His gaze trailed over her body, as if making sure she was as he’d left her the night before. “Everything okay?”
“Perfect,” she replied, then dashed into the living room to scoop Nigel off the couch where she’d made him a small nest of blankets. “You’ll be happy to know my bodyguard did a fine job protecting me.”
She turned to hand over Nigel, then stepped back in surprise when she saw a very large, very tatted man she didn’t recognize standing in her living room next to Jordan. “Oh. Who’s this?”
Jordan slanted his head toward the man. “This is Dex. Your new bodyguard.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Vanessa was pissed. Fine, he was used to her being pissed. What he wasn’t used to was the raging fear he experienced whenever he wasn’t in the exact same room as her. He’d served his last shift at Silk, then stayed up the rest of the night putting things in place for her security. In the stairwell, in the hallway, and directly in front of her apartment door. Because he couldn’t not be close to her.
After a brief conversation with Joel, Gabe, and Sean and Ivy, he’d been given the okay to do whatever it took to make sure Vanessa, and in turn the rest of her family, was safe from whatever threat was lurking. But honestly, Jordan had been prepared to do whatever it took, with or without approval.
Dex was an easy step one.
They’d met in prison. Three years of shared walls, concrete floors, and the constant weight of guilt and survival, before Dex was released and had moved out west to get as far away from his past as possible.
There wasn’t such a thing as friends when you were locked up. Prison was a brutal game of every man forhimself. Alliances, tenuous as they might have been, were necessary if you wanted to stay alive, and Dex had been an ally.
More importantly, there’d been an incident while they were in prison, where Jordan had saved Dex’s life, which meant Dex owed him, and now was the time to collect.
One phone call and an emailed flight ticket, and Dex had arrived in Portland. He hadn’t asked too many questions, but understood his assignment was to keep Vanessa safe whatever the cost.
Vanessa, on the other hand, hadn’t been as easy to convince.
“I don’t need another bodyguard.” She was furious. He could tell by the way she held the damn rabbit like he was some kind of armor between them. Part of him hated that she was trying to throw a wall up again. He knew he risked losing the fragile connection they’d started to build, but if that was the price for her well-being, he’d pay it without hesitation.
“Your safety is not negotiable.” His words were sharp as he countered her stubbornness with his own. “Security for the event is still not where I want it to be, and I’ll be busy while I deal with it. So, Dex will be your shadow when I can’t be around, and you’re not going to give him any grief about it. Understood?”
Her eyes flashed, indignant, but also, dammit, hurt. He steeled himself as he prepared to piss her off even more. “The police have also been informed.”
“What!?”
“You can blame your brother-in-law for that one. He insisted we open a file. As much as I have a love-hate relationship with cops, I have to agree with him on this one. The more hands we have on deck, the better.”
She shook her head as she backed toward the couch, Nigel in hand. Her face paled as all the information sank in. He hated that so much had been taken out of her control. Hated even more, that they had to do any of this in the first place.
“The show is in two days,” he reminded her. “If this person is going to make a move, it will be sometime between then and now.”
“You don’t know that.” Her voice wavered. “You don’t know they’re going to do anything more. It’s just a bouquet and DMs and pictures. It’s not an attempt on my life. It’s just…a bit weird.”
“It’s an invasion of privacy,” he countered, his voice rising louder than he intended. He took a breath to reset. “And it’s escalating. Photographs capturing every movement of your day are notjust a bit weird, Vanessa. We’d be stupid not to take every precaution to keep you safe.”
She wouldn’t look at him as she cuddled Nigel in her lap, so he hit with what he knew she couldn’t ignore. “It’s not only you. The kids could’ve been in those pictures at The Link.”
She stiffened, but he needed her to see the big picture. “If he’s tracking you, there’s no way to know if he’s tracking your family as well. We have no idea, and until we do, I’m not taking chances.”
Her slim fingers ran over Nigel’s fur in long, measured movements, until finally she stood, walked over to Jordan and passed him the rabbit. Next, she turned to Dex, who had yet to say a word.
“If you’re half the overbearing asshole he is,” she jerked her thumb in Jordan’s direction. “Then you can go back to where you came from because I don’t have room for twotyrants in my life.” Spinning on her heel, she stormed off to her bedroom.
Dex glanced at Jordan, eyebrow raised. “She seems fun.”
Jordan jabbed Dex’s chest with his finger. “Just don’t fucking touch her unless you have to and you’ll be fine.”
Dex cracked a smile and raised his palms. “I’m here to be her bulletproof vest.”
Jordan handed Nigel to Dex. “Put the rabbit in the apartment across the hall. Vanessa and I will meet you outside.”
