Page 11 of Lethal Beauty

Chapter 7

Brody

Myweekendwasjam-packedwith preparations. After making sure my apartment was clean and emptied in anticipation of my absence and that I’d paid my bills since my promise to Keene was open-ended, I took several hours studying my primary. Alessia Accardi—the name to the face I’d admired in the lobby—and the reason she looked so familiar was because her face was plastered on just about every fashion magazine cover imaginable. I might not be up to date on my fashion, but I shopped in the grocery store as much as any other bachelor, and that face stared back at anyone waiting in the checkout line. Didn’t it figure that the first woman I felt even an inkling of interest toward in months was none other than the little sister of one of my only friends? And I felt a hell of a lot more than an inkling. I drew a finger over the image in the file Keene had given me before I left the office. Alessia was walking, talking sin. From the top of her thick, luscious, black hair that begged a man to shove his fingers in it and hold on to her mile-long tanned legs, she screamed sex. Her impossibly purple eyes grabbed your attention even as they seemed to look into you, grasping at your soul. Despite being thin, a requisite for her career, she had curves, not the bony angles I was used to seeing on cover models. Her cheekbones were high, giving her a regal appearance, and, as I’d witnessed firsthand, she used her luscious mouth as a weapon—melting men left and right when she deemed them worthy of a smile and cutting them in two with a handful of words when they irritated her. Most of her weight resided in her breasts and ass, something other women wanted to kill her over, I was sure. Men, on the other hand, probably praised God and Jesus above for the sheer perfection of her body.

The lack of detail regarding her training puzzled me, though. Granted, I’d spent barely more than a few minutes in her presence, but I knew competency when I saw it. Alessia was more than capable of taking down that asshole in the lobby, meaning she had more than basic training—Mike the idiot was a SWAT commander, not some random Joe off the street. Yet, according to Keene’s notes, the only mention of training was that the family had taught her some basic self-defense in her younger years and that she’d had a few years of karate as a child. No way in hell could she have handled herself that well, been that confident in her abilities with a highly trained police officer, if that were the case. Unless, of course, she was just bat-shit crazy, something that, according to her brother’s tales, was a distinct possibility. More likely, she’d learned more at her family’s company than her brothers realized, and anyone with a mouth that smart would probably constantly be backing it up, even if she looked like she was better suited for a runway than a cage match.

I closed the file with a snap and placed it in the bag that contained everything I needed to bring with me—clothes, weapons, security equipment, a case of energy drinks, and a box full of protein bars. A PSO, or personal security officer, never knew when they would get downtime, and it rarely occurred at a place convenient for eating.

Putting my truck in drive, I made my way down the near-empty expressway. It was barely light, but I knew I was better off getting to where I needed to be before rush hour descended with a vengeance. I could eat close to the A.T. offices if I needed to waste some time. It might be the last decent meal I had in a while. I couldn’t imagine the eating habits of a model. I’d get a crash course, I was sure, over the next few days, but I didn’t think it would involve the basic food groups a growing Texas boy needed to stay in top shape—meat, grease, and caffeine.

As luck would have it, Keene texted as I arrived at my exit, and I met him at the private entrance for employee vehicles. He spoke to the guard, then motioned me to follow him into the parking structure. I parked next to him, my ten-year-old pickup standing out against the dozens of black SUVs that made up the core of any security company I’d ever seen or dealt with. Keene stepped out and glanced at his watch, which probably cost more than I’d netted my last year in the service, before greeting me.

Then I followed him up the elevator, bringing my bag with me since I didn’t want to have to retrieve it later on. “Good weekend?” I asked, seeing the tension on his face.

“It was something,” he muttered, already pulling at the tie on his neck.

“Anything I need to know about?” I wondered if Alessia had any issues while I was back home over the weekend.

“We have a meeting with my brothers in two minutes,” was all he said, stepping off as the door opened and making his way straight to this office. I followed, setting my stuff down by the door—it was as good a place as any to store it until I knew how the day would go down. There was a steaming cup of coffee on his desk, and he grabbed it, downing a third of it in one gulp. “Want some?” he asked, and I nodded. As far as I was concerned, coffee was the nectar of the gods, and I could never get enough of it.

He showed me to a small break room a few doors down from his office, filling up his cup while I snagged my own before we continued to the last door down the hall. Voices alerted me we were the last to arrive, and all talking stopped as I stepped into view.

“Y’all, this is Brody. Brody, you’ve already met Boone, but these are my brothers, Gideon and Royce.” I nodded, noting the anger in Gideon, and mentally prepared myself for a front-row seat to a family argument. I knew enough to understand that Gideon wasn’t included in the decision to bring me into the fold, so to speak, and looking at him, I realized they hadn’t enlightened him over the weekend but must have as we walked in.

“Fuck,” Gideon said, running a hand through his hair as he paced. “I told you I handled this,” he practically snarled, not bothering to acknowledge me.

“With a no-neck, no-experience wannabe who couldn’t get a job as a mall cop,” Boone said, looking a little worse for wear.

Someone had a late night, I thought, keeping quiet as the drama unfolded in front of me.

Gideon shook his head. “You said something similar yesterday. I talked with Lessia and her agent. The company that hired her, Valencia, had several bodyguards on the payroll. I checked all of them out myself. Any of them would have been capable of protecting her, even if they weren’t the same caliber as A.T. personnel. There was absolutely no reason to go around her like this, and if she finds out—” Royce pulled out a file, throwing it on the table in front of Gideon like a gauntlet.

“I’m not sure what you consider ‘capable,’ but this is the dossier on the guard they assigned her last week. He was actually an employee of the hotel she was staying at, not Valencia. And they pulled him from his regular detail of patrolling the grounds. No special skills, no experience at all, and other than a few bar fights, no prior knowledge of physically defending himself or anyone else.”

“What?” Gideon snatched the file, thumbing through the papers in the folder. He shook his head after reading some of what was in there. “This guy wasn’t on the list of possible employees. He isn’t anything similar to the level of what Valencia sent over. They’re professionals—Valencia is big enough and their security demands are constant enough to need experienced men.”

“Well,” Keene said, looking at his older brother, “it sounds like we need to ask Alessia what the fuck is going on.”

“It appears I’ve arrived just in time,” a sultry voice drifted from the door, the woman in question draping herself against the frame. Surprisingly, instead of a dress or casual wear, she was the epitome of a businesswoman in simple black slacks, short black heels, and a blue three-quarter sleeve shirt that flowed over her curves. She had her hair pulled up in a neat bun and a black suit coat draped over her arm. It was clear by how she matched her brothers in appearance that she was in the building to work, though I wasn’t aware she had anything to do with Accardi Tactical.

“What’s this?” Gideon was still holding the papers Royce had given him.

She raised an eyebrow, looking at her brother like he was one card short of a full deck. “Papers? The things made from poor, defenseless trees. I really don’t understand why all y’all print everything off when technological advances no longer require you to do so.”

Gideon slapped the papers on the desk, the noise making Boone wince. “Why is the bodyguard from your last photoshoot not on the list of potentials you sent me to vet?”

If I hadn’t been watching intently, I would have missed her almost imperceptible intake of breath. Her pupils dilated, and I watched her mind fly in the space it took her to blink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You have the list of guards I sent you, not that it was any of your business to start with, but it got you off my back about my security. I swear, if my agent weren’t as good as he was, I would fire him. It’s not his job to report anything to you at all. He works for me—”

Gideon raised a hand. “Don’t change the subject. Why wasn’t he on the list you sent me?” His voice was a rough, deep drawl that rivaled mine in full Southern twang now that he was riled, even though he was gritting out each word with precision.

She shrugged, stepping in to grab the file from him, thumbing through it. Cocking her head, she plastered a smirk on her face. “This is the assigned guard I had on my last shoot. The picture is right, but do you really think I wouldn’t recognize if Hammer were as poorly hired as this?”

“What other option is there?” Boone spoke. “You just admitted he was the one you had. And what the fuck kind of name is Hammer?”

She closed the folder, setting it down on the table, her words precise and cutting. “I would think that perhaps, someone was sick of her brothers butting into her business and asked a friend to replace the employee files with some made-up bullshit in Valencia’s internal server on the guards’ in the event they stuck their noses where they didn’t belong.”

If I didn’t think she was feeding them a line of bull, her answer would have impressed me. Something wasn’t right, but I wasn’t sure what. I didn’t have time to find out as she turned. “Apparently, I’m not here for company business. I’m sure all y’all have more important things to do, but if not, feel free to continue trying to interfere with my life. After all, the only thing you’ve accomplished here is to remind me yet again just how much faith you have in me being able to handle my own life.”

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