Page 2 of Shield and Savior

Oh, yeah, and he’s not loyal. Or should I say, he’s not loyal to Alana. I’m about to open my mouth, but he shoulder checks me as he rushes off. It hurts, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of rubbing it.

The prior meeting did not go as planned. Alana’s office is a blizzard of papers, and a chair is toppled over, resting a good ten feet from where it should be in front of her desk.

Thank God for small miracles, the box of artisan donuts on Alana’s desk remains untouched. I grab a blueberry crumble donut out of the box as I watch the surveillance footage on the big screen on the back wall. “Making friends and influencing people again?”

She shrugs, her arms crossed. “If I had a dollar for every time someone called me a bitch, I’d be able to get this company out of debt in a day.”

Righting the leather chair with my other hand, I pull it back across from her before settling into it. “Well, you wouldn’t get any cash from me.” I bite into the donut as sugar and heaven explode in my mouth.

She raises her perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Porto, three years ago.”

Oh, right. “Well, I apologized and bought you ten Pasteis de Natas…which mathematically is way more than a dollar.” I point over my shoulder. “What’s got Delta all grumpy?”

Alana’s vision drifts from the door behind me to her computer screen. “I’m pulling him from Chupacabra’s detail and reassigning him to the Arena.”

Yikes. To go from working on a high-profile client to a local venue—definitely a lifestyle change. The Arena requires no travel, no red carpets, and no paparazzi. Some guys like that. Apparently, Delta is not one of them.

Alana secured the contract for the Arena as a part of the work/life balance initiative she started when she bought the company from Delta’s best friend about a year ago. It doesn’t matter to me. My life is all work, but when she started bringing fancy donuts to the Monday Meetings, that’s what won her the respect from the rest of the guys.

Donut crumbles fall on my suit. “Damn it.”

“That’s what you get for liking messy things.” Her attention remains on the screen. “I’ve got to shift some people around. Delta wasn’t the only one who got moved. He’s just the only one unhappy about his new assignment. Marco is taking some PTO. I’m pulling you off of Honey Badger’s team and making Darren the lead.”

Darren is the next highest-ranking agent behind me—he’s a good guy, and Honey Badger likes him—but I’m instantly disappointed because she’s my favorite client. I know all her tics, and she buys me dinner at fancy restaurants.

I’m the senior lead in the celebrity division and I’ve seen it all. Honey Badger is a sweet gig. Not all money is good money or worth the headache. Some clients are stuck up attention starved divas, others are downright immature. Then there’s Phoenix. I’ve made my feelings about that client clear. My heart is always in my throat whenever my assignment gets switched.

But Alana never does anything for only one reason: there’s more to this last-minute change.

“Anything else?” I ask, taking another bite of my donut, savoring the rush of sugar and blueberry goo that explodes on my tongue.

Alana stays focused on the security screens until Delta drives away. Once he’s out of frame, her shoulders drop, and she turns to face me. She’s a few years younger than me but light-years smarter, with better training and problem-solving skills that aren’t in my wheelhouse.

She opens the desk drawer and drops a picture on the center of the scattered papers. I blink a few times. “What am I looking at?”

Alana rolls her eyes at me and finally sits in the fancy chair left over from the previous owner. “It’s the new company logo.”

Yes, I can see. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t make any sense?”

“Itdoesn’t make any sense,” I repeat. “Why does the elephant have a hat and an umbrella like it’s from Mary Poppins’s time?”

“First of all, Mary Poppins isn’t a time period. Second, it’s closer toMy Fair Lady.And third, it makes the elephant fancy.” She answers like it’s obvious.

“We’ve changed the company’s name from American Protection Agency to Mastodon Security because the female elephant is the most protective animal in the world. She doesn’t need to be fancy,” I say and push the picture toward Alana. She knows what I’m going to say, but she doesn’t stop me. “I liked the first one.”

“How do you know if it’s right if you have no other frame of reference?” She crosses her arms like she’s won.

“Because you just know.” I point to the folder on her filing cabinet which gets thicker every four days. “Or at least you don’t make the graphic designer create two hundred logos when the first one was perfect.”

Alana’s deep red lips frown as she snatches the paper off the desk. “Out of all the people who hate me, I think the graphic designer is the only one with a legitimate grievance.” The folder gets another addition. “Anyway, I’ve got a new assignment for you.”

Please don’t be Phoenix. Please not him.

“It’s from the Four Families. They requested you specifically.”

Ohhhh, so not in the celebrity division at all.

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