Rais returned his focus to me. “I’m sorry you have to go, then. I thought it sounded good when he told me.”
Newbie.
I exhaled sharply, already dreading the rest of my week.
“Take extra clothes,” Locryn cautioned me. “Because you never know when someone’s gonna puke on you.”
“And you’ll smell like smoke, goin’ in and out of all the casinos,” Shaw reminded me, trying not to smirk. “Your suits are gonna reek.”
“Thanks,” I said under my breath.
I made my way to Jared’s office, on a cackle of laughter at my back, and called him from the phone on his desk.
“Esca?”
I cleared my throat. “Good morning, Mr. Colter, how are––”
“Spit it out,” he demanded.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know you want to argue, it’s why you’re calling, so g’head. Don’t beat around the bush, make your case.”
My exhale was sharp. “Sir, don’t you agree that Locryn would be far better suited than I to a bodyguard assignment?” I said quickly, hopefully, praying that he’d have an epiphany right then and there and say, “Holy crap! I never even thought of that! I mean, he looks the part more than the rest of us, and he’d definitely fit in with—”
“The client doesn’t want anyone to suspect he’s hired a bodyguard, so he requested someone less obvious. Not to mention I felt you to be uniquely suited to this assignment, given your background.”
Well, I was definitely the less obvious one. All the Torus agents, including our boss, came off as menacing without trying. I’d been told I looked more like a GQ model. Not that I was slight or lithe or any of those other things. I worked out, I ran, I swam, but whereas the rest of the men at Torus, and Rais as well, carried a lot of heavy muscle on their frames, I was leaner, longer, more runner than linebacker. What he meant about my background, I was sure I’d understand soon enough.
“It’s a short assignment,” Jared explained. “You’ll only be in Vegas from Wednesday to Saturday, home early Sunday morning.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You’re guarding the eldest son of Baker Stanton who, as you know, founded Stanton-Downey, which owns more than sixty different companies, from insurance brokers to restaurant chains to laundry detergent manufacturers. The Stantons are one of the wealthiest families in this country, but the man isn’t a diplomat or a rock star. He’s not someone people would know on sight.”
And there it was, the reason I was well-suited for the job. They needed someone who could blend in with the blue bloods. I remained quiet, because I knew from experience that he wasn’t done explaining.
“You’ll be there because he’s received some threatening emails, as well as physical letters delivered to his loft in Bridgeport. There are also security feeds, at his office and at his loft, that show suspicious cars parked for extended periods of time on the street outside both places.”
“Has he had protection before?”
“Baker’s son, Brigham, Brig, is assigned a detail when traveling abroad, as are most senior executives, and a driver at home who also functions as his caretaker, or whatever the PC term is now, as well as a maid and personal chef. But no, he doesn’t have a designated bodyguard,” Jared told me and then sighed. “He needs one. I told his father that he should hire someone full-time to guard his son, and he’s looking into having a person in place by the time he returns from this trip. I also suggested he hire a bodyguard for his other son, Nolan, but he said that only Brigham, the one you’re watching, is high profile enough in financial circles to merit the expense.”
“I’m sure the spare feels really loved.”
“Spare?”
“There’s the heir and the—”
“Oh yes. That’s clever.”
From the derogatory tone, he hadn’t actually thought so. “May I ask, sir, is Mr. Stanton certain that he doesn’t want a larger security presence for his son than just—”
“I’m sure he would, but it’s not Mr. Stanton’s call. Brigham specifically asked for someone who wouldn’t stand out in his posse.”
I swallowed down my knee-jerk response.
The silence ticked by, second by second.
“Well?”
“Posse?” I repeated dryly.
“Is that not right?”
“Was that the word the man actually used?”
“No,” he admitted in his usual rumbling growl. “But I thought that was what young people called their group of friends these days.”
Oh dear God.
It was one of Jared’s quirks, and I’d thought at first that he was being sly, that he was self-deprecating on purpose, fishing for praise, but it turned out I was wrong. In all seriousness, the man thought he was old.
Him. Old.
It was ridiculous.
In what realm of the imagination was a strong, powerful man of fifty-eight considered a fossil? He might even be sixty, I’d only heard Nash say he thought Jared was fifty-eight, but really, that wasn’t the point. His slate gray eyes glinted like ice, and his rugged looks emphasized the fact he was built like a brick wall, yet moved with the grace of a fighter. Altogether, it made him breathtaking. Even better, though, was his heart. He was the best person I’d ever met, utterly selfless and kind. He was also, interestingly enough, the quietest. I had never heard Jared Colter raise his voice. Ever. I had to wonder if they taught that to all CIA operatives, and if they knew how sexy it was.