On Her Guard

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

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  On Her

  Guard

  Protecting Her Series, Book One

  By Skyla Madi

  On Her Guard

  Copyright © 2017 by Skyla Madi.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: November 2017

  Crave Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  http://www.cravepublishing.net/

  Formatting: Crave Publishing, LLC

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-267-5

  ISBN-10: 1-64034-267-2

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Note:

  On Her Guard was originally intended for a security-themed anthology, but I overshot the word count. I hope you enjoy Ben and Sera’s story.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

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  Chapter One

  Ben

  I suck the last of my chocolate milkshake up the long, red and white straw, uncaring that it makes that annoying slurping sound people hate so much. I feel their stares on me and imagine their eyebrows pulling tightly together as their frustrations mount. The milkshakes are mediocre today. They were the best once. Now I’m not so sure.

  I pick up my napkin and swipe it once across my lips before scrunching it in my fist and dropping it into the tall, empty glass. Exhaling, I slide out of the spacious, red leather booth and pull my wallet out of the back pocket of my worn jeans. The milkshakes here didn’t always cost five dollars. I swear they hike the price up every time I come back from duty.

  Bastards.

  I drop a twenty-dollar bill on the table and turn toward the exit.

  “See you tomorrow, Ben.”

  I don’t look at the waitress, Donna, as I saunter past the counter where she pours an obese man in a dirty trench coat a fresh, hot coffee.

  “See you tomorrow, Donna.”

  Bells clash together as I press my palm to the door of the isolated little roadhouse on the edge of town and step outside. Fresh spring air on the tail of a gust of wind whips my face and I fill my lungs with it. In the desert, the air never smelled like this.

  God bless America.

  Stomping down the metal stairs in my heavy, brown boots, I reach into the front pocket of my jeans and pluck out a half empty packet of cigarettes. The packet is a little worse for wear since I’ve been carrying it around in my back pocket as I jump from job to job. Flicking the cardboard flap back, I pluck out a cigarette and pinch it between my lips.

  “What do you want from me, Samantha? Tell me what you want!”

  Slipping the packet of cigarettes into my back pocket, I turn toward the ruckus across the parking lot. Car doors slam. Oh goodie. A milkshake and a show. I move toward my big black truck and rest against its bull bar, bending my leg at the knee.

  “I don’t want anything from you!”

  “Bullshit!”

  The guy comes into view long before the girl does and I light my cigarette as he storms across the lot, gravel crunching underneath his crisp, white sneakers. He tugs his blue letterman jacket together at the front before pushing ten angry fingers through his short, jet black hair.

  “I’m not going in there with you if you’re going to keep yelling at me!” A short blonde pops out from behind a yellow Beetle, clenching the thick strap to her handbag.

  I simper.

  “So don’t,” he shouts over his shoulder as he clears the roadhouse steps in a single bound before disappearing inside.

  I drag on my cigarette, watching in silence as she throws her hands up and mutters to herself. I take in her cut-off jean shorts, white halter top, and the belly button piercing that pokes through the slice in the fabric and glistens in the sun. She must be in high school, given her sugary tone and her boyfriend’s jacket.

  Turning around, she spots me and pauses, eyeing the cigarette in my hand.

  “Hey!” she calls out. “Can I get a cigarette?”

  I squint as the sun slips out from behind a fluffy, white cloud, its bright light reflecting off the stones. Flicking my cigarette to the ground, I crush it under the sole of my boot.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Last one.”

  Of course I’m lying, but I think she knows that. The young girl cuts her eyes at me as I push off my truck and saunter around to the driver’s door.

  “Fuck you,” she snaps, planting her manicured hands on her hips.

  My lips quirk. Yep. She’s definitely in high school.

  I climb into my truck and shut the door. Kids these days feel so entitled. Where I spent my last tour, they’d cut off her head simply because she spoke to me. Again, God bless America. This little girl doesn’t know how good she has it. Besides, I did her a favor anyway. Smoking is a filthy habit.

  I don’t smoke often. I’ve had this packet of mine for a solid month and I’m only now nearing the end. Even though my days no longer leave me trembling with anxiety as the safety of the sun sinks into the horizon, I can’t seem to kick the craving for that four p.m. smoke.

  The tiny blonde storms toward the roadhouse, not bothering to spare me another glance as I turn the key in the ignition and reverse my truck. The engine’s gentle but vicious rumble is music to my ears. I thought she’d sound like shit after my recent eleven-month absence, but she’s just as mouthy and glorious as ever, thanks to my neighbor, Josh, who took her around town to stretch her legs every few days.

  Vrrrrrrt.

  I frown as I pull out of the parking lot and onto the main road. There’s another muffled vibration followed by a familiar ringing. I glance down at the center console, but I can’t seem to pinpoint where it’s coming from. Returning my attention to the asphalt, I turn my radio dial down to hear the ringing better, but the radio is off anyway.

  Where the fuck…? Stretching, I reach over the center console and pop open the glovebox. The ringing becomes clear and loud, so I snag my cellphone and answer it.

  “Yeah?” I slam my glovebox shut.

  “Really, Ben?” my angry little brother snaps. “You quit your job?”

  “Yeah, I quit,” I tell him, moving into the right lane to overtake a light green campervan driving grossly under the speed limit. “Fetching coffees and watching assholes mix cement isn’t me.”

  “It’s the first day!” he counters. “You think they’re gonna let you pour up an entire driveway by yourself on your first day?”

  Frustration bubbles underneath my skin. My broth
er doesn’t understand what I need to survive. I’ve done four top secret tours throughout the Middle East. Four. The last eleven years of my life have been filled with action, blood, violence—hard-fucking-work. I’ve rebuilt entire homes with my bare hands. I’ve helped construct schools, fix vehicles, and detonate roadside bombs. Hell, I’ve performed major surgery in the middle of a damn desert to keep a friend alive. There, I had purpose. Here…here I have nothing.

  “I’ve built schools, Declan.”

  “I know you have, but this isn’t the fucking Middle East, Ben. This is the real world! I stuck my neck out to get you this job and you quit before the day is through?” He pauses, and it’s lengthy, before finally exhaling. “You were nobody when you first went to the Middle East. You had to work your way up. Same goes here in this country. You gotta work for it. No one is going to give you a hand out. They don’t give a fuck who you are or what you’ve done. If they want you to fetch them a coffee, you fetch them a damn coffee.”

  I lick my lips. Of course, he doesn’t understand. I can fetch coffees until the cows come home but, why should I? Why should I have to settle? I’d give anything to be back serving my country. I know it’s a horrible life to want to live, but I don’t know anything else…and now that Mom’s gone, every time I come back here, it feels less and less like home. There’s something else missing too, and I can’t pinpoint what it is. It’s not luxuries. I’ve bought everything I can possibly want—even a motorcycle that I don’t like riding. None of it keeps me distracted long enough to stop thinking about those hot days I spent smoking cigarettes under a makeshift umbrella, my focus never leaving the horizon. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but the way my heart raced every time the breeze blew sand off the top of a dune…I never felt so alive…and if I didn’t promise my mother on her deathbed twenty-four months ago that I’d stop touring over there and start a life here, I’d go back in a heartbeat.

  “Good talk,” I mutter, pulling the phone from my ear.

  Declan’s voice is rushed and unintelligible as I hit the red button to end the call. Exhaling, I toss the phone onto the passenger seat and continue my drive toward the city. It’s not often I drive into the city, but someone I know is getting married tomorrow, and the only way I could get out of attending the wedding was to agree to show up at the bachelor’s party—which is tonight.

  I smooth my hand down the front of my gray tee. I don’t look like much, but this is the cleanest shirt I currently own, so it will have to do.

  Indicating right, I slip onto the freeway and head toward a bustling Las Vegas.

  Chapter Two

  Sera

  “You be good, baby.”

  I smile as my father plants a quick kiss on my forehead and nudges me toward the front door. I bat my eyelashes at him, ignoring Leo, who stands on my right, his black eyes burning the skin on the side of my face. “Always.”

  I pull my long black coat tight around me as I turn and descend the wide, stone steps that lead to the sleek town car waiting for me.

  “Keep a close eye on her,” Dad says to Leo. “If she gets away from you again…”

  I roll my eyes with a smirk as James, my driver, opens my door.

  “She won’t.”

  I hear the hard bottoms of Leo’s shoes as he storms down the steps and slips into the car behind mine. I glance over my shoulder and wave to my father, who offers one back. I see the warning in his eyes, his threat to punish me if I act out again. Why can’t he be a normal father? I’m twenty years old. I don’t need an escort—or a guard to watch my every move. It’s freaking suffocating. I know he means well, I know he does, but the life he chose for himself shouldn’t affect the life I want for me.

  Being the only child—and only daughter—of Marco Ventilli, Don of the Las Vegas family, is no walk in the park. You’d think with all this money and power I’d be shitting all over this town, but truth be told, I’ve barely seen what this town has to offer a young girl like me. I can’t break a fingernail without my father finding out about it and I’m at my wits’ end. I used to be okay with it all until I came of age and wanted to live my life the way my friends did. It’s through them that I saw just how trapped I was.

  At the age of fifteen, my parents promised my hand to a made man of another family—the Chicago Outfit. I was told I would marry him on my eighteenth birthday and that he’d take my virginity as a gift from my parents. I was mortified by the duties expected of me, so mortified that I took matters into my own hands and gave my virginity to a not-so-nice boy in a dressing room after school when I was sixteen. Why? Because I wanted to do it on my own terms and I didn’t want to be in pain on my wedding night. I told my mother about it, hoping she’d praise me for being so clever—or to stop the wedding out of embarrassment at the very least. Instead, she slapped me back to the sixteenth century in a fit of tears. Turns out, it’s easy to tell if a girl is a virgin or not and I was in big trouble come my wedding night.

  I thought about ending my life as my seventeenth birthday rushed by, but I decided against it since my “husband” was going to kill me anyway and then declare war on my father.

  Thankfully, my husband-to-be was shot dead outside his strip club eight months before our wedding and it all went away. It was a fucking miracle. I thought I’d gotten away with it too, until I found out later that it was my father who killed my fiancé. He knew I wasn’t a virgin. He told me he knew what I’d done the moment I’d done it, thanks to Mom. I was overrun with guilt at the fact he allowed me to lie to his face and horrified that he let me live with the fear of the consequence of my actions…for years. As punishment for what I did, he cut me off from the world even more. For a long time, I couldn’t walk the drive to get the mail, but now, after incessant nagging on my behalf, I’m allowed out provided it’s under the supervision of a guard. I can’t come and go as I please, not until I’m married off and I’m someone else’s problem.

  I’m getting a little too old for marriage…or so my mother’s friends keep pointing out whenever I attend their stupid brunches. Apparently, I’m embarrassing the family, but in all honesty, I don’t mind it. I hope I never marry.

  Ditching my train of thought, I peer into Leo’s car. He watches me intently, his knuckles turning white as he grips the steering wheel. His eyes are narrowed directly at me and I can’t help but smile at him. I have one hell of a night planned, Leo, and you can’t stop me.

  I slip into my car and slide along the black leather seats until I’m sitting dead center. When I’m comfortable, my driver closes the door. In a few minutes, he pulls the car around the elegant, white stone water fountain in the center of our drive and slowly rolls toward the gigantic, wrought iron gate. As he drives, I text my friend Naomi that I’ll meet her inside the club in a little under an hour. First, I have to shake Leo. My father thinks I’m seeing a movie with my girlfriends. I showed him fake text messages about the meet up just to prove it too.

  I slip out of my plain black flats and open my handbag. Reaching inside, I pull out my favorite pair of Gucci heels and stuff my flats in their place. Slipping into the heels feels like I’m soaking my feet in silk and fucking rainbows. I never want to take them off.

  Sighing, I drop back against the leather, smoothing my palms down the length of my black coat. Tonight is going to go one of two ways. One, I get away from Leo, I have a good time, and Leo doesn’t say shit to my father about losing me for the second time. Or, Leo is going to freak out and tell my father immediately, who’ll put a call out and have just about everyone in Las Vegas on the lookout for me. Normally, I wouldn’t play with those odds, but I take solace in the fact this will be the second time Leo has lost me. He’d rather take his chances turning Vegas upside down looking for me than he would admitting another failure to my father.

  It’s not long until James pulls the town car in front of the worn movie theatre. I wait patiently while he exits the car and then circles to open the door adjacent the sidewalk. When I get out into the crisp
, night air, I glance around.

  Nothing.

  Excitement boils and bubbles inside me when I don’t see Leo’s car anywhere. Could it be? I start forward and turn away from the wide movie theatre doors, lifting my phone to my face. This turned out to be easier than I thought. James doesn’t say anything as I walk down the street toward the main part of town. He doesn’t get paid enough to say anything, and the extra pocket money I give him keeps him on my side, not my father’s.

  “Those shoes are a little dramatic for a screening of King Arthur, don’t you think?”

  I freeze mid-text, my eyes thinning to complete my scowl. Party pooper. Slowly, I turn around and there he is. The cock-blocker…or whatever the equivalent is to that in this situation. I bite my tongue at the sight of his smug expression and force an innocent smile.

  “It’s Charlie Hunnam,” I point out, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m not wearing flats. What if he’s here?”

  “I doubt he’s here.” Leo rolls his dark, espresso eyes and stuffs his large hands into the pockets of his matching pressed slacks. “Where are your friends?”

  I slip my phone into the pocket of my coat. “They’re already inside.”

  He regards me curiously. In his stare, I can see him overthinking the situation, trying to predict every single one of my tricks, but there’s nothing he can do to stop me from meeting Naomi tonight.

  Eventually, Leo steps to the side and gestures toward the theatre doors. “After you.”

  I smile sweetly at him. “Thanks.”

  As soon as I pass his peripheral, my smile melts into a glare.

  Inside the theatre, Leo stands against a far wall while I buy my tickets. For added measure, I buy popcorn, a medium soda, and a bag of sour Skittles. For a moment, I wonder what his plan is, because if he comes into the actual cinema, it’s going to be harder for me to get away, and I didn’t pack running shoes. Thankfully, after he chats to the ushers, Leo stands right by the door and remains there as I saunter past. My father’s men are a lot of things, but stealthy isn’t one of them. Leo sticks out like a sore thumb in his fitted black suit and his angry stare.