dad continued, jabbing a finger into my chest. “That means I can do with him whatever the fuck I like. You got it? Now unless you’re gonna magic up the extra fifteen k he owes me, you can get the fuck out. This is between me and my kid.”
“I don’t owe you fucking shit, old man.”
The rasp in Arlo’s voice had my eyes narrowing on Arlo’s throat. Sure enough, there was a ring of bruises beginning to mar his pale skin.
Every professional instinct I’d been clinging to vanished like smoke.
Arlo’s dad was on the floor beneath me before I even registered that I’d moved. My knee was digging into his chest, my fist snapping repeatedly into his face.
Hands tugged at my arms, but I shrugged them off.
“Jack.”
I ignored the urgent voice, unable to focus on anything other than the limp body beneath me.
“Jack, stop!”
Dimly, I realised Arlo was speaking. Arlo, with bruises around his throat. Arlo, who had looked so resigned, like he’d known this was coming. Arlo, who’d hidden this from me, who’d believed he had to go through this alone.
My Arlo. Mine.
“Jack!”
Familiar calloused hands grabbed my face, finally breaking through the fog.
My arm paused in mid swing as I took in the scene. His dad was unconscious, his face barely recognisable. He was still breathing though.
Arlo’s mother had disappeared, the bag of cash with her. Either she didn’t give a shit about her husband, or she cared about the money more.
It was another eye-opener to the kind of environment Arlo had grown up in.
The two men who’d been pinning Arlo to the wall had scarpered. In the distance, I could hear yelling.
“Come on,” Arlo was saying, tugging on my jacket. “They’ve gone to get others. Even you can’t fight them all off.”
Let me try.
“Please, Jack.”
It was his begging tone that finally had me standing. “Come on.”
We hurried from the flat, Arlo tucked close under my arm. Sticking close to walls, we moved quickly, not stopping until our cars were in sight.
I ignored mine, instead shoving Arlo into the passenger seat of his before sliding in behind the wheel. In the distance, I could see a small gang running towards us, a variety of makeshift weapons clutched in their hands.
Arlo’s eyes widened in alarm. “Drive, drive, drive.”
I slammed the car into gear, pulling off with a loud screech of rubber on asphalt.
Arlo didn’t speak until we were outside his house.
“Why did you do that?”
“It’s my job.”
“Really?” Arlo narrowed his eyes at me. “Because, as a bodyguard who I’m fairly certain was in the military, I’m sure you know ways to incapacitate a person without beating the shit out of them.”
I tried to hide my flinch. He wasn’t wrong there. “Are you sorry I did?”
“No.” Arlo blew out a breath, his curls bobbing as he shook his head. “Fucker had it coming. But I don’t need you steaming in to fight my battles for me, Jack.”
I got out of the car with a snarl, using the time it took me to walk to his side to school my expression. Opening his door, I jerked my head for him to get out. “My job is to protect you, Arlo, by any means necessary.”
“So that’s how you’ve reacted in the past?” Arlo was like a dog with a bone as we entered his house. “When you’ve been in similar situations, you’ve lost your cool like that?”
His words had me stumbling over nothing. No, I’d never reacted like that before. Even when I’d rescued Will from a hostage situation where he’d been tortured, I’d kept my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
I rounded on him, crowding close. Arlo’s eyes widened as he stepped back, hitting the wall and staring up at me.
Putting my hands on the wall, I boxed him in.
“No, Arlo. The only thing that matters is keeping you safe. From now on, you’ll tell me the second you hear from them.
You’re never to go there again without me accompanying you.
If you’re going into any situation that you think might be even slightly dangerous, you’re to tell me immediately. Understood?”
Arlo’s tongue swept over his lips as he looked me up and down. Something shifted in the air, and suddenly I was very aware of how I was towering over him. The scant inches of air that remained between my body and his.
“Understood.”
At his word, I stepped away several paces, my arms automatically going behind my back as I stood at ease. “Good.”
Something flickered in Arlo’s eyes as he pushed off the wall and stalked away. Something I’d been trying so hard to pretend I hadn’t been seeing over the past few months.
Lust.
I needed to find a way to reinforce the boundaries between us before it was too late.
As much as I cared for Arlo, I was straight.
I couldn’t give him what his eyes were begging for.
I wasn’t even that interested in sex, not like most other blokes.
Sure I did it from time to time, but it was way more convenient to just get off on my own.
Even if I were interested, I wouldn’t go there with Arlo. To do so would risk my position as his guard.
After today, I wasn’t letting anything stop me protecting him.