Page 4 of Hawk
“He was too old for you.”
“Maybe if I was actually sixteen!”
“You’re nineteen. Close enough.”
“He was twenty-two.”
“He was a dick.” I shrugged and sauntered toward the stairs that led up to the building’s second floor.
“Twenty-two is not too old for me!” she shouted.
“Too dumb is worse than too old.”
Her glare tracked me until I headed up the stairs. I grinned to myself because she’d get over it. Eventually.
I took them two at a time and swung into Midnight’s office. He sat behind his desk, flipping through one of the matte-black folders we used for client files. His expression was unreadable, his dark eyes scanning details like they were code waiting to be cracked.
“Stop pissing off the front desk,” he said without looking up.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
He finally looked at me and scowled. “Don’t give a fuck if you’re having fun, Hawk. If she quits because she gets sick of dealing with your shit, you’ll be the one sitting at that desk. Unless you're dead.”
Nothing in his expression suggested he was joking. But I decided not to dwell on that.
“Won’t happen,” I assured him. “She loves working for me.”
“She doesn’t work foryou, asshole. She works forme,” Midnight growled as he leaned back in the chair, fire burning in his eyes so briefly I wasn’t sure I’d really seen it.
“Close enough.” I dropped into the chair across from him, my muscles loose but my senses sharpened. “What’s the job?”
He slid the black folder across the desk. “Protection detail.”
My brows pulled together in irritation. “You pulled me off a critical interrogation for glorified babysitting?”
Midnight’s expression held a dark warning, and I pressed my lips together to avoid saying anything else.
As an enforcer for the club, I outranked him, but just barely. Here, though, he was my superior, and I respected the chain of authority. Plus, Midnight didn’t put up with shit from anyone. Only Fox and Maverick—our prez and VP—knew his background. Or anything that wasn’t surface-deep. To the rest of us, he was a mystery. All we knew was that he’d worked in security of some sort. He was cold, calculated, and deadly as fuck.
His tone was even and low. “If I put you on trash duty, then that’s what you’ll do, Hawk.”
I nodded.
“Besides, it’s not babysitting when it involves family. She’s Lainie’s friend.”
That shut me up. Lainie was the younger sister of our treasurer, Phoenix. And the best friend of Savage’s old lady, Tamara.
I’d take a bullet for Lainie. No questions asked. Same way I would for Tamara or any of the other women my brothers had claimed as their own. They were protected. Cherished. Nonnegotiable.
If this friend meant something to Lainie, I’d do it. But I wasn’t happy.
“This is more than bodyguard duty,” Midnight continued. He gestured to the client file. “Gemma Moffitt. Boudoir photographer. Women-only. Keeps her work encrypted and locked down, but someone cracked her system. Stole files.”
I opened the folder and flipped past the summary page.
The first image hit me like a fucking sucker punch.
A small, square ID photo in the top corner. Warm brown eyes. Heart-shaped face. Cute, pert little nose. And full, soft lips made for sin.
