Page 4 of King
“But I’m not scared,” I say, my eyes scouring the street as we pull into the road for a man in a trenchcoat pulling out a gun. “I’ve had too much coffee and not enough sleep. That’s all.”
“Fine.” Steph goes back to flicking through her phone. Reading emails. Scheduling meetings. Doing a million things at once that I could never even begin to deal with if I didn’t have her totally awesome, amazing, and annoying ass on my side. “Be that way,” she says. “But don’t think you can come running to me when shit hits the fan and your freaking out because this stalker is breathing down your neck whispering about how much he wants to penetrate you with his kitchen knife.”
“Huh.” A shiver runs down my spine. I do my best to conceal it by repositioning my butt on the lovely, soft leather seats. “Goes to show how well you really know me,” I say. “I haven’t run in years.”
4
King
“Eyes on the subject.”
“Team two?”
“Still nothing here, boss. Everything clear.”
I raise my binoculars to my eyes and scan the crowd. It’s much bigger than I expected. More than a thousand people. Keeping track of everyone is nearly impossible.
Marilyn hasn’t come out of her office yet. Heck, she hasn’t left it all week. She’s been holed up in there working her pretty, round ass off all day every day.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s made my job easier.
But today’s the big day. She’s finally launching her company and she has to come out and do a press release and talk to the media.
That means she’s going to be vulnerable.
I may have said I quit, but there’s no way I could have gone to the nearest beach, put my feet up, and relaxed.
Besides, it hasn’t been such a bad job. I’ve spent most of my time looking at her through my binoculars. A hard-on in my pants raging to be set free.
At times, it’s felt likeI’mthe stalker.
“Team three?” I ask. “You in position?”
“Ready and waiting,” Riley says. He’s one of my best guys. A six-foot-six mountain of muscle with the brain of a rocket scientist.
“Everything clear?”
“Yup. There’s nothing–”’
His voice cuts off mid-sentence. A minute passes. Then two.
I scour the crowd for any sign of danger, but come up blank. Everyone seems to be normal people having a good time in the warm, balmy weather. Either that, or their reporters on the job, talking into their phones or taking pictures or hastily live-tweeting the event.
“Boss, I think we’ve got something.” Riley’s voice is low and quiet. I’ve heard that tone before when we were in the jungle surrounded by a bunch of guerilla fighters with AKs. “Nine o’clock. Medium height white male in a blue baseball cap.”
I adjust my bicolours and scan the area to my left. At first, I don’t see him. He’s doing a really good job of blending into the crowd.
“I can’t be sure,” Riley says, “it looks like he’s died his hair.”
“It’s him,” I say. “The fucker’s grown a beard and bleached his hair. Oldest trick in the book.”
Immediately I’m out of my truck and pushing through the dense throng of excited people.
Jacob, my point man on team two, says, “target is on the loose. I repeat target on the loose.”
“Shit,” I growl. That means Marilyn has just left the safety of her building and is heading toward the podium.
“What you want me to do, boss?” Riley asks.
