“You’d start a fight within the first hour.”
“I’d start aconversationwithin the first hour. The fight would come later.” Ryder leaned back, stretching his legs out. “Seriously, though. All those women in gowns, champagne flowing, nobody’s got anywhere to be. That’s prime real estate, Baxter.”
“It’s a job.”
“It’s a job with fringe benefits that you don’t take advantage of nearly enough.”
Isaac finished his water. Fallon’s face surfaced without permission. The way she’d felt in his arms dancing. The way she’d read three strangers across a ballroom in the time it took to finish a song. The way hermaybehad been anoshe’d dressed in silk so he wouldn’t feel the sting until she was gone.
He didn’t mention any of it.
“The fringe benefits are yours if you want them,” he said to Ryder instead. “I’ll put in a good word with Ian.”
“Nah, they don’t want me at those things. I’d eat everything at the buffet and tell someone’s wife her dress was ugly.”
“You would never tell a woman her dress was ugly.”
“No. But they don’t know that.” Ryder’s grin came back, easy and unbothered. “Besides, I’d rather be here getting my asskicked by you than standing around pretending I know what a sommelier is.”
“You know what a sommelier is.”
“I know what a sommelierdoes. Doesn’t mean I want to hear about it for forty-five minutes while my drink gets warm.”
Ian came over and sat on one of the crates. “Isaac. Talk to me about the Ashford intake.”
Isaac sat up straighter.
“Graham Ashford. Mid-sixties, well-connected. His son Trent is the concern. He’s an influencer with ten million followers and a talent for pissing people off. The threats have been escalating, and some of them are specific enough to take seriously. References to Trent’s home address, his gym, events he’s attending.”
“Did you meet the son himself?”
“Briefly. Didn’t introduce myself.” But considered punching him in the teeth. “Twenty-three, entitled, aggressive. I watched him corner a woman at the bar because she was attractive and alone. When she tried to disengage, he closed the distance. According to Dad, Trent-y-poo doesn’t believe the threats are real. That could be an issue.”
“But the father believes they’re real.”
Isaac nodded. “Yes. He seems reasonable. Worried. Doing the right thing for his kid, even if his kid doesn’t see it that way.”
Ian sat with that for a moment. “What’s your recommendation?”
“Take the job. The threat profile is real, and Graham will hold up his end. But I told him if Trent fights the team, dodges his detail, or treats our people poorly, we walk. That has to be the deal, or it’s not worth putting anyone on this.”
“Agreed. Graham gets his son on board before we assign a team.” Ian paused. “You interested in running the detail?”
“Not in this lifetime or the next.” Fallon’s face floated to mind again but he pushed it away. “He’d be missing teeth by day three.”
Ian grinned. “I’ll call Graham this week. Good work on the intake. Clean read, clear boundaries.” He tucked the clipboard under his arm. “Also, schedule for next week. You’ve got the Whitfield Foundation dinner Thursday and the arts council fundraiser Saturday. Hartwell Insurance wants eyes at these events. They’ve had a string of losses at high-end functions, and they want someone inside who doesn’t look like security.”
Isaac forced a grin. “Good thing I look decent in a tux.”
Ian clapped Isaac on the shoulder on his way past and headed toward the equipment room.
The facility was winding down. Micah and Burke stacked the last of the targets against the far wall. Ryder checked his weapon one more time before casing it. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flat and industrial, stripping the space of anything that wasn’t concrete and plywood and spent brass.
Two events. Two nights of working a room full of people he’d spent his adult life putting distance between himself and them. Isaac knew exactly how those evenings would go. He’d done dozens of them. He was good at them. Ian needed him to be good at them.
Two hours of CQB, and now he was looking at a week of cocktail napkins and small talk. The tuxedo fit him perfectly. That was the problem.
And the one person who’d made the last event bearable wouldn’t be there.
He zipped his bag and stood. Ryder clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. “Don’t worry, Baxter. Maybe this time something will actually happen at one of these penguin-suit events.”
Isaac grabbed his jacket off the hook by the door. Behind him, Micah killed the lights and the training floor went dark. He could still feel the last four rounds in his hands, the clean snap of each decision, the way the course had narrowed his whole world down to angles and timing and the next right move.
Thursday, he’d be holding a glass he didn’t want, smiling at people he didn’t know, in a room that could run itself without him.
He pushed through the exit and let the door close behind him.
