Page 1 of Give Me a Reason

PROLOGUE

Olivia

“Dad?” I prompt when he doesn’t say anything. He paces in front of the bank of windows in their living room at home. It’s pitch dark outside, but his ever-assessing gaze is locked on the windows as if he cannot only see but study every tiny bug and creature living in the lawn in front of their house.

It doesn’t take a genius or being his daughter to realize something’s up with him—the legendary Mike of the Superstar Security Agency. I have no idea why he called it that when he started his own outfit years ago, but he and the band seem to think it’s funny.

We’ve been on the road with the iconic rock band Full Moon for months now, and early tomorrow morning, we’re leaving New York City again for a few more months. In all our time on tour so far, I haven’t seen him look this worried.

Tonight was supposed to be my last night off before we hop on a plane to London for the start of the international leg tomorrow, but Dad summoned me here a couple hours ago. It wasn’t a big deal to come over on short notice since I live in a townhouse just down the road from my parents’ place, but I’m curious to know why I’m here. I planned on enjoying spending the night in my own bed, reading and going to sleep early so I won’t be dead on my feet when I have to wake up in just a few hours, but I couldn’t say no when he called.

Dad is my boss now too, not just my father. When the founder and CEO of the SSA calls and you’re one of his handpicked security specialists, you answer. You show up when and where he tells you to regardless of the fact that he’s also your dad and all you really wanted to do was relax.

Usually, Dad has a pretty good sense of humor for such a big, muscled guy who keeps people safe for a living, but there’s no smile on his face tonight. Instead, his expression seems strained, his dark eyebrows are mashed together, and a thoughtful gleam clouds his eyes. The salt in his hair is more pronounced than the pepper since the dimmed lights in the ceiling catch on the silver strands that shoot like bullets through the almost black ones.

A ripple of anxiety passes through me as I notice all the subtle but clear signs of stress he exhibits. He taught me to always be observing. No matter where I am or what situation I’m in, I’m always aware of my surroundings and taking in the nuances of people’s facial features.

Tonight, however, I don’t need to concentrate on the nuances to know something is bothering him. It’s written clear as day all over his face.

“Daddy?” I say again. “Is everything okay?”

When I got here, I expected him to take me straight to his home office, but Karen, my mother, insisted on us having a family dinner together first. She and my brother ate with us, but they’re nowhere to be seen now. They’ve made themselves scarce, which makes me worry about what Dad needs to talk to me about.

He stops pacing, turning toward me and scrubbing a hand over his weathered but still handsome face before he shakes his head.

“You’ve been doing great work for me on this tour.” He starts, sighing before he takes a seat on his reclining armchair, but he doesn’t kick the footrest out. Instead, he’s sitting up straight with his gaze intent on mine. “When you eventually take over the agency, it’s going to be in good hands. I know you’ve been struggling with getting the men to take you seriously, but you’ve been doing well. Anybody who hasn’t noticed it yet hasn’t been looking.”

“Okay,” I say slowly, frowning as I look back at him. “So what’s the problem?”

“Vincent,” he replies, his brows pinching tighter together as he releases a long sigh. “The boy is out of control, and since we’re leaving American soil soon, Camille is terrified he’s going to find his way to a jail cell in some country where they don’t speak a language we understand or in a city we can’t even pronounce the name of.”

My nose wrinkles when I think about the youngest son of Full Moon’s drummer. The band and my dad have a relationship that goes back much longer than any of us kids have even been alive. Dad started working for them when Full Moon’s songs had just made it to the radio and the band suddenly found themselves recognizable enough to need a bodyguard.

He may not go up onstage with them, but he’s always been part of the band. He’s also part of the Full Moon family and, by extension, so are the rest of us—my mother, brother, and I.

The family that was created by the band has grown exponentially since all the individual members got married and had kids. In total, there are over two dozen of us.

We’re tight. All of us. Well, almost all of us. Vincent and I aren’t particularly close, but we still grew up together. In a way, we were all raised as siblings or, at the very least, cousins. None of us are related by blood, but you’d never guess that if you were looking in from the outside.

The public has always seemed to perceive us as one big happy family, and to a great extent, that’s what we are. It’s just me and Vincent who are different. We can’t stand each other, and we make a point of staying out of the other’s way.

The borderline alcoholic manwhore has had a rough past few months, though. I’m not sure why, but he’s gone completely off the rails. Dad is right. The boyisout of control, and if he’s not careful, his mother’s fears about him ending up in a jail cell are certainly going to be justified.

“He needs to get ahold of himself,” I say, folding one knee over the other and reclining in the armchair I chose for this talk, my arms crossing over my chest. “I still don’t understand what this has to do with me. Camille should be worried, but why are you talking to me about it?”

Dad leans forward, threading his fingers together and letting them hang between his knees as he looks up at me. “I’m talking to you about it because I’ve got a special assignment for you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a good bodyguard, but it’s your instincts that make you great at the job you’ve got behind the scenes right now. The most important part of what I do isn’t walking around behind the guys, wearing dark sunglasses and scowling at people.”

I frown. “I know. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times. The most important part of what we do is to ensure the guys don’t even really need some scowling person with dark sunglasses walking behind them. That’s the last line of defense, not the first. The first lines of defense count for so much more.”

“Exactly, and that’s where your instincts are great,” he says, nodding slowly. “Your management and coordination skills are perfect. You sniff out potential threats online like it’s nobody’s business. You’ve identified some weak points I missed in our routes or at the venues where the band has played—”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.” I don’t cut my dad off often. Hell, I don’t think I’ve even done it a handful of times in my entire life, but the ‘but’ I can feel coming on is a big one, and I don’t need him to keep stroking my ego before he gets to it. “Just tell me, Daddy.”

He sighs, his jaw hardening and his shoulders pulling back in that way I know means he’s about to drop a bombshell. “Vincent is your assignment. I know you two don’t always see eye to eye, but you’re uniquely qualified and positioned for this assignment, so it needs to be yours. You’re going undercover for us once we get to England.”

“Undercover?” I gape at him, blinking rapidly as I try to wrap my head around the words. He mentioned something earlier about people speaking in languages we don’t understand, and I’m hoping that’s what’s happening here.

Maybe the words sound like they’re in English but they’re not. Maybe they mean something completely different in whatever language it is he’s speaking because what I heardcannotbe correct. There is no possible way my father actually expects me to babysit Vincent and report back to them about what he does.

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