Rock Chick Regret (Rock Chick #7)(5)

The way he said it told me that the things he thought I was were just slightly better than being a c**k tease.

I turned around and walked away.

Six months later, I sat behind my father’s defense table and watched Hector, cleaned up and wearing a suit (and looking good by the way), as he testified against my father.

I didn’t just watch Hector testify, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Hector didn’t even look at me.

He had no idea I was not there as the doting daughter providing moral support to her wayward father which I pretended I was.

No, I was there to make certain sure my father went down.

I wanted to be certain sure so I could finally, finally, finally be free.

I didn’t take my life in my hands feeding Hector information on my father for nothing.

I had no idea I wouldn’t be free. I had no idea that the shark-infested waters into which I’d been born, paddled in happily and unwittingly as a child and treaded water in warily as an adult, were far more dangerous without my father running interference.

I had no idea.

“Lee’ll see you now,” Shirleen said and my head snapped up.

I was so stuck in my memory of Hector, I hadn’t even noticed that the room had cleared; the only ones left were me and Shirleen. The phone had even rung; she was placing it back in the cradle and avoiding my eyes.

I stood and hesitated, waiting for her to come around the desk to show me to Nightingale. I had a fleeting thought that I might say something nice to her. Tell her she had pretty eyes, or… something. Make her see I wasn’t the Ice Princess, make her see me.

She started packing up, dumping fingernail polish, her cell phone and other flotsam and jetsam into her big (really cool, I thought, but would never have the courage to say) Louis Vuitton bag. Therefore she wasn’t going to escort me to “Lee”.

Without looking at me, she said, “Through the door, I’ll buzz you in. His office is first on the right. Knock before goin’ in.”

There you go. I lost my chance to be nice.

So be it.

I walked across the room to the inner door. She buzzed as I took another deep breath, opened it and walked through.

* * * * *

“What can I do for you Ms. Townsend?” Liam Nightingale asked me.

I was trying not to hyperventilate.

I was supposed to be meeting with Nightingale. Just Liam Nightingale.

I walked into the room and Hector was there, sitting on the side of the desk, one leg up, cowboy-booted foot dangling, one leg straight, cowboy-booted foot on the floor.

One sight of him and I nearly swooned (I’m not kidding). Thank God loads of practice stopped me from doing that.

I walked into the office and tried to think of some lesson my father taught me about people’s motivations. My only conclusion was that Nightingale was telling me where his loyalties lie. If I had some wild plan of vengeance against Hector to put into motion, Nightingale was having no part in it. There were going to be no secrets and nothing behind closed doors. Hector was going to be involved and would hear what I had to say and I had no choice in the matter.

It took a good deal out of me but I just looked at Hector and slightly lifted my chin. At this, his eyes grew dark and if he could have curled his lip in disgust, I knew he would.

I had loads of practice at ignoring that kind of response too.

I shook Nightingale’s hand, he told me to call him Lee, I told him to call me Sadie then I sat in front of his desk and he sat behind it.

Then he’d asked what he could do for me, “Ms. Townsend”, even though I told him to call me Sadie.

My father would read a lot into that and I did too.

Lee was telling me this was a formal arrangement. Very formal.

I hated being called “Ms. Townsend” mainly because my father’s real name was “Tuttle’. It wasn’t a great name but it was real and didn’t sound like some stupid, made up name of a romance hero. But also because I never felt like “Ms. Townsend”. People had been calling me that since I was six (mostly servants, lackeys and henchmen).

I felt like I was Sadie. I had no idea who Sadie was but Sadie sounded, to me, like someone you’d want to know.

Ms. Townsend sounded like someone you wanted to avoid.

“I’d like to hire your agency,” I told Lee, trying to blank out the fact that Hector was still sitting silent on the side of Lee’s desk. He was looking at me, I saw him out of my peripheral vision but I also felt his eyes on me. This might sound stupid but it was true.

“Why do you need the services of a detective agency?” Lee asked.

“I don’t need the services of a detective agency. I need security. I need a bodyguard,” I answered.

The air in the room changed. From the minute I walked in it had been even less welcoming than in the reception area, mainly because Hector was there. Now it went weirdly… electric.

“Why do you need a bodyguard?” Lee asked.

“I’m not safe,” I responded.

“Why aren’t you safe?” Lee persevered.

Oh damn.

If it had just been Lee, I still would have had trouble explaining this. There was no way I could explain it with Hector there too. How did I say it without sounding like I thought I was the end all be all of beauty, grace and all things feminine?

I couldn’t exactly say, “Well, Lee, you know… when a crime lord goes down, unfortunately the crime doesn’t go away. Instead, there’s a war to see who will be the new king. For now, Ricky Balducci won that war. And Ricky Balducci is a lunatic. And now his three brothers and him are intent on acting out their version of a Shakespearean play by doing what they can to tear each other down in order to obtain the throne. Somehow, being the dead king’s princess, I’m caught up in this mess because Ricky isn’t the only Balducci brother who’s a lunatic. They’re all lunatics. And they’ve got it in their head that the one true king has me at his side and they’ll stop at nothing, nothing, to get me by their side. I have no family, I have no friends, I have no one but me to protect me against four insane brothers and I’m absolutely, utterly, completely terrified.”