Page 60 of Cohesion

She scowled and leaned back in her chair, giving him a thorough once-over. “Heard you’re related to that useless waste of oxygen.”

“Guilty as charged,” Jericho said, lips twitching. “You wouldn’t hold that against me, would you?” He knew whoherbrothers were, and if anyone understood that genetics were unavoidable, it was Monica.

“Anything happens to him, and I’m going to get very,verycreative about how I remove your genitals, you hear me?”

Jericho appreciated a person that spoke their mind and did it with the full confidence of an army behind them. Even when they were half his size and wearing butterfly hairclips. “Loud and clear.”

“You can go right in. He’s in there, with Caleb and the other guard dogs.”

Guard dogs, indeed. “I hope you didn’t give them any treats,” Jericho said.

“They were good boys. Of course I did.”

“Any for—”

“No.”

Jericho chuckled and moved past her, going straight through the door that led to Sebastian’s office.

Spencer was right beside the door and had a hand on Jericho’s shoulder before he’d properly gotten through.

Kendrick stood at Sebastian’s left shoulder, eyes on the wall directly in front of him. To the rest of the world, he was zoned out, zero awareness of the room around him. Jericho knew differently. He wasn’t a subtle guy, but he was one that Jericho would be comfortable having at his back.

A third man—Caleb Denver, Sebastian’s paralegal, and from all accounts, a close friend—sat on the couch, one ankle hooked over his knee and a laptop balancing precariously on his angled lap.

Sebastian’s suit jacket hung on the back of his chair, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to his elbows. The tie was gone too, but his vest was firmly in place and left nothing to the imagination. Coupled with those glasses, he was a vision that Jericho wanted to climb all over.

Except the hunched-in shoulders and the fingers pressed to his temple as he looked at whatever was on his laptop said he wouldn’t be amenable to anything that involved removing clothes. “No, because that’s not where—”

The tension disappeared the second he looked up and saw Jericho standing in the doorway.

Spencer smiled wryly and dropped his hand, retaking his position beside the door. “You should have called.”

Jericho’s left eyebrow raised, lips tipping up ever so slightly. “Should I have?” He wasn’t in the habit of making anyone’s job easier.

“What are you doing here?” Sebastian asked. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone is fine. I’m temporarily relieving Spence and Ken of duty.”

Spencer and Kendrick shared a glance. “What for?” Spencer asked for them both.

Jericho pulled a small SD card from his pocket. “Surveillance,” he said, tossing it back to Spencer. “Look it over and make a list of any places on it that we want to check out.”

“You got it.” Spencer gestured at Kendrick and then it was just Jericho, Caleb, and Sebastian.

Jericho had only met Caleb once; he’d been pretty scarce the few days that Jericho had been dogging Sebastian’s everystep. He liked that about Sebastian: no micromanaging. He surrounded himself with the best and trusted that they would get their jobs done without needing to watch them every second of the day.

Caleb closed his laptop and slid it onto the coffee table. “When I first heard ‘bodyguard,’ I thought, Sebastian, what shit have you gotten yourself into?’” He unhooked his ankle and stood. He was pushing five eight, if that, but still somehow managed to make himself look intimidating. “But now, I’m really beginning to wonder just how much he’s not telling me. People around the office are asking questions. What are you going to tell them?”

Sebastian closed his eyes, fingers pressed to his forehead. Battling a headache.

“I’m not going to tell them anything,” Jericho said. As if Sebastian was the first defence lawyer to need a bodyguard or three. It wasn’t unusual, and some people needed better hobbies. “What areyougoing to tell them?”

“If one hair on his head is—”

“Yes, I got this lecture already.” And he was getting sick of people threatening him. Next person to do it was going out the window. He would give both Monica and Caleb a pass because they cared. However, his hospitality had officially come to an end. “Get out.”

“Excuse me?”

---