A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(19)

Every second she calculates, every comment she makes, gives the story credence. Nice touch using his title.

My own guys appear, five of them, Gentian among them.

“Sir?” he asks, eyes cold, assessing the situation, knowing damn well what I just did.

“We need medical attention for Representative Maisri.” I look at him. “I’m sorry for the accident. I was trying to hit the target.”

Trying my damnedest.

Blaine gives me a rueful look as one of the members of his security detail hands him a handkerchief for the blood. Two medics appear, carrying a large first aid kit. “My team will investigate this.”

“Of course,” I say, nodding. Lindsay’s behind me, gushing out lie after lie to a group of security guys who listen intently. She’s got them wrapped around her little finger, spinning a story about events that never, ever happened.

Three of Blaine’s security team are already out the door, chasing an assailant who doesn’t exist.

“Oh, oh!” Lindsay says, grabbing Gentian’s arm. He braces her. “I’m – it’s so warm in here. I’m feeling faint,” she says, her voice tinny and thin. She used to faint sometimes...before.

Four years ago. When I knew who she was.

I have never met this version of Lindsay before.

She’s exciting as f*ck and frighteningly calculating.

Gentian brings her to a seat. All the attention’s on her now, as handlers bring water bottles, one of the paramedics checking her pulse. Our eyes meet and she says in a weak voice, “Just get the man Drew tried to take care of!” with an impassioned plea worthy of an Oscar. “We just want to see Representative Maisri get the justice he deserves.” She lowers her head between her knees and sniffs.

“We’re taking care of that threat, sir,” I say nice and loud, so everyone can hear me.

Blaine just looks at me with eyes as hard as the barrel of my gun.





Chapter 7





Hitting someone always involves paperwork.

Gentian takes Lindsay back to The Grove with extra security and instructions that only he, or Paulson, is her core person. I have to stay at the event to wrap up the police report on the “attack” and to manage all the final issues that arise from running a company and being in charge of protection for Monica and Lindsay.

By midnight, I’m at my apartment’s security kiosk, the RFID chip on my car triggering the safety gate for the parking lot. Five minutes later, I’m nursing a swollen hand, a beer, and a renewed taste for blood.

I can’t stop reviewing those few minutes, over and over. Blaine always struck me as the weakest of the three, the follower, the guy who went along to be part of the crowd. It’s sickening, really.

Once I became an officer in charge of men like him, I realized they make great soldiers, but terrible strategists. Tell them what to do, stoke them up and make them think they’re part of something great, that their identity as part of the group is more important than any moral code outside the group, and you’re golden.

They’re yours to do whatever you command.

And while that’s great when your mission is good, when people like Blaine are controlled by someone whose sights are set on evil, these followers are the worst form of humanity. They’re the foot soldiers in concentration camps, the ones “just following orders.” They’re the people who support the bullies at the bus stop when kids get beaten. They’re the crowd of teasers on social media who encourage a kid to kill himself.

They are the tools of evil.

And without them, evil can’t thrive.

But they outnumber the good two to one.

Blaine is a follower. A foot soldier. A smart but pliable guy who puts external approval above doing the right thing.

That makes him dangerous.

But not as dangerous as whoever pulls his puppet strings.

All this philosophizing is a convenient excuse to avoid thinking about my feelings for Lindsay. Sympathy for what she’s going through. Passion for the minutes she was in my lap. Terror for the moments when those balloons and flowers came into the picture.

Arousal for the memory of her taste in my mouth.

Anger for the fact that she still doesn’t trust me.

By my second beer, I’m loose enough to go take a shower, wash off the shit of the day, maybe start to clear my head. My apartment is basic, furnished mostly from leftover furniture from my parents’ home. We sold it, my sister and I, after they died. Well, she sold it. I couldn’t be here, too busy on combat missions, too crazed to come back home for more than the funeral.

The leather recliner dad loved is my favorite. I rented an apartment on the ocean, with a deck, and I plunk down into the chair, looking over the water through my open patio door. If I sit on the deck, the next-door neighbor will invite me over to share a pitcher of margaritas, and I don’t want that.

You need to spend a lot of time alone when you do what I do for a living.

The alone time recharges my batteries. More than that, it helps make me fit for human company again.

You can’t kill people in an effort to protect and not have it change your soul.

Sometimes, the soul needs beer and pizza to even think about recovering.

After a minute of ocean-staring time, I realize it’s not working. Solace isn’t helping. All I can think about is Lindsay. Being intimate with her. Talking and bantering with her. Protecting her.