Chapter 2
chapter
two
Mitchell
My brother Mike’s name lights up my phone just as I’m locking the door to my place.
Somehow, I already suspect this isn’t a casual call.
“Yeah,” I say, shouldering my keys and heading for my truck.
“I’ve got a situation, and I need your help. I need you to drive to Houston and pick someone up.”
I pause, hand hovering over the door handle. “You can’t find anyone else? Valor Springs is hours from Houston; surely you know someone closer who can do this. Are you in trouble?”
He exhales a long sigh. “Not me, but someone is.”
“Mike, what the fuck is going on? You’re going to have to give me more details.”
There’s a brief silence on the line. “I’m getting married.”
I pull my phone away from my ear to stare at the screen and make sure I’m talking to my brother. “What? You hate marriage and everything it stands for.”
He scoffs. “I never said that. I just don’t think marriage is for me. But this is a very unique situation.”
I open my truck and climb in. “I feel like I need to sit down for this conversation.”
He chuckles. “Probably. Look, I know this feels like it’s coming out of nowhere, and I guess in many ways it is. Do you remember Harrison Crawford from back home?”
“Yeah. I always thought his sister was cute. What about him?”
“A few years ago, I asked him for a favor for someone who was working at my gaming company. She was in a sticky immigration situation and needed a practical solution. So I asked him to marry her.”
“Bro, that’s a big ask for someone.”
“I know. Turns out, though, they were soulmates, and now they credit me for their marital bliss.”
“Sounds more like dumb luck,” I say.
“Agreed. But now they’ve come to me with a similar favor.
Birdie’s best friend from her home is, well, she’s a princess,” he says finally.
“They’re from a small island nation you’ve probably never heard of.
In any case, the King and Queen have arranged a marriage that the princess doesn’t want. This”—he exhales—“this is her way out.”
I stare out my windshield at the clear blue sky. “How is trading one marriage for another her way out?”
“Marrying me won’t be permanent. It will just allow her to stay in the States until the issue blows over with her family. Then we can dissolve our union, and she’ll be free to live a life of her own choosing.”
“You’re saying this like it’s a logistics problem.”
“It is,” Mike replies. “One I can solve.”
“By marrying her.”
“Yes.”
I close my eyes. “You’re really just going to marry a stranger?”
“It’s not forever,” he says easily. Too easily. “And I owe Birdie more than I can ever repay. The company wouldn’t exist without her. She asked me for help, so I’m helping.”
He gives me a hard time for having a “hero complex,” but in truth, he’s no different. We just help people in different ways.
“So yes,” he continues. “I’ll temporarily marry this woman to get her out of a bad situation.”
I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “What if you hate her?”
“I don’t hate anyone.”
I snort. “That’s not true. You hated Dad’s third wife.”
“Missy,” he says her name as if it hurts his mouth. “She tried to give me a sponge bath,” Mike says flatly. “She was creepy.”
I can’t help it—I laugh. “It’s not like you were a child.”
“No,” he says. “I was twenty-two. And somehow that made it worse.”
I shake my head, still smiling despite myself. Leave it to my brother to reduce something deeply uncomfortable into a neat anecdote.
The smile fades as the weight of this sinks in.
“I had some last-minute travel come up that couldn’t be handled by anyone else. So I’m in Tokyo for the next week. She flies in today and needs to be kept safe until I return. You’re the only one I trust with this job.”
“Thus, the need for me to drive to Houston.”
“That’s only one part of the favor. It’s a big one, I know. I need you to get her to Vegas for the wedding.”
“I’m assuming since she’s high profile, once she’s on the ground in Texas, she won’t be flying anywhere else without alerting her family and any other diplomats who are paying attention?”
“Correct.”
“You’re asking me to escort a royal bride across state lines while you are being wined and dined in Japan?”
“I’m asking you to protect her,” he says. “It’s what you normally do for your job. It shouldn’t be that different, right?”
I look at my truck. My gear bag is still sitting in the back from my last assignment. My life pared down to what fits in a cab and a duffel.
“Will you do this for me?” Mike asks. And then, quieter, “Please?”
That word lands heavier than all the others.
“You know I will,” I say. There was never any doubt. “Send me her details. I need to call Greyson and make arrangements for an off-book assignment.”
“Hey, we can make this all official if we need to,” Mike says. “I can pay.”
I scoff softly. “It should be fine. But I’ll let you know what Grey says.”
There’s already a familiar shift inside me—the calm click of focus, the narrowing of the world down to routes and contingencies and keeping someone alive. This is what I do. It’s the only thing that has given my life purpose since I was medically discharged from the military.
“I’ll be on my way to Houston in less than an hour,” I tell him.
“I owe you,” Mike says.
“I might take you up on that.”
I end the call and sit there for a moment longer than necessary, phone resting heavy in my hand.
A princess. A fake marriage. And a road trip to Vegas. It sounds like the setup to a bad joke.
I don’t know who this woman is yet. I don’t know what she looks like, or what she’s afraid of, or whether she even wants my protection.
But I already know one thing. Whatever trouble she’s in just became mine.
I plug in the airport address into my maps app and set it to go. Then I call my boss. Greyson Calhoun is the founder and leader of Lone Star Security, and he’ll need to know if I’m going off-grid for a week.
“Sin,” he says by way of greeting, using the nickname I was given in the Marines.
“Grey. I’m glad I caught you. Listen, my brother needs my assistance with something.” I fill him in on all the details and tell him Mike has offered to pay and fill out any necessary paperwork to make this assignment official.
“You can deal with the paperwork when you get back,” Grey says.
“Do you need me to stop by The Ranch on my way out of town?”
“Nah. We’re good. Call if you need reinforcements. You know the drill if things go sideways.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep Mae looped in as much as I can.”
He chuckles. “I appreciate that. You know how much of a ball buster my sister can be.”
“That I do.”
“Good luck, Sin.”
I hang up and then hit the road. I have a princess to rescue.