Page 16 of Beyond Protection
Ma McCabe was awake.
By sunrise, I'd meet my new client. Not the Mac McCabe from press conferences—the controlled smile, perfect posture, and face that had been on magazine covers and morning shows.
Today, I'd see the person underneath all of it.
The person someone thought they could extract and keep like he was an object to be preserved instead of a man with a life, family, and the absolute right to be left the hell alone.
The person I'd promised Michael I'd keep safe.
Upstairs, a door opened.
Footsteps on the staircase. Not hesitant. Not slow. Someone who'd decided to face the day with whatever armor he could manage.
Mac was coming down.
And I had no idea which version of him I was about to meet—the performance or the person underneath.
I was terrified it might not matter.
Terrified that I'd see both and want to protect them anyway.
Terrified that wanting to protect him and being able to protect him might not be the same thing at all.
Chapter three
Mac
The furnace kicked on at dawn—a metallic groan through the ductwork that pulled me from something that wasn't sleep but wasn't wakefulness either. Just the gray space where hypervigilance lived.
My hand moved before I was fully conscious. Reached for my phone on the nightstand Ma had probably inherited from her mother, its surface worn smooth by decades of late-night reaches for comfort.
6:47 AM. No new messages.
Was the quiet purposeful? I'd received a string of messages yesterday, each one tightening the noose around my throat. Now, the silence screamed louder than words.
The phone buzzed.
Every nerve fired at once—the way they do when a fastball comes at your head and you have milliseconds to decide: duck or take it in the teeth.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
Limited-time offer on your AT&T plan—
I hurled the phone across the room.
It clattered against the wall where Ma had hung a cross-stitch sampler that read "Home is Where Love Lives." Didn't break. Nothing in this house ever broke—too much love holding it together.
It was a spam text. A fucking spam text from a phone company that didn't know my life was now a countdown timer.
I retrieved the phone. I'd cracked the screen—a spider web spreading from one corner, like me.
I pulled on jeans and yesterday's shirt—my blue Columbia hoodie. It had been my father's hoodie. I'd stolen it from his closet three days after the funeral and never given it back. Wearing it was either defiance or stupidity. Maybe both.
Coffee. My brain told me I needed something that could burn away the taste of fear.
I descended the staircase, walking just heavy enough for anyone awake to hear.
