Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“What kind of man ghosts walkin’ a lady to her car?” the love of my life snips on a snarky smirk.
“Not the good kind,” my brother instantly backs.
“I was trying to wrap up a conference call.”
“Did you try hittin’ the end button?” Slater snidely asks. “It’s typically the red one.”
“I couldn’t just hang up. It was important.”
“So. Is. Arley.”
Gotta give my best friend that.
He’s never let me feel like I didn’t matter or came second to anything.
“Alright,” T does his best to redirect the conversation, “so um, what happened when your boss boyfriend-”
“Ex-boyfriend,” instantly shoots from Slater’s mouth.
“Didn’t show up?”
“I decided to just go ahead and go.” More recollection continues to crawl to the front of my mind. “Consuelos was guarding my floor. Yi was in the lobby and offered to walk me, which I declined-”
“You’re not supposed to fuckin’ decline, Arley,” Slater instantaneously criticizes. “We’ve been over this shit a million times. You are a high value asset. People target high value assets. Hence why I don’t ever want you walkin’ alone.”
“I agree,” Harv concurs much to my surprise. “You are one of our most valuable assets at the company. One we can’t afford to lose.”
“One I can’t afford to lose,” the man I’m convinced is probably my soulmate gingerly declares, fingers slipping over to cup mine once more. “One I’m not going to lose.”
“What can we do?” T folds his arms firmly across his chest. “Assign her a bodyguard?”
Slater cuts his gaze over to my brother. “Done.”
An objection is barely able to form from me, “But-”
“I’m not askin’.”
“But-”
“And I’m damn sure not arguin’.”
“I am,” my ex states in what can only be concluded as an objective tone. “What if you’re not the best operative for the assignment, Wahl.”
“I’m the only operative for the assignment, sir. Make no fuckin’ mistake about that.”
Terence doesn’t hesitate to nod his head in unity. “Wahl’s got a point. No one protects my sister quite like he does.”
A grateful chin tilt is given my brother’s direction prior to the man holding my hand announcing, “I’ll run point. Blu will be my second. And until all this shit is figured out, until we have an idea on the who and the what and the why,” his blue stare swings back to me, “you’ll be staying with me.”
And just when I thought we had reached the basement level of awkward hell, the flood boards spread apart to drop me into the deepest depths possible.
Being secretly in love with my best friend is hard enough, but being secretly in love with my best friend and having to move in with him is some sort of creative new torture tactic I don’t remember reading about in my annual contract.
Chapter 6
Slater
I’ve never been a fan of torture.
However, I understand its purpose.
Especially now.
Sounds of a vehicle entering the currently closed parking garage shift my attention away from the view of the hospital that’s close by and over to where a bright red Camaro is whipping around the corner at a needlessly fast speed.
The man gets points for driving a Chevy but loses twice as many for driving around like an idiot in a cop magnet.
Unlike my half-brother and our father, I never understood the appeal of a two-door.
Maybe it’s because I know I’m better prepared in something bigger.
Or maybe it’s because they choose to get laid in actual beds versus wherever is most convenient.
Not that that matters anymore.
Fucking anyone is the furthest thing from my mind right now.
Which is what always happens when I go from civilian mindset to mission mode.
And protecting Arley is a mission.
It’s the mission.
It’s the single most fucking important mission I’ve ever had in my entire life.
More important than saving and stabilizing stranded soldiers from mountains.
More important than diving and swimming behind enemy lines to extract fallen pilots from hostile territory.
Fuck, it’s even more important than living through the beatings and burnings I endured while waiting to be rescued from my kidnappers as a child.
Making sure nothing ever happens to Angel Cake again is my sole focus.
My sole purpose.
My only reason for getting out of bed every morning going forward.
That attack should’ve never happened and had I been more concerned about caring for her than caring for my cock potentially getting touched it wouldn’t have.
She wouldn’t have strangle marks on her neck.
She wouldn’t have needed to go to the ER.
And she wouldn’t have been forced to have a CT scan that triggered traumatic memories from a time when the whole world was convinced, she was broken rather than simply built different.
Watching tears run down her cheeks as they slid her shaking figure into the machine had me hating myself and wanting to take my own life for causing the woman I love, so much fucking grief. Adding in the fact she refused to talk to me – and only me – afterward simply pushed me past pure contemplation to the beginning of devising an actual plan to make it possible.