Then they dump you back in the middle of a concrete jungle with a number that doesn’t connect and enough trauma that a plastic bag blowing across the street can make you pull your gun on several people just walking home in the street.
You see a roadside bomb or a grenade being thrown your way, they see a crazed man with a gun.
Three nights I spent in jail before the cops finally set me loose with a sympathetic smile.
Crime wasn’t my planned path, but it’s just how things turned out. It’s the only way I can sleep at night, if I’m ever lucky enough to do that.
Until now.
This past week, after spending my entire waking time with Aerin, I’ve been sleeping. It’s only been a few snatched hours here and there, but I can’t remember the last time I consistently fell asleep four nights in a row.
It’s not the job. It can’t be. This isn’t the first time I’ve run security detail.
It’s certainly not the fact they gave me a room inside the Paramatti estate to sleep in because I don’t trust the layout of the house enough to relax.
It’s got to be her.
Aerin.
I see her even when I close my eyes.
That moment when she froze in front of me at the restaurant with her hair cascading down around her beautiful face in sweeping waves, her bright eyes alive with fear and adrenaline. It’s imprinted on me.
But Guido’s words always follow every single flash of her in my mind.
She’s off-limits.
She’s my responsibility, not my fantasy.
Never mind that she’s so much younger than me.
I watch her like a hawk while neon lights above try to blind me, while smoke from fog machines creeps along the floor creating a ground I can’t trust because I can’t see.
I let her have three drinks before I ordered Hank to ensure her drinks were non-alcoholic going forward.
He almost refused until I threatened to put him through the bar.
This is her first time and she’s the textbook definition of a lightweight.
I still watch Hank pour every single drink he makes her, ensuring he doesn’t slip her any alcohol, and I track every glass that passes her lips while her newfriendsswarm her like a hive.
They’re not friends.
They’re leeches.
They picked her out like a pack of lions approaching a lone gazelle and their toying with her.
Acting like they’re all best friends while she buys their drinks with her credit card.
Giacomo melted away into the crowd at some point with a blonde woman on his arm. All that effort to bring Aerin out to celebrate her birthday and he immediately abandons her to strangers.
Little rat.
And then…she’s gone.
It happens so fast that it almost slips by me.
Almost.
