Page 18 of Untamed Protector

“Look, Lexi, Gabriel is a highly skilled personal and corporate security expert. We’ve been business partners for some time. He’s the one who oversees security across all my businesses, including the shipping and cargo storage operations. He manages well over three hundred people, and that’s just the public side of his business.”

“And what about the not-so-public side?” I can’t help but ask. He sounds both impressive and intimidating. This man could solve my problem overnight. Not only the threats I’m getting but also the other, bigger problem, the one that brought me to this city, working for the Maiers: finding the car that hit me and my dad and then vanished into the night, leaving us bleeding to death on the road. But Gabriel belongs to this world; he is one of them. And that’s what makes it all very complicated.

“Is that beast parked outside yours?”

My question catches them off guard, and they go silent for a moment. Gabriel finally answers. “The car, you mean? Yes. Why do you ask?”

“You’re into sports cars, huh? Do you like to drive fast and all that?” I stare him in the eye. Besides a brief glimmer of surprise, he doesn’t flinch.

“Yes, sports cars are an old passion of mine. But I rarely drive them. I have enough adrenaline in my life, anyway. The car outside belongs to Dominic. I need to return it to him later. He left it at the Casino last night. He had some drinks and didn’t want to drive, so we took care of it.”

“But you’ve had your fair share of sports cars, right? Do you get a thrill from pushing the limits on an empty road? Empty road, foot on the gas—you know the feeling.”

“Yeah, I’ve done that too. Not anymore, though. How is this relevant to our conversation?”

“I don’t get it either, Lexi,” Peter adds. “I know you’re a little nervous about this whole situation, but Gabriel won’t be driving fast when he’s with you. You’ll be safe.”

“What do you mean when he’s with me?”

“I thought you understood by now. I asked Gabriel to stay with you 24/7 until we figure out who’s behind the letters.”

My eyes widen as the news sinks in, and a wave of frustration washes over me, unsettling me to the core. What the hell am I going to do with this man in my life?

6

Gabriel

“But I live with Lena!” Lexi shouts back, visibly shocked. She’s probably just now figuring out why I’m in the same room as her.

“Not anymore. You’re staying with me now.” The words slip out before I can think about the impact they’ll have on her. I’m used to calling the shots, especially when clients trust me with their lives. But Lexi doesn’t want to listen or put her life in my hands.

I agreed to this meeting because Peter said this young woman needed help, and he insisted I was the only one with the skills to solve this. But she already seems to hate me. On the plus side, there’s little chance she’ll get emotionally attached and become a problem. But she won’t be easy to work with. I’ll just have to treat her case like any other that my Protectors’ brothers and I take on. What intrigues me the most is how an intelligent, brave young woman can ignore danger so recklessly…

“No way. Peter, please,” Lexi protests. Oh, God. She’s got trouble written all over. Trouble that I find myself inexplicably drawn to, like a moth to a flame. And that body… I can still feel the memory of her in my arms, every curve, every breath, igniting a fire within me I thought I had long extinguished. It was fleeting, but in that moment, I felt alive for the first time in years.

“Lexi, please be reasonable. I can’t protect you,” Peter tries to convince her. “But Gabriel can. He does this for a living. He’s an ex-Navy guy and highly trained in these situations.”

Peter’s words get through to Lexi, and she settles down. Usually, my clients are much happier to have me around. They need to trust me fully. Otherwise, I can’t protect them. And Lexi’s setting out to be a real pain in the ass. Granted, a pretty one and impossible to say no to.

Peter described her as super smart, with an impressive memory, reading numbers like a magician—all from a simple small-town girl, as Anita calls her. But he failed to tell me how she came to work for him. It’s time I got some answers.

“Both of you, please. Let me ask the questions, and we’ll talk about this later. I’m in charge now. Let’s take it from the top. I need you to help me understand how this whole thing started.”

Peter sits down. He’s been standing behind Lexi this whole time, with his hand on her shoulder. I think she would’ve gotten up and walked out otherwise. I wonder why she’s so dead set against me being near her. Her body says otherwise. I bet I’ll figure this out by the end of the day.

“Okay, let’s take it back to the beginning,” I press on. They both go quiet and focus on me.

“First, why didn’t you go to the police with the threat letters Lexi got?”

“I didn’t want to,” Lexi answers first. I look at her, waiting for her to give me a genuine reason, not just a whim.

“None of them seemed actual threats to me. If you look closer, you’ll understand,” she continues.

“I’ll take them with me and have an expert look at them.”

“There’s no need for an expert. I’ll tell you everything.” She leans over, grabs the papers, then stands up and launches her explanation.

“This is the first one I received,” she says, picking up one letter. “We got this one by courier here at work. It got sent from a post office near the train station. It’s a busy area, so it’s hard to trace it back. So far, smart of them. They used common paper, which coincidentally is what Grain Inc. uses. Also, they first printed the address and then glued it to the envelope. So it looks like someone used to working in an office environment. The font and page setup are standard options in Microsoft Word. Oh, and also, perfect grammar and spellcheck. Clearly, someone who’s used to writing on a computer daily. They were careful not to personalize the page, but they didn’t know that all printers have minor flaws that make them detectable.”

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