Chapter 3
AXEL
The manila folder hits my desk with a slap, spilling eight-by-ten glossies of Marla Rivers—not the airbrushed fantasy bullshit her teenage fans worship, but hard evidence: grainy surveillance shots of men with dead eyes tracking her every move.
These aren’t harmless fanboys–they’re predators marking territory.
My jaw clenches. This isn’t some diva’s paranoid delusion.
It’s a tactical threat requiring immediate countermeasures.
I drag my calloused thumb across the photo’s edge, the paper slicing my skin just enough to draw blood.
Twenty thousand bodies will pack that arena tomorrow night, a security nightmare of blind spots and choke points.
My shoulders tense under my fitted tactical shirt as I memorize each face in the photos.
The client—Marla—is the primary objective, and I don’t fail missions.
I slam my fist onto the desk. “Her team’s a fucking disaster,” I growl, jaw clenched as Alek sprawls in the leather chair across from me, combat boots propped on the edge of my desk. “Amateur hour. Their head of security used to manage a mall in Tucson. A mall.”
Late afternoon sun cuts through the blinds like knife blades, striping the blueprint where I’ve been marking vulnerabilities for three hours straight. My third cup of black coffee sits untouched, cold as a dead man’s handshake.
“You know she’s gonna be climbing you like a tree again,” Alek says with that shit-eating grin that only younger brothers are perfect for. “Little Miss Pop Princess couldn’t keep those manicured hands off your biceps last time. Kept talking about your ‘protective aura’ making her wet or some shit.”
Heat crawls up my neck like enemy fire, but I keep my eyes locked on the blueprints, shoulders rigid. “She’s twenty-one, Alek. Barely legal.”
“Twenty-one is grown.”
I stab my tactical pen into another weak point at the loading dock. “On paper, maybe. In reality? The woman has a stuffed unicorn named Sparkles with more Instagram followers than most security firms.”
My brother’s laugh ricochets like gunfire off the bare concrete walls of my office. “Look at you, too good for America’s sweetheart. When did you get so picky? Or is it just that you’re getting soft in your old age?”
I snap my head up, drilling him with the same dead-eyed stare that once made a Taliban checkpoint guard drop his weapon. My jaw clenches, the muscle twitching beneath three days of stubble. “The men who can’t handle a real woman are the ones who are soft and too weak to admit it.”
Alek raises his hands in mock surrender, but the cocky bastard’s eyes still dance with amusement. “And what exactly is a ‘real woman’ in the gospel according to Axel Warner, former Delta Force?”
I slam my tactical pen down and crack my neck, the vertebrae popping like distant gunshots.
“Someone who doesn’t need me to complete her.
Someone who was forged in her own fires before she met me and will still stand tall if I walk away.
Someone who understands that sometimes I’ll be unreachable for seventy-two hours because a client’s life depends on me, and she won’t crumble like a house of cards. ”
My phone buzzes with a text from Marla’s manager—another demand disguised as a request. Something about VIPs having special access that would compromise our security protocols.
I hammer out a response with my thumbs, my forearm muscles flexing. “Someone who doesn’t need security exceptions because she bats her eyelashes.”
Thunder cracks like artillery fire outside, promising a storm. Perfect. Tomorrow’s concert is already a tactical nightmare.
I roll the blueprints with one swift motion, my grip leaving indentations in the paper. “Wheels up in thirty. I want boots on the ground before sundown.”
As I shrug into my tactical jacket, the Glock against my ribs feels like an extension of my body. Those surveillance photos burn in my mind—predatory eyes tracking a target. My target now.
“My love life can wait,” I growl, checking the magazine in my backup piece. “Someone’s hunting Marla Rivers. Starting tonight, they’re hunting a ghost.”
“Christ,” Alek laughs, “you’re turning into Dad.”
My jaw tightens, thinking of the folded flag on my mantle.
“Growing old is a luxury my brothers in Kandahar never got.” The names are tattooed on my soul like the coordinates inked on my shoulder blade—Johnson, Martinez, Kowalski.
I survived. They didn’t. That debt can only be paid in one currency: purpose.
The lobby of the Grand Hyatt screams vulnerability, with its towering glass atrium and multiple unsecured entrances. I catalog fourteen security breaches before we even reach the private elevator, and my blood pressure climbs with each floor.
“This is exactly why I specified the Garrison,” I say to Alek as we ascend to the penthouse. “Low profile, controlled access points, and private underground parking.”
Alek adjusts his earpiece. “You know celebrities. They want the fantasy, not the fortress.”
“Fantasies get people killed.”
The elevator doors slide open to reveal Kyle Jeffries, Marla’s head of security, a man whose resume reads like a community college dropout’s LinkedIn profile.
He’s wearing a suit that costs more than most people’s monthly rent, but his stance betrays his mall cop training—weight on his heels, hands clasped in front instead of ready at his sides.
“Warner,” he nods, trying for authority but landing somewhere between constipated and concerned. “Ms. Rivers is expecting you.”
The penthouse suite sprawls across the entire top floor, floor-to-ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of the city—and making my skin crawl with every exposed sightline to surrounding buildings. Tactically, it’s a sniper’s wet dream.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathe, mentally calculating bullet trajectories through the glass. “Get those drapes closed. Now.”
Before Kyle can respond, Marla Rivers emerges from the master suite like a hurricane in human form.
Five-foot-nothing of a perfectly crafted pop princess, draped in what appears to be a silk robe that barely qualifies as clothing.
Her chestnut hair cascades in deliberately tousled waves, and her eyes lock onto me with predatory focus.
“Axel,” she purrs, my name somehow becoming two syllables in her mouth. “My hero arrives.”
She glides across the marble floor, perfume leaving a trail that hits my senses like a flashbang—sweet, disorienting, designed to cloud judgment. Before I can establish professional distance, she’s pressed against me, one manicured hand sliding up my arm to squeeze my bicep.
“God, I feel safer already,” she whispers, her breath warm against my neck. “Those arms should be illegal in all fifty states.”
I step back, creating tactical space between us. “Ms. Rivers, we need to discuss security protocols immediately.”
“Call me Marla, please,” she smiles, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “Ms. Rivers makes me feel ancient.”
Alek coughs to hide his laughter, and I shoot him a look that would wither vegetation.
“Your security team needs a complete overhaul before tomorrow’s performance,” I say, deliberately moving toward the dining table where I can spread out the blueprints. “Starting with this location. This penthouse is a liability.”
Marla follows, trailing her fingers across my shoulder blades. “I like dangerous things, Axel. They make life interesting.”
The room’s temperature seems to spike ten degrees, and I force myself to focus on unrolling the arena schematics rather than the warmth of her touch.
“Danger isn’t interesting when it puts a bullet in your head,” I say flatly, my voice dropping to the register I used when dressing down new recruits. “This isn’t a game.”
Ethel Barnes, Marla’s fifty-something manager, enters from the adjoining suite, tablet in hand, looking like she’s been running damage control since the Clinton administration. “Marla, darling, perhaps you should change while the security team sets up?”
“Why?” Marla slides closer, her hip brushing mine. “Axel doesn’t mind, do you? I’m comfortable.”
My patience, already threadbare, snaps like overextended tactical webbing. I step away from her and face Kyle and Ethel directly.
“This stops now.” My voice cuts through the room like a combat knife. “While you’re playing games, three men with possible cartel connections have been tracking Ms. Rivers for the past two weeks. They’re professionals, not fans, and they’re escalating their surveillance.”
I slap the photos onto the table, the images of hard-faced men with dead eyes staring up at us.
“This one,” I tap the image of a man with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow, “was spotted on the service level of this hotel forty minutes ago. Your security team missed him completely.”
The color drains from Kyle’s face. Ethel’s tablet slips from her fingers to the couch cushions.
“Marla,” I continue, keeping my voice level but unflinching, “you hired us because you’re in danger. Real danger. Not the kind that sells magazines or boosts your social media engagement. The kind that ends with body bags and press statements about ‘tragic losses.’”
For the first time, Marla’s flirtatious facade cracks, revealing something raw and young underneath. She pulls her robe tighter around herself, suddenly looking every bit her twenty-one years.
“I thought the letters were just... intense fans,” she whispers.
“They’re not.” I meet her eyes directly. “And if you want to live to see your next album release, you need to take this seriously. Starting now.”
Rain begins to lash against the windows, the city lights blurring into watercolor streaks beyond the glass. Thunder rumbles in the distance, a bass note underscoring the sudden silence in the room.
“Okay,” Marla says quietly, all pretense gone. “Tell me what to do.”
I nod once, relief and determination coursing through me in equal measure. “First, we’re moving you to a secure location. Tonight. Pack only essentials.”
As she turns to comply, our eyes lock for a moment. Something passes between us—understanding, perhaps, or the recognition that beneath our respective armor, we’re both fighting battles others can’t see.
“Axel?” she asks, vulnerability replacing seduction in her voice.
“Yes?”
“Thank you for not treating me like everyone else does—either a product or a princess.”
I don’t respond immediately, surprised by her insight. Finally, I give her a single, professional nod.
“Ten minutes to pack, Ms. Rivers. Then we move.”