Nanny for the SEALs by Cassie Cole

25

Rogan

“Again?” Asher asked me. “Rogan…”

We were sitting around the conference room downstairs, reviewing all the recent digital security threats. Although we were currently employed by seventy-four clients, most of the meeting had been dedicated to Amirah Pratt.

Because out of everyone our army of bodyguards protected, she was receiving over fifty percent of the online threats.

“Again,” I insisted. “And every night until I’m certain she’s safe.”

“If we’re so worried, then why not put multiple bodyguards on her?” Asher asked. “Cooper is professional. He won’t take it personally if we add someone else to his assignment.”

I shook my head. “I don’t trust anyone else. Pratt is too important. We have to do everything to protect her, and to keep her as a client.”

Asher removed his glasses, cleaned them on a sleeve, and placed them back on his nose. “Amirah Pratt is a high-profile client. I agree with your assessment there. But losing her business will not sink our company. Financially, we are in a very good place right now.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Why weren’t they getting this? “I’m not thinking about right now. I’m thinking about tomorrow. Next week. Next month. You heard Cardannon. He got the Lakers contract. That’s a big blow. If something happens to Amirah Pratt, then we don’t just lose her as a client. We suffer public humiliation. It will send shockwaves through the industry. Nobody will hire us.”

“It’s also bad for, you know, Amirah,” Brady said. “If some psycho stalker sneaks into her bedroom, that’ll scar the poor girl for life.”

“Of course,” I said. “That goes without saying. We want to protect our clients because it’s our job, but Amirah especially is important for the long-term success of this company. I’m going back to her place tonight.”

“Then shit, let me go,” Brady suggested. “You can trust me more than any normal Joe Schmo who works for us. And you look like you need a good night sleep. No offense.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “You can rotate in and watch her tomorrow night, if her social media threat level is still high.”

Brady shrugged. I turned to Asher. After a moment, he reluctantly nodded.

“I need more coffee,” I said, excusing myself from the conference room.

Asher caught up to me down the hall. “I couldn’t help but notice you haven’t been affectionate with Heather since she moved in.”

“I was gone last night, remember?” I said. “We literally just had a meeting about it.”

Asher gave me a patient look.

I stopped in front of the coffee maker and sighed. “Sorry. I get grumpy when I’m tired.”

“I did not say have sex with,” Asher clarified. “I said be affectionate with. You’ve had several opportunities to be affectionate with Heather, and you have abstained.”

I filled a coffee mug from the pot and then dumped in way too much cream. “I’m putting the needs of the group above my own needs. Like we talked about.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Asher said. “You two can do whatever you like in the residence. I was serious about that.”

“And you can do whatever you like with Heather,” I said. “I was serious about that too.”

Asher frowned behind his glasses. “I’ve been considering that. We shall see.”

I drank my coffee and finished up the rest of my work. Nowadays, with seventy-four employees under our umbrella, most of the work I did was administrative. Monitoring the budget, dealing with payroll, hand-holding some of the needier clients. I had three digits worth of emails to respond to.

In the blink of an eye, it was after six. Asher’s and Brady’s offices were dark. I closed my laptop and went up to the residence.

I spent a few minutes playing with the kids—that always brightened my mood, no matter how tough of a day I’d had—and then changed into street clothes. Jeans, a T-shirt, and a light jacket because rain was in the forecast. Remembering what Asher had said, I asked Heather if she had a minute to talk.

She followed me downstairs and out to my SUV. “What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“Something is very wrong.” I pulled her into a deep kiss, holding her warm body against mine for so long that I started to regret that I wasn’t staying in tonight.

“I haven’t done that to you in a few days,” I said. “That’s what is wrong.”

Heather grinned up at me. “If only every problem was so easy to solve.”

“If only.”

She stood on her toes to kiss me one last time. “Be safe tonight. Text me if you get bored. I’ll be up.”

Amirah Pratt lived twelve miles away in the valley, which ended up being an hour drive thanks to the congested Los Angeles roads. My mind drifted while I sat in traffic. I had only seen the kids for ten minutes today. Fifteen if you counted the quick trip upstairs when Cardannon was here.

I knew I worked too much. We all did. We loved our kids—the kind of love that was deep, and desperate, and unwavering—and we wanted to spend more time with them. These early years felt special, and we were missing out on it.

“Another year or two,” I said out loud, as if that would make it come true. In another year or two, the company would be so big that the three of us could scale back our hours and let other managers take over. We’d still own the company, but we wouldn’t need to be as involved. We could do whatever we wanted.

That would be nice.

But we weren’t quite there yet. The company was profitable—very much so—but that could change in the blink of an eye. And although our own personal retirement funds were growing rapidly, we weren’t at the point where we could just quit and be fine. We needed to make sure the company continued on its upward trajectory.

Just a little bit more. I felt like I had been saying that for a decade, now. Just one more mission. Just one more deployment. Just one more rank. Just one more year making sure HLS Security succeeded. Would it ever end? Was there a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, or was I doomed to always grasp for something that was just barely out of reach?

I reached Amirah’s house and punched in my keycode at the gate. She was on a four-acre lot, with an eight-foot-high stucco wall surrounding the property. I pulled into her driveway and then backed into one of the spots next to the garage. That gave me a view of the wing of Amirah’s house where her bedroom was located. If anyone tried to get there from outside, I would see it.

I pulled out the walkie-talkie and changed the frequency. “Cooper, this is Holt. I’m in position.”

“Everything’s shipshape here, boss,” Cooper replied after only two seconds of hesitation. “Apple Pie is in the bedroom watching TV. Let me know if anything looks squirrelly.”

Apple Pie was our codename for Amirah Pratt.

“Hard copy. Let me know if you get hungry. I brought a fresh pack of crayons for you.”

A laugh came across the radio. “Fuck you. Sir.”

Cooper was a Marine. I tried not to hold it against him, aside from the occasional joke about how Marines ate crayons, or how MARINE was an acronym for My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment.

I turned off the lights in my car and sipped my coffee. I kind of liked being out here, doing real work again. It wasn’t the same level of intensity as what we did in the SEALs, not even close. But it was better than riding a desk and sucking up to potential clients.

Out here, I felt like I was good at what I did.

The moon slowly rose into the sky as I watched Amirah’s property. Clouds rolled in and heightened the darkness, and wind began to shake the trees. Thunderstorms were rare here in Los Angeles, but it looked like we would get some action tonight. Hopefully that would deter anyone from trying something with Amirah.

I pulled up the security dashboard on my cell phone. Amirah had gotten six new threats today from six different Facebook accounts. All of them mentioned visiting her tonight while she slept. Asher had done a little sleuthing and discovered that they had all been sent by devices routed through a VPN, to mask their point of origin. We suspected they were sent by one person using a bunch of different accounts.

In the several years since we had founded this company, I had seen all sorts of threats. Most of them were bullshit. An act. If a pervert wanted to break into an actress’s house and masturbate into her panty drawer, he didn’t warn her first. He just did it.

But these threats felt different to me. They created a knot in the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t ignore, even if Asher and Brady thought I was overreacting.

I got this far by trusting my instinct, I thought while sipping coffee. I’m not going to stop now.

I switched over to my text messages and sent something to Heather.

Rogan: This would be a lot more fun if you were here.

Heather: If I were there, I’d probably distract you.

Rogan: That’s what would make it fun.

Heather: I miss you. Specifically, the filthy things you’ve been doing to me at the Four Seasons.

Heather: Is that weird to say? It’s been a couple of days since we fooled around, but it feels like FOREVER.

Rogan: I miss our nightly fun too. Hopefully we can resume that soon.

Heather: I’m like a cat. I need to be petted every single day or I start getting cranky.

Rogan: I promise to make you purr soon. Hopefully tomorrow.

Heather: Tomorrow is way too far away. I want you now.

Rogan: You can pout all you want, but it won’t change anything.

Heather: What if it’s SEXY pouting? Where I stick my lips out and whine like a baby?

Heather: Scratch that. I don’t really think that’s sexy. I’ve never understood why some people are into that sort of thing.

I smiled at the text and wondered what to say next. Should I suggest what I had mentioned to Asher? I didn’t know how Heather would take it.

“Time to find out,” I said out loud while texting with my thumbs. “There’s no going back now.”