Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
“You went home with her.”
“We live together,” I retort, aware of the audience around us. They stay quiet like this is my contentious shit with O’Malley, and they’re keeping their hands clean of it. At least this isn’t an eight-on-one dogpile. “You have a problem with that?”
“You know I do,” O’Malley says, rubbing his hands in the cold. “And for the sake of being honest tonight, I honestly think you’re the worst fucking bodyguard who coulda ever gotten with her.” His South Philly lilt breaks through. I dunno why it irritates me.
“Tell me how you really feel,” I say lightly, but I’m smoldering inside. “Go ahead.”
“That’s not why we’re here,” Ian cuts in, and I see a weird softness in his posture and eyes. Fuck him. I don’t want his pity.
“You’re a low life,” O’Malley tells me. “Just like your dad. You only crept into security ‘cause you’re attached to Farrow Redford Keene.”
“Hale,” I correct.
“What?”
“He’s Farrow Redford Keene Hale now, but keep going. What else you got?”
“You’re fucking insufferable.”
“I’m glad I’m making you suffer. And?”
“Luna just got kidnapped. By your own family. You don’t even care how much media attention you stir up. You make out with her in broad daylight. Are you going to fuck her in public too? Invite your cousins to join—”
I storm forward, and Greer jumps between us, hands outstretched on our chests.
“What the fuck, O’Malley?” Greer whisper-hisses.
O’Malley and I are impaling each other with caustic glares. Rage and adrenaline course through me at rapid speed, and I spin out of Greer’s hold.
Just to walk several feet away from them.
Towards the overgrown blades of grass. Rolling fields in the distance. An endless night sky. I set my hands on the back of my neck and try to breathe.
Calm down.
I squat, my pulse pitched. I hear them talking behind me.
“We should call this off,” Cruz Jr. says. “I don’t feel good about it.”
“Why?” O’Malley rebuts. “He doesn’t give a shit about you or any of us. He purposefully fucked with our cars.”
Car.
One car.
Glitter on the seats, and yeah, I’ve known they’ve been pissy about it. So what—they bring me out to a deserted field to haze me?
Whatever they have planned—it’s nothing.
What O’Malley just said—I hate that it feels like everything.
“Donnelly,” Ian calls out.
With another deep breath, I stand and go back to the firing line. Eight men. Security Force Epsilon.
Ian Wreath (Tom’s bodyguard)
Vance Wreath (Eliot’s bodyguard)
Chris O’Malley (Beckett’s bodyguard)
Chris Novak (Ben’s bodyguard)
Greer Bell (Winona’s bodyguard)
Ryan Cruz Jr. (Kinney’s bodyguard)
And two young rookies: Vlad Kosko (Audrey’s bodyguard) and Hart McKenna (the floater)
Come to think of it, with Sinclair off the Epsilon roster, the oldest bodyguard on SFE is Greer at thirty-seven. They’ve always acted like they’re filled with the most valuable experience and some ancient wisdom. Unlike the “young hot shit” that is Omega. But, really, both security forces could be reflections of the other.
There’s not much difference.
We’re all from Philly. We’re all a mix of military and martial arts. We’ve all been through the security ringer.
Threats. Stalkers. Rabid paparazzi. Aftermath of a car crash in the pouring rain. Being snowed-in in Scotland. Searching for the girl squad in Italy. The Olympics. The Summer Fest shooting. Assaults. A kidnapping.
They know how cruel and demanding this job can be.
But I just don’t feel like I’m one of ‘em. I am Omega. It’s not even that SFO is known in the media and SFE are more invisible. It’s something deeper.
The divide is monstrous between us, and I have no clue why Price and Akara thought it’d be smart to put me with them.
I’m not surprised they’re waiting for Ian to talk. He’s the lead.
Ian nods to me, “You’re new here.”
My brows shoot to the sky. “I’m new here?” I point at my chest. “Been here almost seven years. How long has Kosko been here? Four months?”
“You left Triple Shield,” Ian reminds me. “You’re back working for Triple Shield. You’re new again.”
“Right.” I look at them. “So what—you wanna do some trust falls? Team building exercises? You know, we coulda gone paintballing. You didn’t have to bring me all the way out to fucking Okehocking.”
McKenna, a lanky redhead, gapes at the team. “He knows where he is?”
“I thought you threw him off?” Novak asks Vance.
Greer and Cruz Jr. are smiling. I wonder if they’d give me a cigarette.
The bodyguards to the Cobalts have a bigger bone to pick with me. I know it’s partly because my family tried to jump Beckett, which sent O’Malley to the hospital. It’s been personal for these pricks.
“A pancake breakfast,” Ian suddenly says, and my stomach clenches. “That’s the initiation you first had into security. A pancake fucking breakfast.”
I try not to grimace.
That was up to the Tri-Force back then. Two of which are now Omega: Akara and Thatcher. So I don’t mention it.
I also don’t mention how I never asked for the breakfast. While I was told to eat, I knew Farrow was being dropped in the Poconos and told to run in the dark. I hated every second of it.