CHAPTER ONE
HENDRICK
I break all the rules in the first thirty seconds as I bleed all over her pristine limo.
Hands are on me, but not on her. That’s good, because I know she doesn't like to be touched, my new asset. My client. It’s bad, because I had to haul her into the vehicle the moment the bullet pierced my shoulder.
Drake will want me gone when he hands me over to Calhoun, but that’s their problem to duke it out.
Because blue eyes laced with streaks of moonlight and endless night stare back at me.
The classical artist whose fact sheet says she never looks at anyone, who distances herself from the world and never speaks to anyone or replies?
This woman right here stares at me with curious eyes.
An enigma who watches the man who’s taken the bullet meant for her, and who’s bled all over the pretty white dress she wears.
The moment that she stepped out of the building I swear is designed to kill her, I knew my night had gone to hell before we started with her crazy set of rules.
Rules I hated on sight despite that I live by a rigid set of my own.
Bright, white light like a fucking halo blinded me the moment the door opened.
I could barely see her on the steep, short steps never made for stiletto heels and formal wear that draped the ground.
Or her silky dress, covered in its glittery, tiny beads that fracture the white light behind her, sending tiny rainbows dancing across my vision.
Her body folded beneath mine when I lunged for her. Fragile, so breakable as she tumbled down those steps. I kept waiting for a bone to crack as hell erupted above us.
But the damage was already done, and no one seemed to know. He—whoever the fuck he is—is long gone. The shot was taken, and missed. Because the moment those lights flared out behind my asset, even before she was handed over to me, I fucking knew.
He wasn’t the only one to shoot his shot.
Blood trails down my back, a drip missed as Drake stuffs his shirt over the hole and tears mine to create a makeshift bandage.
“You didn't have to strip for her,” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth without taking my eyes off her, or hers leaving mine. “I put a medical kit inside the door. There.” I lift one finger lazily and point. Shit. How much blood have I lost? It’s only a freaking graze.
Fuck. Not that much as Drake stitches me up. And yet her eyes don’t flinch from mine, considering this must be the first time she’s seen blood coats the fawn colored leather of her limo seats. Or seen a man bleed all over them.
For her.
Adora. One name only. The adored—ha—world renowned classical harp player who refuses to speak to her fans, or anyone else apparently.
Hell, with media she refuses to look at cameras, talk with paparazzi, or speak with interviewers.
And for what? The woman before me is stunning.
Curious eyes stare unflinchingly at me, like I'm the most fascinating phenomenon she’s ever seen.
Who knows? Maybe in her cloistered world, I am.
And the strangest thing about tonight? It sure as fuck isn’t being stitched back together in her limo while we’re driven to the place I fully intend to carry out the job I was hired to do by Calhoun over at Lone Star Security before this shit show fell apart the moment it started. Before, even.
It’s the sense of serenity underlying the stunning face that watches me. That’s the strangest thing right now. Because in her face, there’s not an inkling of fear etched in her midnight gaze.
She’s not afraid.
As though this is what she expected from tonight.
Adora knew the shot would come. Maybe not the where, or even the when. But she knew it would happen. Perhaps the only thing she didn’t know was that the bullet wouldn't be taken by her. Maybe that’s what makes my presence so much of a curiosity to her.
Because tonight, before my new asset stepped outside of that building, she knew her stalker would come for her.
Tonight, she expected to die.
The rules are back in place by the time we pull up at Lone Star Security.
Calhoun, the business owner, waits outside the doors of The Ranch.
Adora still hasn’t said a word. From what I've read of her file—and that’s everything— I expect she’ll remain silent.
Even as Drake stitches me back together with the first aid kit I stowed in the car as a just in case measure before her show, Adora simply absorbs the fallout happening around her.
I don’t waste words asking if she’s okay, or if she’s hurt. The way she looks at me tells me that she is, for now. Anything greater than immediate triage can wait.
“Can you move it?” Drake tests the rotation of my shoulder in both directions, satisfied when I don’t let out a sound. “Looks like it’s a graze. A deep one, took a chunk of flesh with it. But you’re clear.”
“I’m fine." I ball the remainder of my shirt and reach for the door handle. The full extent of the pain has ‘t kicked in yet. “Good thing I've got at least one ambidextrous gene from my father’s side.”
“Handy. You’ll need it.” Drake grips my left, uninjured shoulder in warning. “Calhoun will have words.”
“He should.” If he didn’t, I’d be worried for the girl in front of me.
My blood stains her dress as she lowers the jacket that I threw across her the moment the car took off.
I study her lifted chin, keeping my features relaxed.
If I try to muscle my way in with this asset, I’ll never get the answers I seek from her, and I doubt that any piece of paper will give me sufficient story when he can tell me the who and why, even if she doesn’t realize that she knows that right now.
But that’s my job. Not just taking bullets for someone else. A plastic dummy can do that, and I'm pretty sure we’ve proven in the last hours that more than synthetic blood runs through my veins.
At no point has Adora fainted or screamed or gone into shock.
She’s made of tougher stuff, or she’s been through trauma before.
My bet is on the latter option. Which means that I need to have more than one chat with Calhoun.
Preferably without her present. But right now, that’s not an option. She’s not leaving my sight.
“Sir.” I straighten as I emerge from the car after Drake, and offer my uninjured arm.
“Hendrick,” Drake utters my name like it’s a curse.
Too late, I retract my offering, but Adora is already rising past me. My jacket lands neatly in the crook of my elbow as she glides past me and through the open doors of The Ranch. Valor Springs is a small town, though we won’t be stopping here for too long.
Just…passing through until we reach our destination.
Calhoun raises both eyebrows and follows Adora inside.
“I’d say you’re fucked, but that would be kind. I’ll wait out here, see if you come back in shreds.” Drake slides his hands into his pockets.
“You just want the Texas ladies to see you shirtless.”
“Aren’t you showing off your new scar?” His easy banter is one of the reasons I have no problem working with the ex-soldier.
I shake his hand, keeping the fresh wave of pain and nausea off my face. Drake eyes me carefully.
“Take something for it.”
“Nothing that dulls the edge.” I follow Calhoun inside the building, seeking his office, and find Adora studying her reflection in a wide mirror set across one side of the hall opposite.
Refusing to let her out of my sight, I set myself up in the doorway to respect both her and Calhoun without disgracing myself in her presence again.
“I’m sorry for our…tardiness, sir.” I address Calhoun while still watching her.
I was wrong. She’s not looking at herself like I first thought, though the woman reflected in the pristine surface isn't the same one who existed in the building she performed in a few hours ago. She’s studying the ornate edges of the frame, decorated with floral carvings.
“I understand. The driver put in a call the moment the catastrophe happened.”
I nod, wiping my surprise off my face. Shit. I missed that. Probably around the time Drake was digging in my flesh for a bullet that hadn’t stuck inside me. We were all damned lucky that it hadn’t grazed me and buried itself in her.
“It won’t happen again.” The next shot will be through the asshole who decided to threaten her.
Calhoun considers me in silence for a long moment. “Are you fit for duty?”
Adora raises her gaze to meet my eyes in the mirror. It isn’t my new boss who I reassure when I speak.
“Yes.”
Grayson Calhoun folds his arms across his chest and stares at the mess we’ve made of the job that wasn’t supposed to have started until half an hour after we arrived.
I’ve filled in forms on both my behalf and hers.
The moment that Adora picked up the pen Calhoun handed her—careful not to contact her pale skin—was the moment I noticed the finest tremor in her fingers.
I broke her rules again, taking the pen back and filling in her details I’ve committed to memory in silence. Calhoun respected that and we completed his process in what I hope is record time.
“The job is simple, Hendrick. Keep her alive until we can eliminate the threat to her life, or you do. But at no point is she to be used as bait.” Cold eyes piece me. “I don’t care about her rules. Her life matters more.”
“Yes, sir.” I won’t argue with any of that. “I’ll take her off the grid for a few weeks. Less, if I can get away with it. And I'll check in regularly.”
“Good. Do that.” Calhoun fixes his eyes on her and then me, a heavy gaze that promises me pain if I screw up.
I nod back. “Yes, sir.”
“What are you still doing here? Get moving. Ma’am.” He nods to Adora without looking directly at her, breaking part of a rule while sticking to her others. I swear she gives him the faintest smile.
Well, whaddaya know.
Calhoun shoos us out of his office and back into the limo that’s as spotless as it was the moment it pulled up outside the building Adora performed in. “Good luck, Hendrick. Drake?” He pokes his head out of the building doorway. “Keep me in the loop with your next job. And get that man a shirt.”