Page 67 of Saving Serena

As if to point out my ridiculous feelings, an hour later my phone buzzed with a text.

URSULA: Are you around?

CHAPTER 19

Serena

By the timewe made it home, playful Duke had somehow turned into Grumpy Cobra. New cameras had been placed under the eaves, and the front door looked different.

“What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the new rectangular glass panel nearby.

“Palm scanner,” Constance answered. She put her hand against it, and the door clicked to unlock.

I followed her inside.

“Terry’s been busy,” she commented, touching the new keypad with a dozen buttons and lights. “Big upgrade.”

Duke only grunted.

I went up to my room to change without another word to Mr. Grumpypants.

When I came back downstairs, my kitchen was full of security professionals having a heated conversation.

“I tell you, she won’t go for it.” That was Mr. Grumpypants himself.

Their discussion stopped when I walked in.

Lucas Hawk’s presence dominated the room. He turned over a piece of paper.

The man scared the crap out of me, but it was time to be bold. I walked straight up to him. “I won’t like what?”

He didn’t blink. “We think we should move you to a more secure location.”

I shook my head. “Cobra was right. The answer was no yesterday, and it’s still no today.”

Terry tried to hand Duke a bill without me seeing.

I speared Duke with a look. “You bet on my answer?”

Duke pointed next to him. “He bet. He lost.”

I crossed my arms. “You guys are unbelievable. I said from the beginning that I would not be chased out of my house, and now you want me to leave the same day you upgraded my security system to Fort Knox?”

Duke raised his hands in surrender. “Not me.”

Loudly, I let Lucas have it. “I hired you to protect me, not lock me away.”

Lucas tried calming hand gestures. “Just a minute, Serena.”

I looked him in the eye. “I’m listening. You tell me why you can’t handle the job.”

“We got a clear enough view of the guy’s face from one of the traffic cameras to run facial recognition.”

I nodded. This was standard TV and movie fare. “So who is he?”

“We’re only at ninety-one percent certainty,” Lucas explained. “But we think it’s Tony Spinelli. He’s a freelancer, a former Special Forces gun for hire to the highest bidder, and a very bad actor. If it were some local schmuck, I wouldn’t be recommending this, but this guy is a pro.”

“He was a tier-one operator,” Duke added. “A guy who’s worked with him called him top-notch but unpredictable, which is why he got booted.”

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