He quickly turned, his heart in his throat, and found the same guy from before trying to disappear into the crowd.
Well, fuck.
***
He couldn’t sleep that night. That was nothing unusual, but this time the reason was different. He was shaking with a horrible mix of toxic anger and irrational excitement. He told himself the anger was the prevailing emotion. Who did Damiano think he was, putting bodyguards on him without asking Jordan’s opinion when the asshole hadn’t even bothered to come out to say goodbye to him? Arrogant, overbearing dick.
(God, he missed him.)
Jesus. It pissed him off that the mere possibility of being followed—stalked—by Damiano’s people pleased a part of him. It means that he cares, said a small, stupid voice at the back of his mind, like a little girl hugging her favorite toy to her chest and refusing to see that the toy was a demon, not a cute plushie.
The grown-ass adult that Jordan was wasn’t impressed. He would never move on with his life if Damiano had him shadowed and was still constantly on his mind. It had to stop. He might not be able to control his thoughts and fixation, but the unwanted bodyguarding was something he could control. Hopefully.
The problem was, he didn’t have Damiano’s number or any other way of contacting him.
Except…
Jordan smiled grimly.
***
He pretended to trip and fall during his morning run. Pretending to have hit his head and fainted, Jordan lay still and waited.
Soon enough, there were the sounds of footsteps and voices.
“Should we call 911?” a guy said, his voice full of doubt. “We aren’t supposed to be seen by him.”
“Fuck, why did it have to happen during our shift?” the other guy grumbled, sighing.
“This gig fucking sucks,” the first man said. “I still don’t get why we’re babysitting this guy. It’s so random. He’s not interesting at all.”
Jordan tried not to take offense. By gangsters’ standards, he probably was very boring.
“At least the money is good.”
One of them nudged him with his shoe. “Hey, you. Wake up.”
“Let’s just call 911. What if he dies? The boss said this gig is important, comes from somewhere very high up.”
“Do you know who?”
“Nah, no idea. But between you and me, the boss seemed scared shitless. He stressed several times that a failure isn’t acceptable. Just call 911 before he dies.”
Figuring he wouldn’t learn more than that, Jordan turned onto his back and sat up.
The two men—they weren’t the same men from yesterday—flinched and exchanged a look.
“You okay?” one of them said, clearly hoping to pass for a random passerby. “Saw you trip and fall.”
Jordan pulled out the envelope he’d prepared beforehand and smiled. “I’m fine. But you guys wouldn’t mind passing this to your boss’s boss?” He pretended not to notice the nervous look they exchanged. He paused, thinking. He doubted Damiano personally dealt with these guys’ boss. “Or maybe even to your boss’s boss’s boss. Basically, pass this to the man who hired you to ‘babysit’ me.” His smile turned sweeter when they paled. “Be fast, and no peeking. You wouldn’t want to upset the guy who has your boss scared shitless, right?”
After a moment that seemed to stretch forever, one of the men finally spoke.
“All right,” he said, taking the envelope carefully, as if it were poisonous. “We’ll pass it along.”
Jordan smiled. “Thanks. Carry on.”
They disappeared so fast Jordan felt a pang of admiration. For such big guys, they were really fast. At least Damiano hadn’t hired incompetents.
He wondered how long it would take before the message reached Damiano. Knowing Damiano’s general paranoia, it would probably pass through the hands of at least four middlemen before reaching him. Jordan had little doubt it would be read by someone along the way, but he wasn’t worried. He hadn’t written anything incriminating.
The message just said,
Stop.
Chapter 19
If Jordan were honest with himself, he didn’t really think his message would make Damiano stop.
If he were even more honest with himself, sending that little message made him feel more normal than he’d felt in months. That little message was a connection to something he’d hungered for against his better judgment. No matter how small, it made him feel better, his mind sharper and less of a mess.
Days passed.
Then a week.
And yet nothing happened. If he was still being followed around, his new bodyguards were very good at staying hidden.
Could it be possible that Damiano had actually listened to his request?
It pissed Jordan off that he was sulking over it, instead of being pleased. He was behaving like a teenager with his first crush, instead of the grown, successful man he was. And over whom? A man, when he wasn’t even bi! The whole thing was so ridiculous Jordan wanted to laugh at himself—if he hadn’t felt like punching something.
He returned home that evening in a shitty mood. It was the sort of day when everything that could go wrong went wrong: after yet another sleepless night, he’d fallen asleep at dawn and overslept, there hadn’t been time to have breakfast, so he was hungry and cranky without his morning coffee; Ferrara had been more of a bastard than usual and given his department an impossible deadline; Jordan’s secretary told him that she was quitting; someone had accidentally locked up Jordan in a restroom and he’d had a massive panic attack, and then had to pretend that he was fine because he was at work and people expected nothing short of perfection from him.