Page 8 of Guarded

Shawny sets a bottle of Modelo in front of me. I take a swig before I start a tortuous game of pretending I don’t care about what’s going on with Ariella. I entertain Shawny’s questions and flirting, but I have no idea what she’s saying—something about a leather kink.

“Not my thing,” I say, and then I’m back on my phone. Stuck in a loop of pushing my phone away and picking it up seconds later. Checking to see if Ariella has posted something.

Unsatisfied with my lack of attention, Shawny walks around the counter and sits on my lap.

“You want another drink, or are you hungry?” she says, pushing her chest into my face.

It does nothing for me, which is frustrating as fuck because I think getting my dick wet could help whatever was going on in my head. The door swings open, and Jasper and Leatherface walk in.

“Ya get me another,” I say, pushing Shawny off my lap and shutting off my phone.

Jasper takes the seat to my left and Leatherface to my right. I didn’t realize the club had filled up. Most of the patrons in the bar are people from town coming by to get discounted happy hour drinks.

Two other girls have joined Shawny, and I look around for Ofelia—Hueso’s wife, who manages the bar. Instead, I see a brunette approaching the counter. She bats her lashes at Leatherface, who is actively ignoring her like he does every woman. All but one woman, that is.

“You find anything out?” He says to me, opening the beer bottle on the counter.

“Not yet,” I say truthfully. In the weeks I shadowed Ariella, I hadn’t seen Genesis.

“Ariella hasn’t told you anything?” he says suspiciously.

“We don’t talk.”

“Then start.” He says, a threat undertoning his voice.

“Why is it so fucking important to you?” I ask.

“Why is anything?”

This was what it was like talking to Cassiel Ontiveros, the infamous Leatherface. He said little. He did a lot for the club, but he said little. His obsession with Ariella’s best friend was well in place from the day I met him. I had been caught up in his games more times than I care to admit, but this last time, he went too far.

When Cassiel ordered Jasper and I to gather information on the Consuelo family, I was fine with bugging the place, even snooping around their living quarters, but then he fucked up.

He saw an opportunity to intervene when Silas’s daughter, Lucia, was kidnapped. All he saw was an opening to get to Genesis. Roping me into his flawed plan, I had to kidnap an innocent Ariella.

In Cassiel’s sick head, he thinks that because he saved Silas’s daughter, his biological niece, it counteracted him kidnapping Genesis and Ariella in the process.

But I heard the way Ariella cried in the car. I can still hear her begging me to take the hood off her. Still, hear her pleas to uncuff her. I had to watch her hide away from the world when it was all said and done.

She stopped leaving the hotel after that. The guilt consumed me. Guarding her was my sad attempt to rid myself of the guilt, but here it was, torturing me all over again.

“Look around you at every single one of these people. They all want something. Even you. We all are here because we want something. He may want protection,” he says, pointing to guests at random with his index finger.

“He just wants to drown in his sorrows. All I have ever wanted was Genesis. So, ask Ariella.” he growls.

“She doesn’t want to be friends with her bodyguard,” I say rhetorically. It was true. I was an annoyance to her.

“You need to be her friend, Nero. Get her to tell you.” He stands up to leave. “If you can’t get her to talk, I will.”

Anger courses through me at the threat.

“I’ll get the information.” I grit out.

I’d have to because I already felt sick to my stomach, wondering if the kidnapping was what was affecting her today. I knew how that bitch trauma worked. One minute, you’re fine, and the next, it’s sneaking up on you with a grenade.

I stay at the club and drink another beer before heading back to the hotel. When I return to the penthouse, I find Ari passed out on the couch. Gordon Ramsey is screaming at someone on the TV, and there’s an empty package of iced oatmeal cookies next to her bottle of Dr. Pepper. I reach for the blanket behind her, and Guapo growls at me.

“Hey homie, I’m just covering her up,” I say, and he sits back beside her.

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