Page 1 of Dravin
Prologue
Dravin
The only thing royal about Prince Ashton Taggert Jr. is the pain he causes in my ass. Moments like this make me wonder why the fuck I have a cover job.
Ten to one the yelling turns into screaming, and it devolves into borderline hysteria from there. Ugly crying. Ranting. Shit flinging.
In the corner of the massive boardroom, I screw my thumbs into my eyes. No one notices. Like the coffee bar, the artwork on the wall, and most of the token office furniture, I’m just a fixture. I’m made to blend in. I don’t need to be seen until there’s an issue.
I make thousands of dollars a day to watch my client’s shithead son pretend to run this company, and for all the ass licking corporate tools here to pretend that they enjoy it.
He’s gone off the rails again, ranting about meaningless shit. The company lost a bunch of money last quarter and he’s pretending that he knows the first thing about it or that he gives a fuck. A vein throbs dangerously near the surface in his forehead. If I wasn’t up his ass twenty-four seven, I’d almost be worried that he’d taken back up with his little white powder habit. Another reason that I was hired.
I’m far less security and far more glorified babysitter.
Ashton Taggert Sr. was adamant that he wanted two things—his son alive and scandal free.
The first few weeks of my job included ensuring that the prince of idiocy got off the drugs, stopped taking his clothes off where he could be photographed, and was discreet with his terrible choice of women, including the high end escorts.
His father thought it was an impossible job, so he hired the best.
Within two weeks, I had Prince cleaned right the fuck up.
Checking off more than a few boxes on the Psychotic Assholes checklistandlooking like a scary motherfucker works wonders when it comes to intimidating even rich little brats into listening to you. Prince rails at me daily about firing me, but he’s not my employer. He has no say in the matter. Since he’s twenty-seven but has the mentality and the attitude of a petulant toddler, he’s pretty much guaranteed my bodyguard-slash-babysitter role for the foreseeable future.
Lucky. Fucking. Me.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I subtly slip it out, checking the number.
Marcus.
I’m out of the boardroom before anyone notices I’m gone. Spoiler alert—they won’t. In a world of rich assholes, I matter less than the chairs they’re parking their manicured asses on. For a few, I suppose I mean that literally.
I keep my back to the glass, but still side-eye Prince. He’s escalating. In a few seconds, spittle is going to start spurting all over the place.
“Dravin.”
“I have a problem, Dray. I need to meet.”
I’m the kind of man who has been accused of not having things like mercy or feelings. It’s not true, but when you look like I do, it’s easy to see why people would make assumptions. They serve me well, so for the most part, I don’t complain.
The only people who truly know me are the men who I shared a past with, and most of them, I don’t keep in contact with. Marcus never stopped being a brother to me, even when he chose a different path. We all do what we have to in order to survive.
Marcus’ tone sparks something to life in the bottom of my gut that glows like a bitter ember. “Can’t do that. I’m across the country, working a job.”
“A job orajob.”
“Bodyguard shit.”
A ragged inhale crackles over the phone. “I fucked up. Every way you can, I did. We got in with guys we had no business fucking with.Bratva.”
I grasp the phone tight and curse under my breath. I could easily be accused of not having many emotions these days, and while that’s incorrect, nothing runs as deep as the pull of brotherhood. I owe so much more than friendship to this man. I owe him mylife.
“Jesus Christ, Marcus,” I curse under my breath. “What the fuck? How did you get involved with the Russian mafia?”
“I know.” The words are dull, dropping to the ground like spent shell casings, the weight of a horrible finality wrapped around them. “I don’t have time to go through this with you. I just… I need you to promise me one thing.”
Marcus saved my life overseas. Not once, twice, or three times. He pulled me from literal death onsevenseparate occasions. People like us really can’t say that we have friends in the civilian world. I don’t know that you can go into that kind of training as a regular person and come out of it as anything less than half a trained machine. The fear gets boiled out of you after a while. You see things that you’ll never forget. You see the world differently, through the sharp lens of combat, and it’s hard just to stop doing it when you finally leave it behind.
