Page 76 of With Wine Comes War

“Of course I do. I promise you everything’s fine. I’m not going to get involved with Burrow Township though, because I don’t want anything to happen to Alex. She’s like the daughter I never had, and I would doanythingto protect her.”

The way he saidanythingput me on edge.

“She really makes you work for that one too, doesn’t she?” He winked at me then started laughing.

I laughed with him only because I was almost scared not to. I don’t know if I feel relieved or terrified at the thought of Grant watching over Alex.

“Thankfully Alex wasn’t in the picture when we dealt with the zoning issue for the Santoro’s, so no one connected her to it.” he informed me, which helped relieve some of my stress.

“Good to hear.”I wish I had a real drink now.“How did you fix the Burrow Township issue?” I didn’t know if he’d tell me, or if I should even be asking.

“Didn’t have to. When the rep’s brother got in trouble for what he did to Alex, he decided to pull out of the deal and focus on getting his brother out of that mess.”

Great, that’s all we need is Grant “taking out” the bad guy. Mr. Santoro said he thought someone needed to deal with these kinds of predators.

“I don’t know if I should tell you this or not, but Tanner’s out. Alex was advised to stay with me until the court case was over. She was really freaked out.”

“Yes, I know. Even though I saw her this morning she didn’t say anything to me. She doesn’t like people to worry about her. I’ve got people keeping an eye on him, don’t worry. Don’t freak out by what I’m going to tell you, but he was in your parking garage recently. He didn’t do anything, but he was there, and we’ll be running interference if he tries anything suspicious.”

What? I got up and stood behind the chair. I needed to get some air.

“Grant, who’s watching him?”

“Don’t worry about it. You need to calm down. You’ll never see them and they’re there to protect you.”

Don’t worry about it?All I fucking do is worry. I felt the sweat beading up on my forehead.

“My weird eerie feeling was right, then? But who was making me feel eerie, Tanner or your goons?”

He laughed.

This isn’t fucking funny to me at all.

“They aren’t goons. I hire ex-military. We don’t do enough for the military vets here in the US.” I felt better about that and absolutely agreed. I calmly took a seat and wiped my face with my hands.

“Well, Grant, this was a lot of scary information you’ve given me. I’m just a normal guy who thought I lived in a nice, safe bubble. I’d like to thank you and Alex for turning my life completely upside down.” I snatched the linen napkin off the table and wiped my hands and held onto it with a vice-like grip.

“My guess is Alex has changed your life for the better. She’s truly a gift and anyone who gets to be in her life is blessed. She’s going to do great things so let’s keep our girl safe.”

I agreed with him there as well, but why in the hell is he so vested in her?

***

ALEX

I called Darius on the way to make sure he was ready for his first day. He sounded so excited. I was taking him to King Construction to fill out his paperwork. We got to the house, and I went to the back door as usual. Darius answered in a grey suit that may have been justa bit to big but he paired it with a white button down shirt and a blue tie. He was also wearing some very clean white Nikes. He greeted me and stepped out of the way for Shay and I to enter. I said hi to Ella and she gave me a big hug and a thank you for giving her grandson an opportunity. I introduced Ella to Shay before leaving for the office.

Back in the car, I said, “Darius, I know you already met Shay at the office, but I wanted to let you know that she will be working closely with me on this project.” I glanced back through the rear-view mirror. He was nodding and taking notes.

“So, you’ve spoken to Amelia, correct?”

He continued nodding. “Yes, she’s nice. She told me to come to the office and she’d have the paperwork for me to fill out.” I smiled.

He had such an eager and excited look on his face, mixed with nervousness.

“Perfect, we’re going to take care of that first. Then we’ll head over and look at this neighborhood and a couple of houses there.”

I pulled into the parking garage right next to Roman’s car setting off straight to his office in the private elevator. I told Darius on the way up that I would introduce him to Roman and Harrison if they were around.

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