1
Gray
Wyatt Kingsley is going to get himself killed, and I’m being paid an obscene amount of money to make sure it doesn’t happen on my watch. Ten drinks so far. No, eleven. He’s just grabbed another from a passing waitress with a smile that makes her blush.
I keep my face blank, hands clasped behind my back in perfect military rest position. Tonight marks week two of the most demeaning job I’ve ever taken: babysitting a twenty-two-year-old trust fund brat who thinks responsibility is a disease he’s been vaccinated against.
Wyatt stumbles between the leather couches of the VIP section, drink sloshing over his fingers. He doesn’t notice. His designer shirt already has two wet spots blooming across the chest. The club lights flash across his face, catching the glassy sheen in his eyes, the too-wide smile that hasn’t left his face since the third shot.
I inhale slowly through my nose, counting backward from ten. This is what the Kingsleys pay me for. Not to like their son. Not to approve of him. Just to make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit or get stabbed in a bathroom stall by someone he pissed off. Simple job description. Complicated execution.
“Gray!” Wyatt shouts, suddenly noticing me like I’m not standing exactly where I’ve been for the past hour. “You should—you should have a drink! One drink! Dani’s not here!”
I don’t respond. In the two weeks I’ve known Wyatt, I’ve learned to ignore his antics. Instead, I focus on scanning the surroundings again.
The VIP section of Elysium is everything I hate about wealth compressed into five hundred square feet. Crystal chandeliers hang over leather booths where kids who’ve never earned a dollar spend thousands on bottles with sparklers jammed into their necks. The private bar gleams with top-shelf liquor I’ve never tasted and don’t care to. Every surface shines, polished to reflect the shallowness of everyone sitting on it.
I’ve survived deserts, gunfire, and enough bloodshed to fill this entire club. This should be easy. It isn’t.
Wyatt weaves back to his booth where his girlfriend, Alyssa, drapes herself across two seats. Her eyes flick over me, a dismissive glance that lands nowhere important before sliding away. I’m furniture to her. Expensive security furniture.
“Babe, I’m thirsty,” she whines, pouting at Wyatt, who collapses next to her. Her dress rides up her thighs as she shifts to accommodate him. “The bottle’s empty.”
“I’ll flag someone down,” Wyatt mumbles, slinging an arm around her shoulders.
Alyssa’s eyes narrow. Her red nails drum against the table once, twice, then she snaps her fingers at me. Actually snaps them like I’m a fucking dog.
“Hey, you,” she calls, not bothering to use my name though I’ve been with them every night this week. “We need morechampagne. The Cristal, not the cheap stuff they tried to bring last time.”
I stare at her, face blank, pulse thudding against my throat. In my past life, people who snapped fingers at me ended up with those fingers broken. Now I’m paid to pretend it doesn’t happen.
“He’s not a waiter, Lyss,” Wyatt says, but his protest is weak and slurred.
“He works for your family, doesn’t he?” Alyssa rolls her eyes. “What’s the difference? He just stands there looking all—” She waves a hand vaguely at my existence. “—whatever. At least he’d be useful getting us drinks.”
My jaw locks so tight I might crack a molar. I remain at my post, hands still clasped behind my back, spine straight enough to make my old drill sergeant weep with joy.
“Mr. Kingsley,” I say, my voice low and even, using his last name to remind him of the professional boundary his girlfriend keeps trying to bulldoze. “I need to maintain visual contact with you at all times.”
Alyssa scoffs. “God, he’s so dramatic. Like anyone’s going to kidnap you in here.”
The corner of my eye twitches. I’ve counted six people in this club alone who could take Wyatt out a back exit before anyone noticed. Two of them are bartenders, one’s a bouncer who checked his ID with too much interest, and three are men in the corner booth who’ve been eyeing our section since we arrived. Rich kids make easy targets.
Wyatt shifts uncomfortably. There’s a flicker of embarrassment on his face before it vanishes under another sloppy grin.
“It’s fine, we’ll just—”
“Yo! Who’s ready to fucking party?”
Zeke, Wyatt’s equally useless friend, crashes into our section with the subtlety of a hand grenade. He carries two bottles by their necks, a waitress trailing behind with a third on a tray. The label catches the light, and my brain automatically calculates the cost: a month of my salary for something they’ll probably spill on their shoes before the night’s over.
“Holy shit, Z!” Wyatt lurches to his feet, nearly toppling the table. “You didn’t!”
“Hell yeah I did.” Zeke slams the bottles down, ice sloshing in the bucket the waitress sets beside them. “Let’s get fucked up!”
I watch them as they pour the amber liquid into crystal glasses. Their laughter spikes with each toast, each dramatic story about people I don’t know and problems that aren’t really problems. Alyssa drapes herself across both men, fingers trailing along Zeke’s arm longer than they should. Wyatt doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
My training keeps me still. During my service, I once stood in position for six hours straight in the middle of the desert, eyes focused on a doorway while the sun baked my skin. This is nothing. Except somehow, it’s worse. At least then I understood the purpose.
