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6
You’re Fired
The three guysgot to work, but fifteen minutes later, we didn’t know any more than we did when we’d entered the room. I started petting the cat and dog, something that always helped me to calm down.
I wanted to lie back on my bed, a four-poster monstrosity that was far too big for me, and try to relax. It was an elegant creation, my bed, with its mahogany posts and canopy and fourteen inches of memory foam mattress. Any time I was home, which was not often enough, I pretty much slept on a cloud.
But at the moment, sleep was the last thing on my mind. Instead, fear, panic, and boredom swirled through me as I sat, my toes swinging three inches off the floor as Rick talked with the team in the corner where my sitting area was.
“What does Oliver say?” I asked Parker when he emerged from the bathroom, wearing a tight white undershirt that just made him look even more handsome. Actually, all three members of my ‘personal team’ were less dressed than they had been before we’d arrived. Rick had ditched the black dress shirt for a black T-shirt highlighting his impressive biceps, while Seth filled his gray hoodie so well that even his thick sweatshirt couldn’t hide his rocky muscles.
He was a force to be reckoned with, but at the moment was almost supernaturally still, staring at the security monitors.
“There’s no cell reception in here,” Parker said, looking directly at me. “The walls prevent any electromagnetic—”
“I know how this room works,” I interrupted. “Just because I put out my debut album at sixteen and got my diploma from an online school doesn’t mean I’m stupid, Parker.”
“I… sorry, Miss Connor,” Parker said. “What do you need?”
“What I need is for my personal protection team to get off their asses and protect me!” I said. “Why are the three of you in here? Shouldn’t some of you be out there, figuring out what’s up? You know, taking down the bad guys?”
“Normally there’d have been just one of us,” Rick said, hanging up the phone, “but I had to carry you in here while Seth secured the door. As for Parker… bad luck, basically.”
“So because one of you decided to get comfortable in my bathroom, and the other two couldn’t figure out how to carry a hundred and four pound woman while hitting a big ol’ fucking button, we’re all locked in there together.”
Great. Just great.
“Miss Connor,” Rick said carefully, “when the alarm went off, we didn’t know what was causing it. In fact, we still don’t. It had been ten seconds since it sounded, and I had to pick you up to get you in here. That ten seconds in a bad situation is the difference between life and death, and I didn’t want to waste another one setting you on the bed before coming back to hit the button. We needed Seth to do that. We have and continue to operate exactly as trained. You are safe, and we are keeping you safe.”
“And now what?” I asked. “Obviously there’s no terrorist army in the hallway, so why not get your asses out there?”
“The door doesn’t open until we get the all clear from either the building team or the police,” Rick said flatly. “This room has a clean water source, air conditioning, and three days’ worth of food.”
“For one.”
“You won’t starve,” Seth growled, clearly losing patience.
Was that what I wanted? Was that why I was goading these men?
“If need be, we’ll skip our shares,” he added.
“Are you copping an attitude with me, Seth?” I asked, for some reason poking the bear more than was reasonable.
He turned around, his dark eyes narrowing. “Miss Connor, I’ve been on battlefields. I’ve shot people. I’ve seen men die. Quite frankly, I’m not happy you think we should just unlock that door and walk into a potentially lethal, unknown situation without any backup, instead of doing what we’re doing, which is wait for the building team and possibly even a SWAT team to show up. You’d rather have one of us out there with T-shirts and a Glock, which could not only get us killed, but you as well. So if that’s attitude, that’s attitude.”
Holy shit. Something about the authoritative way he’d just tried to put me in my place made my heart pound. And I wanted more.
“You… you work for me!” I said. “And if something doesn’t happen here soon, I… I will not be keeping you on my staff.”
Did I want to fire them? Of course not. I was pissed, I was scared, I was tired… I was pushed to my breaking point. But at that moment, I was unleashing all of my swirling emotions, letting it out as rage.
Rick came over, looking at me evenly. “Do you really mean that, Lacey?”
I hesitated for a moment. He didn’t normally call me Lacey. None of the guys did.
But I was fighting back tears and couldn’t stop. “I do mean it,” I said, getting in his face and raising my hand.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
