Page 17 of Cruel Debts
“I suppose, as long as one of the Guild members accompanies you here when you work. I’m not trying to have anything hinky happen to you under my roof just so you can earn a buck.”
“I appreciate it, Minnie,” I breathed, pulling at my sweats. “Should I change clothes?”
“Just pack yourself a bag. You can come back whenever to grab more if you need it.”
Packing a bag was easy.
It was coming to terms with yet another huge life change that was harder.
In a matter of hours, I’d be in yet another strange place, with dangerous people I’d never met, holed up for who knew how long. I would have no friends, nobody to talk to yet again, and nothing but my own thoughts to keep me company.
Fucking fantastic. Wonderful.
One more nail in my coffin of stubbornness.
I found myself standing outside Minnie’s office an hour later, waiting for the door to open and introduce me to my new future. I’d slammed a pair of sunglasses over my face to hide my eyes, and though it made everything dark as hell, it felt safe, like a wall between me and uncertainty.
It was the only protection I had anymore.
With a sigh of resignation, I shifted my bag from one shoulder to the other and blinked back tears of frustration.
Let the future begin.
EIGHT
ASHER
“What the fuckdo you mean, we’re going to be bodyguards?”
St. Clair shrugged as she picked at a nail bed, her face dismissive and uninterested. “Minnie’s been invaluable lately to my overall goals, and she asked for a favor. So I gave her one.” Flicking the imaginary dirt from her nails, she turned to Liam and Hawke, looping them in on the whole thing. “Starting tonight, you three will be protecting a girl Minnie says has been through some shit. She just escaped your most recent high-profile target, and we think he might be looking to silence her.”
I was going to throttle Minnie the second I didn’t need her anymore.
“Babysitting isn’t in my list of services for a damn reason, St. Clair.”
Hawke just grumbled under his breath, arms folded in front of him. “What he said.”
Only Liam seemed interested in the details. “She’s on the run from Frye? Nobody’s ever escaped from his place before.” A look of thoughtfulness passed across his brow for a second, worrying me. If Liam was intrigued, there was no getting out of this, even if I refused.
“Who are we protecting? One of her dungeon girls?”
Ah, sothat’swhere his mind was. Sex.
“As much as you’d like that, I don’t think I need to remind you that this is a job, and you should keep it in your pants so you don’t complicate things, Sentry.”
Her eyes skimmed Hawke, who didn’t look like he could be any less interested in the whole thing, and then fell on me.
I knew that look.
Oh, hell no.
“Where would she stay?” I pointed at the three of us in turn, brows hiked up my forehead. “You can’t seriously think it’s a good idea to bring anothernormiein this place and expect her to be safe?—”
“Ivy and Harper seem to be doing just fine,” she pointed out, her expression hardening. “And she’d stay with you three, of course. You even have a spare room she can crash in.”
She wasn’t wrong. Once upon a time, we’d entertained the idea of Keehn joining us here, when he finally came round. But every year with no word from him drove that hope further and further from reality, until we’d just started using the room as storage for our guns and equipment.
We’d have to clear that shit out, obviously.
