He didn’t answer immediately. He watched me, as if deciding what I needed to know and what he could omit. “He followed you for three minutes, until you took a shortcut down a dark alley,” Novak said. “Then before you could be punished for your stupidity, I intervened.”
Stupidity? I was a grown man with training. Then it hit me,intervened? “What did you do to him?” I asked.
A pause, brief and deliberate. “He’s not a factor anymore.”
“Fuck, you’re serious.” I stared at him. Of course, he was. That was the problem and I didn’t have a way to process that.
I dragged the memory back, trying to force it into focus—music, heat, a guy who’d been enthusiastic and messy, on his knees sucking me dry, hands everywhere and no finesse, thewhole thing over fast. He’d left after we were interrupted, and I hadn’t even had to return the favor. If Novak wasn’t bullshitting me, then I’d missed everything that should have been obvious. I’d been distracted and careless because for one night after the worst kind of day at work, I’d wanted it badly enough that I let my guard slip for the kind of man who was looking for that weakness.
Realizing how close I’d come to being targeted again hit like a jab to the gut—a cold fear settling under my skin, with the knowledge I’d handed a potential threat what he wanted. I traced every decision back, berating myself for thinking I could have a night off without consequences. But layered over that was something worse: gratitude. Not the easy kind, but the tangled, bitter gratitude that someone else had seen the danger where I hadn’t—and had acted without hesitation to protect me when I should have been able to protect myself. And mixed into all of it was anger. I blamed myself for letting it happen. At Novak for watching it unfold and being right where I had been so fucking blind.
And now he admitted he’d stepped in when I hadn’t even known there was a threat, and the worst part wasn’t that I’d missed it—it was that he hadn’t, that he’d been there in the background the whole time, watching, deciding, making sure of it.
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t see him,” Novak said. “And I did.”
That wasn’t an answer. Or maybe it was exactly the answer, and I didn’t like what it implied.
“You’re unbelievable,” I said again, quieter this time.
“Yes.” Of course, he’d say that. “David Branson, twenty-seven, East Seventh Street. Look him up.”
“I don’t need whatever this is,” I said, gesturing between us. “Protection, assessment, whatever you’re calling it. I’m fine.”
“That’s not true.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“For now.”
“Wow,” I said flatly. “Reassuring.”
“I’ll try to be less obvious,” he said after a moment, his hands in fists at his sides.
I closed my eyes briefly. “Great,” I said. “Start by not following me anymore.”
A pause, longer this time. “No.”
I stared at him. “That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“I can’t secure you if I don’t have proximity. It’s not optional for me.”
“I’m pretty sure itisoptional, since it’s my life.”
“I won’t let you be in danger.”
I exhaled sharply, frustration edging into something harsher, something I didn’t want to examine. “You’re unbelievable,” I said. “Get out and stop fucking following me.”
This time, he shifted away without argument, crossing the room with a few silent steps. He paused at the door, hand resting against it, then glanced back at me.
“Lock your windows,” he said. “And don’t take the same route to the coffee shop tomorrow.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll have to adjust.”
That didn’t answer anything, and somehow it answered too much.
