Page 123 of Deep Cover

13

Annie

It was nice to be working.

I'd done a few freelance moonlighting jobs in security. Nothing this big. Planning it had been like putting together an undercover operation. Hiring the right people had pissed off the existing people at the same time I saw acceptance in their eyes. They understood why I was doing it. They could even respect it and my handling of it.

They just didn't like me. That was all right. I'd already determined that Cole's people were loyal. It wasn't just the money. It was something about Cole.

I was the least loyal of his people because it was hard to swear loyalty to a man who laddered your legs and ass with cane marks, or made you wet just thinking of that.

But I was loyal to the job. And it was nice, having the guns on me, being hyper aware, moving through scenarios every second, what would I do if this happened?

And it was nice to be on an amazingly beautiful beach with Cole, his body beautiful in swim trunks and my bathing suit laughably tiny, cut to show more of my ass than I'd ever contemplated sharing with the world, and yet the runs and weight training and even the damned yoga combined with the martial arts I was still doing meant I could move with confidence in those scraps of material and spend my time on the beaches gazing at the beauty.

Not admitting one of the most beautiful things there was Cole St. Martin.

I enjoyed knowing I was impressing him, too. He'd seen me at my lowest, vomiting and going through withdrawal, sneaking Advil by the handfuls, sobbing under his cane or his whip or his hand.

It was nice to move into a room ahead of him, one gun on my hip, one gun in my boot, and a job to do.

It was nice that he respected the job. I slept in a room adjacent to his. There was no sex, no propositions, no beatings.

It was nice.

And I'd be happy when it was over, too. When the stress of hoping every instant that there were no tests, either designed by Cole or designed by the stranger holding and selling. Or that none of the people he was meeting with would turn out to be a problem I had to meet with lethal force.

It would be nice when the stress of the assignment faded into the past.

Which wasn't to say I didn't appreciate the present of the beaches. And the fact that there were other things on the menu besides fish.

In the end, over three days Cole met with eight people. Two of them were from rural areas and probably involved in slash burning or whatever it was called. They were the least dangerous of any of the people he met with and I couldn't convince myself of anything else. I watched, just as on alert, but wasn't surprised when nothing came of it.

The other five included at least one man I figured was part of some cartel or another, three nondescript men, one of whom brought a blond who was pretending her IQ was in single digits and who was probably smarter than all of us. She had a look in her eye. She didn't count as one of the people he met with.

Women didn't. Plus she was the only one.

The eighth man was angry before he even walked into the room. Maybe he'd been sitting in the lobby watching how many other people came and went, though he couldn't have known where they were going in the gleaming building and it turned out Cole had only paid for the top three floors.

Number eight was just angry. He came in blustering and when I asked him to please calm himself and take a seat, he rounded on me and started what I assumed was a volley of swearing. I don't speak any Portuguese.

The guard who had seen him to the door had retreated into the outer office, the way he was supposed to. The office Cole and I were in was a secondary office – the offices on this floor were like Russian nesting offices – it took a while to move past the bigger shells to the actual office, though it had two outer walls, both of them largely glass. We could see the ocean.

The desk was set with its back to the door which I'd thought stupid from the start, but when Cole had security and me it was fine. If he'd been intending to keep the office, that would have changed or I would have walked.

I mean, if I had the ability to walk away from the job.

I was on the far side of the desk, where someone visiting the person whose office it was would sit, mostly so I could have my back to the corner between the two outer walls, covering the door that was almost straight across from there. It also put me directly beside and a little behind the two seats where Cole's guests would sit.

Cole was standing slightly behind the desk where he sat. All he had to do was take a step to his right, shake hands, and go back to sit behind the desk, which was roughly an acre of highly polished cherry wood with gleaming brass drawer pulls.

Number Eight entered looking like a puffed-up alley cat, already angry and intent on making himself look bigger. He was already big enough, and he was spitting in his fury, his words tiny showers no one wanted. But where I stood, facing him and prepared and armed, I wasn't in any danger.

Still, before I could move – or rather, before I'd decided that I would move, sweep his legs out from under him and deposit him in the chair, Cole moved. Because the man was facing me, muscles all bunched, arms drawn in close to his chest and his fists bunched, Cole was able to round on him from behind.

He took the simple expediency of taking the guy by a handful of hair I don't think I could have brought myself to touch – it was thick and greasy and hadn't seen soap or comb in longer than I'd been alive – his other hand going to the man's shirt collar. He pushed him forward and banged the guy's head into the edge of the desk.

Hard enough to leave a pretty instant mark.

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