4. Maverick
4
Maverick
S he hung up on me.
It should’ve infuriated me, but I was amused more than anything. Her life had been threatened once already, and the fact that that didn’t scare her off was intriguing.
I opened the sliding glass door and returned to my friends, jaw tight as I nursed my drink, my shoulders rolling back to fight the tension in my muscles.
“Who was that?” Duane, one of my best friends and my head of security, asked from his spot on my outdoor couch. His feet were propped on an ottoman and the flickering light from the firepit lit up his face.
“No one important,” I grumbled, tapping my phone restlessly in my hand. It bothered me that she wasn’t afraid for her safety. Was this woman on a suicide mission?
“Bullshit,” Paulie, my other best friend and right-hand man, said. “That phone call threw your mood. What’s your damage?”
I opted for silence, because really, what was I supposed to say? The one woman who I’ve been told my entire life to stay the fuck away from just called to harass me and I didn’t kill her when I had the chance? Yeah, no.
“Does this have anything to do with So—” I kicked Duane’s ankle. “Ow, bro, what the fuck?”
“Hey, why does he get to know something I don’t?” Paulie whined.
I rolled my eyes. “Get over it, P. You’ll know if it becomes relevant.”
Duane snorted, and before I could say anything more, my phone pinged with a text from Jeremiah, the guard currently on shift to tail Sophie. The message was a screenshot of a security camera. He stood in front of Sophie while she held his phone to her ear, looking equal parts afraid and furious. It was a look she wore well.
I tilted my phone away from the guys so they wouldn’t ask questions, only for Duane to muse, “Don’t be shy. If it’s a nude, share with the group.”
“Fuck off,” I snapped, heading straight back inside. Duane’s guys had strict orders directly from me to send me photos of Sophie, security footage included, and bypass Duane completely. I wasn’t sure why I was so adamant about keeping this hidden, but right now she was my dirty little secret until I could figure out why the hell she was wandering around my territory.
I sauntered into my office, opened the photo Jeremiah sent, and selected to print it. I poured myself two fingers of whiskey while I waited impatiently for the printer to finish the image. When it did, I gingerly picked it up and inspected it, swallowing a healthy swig of my drink as I did.
She was fucking beautiful. Dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin. A body I’d fucking kill to have just once. An ass I’d like to mark. Fuck.
Tearing my eyes from my newest image of her, I walked down the hall to my bedroom, pushing open the door and coming to a stop in front of the collage on my wall, currently made up of dozens of images of Sophie that I’d collected over the last few weeks. I wasted no time taping it to the wall, underneath one of her sitting in her squad car and holding her hair up, exposing the graceful curve of her neck.
I stood there staring at her pictures for way too fucking long, bothered by my infatuation with her.
The sound of my friends’ laughter trickling in from the terrace snapped me back to reality. Finally, I turned my back on the wall that bordered on creepy stalker, shaking my head to clear it as I left my room.
I was only having her followed to make sure she wasn’t a threat to the empire her father left behind.
That was all.
It had to be.