THE BODYGUARD

Chapter Two: What He Is

Rafe

Thomas Cross owed me four million dollars.

He had been owing me for three years, which was two years and eleven months longer than I typically allowed. The reason I had allowed it was not sentiment. I did not operate on sentiment. The reason was that Thomas Cross was useful in other ways, connected to people and information that had value, and I had been willing to wait while that value held.

It no longer held.

Three months ago Thomas had come to me with a proposal. His daughter, he said, was his most valuable asset. Not in the way fathers usually meant that. In the specific, calculated way of a man offering collateral.

I had looked at him across my desk and understood that he was more desperate than I had known and more willing to sacrifice things than I had given him credit for.

I had taken the proposal under consideration.

What I had not taken into consideration was her.

Sienna Cross was twenty-two years old and looked at me like she was already taking me apart to see how I worked, which was not something most people did and which none of them did on first meeting. She was sharper than her father had implied, which meant either he did not know his daughter as well as he thought or he had deliberately understated her because he knew I would find it inconvenient.

Both options were worth thinking about.

I did the sweep of the house with efficient thoroughness, cataloguing exits and sightlines and vulnerabilities. The house was large and well-appointed and full of the specific kind of expensive taste that came from money that had been around long enough to stop announcing itself.

Or money that was trying to look that way.

I already knew which one applied here.

When I came back through the living room she was there, sitting with a book open in her lap, and she looked up when I entered with those dark eyes that had not decided what to make of me yet.

"Satisfied?" she said.

"With the sweep. Yes."

"But not in general."

I looked at her. "I don't know you well enough to have an opinion in general."

"You've been here two hours and I have the distinct feeling you've formed several."

She was not wrong. I did not confirm it.

"Is there anything you need before tonight?" I asked. "Routine, schedule, places you go regularly."

"You want my schedule."

"Standard procedure."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it keeps being true."

She studied me for a moment with those perceptive eyes. Then she told me her schedule with the crisp efficiency of someone who had decided to cooperate for now while reserving the right to reconsider.

I listened and noted and said thank you and left.

In the east wing I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the wall and thought about Thomas Cross and four million dollars and a twenty-two year old woman who looked at strangers like she was already two steps ahead of them.

This was going to be more complicated than I had planned.

I did not like complications. I was also, I understood sitting in that room, not going to be able to treat her like a variable.

That was a problem.

I would deal with it.