Page 81 of Tangled Like Us
I left the briefing with Banks, both of us glaring, and I muttered to him what I held back from saying earlier, “Respectfully, sir, shut the fuck up.”
Banks bounced his head, up and down. “Amen.”
Back in the garage, Banks uses the torque wrench to scratch an itch on his neck. “Old guards are still clearly paranoid since Farrow slept with Maximoff and kept his job. They already promised the parents that it wouldn’t happen again.”
The team wants to maintain trust and respect with the parents.
I stare hard at my brother. “I was one of the men who promised the parents.”Back when I was a lead.I had to douse the fire that Farrow lit.
Banks motions his hand to my chest. “And I told you that was a bad call.”
I narrow my gaze. “You don’t even like making one fucking call, and you wanna tell me that one was bad?”
Banks prefers not being in charge, but briefly, he’d been a lead right after I stepped down. And when he relinquished the role, he was so fucking happy he kissed the pavement in Studio 9’s parking lot.
“Just because I don’t like making them doesn’t mean I can’t see a bad one from a good one.” Banks points toward the door to Jane’s townhouse. “You set course for trouble the second you joined her detail.” He tosses and catches the wrench. “Probably even before that.”
I give him a hard look. “Don’t go there.”
I never thought of her as more than the oldest Cobalt daughter: a quick-witted girl with a big heart. Who was constantly berated by fuckbags in public. Who should be kept safe and shielded from that hatred.
Being her bodyguard strengthened a feeling of duty that existed, I’ll give my brother that, but I wasn’t thinking about breaking Jane’s knees apart and sinking my cock into her—because that’d be fucking wrong.
Unprofessional.
I only mentally booked a room for hell around the time we sharedtightspace on a tour bus. And she was admittedly sexually frustrated.
I was sexually fucking frustrated, and we kept looking at each other. I wouldn’t cross that line to help her.
I couldn’t.I couldn’t.
I still can’t.
Banks pats the torque wrench in his palm, thinking, and then he nods his chin to me. “Remember that time when you wanted to putthreefull-time bodyguards on her after the chokehold incident?”
My muscles tense.
Yeah.
I wasn’t her bodyguard. But I was in charge of the team back then.
Banks leans against the Beetle’s tire. “You care beyond your duty.”
He always says that when he brings up Jane.
You care beyond your duty.
One other phrase rings shrilly in the pit of my ear:the chokehold incident.Lines crease my forehead, eyes searing.
Some entitled piece of shit thought Jane was into BDSM, and he tried to choke her when they were hooking up at the townhouse. Her bodyguard had to break down the door and pry the guy off Jane. He followed protocol, but knowing that happened to her…
I hate men who take advantage of these girls. Who try to screw with Jane. And I fucking hate when she’s hurt.
I needed to protect her. It always feels bigger than a job, but that was my job too.
“I was a lead,” I tell my brother.
“So was Akara.” Banks lifts one shoulder. “But he didn’t vote to put three full-time bodyguards on her detail.” Neither did Price, the Alpha lead.
