Page 48 of Protecting Love

No leads. Nothing.

He got the courier on camera, could trace him through facial recognition. But he was only someone who was paid to deliver a package.

No name given. He’d picked the package up at the back door of a restaurant in Chinatown, and no one there was talking.

All they had was the note: Stop looking.

It made little sense other than it could be tied back to MHT Services or Rick. Rick seemed unlikely since he looked to be starting a new job next week. There’d be no reason for him to do something like this when he hadn’t been around the building since that one day.

Fletcher had been watching. Had Rick’s picture in the security system to alert him if he even walked into the lobby.

“I know,” he said. It was the first he was being called on over the weekend.

He put his shoulder holster on over his white dress shirt, then went to his safe and pulled his Glock 19M out and slipped it in, the weight of it feeling safe and comfortable. Like another extremity that had been missing from his life lately.

It’d been there for so long and still felt odd to be gone, but he didn’t always wear a suit in the office.

Now he was. And Ian hadn’t asked once what was going on.

Until now.

“Why are you changing up guns at work? And then going out tonight? Is there a threat against the owners or something?”

“No,” he said.

“Where are you going?”

“A charity event.”

He hated this shit, but had been to enough functions in his career. He knew how to mingle and how to fit in.

Not to be a guest at a two thousand dollar a ticket dinner.

But his boss wanted him close to Paris until they had more information.

So that meant a driver picked her up at her apartment and brought her to work, then brought her home. If she had to be somewhere during the day, the same thing. If a driver wasn’t available, Fletcher was to do it directly.

Hadn’t happened yet, but he expected it might.

But being told he had to be her “date” tonight. Yeah, that was pushing it.

Because maybe there was a part of him that wished it wasn’t work related. That he wasn’t here to protect her but could just play with her some.

Tease her like she’d been doing to him. Or what felt like it when they saw each other.

Though the last time there was no teasing. There was no getting on the other’s nerves.

What he saw was fear laced with frustration over what was happening. And what it was all going to mean.

The changes she’d have to make in her life.

With London out of town and not able to attend, Paris couldn’t be alone.

“Oh, so you have to mingle more than protect someone.”

“I’ll be doing both,” he said.

“You said the owner isn’t in trouble.”