Page 13 of Protecting His Finch

“What’d she say?” Jacobi presses.

“What do you think?”

My tone is too sharp. Jacobi’s jaw tightens. We are, after all, in the Rossi estate, and I’m being loose with my tongue.

“It’s their world,” he reminds me. “We’re just…protecting it.”

That feels like acid in my gut. I change the subject before I lose my cool. I force my jaw to loosen and my tone to lighten. Jacobi is my friend, and it’s not fair of me to bite his head off for reasons out of his control. “How was your night?”

“Nothing I can’t wash off,” he says. Which means he has blood under his fingernails, probably. One downfall of being Catherine Rossi’s personal bodyguard is that you get your hands dirty more often than not.

“I’m envious,” I tell him. “I have glitter everywhere.”

That at least gets a huff of a laugh from him.

The sound of heels coming down the stairs makes both of us stiffen and shut up. I don’t have to turn around to see who it is.

“Boys,” Catherine Rossi says once she’s made it to the last step. “Not talking shop after hours, are we?”

“No, Madam,” I answer.

“Good.”

It’s customary to greet her with a kiss on the cheek, so I do. Her perfume is always overpowering, and it reminds me of being in a mortuary. Smelling salts to hide the stink of decay.

“No trouble at the party?” she asks me.

“None.”

She looks at me, examining the way a fox might. Then her fingers move to my tie. She rearranges it, unfolding where the collar got messy, and slides the knot up until I feel it kiss my Adam’s apple.

I remain perfectly still. This isn’t unusual. Madam Catherine Rossi is God, and she makes and remakes everything around her to her liking.

The edge of her mouth pinches, so I can tell she’s satisfied. “Jacobi told me good things about your work down by the docks.” She rests her hand on my chest and informs me, “I’ve left you something to show my appreciation downstairs in the wine cellar. Make sure you pick it up before clocking out tonight.”

“Thank you, Madam.”

Her hand lingers on my chest but then falls away. She turns to head back upstairs.

“Jacobi,” she says, calling him the way one might a dog, as she ascends.

Jacobi gives me a look. “Good night,” he says gruffly.

I nod in reply.

I don’t know why she needs her bodyguard to tuck her in at night. I don’t ask.

During the day, there’s any number of staff around the house—the cooks, the maids, the help. But at night, the yawning marble palace is mostly dark and empty.

I know my way around the estate blind. I don’t bother turning on the hallway lights as I make my way down the hall, through the kitchen, and through the oak door that leads to the wine cellar.

Here, I do flick on the light. A string of lights illuminates the stone stairway down and then opens up into the cellar. The cellar is as stocked as if they ran a full bar upstairs, rows and rows of bottles of wine, oaks barrels, and deep storage in the back.

The air always tastes strange here—cold and musty, like the inside of a tomb.

On top of one of the oak barrels, there’s an envelope with the letter A across the front. I open it up and count the money inside.

My bonus comes out to about three grand in cash.

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