5. Nico
NICO
The incident earlier had made one thing painfully clear: the stunt area needed more cameras.
I'd originally thought it was far enough inside the production perimeter that it would be difficult for anyone to get there unnoticed.
The outer fence was nowhere near the stunt area, and there were supposed to be multiple layers of security between the public and the filming site. Apparently, that had been a little too optimistic.
I was sorting through a box of network equipment when Sarah appeared beside me with another stack of boxes.
“Last one.” She glanced around the stunt area before looking back at me. “You're sure you're okay doing this by yourself?”
“Yeah. I'll be fine.”
She pointed toward the section of fence where the paparazzo had gotten through earlier.
“That where it happened?”
“Yeah.” I pulled out the first camera and began checking the mounting equipment, mentally working through the order I wanted to install everything while Sarah took in the set around us.
I couldn't blame her. She was still in high school, and how often did someone get the chance to wander around an actual movie set, especially one this big?
“This place is insane,” she said.
“Mm-hmm.”
She wandered over and crouched beside me, watching as I untangled a bundle of cables.
“You know,” she said casually, “if Uncle Tony were doing this, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have happened.”
Her elbow nudged my shoulder hard enough to nearly send me sideways. She laughed, and despite myself, I smiled.
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
I shrugged and went back to untangling the cables. “I guess I could've asked Tony for more input.”
Tony was better at this than I was. Everyone knew it.
I'd heard some variation of the comparison often enough that I'd learned not to react anymore. Tony would've thought of this. Tony wouldn't have missed that. Tony would've done it differently.
I was tired of hearing his name used as the measuring stick for everything I did.
I quietly hoped she'd leave soon. I didn't mind having her around, but I wanted to get started. I had a lot of work to do.
“The set is huge,” Isaac said as he walked toward us, glancing around the stunt area. “There are going to be blind spots.”
His eyes settled on the section of fence where the paparazzo had gotten through earlier.
“It was bound to happen eventually. The good thing is that it happened early. Now we know where the weak points are. Better to find them now than on the last day.”
My hands stilled around the cable in my lap, caught slightly off guard by his response.
“Oh. Well, I still think Uncle Tony would've done better.” Sarah huffed. She leaned toward me and whispered, far louder than she probably intended, “He's a little mean, huh?”
I bit my lip. I was fairly certain Isaac could hear every word, but Sarah clearly didn't care. She gave me a quick wave before heading toward her car.
“Take care,” I called.
“You too.” She climbed inside and drove away.
I reached for another box, then, just to be sure, glanced to my side. Isaac was still there. He hadn't left.
“Thanks,” I said eventually.
I wasn't sure whether I was thanking him for what he'd said about the blind spots, or simply for making Sarah leave.
“No one can predict everything. I've been on enough sets to know that something is always going to happen. You can plan for every possibility you can think of, but there's always going to be something you didn't account for.”
Isaac walked farther into the stunt area and paused near the fence, studying the top before looking toward the surrounding trailers and temporary structures. Then he glanced back at me.
“You reacted quickly today.”
I blinked.
“To the drone,” he clarified. “You found it and disabled it before it could get away. Not everyone can do that under pressure.”
For a moment, I didn't know what to say.
“Thanks,” I managed.
“So,” he said after a moment, “you're staying out here all night?”
“Tomorrow's the last day of stunt training.” I held up a camera. “If I don't do it tonight, the place will be crawling with people and equipment.”
I could practically see the mental calculation happening behind his eyes. His gaze flicked toward the darkening sky before returning to me. “But that's in a few hours.”
“Well, you did emphasize that all IT-related matters should be handled quickly and efficiently so we don't disrupt the filming schedule,” I pointed out. “And therefore Logan's schedule.”
“I did say that, huh?” A laugh escaped him, and I chuckled too, though it faded quickly as I looked at all the boxes scattered around us.
“Do you want me to go?”
I blinked. “What?”
“If I'm in the way, I'll leave.” He gestured toward the boxes. “But I can help. I can hold a ladder or hand you a screwdriver.”
I stared at him for another second before a smile tugged at my mouth. “It's a little more complicated than that.”
“I figured.”
“But... I don't mind.”
Isaac didn't know the difference between a network switch and a router, and I wasn't about to let him anywhere near the configuration settings, but he was surprisingly useful when it came to everything else.
He carried the equipment while I worked, held the ladder steady, and passed me tools whenever I asked for them. After we'd finished the fourth camera, I started checking the connections.
Isaac looked at the remaining boxes, then back at me. “Can I do the rest?”
I hesitated for a moment. He did pick things up quickly enough, and he hadn't made a single mistake so far. I handed him the next camera.
“Try not to break anything.”
He snorted, then took the equipment from me and headed toward the next mounting point. The first couple of cameras needed some tweaking, but Isaac picked things up quickly.
Once he'd figured out what I wanted, he followed my instructions without complaint while I checked the new feeds from my laptop, adjusting angles and making sure the coverage lined up with the existing cameras.
I'd expected him to get impatient or question every change, but he simply listened and did what I asked. Between the two of us, the work went much faster than it would have if I'd been doing everything myself.
By the time Isaac finished mounting the last camera, I was still checking the newest feed when the trailer door opened.
He dropped into the seat beside me with a groan and leaned back, stretching his shoulders.
“More of a workout than I thought.”
I smiled and turned back to the monitors. The new feeds were coming through cleanly.
I made a couple of small adjustments, checked the coverage, and ran one final connectivity check before leaning back, satisfied.
When I glanced over at Isaac again, an open paper bag sat on his lap, and he was halfway through demolishing an empanada.
“You brought food?”
“Yeah. They're from the pack cafeteria. Kind of cold, though. I bought them.” He checked his watch. “About three hours ago.”
I stared at him. “Three hours?”
He shrugged and took another bite. I let the final network integrity check run in the background before reaching into the bag and taking an empanada. It was, in fact, cold.
A ridiculous thought had crossed my mind. Had he brought these here because he knew I'd still be working? I immediately dismissed it. That was stupid.
It still tasted good, though. We ate in silence for a while, me watching the monitors while he worked his way through the empanadas.
It should have felt awkward, sitting in a trailer in the middle of the night with someone I'd spent most of the last week butting heads with, but somehow it didn't. It was strangely comfortable.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me.
“Can I ask you something?”
Isaac looked over, and his expression immediately became more cautious.
I knew how protective he was of Logan. I'd seen enough of it today to know that anything involving his brother was a sensitive subject.
“What got you into the bodyguard business?”
He looked genuinely surprised by the question, chewing thoughtfully before answering. “I don't know if you know this, but Logan was a child actor.”
I did know. Tony had given me his background information when we were preparing for the assignment.
Logan had started with commercials before moving on to television, with a few failed pilots and guest appearances. He'd done voice work during his teenage years, too, before landing the lead role in a movie a few years ago that had launched his career.
“There was an incident when he was filming one of the TV shows,” Isaac continued. “Someone tried to kidnap him.”
My stomach tightened. “What?”
“We tracked them before they got very far. I wasn't his bodyguard then. I was still an enforcer back in Winter Valley. After that, I decided I should probably be the one looking out for him.”
He said it so simply, as though he'd merely taken on another responsibility.
“You've been doing this ever since?”
“Pretty much.” He chuckled. “Probably would've ended up looking after him anyway. Logan's always had a talent for getting himself into trouble.”
I smiled. I could see it now. The reason behind all the questions, the constant checking of schedules and routes, the exits, the cameras.
I didn't have a brother of my own, but Tony was probably the closest thing I had to one. If something happened to him, I wasn't sure what I'd do.
Actually, I did know. I'd do whatever it took. I nodded toward the monitors.
“Then let's make damn sure these cameras are right.”
A small smile tugged at Isaac's mouth. “Yeah.”