“She don’t know nothin’ about this, does she?”
Capri grinned. “Nope. Which means if she finds out, she’s gonna hate it—and you.”
Cannon shook his head. “Did you already accept the job, Cap?”
Her guilty smile told Cannon all he needed to know.
“You said you wanted another gig, Brother, and thisisa good one. Does the fact that she’s a little curious mean she doesn’t deserve protecting?”
Cannon didn’t answer right away, but they both knew what he was thinking. Instead of saying so, he asked, “You good, though? I missed you.”
Capri smiled softly.
“I’m good, Brother. Me and Granny missed you too.”
He nodded. “I’ma go check on her in a few. You said you emailed me the job?”
With her smile stretching wider, Capri nodded silently.
Without another word, he turned and headed to his office, pulling his phone from his pocket on the way down the hall.
Once he made it to his office, he sat behind his desk and opened the latest email from Capri. For a minute or two, he just stared at the subject line:
Client: Nahla Avery.
That evening, Cannon sat on the sofa in his living room. The television was on the sports channel but was muted. He was too busy staring at another photo of Nahla Avery.
Earlier at his office, it took him a full ten minutes to scroll past her picture in the email Capri sent, and now that he was home doing more in-depth “research” on her, he couldn’t get past the image results from his internet search.
The woman was gorgeous.
Her mocha-colored skin was smooth and vibrant, and every feature on it was perfection. Her wide, round eyes, small button nose, and full brown lips were all fighting for his attention, and it was proving very difficult for him to pull his focus from her face.
Her file mentioned that she used to work for a newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, so Cannon had to force himself to click away from her pictures and find some of her old articles.
The things she covered in Atlanta made all her recent work look like child’s play. She had covered some serious stories in the past, and Cannon was beginning to understand who Nahla was, even though they had yet to meet.
Her pattern was clear. Nahla went in too deep, too fast. A couple of her older stories seemed to get cut short because she obviously reported her findings too quickly. The drug story, for example, started as a high-energy, extremely revealing series. Still, the story fell flat when she reported that a “mid-level player” in the ring had been arrested then later died in his cell.
Cannon was sure the ring gave police a scapegoat and relocated when they realized Nahla was getting too close to the truth. If she had waited to publish, she might have gotten a little further into the hierarchy of the criminal enterprise. Honestly, she had been blessed not to have been the one they disposed of.
Other stories ended in similar fashions. He knew people—soldiers—like her before, and the fates that many of them suffered made his jaw tighten as he thought about them.
After reading more of her Atlanta articles, he went back to her latest one, the one that had Eli Hill nervous for her. Cannon didn’t doubt that there was plenty of corruption and scandals happening in Lyle, but Nahla clearly viewed potential threats there as small fish compared to the subjects she had encountered in the past. Cannon knew better.
It was so much easier to get away with things like handling an annoying reporter in a small town like Lyle. She clearly needed protection—from outside threatsandpossibly herself.
Just as he closed the article, his phone rang.
Eli Hill.
“Mr. Porter,” Eli said as soon as the line connected.
“Mr. Hill.”
“Your sister let me know that you agreed to look out for Nahla this weekend. I just wanted to give my thanks personally.”
Cannon smirked. There was a tension in Eli’s voice that made it clear he had something else to say. Instead of helping Mr. Hill beat around the bush, Cannon decided to get to the point.
