Page 4 of Gluttony
The only reason he was in the movie industry was to make use of his martial arts skills, do his own stunts, and because no one in their right mind would think a film star was Gluttony, the city’s hooded vigilante. He didn’t bring dates home. He didn’t date, period. He had flings and affairs out and about. Never at his place. He certainly wouldn’t allow someone to shadow him.
“Like I said, I don’t need a bodyguard, Donatello.” Tony folded his arms.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now? You’ve got dead dolls hanging from your trailer ceiling. After your selfish behavior almost shut down production permanently and lost us millions of dollars, we’ve finally finished shooting. I’ll not let anything get in the way of this film coming out. I want no more bad press. We keep this quiet. We shut it down. We stick a guard on you until opening weekend, capeesh?”
Donatello turned to Peta and opened his mouth to speak, but Tony cut him off.
“My family has a security company on retainer. At least let me hire one of them.”
“No. The studio will handle it.”
Fuck. “Don, I’ve cost the studio enough money. Let me do this.”
Donatello chewed his cheek and stared at Tony. He checked his Rolex, then huffed. “Fine. Make the call.”
Two
Bailey Haze was a simple woman,or so she thought. She dressed in the same black pantsuit and tailored white shirt every day for work. She ate the same breakfast of blueberry oats. She drank Green Tea every morning at six over a crossword. And she did what was asked of her in her job, no matter what, because the alternative was going back to the CIA at Langley, to mind-numbing loneliness.
She wanted friends. She wanted a say in how she lived her life. She wanted this. Unfortunately,thiscame with a jumbo side-serving of compromise.
Looking around the sprawling back lawn of a diplomat’s house, she wasn’t sure she could call it living her life. The daily grind, perhaps. Witness of excess, even more. Babysitter to the disgustingly rich and entitled.
It was four p.m. and the children’s birthday party was almost over. Her partner from Nightingale Securities, Damien Holden was manning the opposite end of the lawn, watching the only other exit to the festivities. He got the good side, the side backing onto the rear private parking lot. Bailey got the exit leading up to the mansion, meaning she got to witness excess in its purest form.
This was the one percent. Their trees were green and their sky was blue, but they lived in a different world.
From her vantage point at the middle of the marble steps, Bailey had one eye on the apex of the stairs, and one eye at the base where children shrieked, chasing a dog with a balloon tied to its tail. Little shoes slapped loudly on the pavement. The dog barked several times and managed to escape under a bush, leaving the tear-stained clown an opening to start his balloon show. Between lulls in the party noise, the soft lull of adult conversation and music came from inside the house. Unfortunately, at the top of the majestic steps stood a tall graying man slurping from a grubby glass of bourbon. To the right, on a balcony overlooking the party, was a group of women sipping wine and champagne without even the occasional glance at their darling children interacting with a clown from a horror movie.
The bourbon-drinker’s attention was on Bailey. His lazy eyes drifted to her every so often, then back to the glass he twirled in his fingers, clearly contemplating something she’d hear about soon.
He obviously didn’t think she noticed him through her Aviator sunglasses, but that was the beauty of mirrored lenses. Those without a sense of self-preservation would only think she watched the direction her head was pointed. She gave him a veiled look of disgust. The top buttons on his collar were popped, giving everyone a flash of hair on his chest. The tie was loosened, and the jacket and pants were crinkled. His gold watch and cufflinks looked tarnished, and he had a chain around his neck. He wore expensive clothes badly.
Tony Lazarus on the other hand. Now there was a man who pulled off luxury without making it look extravagant. There was something about the way Tony presented himself. It was both casual and elegant at the same time. To be honest, he could throw on any old t-shirt and make it look good. With those muscles—
Good Lord.She mentally smacked herself in the head.Stop thinking about Tony Lazarus.He wasnotthe kind of person she needed to lust after.
Irritated, she tapped her microphone on her wrist sleeve and brought it to her mouth.
“Damien. We almost done here?” she asked abruptly.
From across the lawn, she saw the broad-shouldered man lift his wrist to his lips in response. “Yeah, mate. I reckon we give ‘em until the clown goes home, and then we’re done.”
Damien was one of the two Australians Max had brought with him from their home country to start the security firm in Cardinal City. Damien was tall, thickly muscled, bearded and an ex-soldier for the SAS regiment in the Australian army. Like his friends, he was a lethal addition to the team. Bailey liked the Australian men. They didn’t mince words. They said what they meant. They treated her like a friend, an equal, and they didn’t push her personal boundaries.
“Party seems to have run over time,” she noted.
“Contract’s a contract,” Damien replied.
As if he overhead the conversation, the man with the bourbon stumbled down the steps to where Bailey stood vigilant, hands clasped behind her back, jaw clenched.
“Party’s run over,” he slurred. “You need to stay a few more.”
Bailey winced at the sour fumes coming from his breath. “Sir, that would change the terms of our contract and would need to be renegotiated by the boss.”
“Only you need to stay. Not your friend. I have need of you all by yourself.”
What are you doing up here all by yourself?The slurred voice from her memory made her shiver with disgust. She tried to blink it away, but it crowded her mind. She had to remind herself that nothing had happened. She’d escaped the drunken man at her parent’s party by locking herself in her room. This wasn’t then.
