Page 25 of Guarding Bristol

“Yeah.See you.”

He headed for the truck, didn’t look back.He’d fulfilled his end of the bargain by coming here for the interview.He’d even taken the job.Now he needed to keep his distance from her.

For both their sakes.

Chapter Nine

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“He’s ready.This way.”

Angel had been waiting almost forty minutes.He got up and followed Jon out of the reception room and down the marble-tiled hallway.He wasn’t sure whether Jon was even the guy’s real name, but he was the boss’s second-in-command, and Angel knew not to ask questions.

“Stand there.”Jon indicated a spot near the wide bank of windows overlooking the vineyard.Until he’d moved here, he’d never realized so much wine was made in Oregon.

He stood where he was told and held his arms out to the side while Jon swept him with a metal-detecting wand and patted him down.He pulled Angel’s wallet out of his back pocket to check it.A picture fell out.

Angel instinctively bent to snatch it from the floor, but Jon was faster.

Jon held the photo up to examine it.Angel barely curbed the urge to grab it from him.

Jon looked from the image to Angel and back, then handed it over with the wallet.“How’s she doing?”

“Fine.”He slid the photo back into the wallet, pushing down the rush of anger.His wife was off-limits.Period.He didn’t want any part of this shit touching her.If necessary, he would die to make sure it didn’t.

“That’s good.All right, you can go in.”Jon walked to the door, rapped on it twice.

A few seconds later the locking mechanism whirred, and the lock clicked open.Jon twisted the knob, opened the door, and stepped aside to admit him.

Inside, the boss stood at the floor-to-ceiling window with his back to Angel, backlit by the setting sun flooding the rows of grapevines stretching as far as the eye could see down the hillside leading away from the main house.Jordan had probably made him wait due to some power trip.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”The sir was mere politeness, nothing more.Angel might despise Jordan and everything he stood for, but he wasn’t stupid enough to disrespect him.Much as he disliked it, Angel needed him.His boss was a necessary means to an end, nothing more.

And if Angel wanted to get out of this thing alive at the end, then he needed to be very, very careful.

Jordan turned to face him, the daylight streaming around him like a halo.“The falcons are watching several suspects who might be responsible for the leak.Unfortunately, there’s no concrete evidence on any of them.Yet.”

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