Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“To her car at night.” After he gave him that, Smithie shook his head again and wished he wasn’t doing it. “Not home.”
“Fuck,” Hawk muttered.
“She will now,” Smithie told him. “In fact, I got a guy sittin’ on her house right now, which is where she is. She was here, but she took off and I put a man on her.”
Hawk jerked his head to the man standing behind him. “He’ll be relieved by Mo.”
Well, all right.
Smithie could get on board with that beast being Mac’s bodyguard.
Smithie stood. “I approve of your selection, Delgado, but what next?”
“We track that asshole down and put him out of commission,” Hawk replied immediately.
And it didn’t take long to slide right into the gray area with Hawk Delgado.
No, that wasn’t it.
Lee could do gray and did. All the time.
When it came to Delgado, shit got downright murky.
“What would that entail?” Smithie asked.
“Do you care?” Hawk returned.
“Kinda, considering I’m payin’ you for this shit,” Smithie told him.
“Whatever it needs to entail,” Hawk answered. “That letter,” Hawk did another head jerk, “we’ll need to make absolutely certain our message is received. Could be building a case to hand over to the cops. Could be something else.”
Right. For now, he could deal with that.
“Mac needs protection,” Smithie stated.
Hawk nodded his agreement. “And she’ll have Mo. Twenty-four seven. We aren’t Secret Servicing this shit, even if we are. He’s on her, day and night. He sleeps on the floor by her bed if she doesn’t have a chair or something in her bedroom. He goes to the grocery store with her. He stands outside the bathroom while she’s showering. I’m thinking you can fill in the rest of that picture.”
He could fill in the picture, but Smithie wasn’t sure he was totally following.
“Secret Servicing this shit?”
“Secret Service passes off. They do shifts. There will be no pass off. Mo’s hers for as long as it takes to find this guy.”
Now Smithie wasn’t sure he was liking what he was following.
“Is that smart?”
“I’m sure I can make a passable attempt at finding a decent stripper. Though I couldn’t pick a headliner if she tapped me on the shoulder. So how ’bout you let me make the calls I gotta make ’cause you assume I know what I’m doin’ like I would do for you if my business got caught up in yours. Something that’s happening right now. But I’ll let you do yours if you let me do mine.”
“Gotcha,” Smithie murmured.
“Your staff, on heightened alert. The dancers. The bouncers. The bartenders and the waitresses. I’ll brief them, tell them what they’re lookin’ for, this being after we interview them to ascertain if they’ve already clocked someone of interest. You tell McAlister. She needs to know and make smart choices. I’ll coach her on that.”
Smithie flicked his gaze to Mo and back to Hawk. “Won’t Mo coach her on that?”
“Mo’s not a communicator.”
This was not a surprise.
Hawk spoke on.
“Call her. Tell her she’s got Mo. Tell her he’s not on her house, he’s gonna be in her house. Tell her she’s gotta come in early. Tell her Mo’ll be bringin’ her in early. I’ll be here when she gets here, and you and me’ll share. I’ll tell her what she needs to know. And we’ll go from there.”
Smithie nodded.
Without another word, both men turned as one to walk out the door.
Smithie watched them go.
After Mo disappeared out the door, Hawk stopped there and turned back.
“Secret Service is also trained to put themselves in the path of the bullet,” Hawk said.
Shit.
“Right,” Smithie whispered.
“For that man on the mark, it isn’t about getting the target to safety. It’s about taking the bullet for his mark. You with me?” Hawk asked.
That Mo guy was a leviathan, but he wasn’t bulletproof.
Goddamned shit.
“I’m with you,” Smithie confirmed, because he had no choice.
Hawk studied him before he noted, “You haven’t asked me how much this is going to cost.”
“That’s because I don’t care,” Smithie told him.
They held eyes.
Hawk broke it by lifting his chin and exiting the room.
He shut the door behind him.
Slowly, Smithie sat in his chair.
He’d had trouble in the club from some assholes not long ago.
At the time, it had nearly broken him. He’d thought it had come in the form of a man’s worst nightmare about what could happen to women he held in his heart.
He’d been wrong.
Chapter Two
As Often as I Could
Lottie
When the doorbell rang, I was already mildly freaking out.
When I looked through the peephole and saw nothing but a black compression shirt covering a muscled chest, I got even more freaked out.
I was barefoot. My peephole was nearly at eye level. Regardless, it magnified the area outside it.
And still, all I saw was chest.
Right…
How big was this guy?
“Who is it?” I shouted through the door.
“Mo!” was grunted back.
Okay, that was the name I was given.