CHAPTER 2
RANSOM
Idid not stab myself in the neck.
A travesty, I realized twenty-four hours after my conversation with Tom, as I made my way through an overcrowded, filthy LAX.
The last time I’d been here, some years ago as a counterintelligence agent, a lot of blood had been shed. I’m talking Squid Game level shit. It was one of the reasons I left. It became clear to me I was at risk of losing the very little humanity I had left in me if I didn’t quit.
I didn’t give much of a damn about being humane. The main incentive was not to snap into a machete-yielding killer who’d end up going on a rampage.
Prison life seemed uninspiring, and I heard the food there left a lot to be desired.
It also helped that as a CI agent, the money wasn’t half that of going private. A no-brainer.
Speaking of no brains, I had to get to that Hallie person’s house before she decided to document her trip to the gynecologist on TikTok. Since I’d been advised by McAfee that the brat had no less than four cars in her Hollywood Hills’ mansion’s six-car garage, and a driver, I cabbed it.
Glaring out the window with my duffel bag perched in my lap, I again marveled at how stunningly ugly Los Angeles was. Rundown buildings, grungy bodegas, littered streets, graffiti-filled bridges, and more shopping carts on the street than inside Costco.
To top all of this, the air was so polluted, that living in this shithole was akin to smoking two packs a day. You had to be seriously stupid to move here voluntarily.
Coincidentally, I had very few expectations for Hallie Thorne.
Though I’d never had a proper home, I did consider Chicago to be my sort of base. Chicago was where I worked, where I played, where I fucked, and where I lived in a maximum-security building, in a three-million-dollar penthouse.
Me, a boy who’d once had to eat scraps from the garbage can behind grocery stores.
“That’s you.” The cab driver killed the engine in front of a hideous mansion that looked like origami put together by a child with ten thumbs. An architectural phallic gesture if I ever saw one. A black square on top of a white square, which were the stories of the house, with numerous floor-to-ceiling windows revealing the “promising” inside:
Vintage wallpaper, tasteless art, and a huge, tacky chandelier.
I tipped the driver and slammed the passenger door behind me.
Since McAfee had warned me that the Thorne child was difficult and unruly, I didn’t bother milling around after hitting the doorbell twice. I took out my trip wire, tampered with the keyhole, and saw myself inside.
She had a state-of-the-art security system, but just as I suspected, she didn’t bother using it.
The house, like its renter, was a mess. An array of masquerade masks were strewn across the living room furniture, along with fabrics—gowns. Piles of unopened goodie bags and gift boxes, labels still intact. The TV was on. A Korean drama full of sulky, young people in school uniforms. A canvas print of the Thorne princess took up an entire wall in the living room. Sprawled over a windowsill in black and white, overlooking Manhattan’s skyline, wearing nothing but knee-high black socks, and a black birdcage veil over her eyes.
I looked away (she was seventeen, maybe eighteen), ambling toward the bookshelves in the living room, in no hurry to meet my new client. You could tell a lot about a person from the books in their library.
The shelves were aggressively up-to-date with all the Oprah and Reese book club staples. I plucked one out and sifted through it. The pages were crisp, with the same ink and woody scent lingering from the bookstore. They still clung to one another, the stiffness of the spines revealing more than titles:
These were props. The little princess didn’t read a lick of the books she possessed.
After a quick inspection of the place, I leisurely ascended the stairway. No sign of the Thorne girl on the second floor either. The only hint of her was a trail of clothes leading from the hallway to the master bedroom.
The last item—a pink, lacy bra—was tossed by the double doors to the balcony. Where the girl I’d seen on the cover of that magazine lay on a lounger, naked as the day she was born, a towel flung over her face.
Is she allergic to clothes?
Not stopping to check out the goods, I made my way toward her. She was twenty-one, I’d learned on my flight here. As I suspected—a child, especially to my twenty-nine-year-old self. Not to mention, stealing a look was in bad taste. I was a professional—and didn’t need to creep on sleeping women. One kink was enough.
I stood directly above her, blocking the sun. Her skin prickled, turning into goosebumps as I provided her some shade and cool. Motionless, I waited to be acknowledged without touching her. As a general rule, I did not touch my clients.
I did not touch anybody, if I could help it.
Unless, of course, it was part of a well-plotted fantasy controlled for all variables.
She tossed the towel from her face, stretching her limbs.
“Keller? Did you bring me kombucha? I’m so dehydrated. I’m still mad…”
The last words died in her throat. Her eyes widened as she took me in for the first time.
An impersonal smirk touched my lips. “Hello, Hallie.”
In response, the little shit grabbed the closest thing to her from the floor—a San Pellegrino bottle—smashed it against the edge of the lounger and tried to stab the side of my thigh with it. She came a few inches shy of my knee when I caught her wrist easily, twisting it. Not enough to break it, but enough to indicate I wasn’t ruling the option out if she acted up.
“I’m not here to hurt you, but I will if you don’t let. Go.”
The broken bottle dropped on the floor. I kicked it to the other side of the balcony. She gasped, her big, blue eyes—innocent as a doe’s first glance at its mother—clung to my face desperately.
“I—I—I…” she stuttered. “Please. I…I’ll give you money. Jewelry. Anything you need.”
Anything that wouldn’t require her to answer to anyone. Typical brat, after all. Her parents must’ve warned her I wouldn’t put up with her antics.
“I don’t want anything you have to offer,” I said quietly. Understatement of the century.
“I’ll fight.” She tried to pull her wrist away, wiggling in her spot. “I’ll scream and I’ll bite you.”
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
I loosened my grip on her wrist. “Let’s pump the brakes a little. Do you—”
Hallie started screaming. Deafening, desperate wails for help. I had no choice but to shut her up by plastering my palm over her mouth. She tried to bite me as she kicked her legs frantically in the air, trying to break free. Jesus, if she was making a stink this big with me, how had she reacted with her father when he told her she was getting a new bodyguard?
Her nails dug into my hand, breaking the skin, until my blood trickled over her chin. I had to look away. It reminded me too much of my extracurricular activities.
“You can fight all you want. You’ll tire out before I do,” I said, my voice flat and bored. My muscles barely flexed as I pinned her to the lounger. “This is a done deal, Miss Thorne.”
Then she started crying.
The first out of many dramatic fits, no doubt. Did she want to get robbed and killed? Not all of my clients’ spawn wanted close protection, but none tried to actively attack me thus far.
She was lucky I had a hard-on for the Anthony Thorne connection or I’d have left her house right then and there.
Her tears raced down the back of my hand, disappearing into my blazer.
“Cut it out.” I avoided touching anything but her face and shoulders. Or looking anywhere but the neck up. “This is for your own good.”
Through the muffled sobs against my palm, I heard her hiccup, “Please don’t rape me.”
My blood turned cold. Bile hit the back of my throat.
Rape her?
When I unglued my hand from her mouth, stepping back, she took advantage of not being held anymore, and jumped up from the lounger, stumbling on the parquet toward her bedroom.
I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole if the future of this planet depended on it. Polar bears and rainforests be damned. “Did you just say rape?”
I accidentally got a good look at her ass as she crawled across the floor like a D-list actress in a scary movie. I now fully understood why President Thorne wanted to put security on that ass. It invited trouble. Round and smooth, with an ivy tattoo crawling up her leg, lacing around her inner thigh. A lesser man would wonder what it felt like to knead it as he bent her against one of her ridiculous designer credenzas and plunged into her mercilessly while she begged him to stop.
A lesser one, but not me.
Leisurely, I followed her as she crashed into furniture, patting her nightstands and linens desperately. She was sobbing too hard to speak.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” I held her phone in my palm, raising it in the air. The little color on her face had drained completely. She looked so genuinely scared, I was beginning to actively hate the situation we were both in.
“Next time don’t leave your phone on the first floor. Now that I’ve got your attention, let me be clear—I am not going to touch you, not going to harass you, and I’m sure as hell not going to rape you. Put something on and meet me downstairs, Miss Thorne. We are going to have a little chat. Fully clothed.”
With that, I exited the room and went downstairs to roam her kitchen. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Nothing seemed to be remotely edible. It was all clean juices, pre-packed salads, and organic bars that could moonlight as horse feed.
Hallie joined me in the kitchen twenty minutes later. She was dressed in some kind of crocheted dress and was wide-eyed and shaking. Her nose was pink. She’d cried a lot before coming down here.
What was her angle with the histrionics? Had this alone been enough to make weaker guards run from the job?
I took a sip of my Nespresso, the one good thing about this house thus far.
“Sit down,” I ordered, leaning against her dark green granite island.
She did, her eyes hard on mine, like it was a hostage situation instead of an adult conversation.
“I just want you to know…” She took a ragged breath as she closed her eyes.
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a complete sentence, Miss Thorne. Think you can put me out of my misery and finish it?”
It was critical to ensure that I had the upper hand in our dynamic, albeit despite my unorthodox strategies.
She was going to give me trouble and put me through bullshit to see how far she could take it before she outlasted me. I’d seen this movie many times before. Better to establish clearly now, that my patience was not to be tested.
Or in existence, for that matter.
Anthony Thorne himself had given me the green light to use tough love and set clear boundaries to force her back on the straight and narrow when we spoke on the phone. Worked for me—I don’t do kiddie gloves.
“Look, Lockwood, I know why they call you The Robot. They said you’re pragmatic. Get the job done with minimal mistakes, never let your emotions rule you. I need her to learn to be more like you. My daughter, bless her heart, is a good kid. But she’s reckless, and I don’t want her next mistake to cost her more than just her dignity.”
Reckless Princess over here was now glaring at me, eyes red with fury, not acceptance.
“I want you to know that I used my laptop upstairs before coming down here.” Her voice quivered. “I messaged the police. They’re on their way. And my dad’s security detail—they know, too. I don’t know how you found your way in, but this is your last chance to run away and never come back.”
My phone started blowing up in my pocket, signaling that she indeed called for help. And I noticed when she came downstairs that she had a Swiss Army knife tucked into her waistband.
Then it hit me. All at once.
The one thing I hadn’t even considered.
She’d had no idea.
She had no idea.
No idea I was her new protector.
She thought I broke into her house.
President Thorne, you flaming bag of sh—
“Everyone knows. Time’s out. Just leave,” she pierced my thoughts.
He hadn’t bothered to tell her. My guess was because he was scared of her. Parenthood was a debilitating affliction. The man had led the free world for eight years, and couldn’t get his daughter to keep her tits in her tops.
Smiling cordially, I said, “I’m glad to hear that you did the smart thing.”
“Excuse me?” She tilted her head sideways.
“I’m glad you told your father’s security detail I arrived, since they were my next call. He was the one who hired me.”
Her mouth hung open. She was speechless.
Finally, she blinked. “But I…I…I don’t need a bodyguard.”
“I’m not a bodyguard.” I dumped the coffee cup into the sink, flinging her fridge open. “The term is close protection officer. Bodyguards are the brainless meatheads who carry your girlfriends’ Gucci bags for them while their photos are being taken.”
Truth was, I didn’t give one crap about my title. I simply wanted to establish I wasn’t one of the Chihuahua holding gym-rats she was used to for security. Testing my patience wasn’t going to end the same way. Then again, this debacle didn’t seem like a typical start for her either.
The fridge was stacked to the max with leafy greens, organic, gluten-free pizzas, and colorful cupcakes.
“Where’s the real food around here?” I asked.
“Define real food.” She massaged her temples, still processing.
“Something that was once alive, or a product of it. Something not made of useless carbs.”
“I’m vegetarian,” she announced.
Of course she is.
“Of course you are.”
“Meat is murder,” she said with conviction. Even though she still looked like she wanted to kill me, her shoulders slumped. She relaxed visibly, registering that, at the very least, I wasn’t there to murder her.
“It is also delicious. I’ll stock up the house tomorrow.”
I plucked a healthy grain bowl that looked suspiciously like something you’d give your pet parrot and stepped back.
She folded her arms over her chest, tilting her chin up defiantly. “You’ll stock up on nothing, which brings me back to our original conversation—I don’t need a bod…close protection whatever. Leave.”
“Tough luck Daddy thinks otherwise and he’s paying for all of this nonsense.” I kicked the fridge shut, motioning around us with a fork.
“You can’t do this.” She bared her teeth at me, ready for round two. I already knew she was ready to brawl if it came down to it.
“I can, and I am,” I said around a mouthful of a quinoa and chickpea salad.
“This is a breach of my privacy!” She slapped the granite kitchen island between us.
I shoveled more food onto the fork. “No offense, kiddo, but you couldn’t find your privacy if it were hand-delivered to you by Amazon. And for the record,” I paused to swallow my bite, “I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me to be. But your father offered me a six-month post, and I’m not going to let him down.”
“This is bullshit.” She flung her arms in the air.
“It’s what happens when you decide to show the world your tits,” I countered.
“One tit,” she corrected.
“Let’s aim for none for the next half a year. Now, deal with the consequences of your behavior and suck it up. You’ll have to change your ways, or your father is going to extend the contract and I’ll unleash my colleague Kent on you. Fair warning: if you think I’m a teddy bear, wait till you meet this grizzly.”
“You are the most horrific person I’ve ever met.” She bolted up from her seat. “And I want you out of my house.”
“I don’t work for you. I work for your father.”
“This is not how any of this works. It’s the twenty-first century!” She got in my face, so close I could smell her breath—peaches—and noticed that her eyes were an interesting shade of turquoise. Silver dots swirled around her irises. There was something rather innocent about her. Something that told me she wasn’t fully-baked. That the world had not tarnished her completely.
“It’s the twenty-first century, and people are still inheritably bad, and want to harm and/or use loved ones of influential people. Which is why I’m here to help,” I reminded her calmly, finishing the bird food bowl and tossing it into one of the fucking five trashcans. This woman did not mess around when it came to recycling.
“You used the wrong can!” She nearly football-tackled me on her way to the trash, picking up the bowl and throwing it into the black bin, not the green one. “Next time, rinse and dry it, then you can put it in the green one.”
“What the—”
She swaggered back to her spot behind the island, now that humanity was no longer in danger from my lack of recycling. “I thought you were going to rape me.”
She still had the Swiss knife tucked close. If nothing else, I appreciated her resourcefulness.
“Rest assured, I have no intention of ever touching you.”
I started making my way to my duffel bag at the entrance. A lot was riding on this Hallie Thorne post. I’d earned a meeting with Anthony Thorne himself from this. He said he’d meet Tom and me to discuss our company if he was satisfied with my work.
And while it was true I hadn’t left Los Angeles with sweet and fuzzy memories, Tom was right. It had been years, and I needed to get over what happened, even if it kept me up at night, every night.
I grabbed my duffel bag, about to head upstairs to unpack. A knock on the door stopped me. Hallie launched herself at it, tossing it open, revealing two LAPD officers on the threshold.
She practically pulled them inside by their uniforms.
“This is the guy!” She pointed at me with a shaky finger. “He’s trespassing. I don’t want him here. He saw me naked!”
“Who hasn’t?” I glimpsed at my watch.
The officers chuckled. Hallie’s face fell further as one of them squinted my way.
“Lockwood, that you?”
He didn’t look familiar.
“Mike.” He pointed at himself, laughing. “Mike Slayton. We went to training camp together in Huntsville?”
“Mike.” I faked a smile. I still had no clue who the guy was. “Long time no see.”
Twenty-nine years to be exact, and I haven’t the faintest clue who you are.
He walked right past her. So did his colleague. We all shook hands. Hallie looked between us, her surprised, blow-up doll face on full display.
“What are you doing here? Are you still with…?” Mike left the question hanging.
I shook my head. “Private sector now. Tom Whitfield and I went solo.”
“Whitfield!” Mike snapped his fingers. “That son of a gun. He’s always been talented. Tell me, did he end up marrying what’s her name? Laney? Lila?”
“Lisa. They have twins now. Boys.” Fuck if I even remembered their names right now. Something with an S, I was forty percent sure.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He rearranged his belt around his thick waist. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”
“He is forcing himself on me!” the brat roared, slipping between him and me. She was doing the weird dance thing again, where she waved her arms and jumped from side to side. I had to hand it to her—she was persistent. I’d dealt with the spawn of rich people before, and normally, they didn’t put up this much fight.
“Miss.” He swiped his eyes over her cleavage, licking his lips. “Sexual harassment is a serious allegation.”
“You might want to tell that to my face. My bra doesn’t speak English.” Her hands balled into tight fists, and I had a feeling my first assignment was to keep her from stabbing him.
“Shame.” I yawned, sauntering back to the kitchen and picking an apple from the fruit bowl. “Maybe it could’ve told you the other night to put it back in, and spare both of us this unfortunate situation.”
She whipped her head around, pinning me with a death glare. “I’ve known you for all of ten minutes and you’ve already assaulted me in my own home and insulted me like my father.”
I took a bite of the juicy apple. “Her father, former President Thorne and current owner of this residence, hired me as her close protection officer. I can call him to confirm this.”
Because I had his number on speed-dial now. Which reinforced my original point—I wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what the Thorne Princess wanted.
“No need.” Mike hiked up his belt over his belly. “This seems like a simple misunderstanding that got cleared up. Right, miss?”
“Are you kidding me?” the brat screamed. “I understand the situation perfectly. Someone is squatting in my house, and you’re taking his word he has a right to be here! Why the hell aren’t you doing something? I’m not a child making a prank call, I’m twenty-one!”
“And living off your parents’ dime.” I finished the rest of the apple. “Which brings me to my original point: abide by my rules, or lose every privilege you have.”
“That all?” Mike asked. The guy beside him was staring at the artistic nude painting of Hallie in the living room. An urge to drive my fist into his jaw slammed into me. I did not like it when women were objectified.
“Know what? I’ll deal with it myself. Thanks for nothing.” She stormed upstairs.
“You’re welcome, honey.” Evidently, Mike was not well-versed in sarcasm. He turned back to me. “So? Drinks this afternoon? I finish my shift at three o’clock.”
I opened my mouth to tell him there was no way in hell I’d intentionally spend time with him, when he got another call. He took it, sighed, then frowned.
“Looks like there was a robbery two streets down. So, drinks?”
With a cold smile, I answered, “Raincheck.”
I closed the door behind the officers and let Brat sulk in her room for a while. If this was what being a parent felt like—I was glad I’d opted out of having children.
In the meantime, I went upstairs and unpacked my bag in a burgundy-walled freak show of a guestroom, complete with neon pink lamps. The place looked like it had been decorated by a blind brothel Madame. I wondered if Anthony Thorne had ever set foot in this wasteful, five hundred-room mansion. My gut told me the answer was no.
My gut was never wrong.
Question was—was it his choice to avoid this place, or Brat’s?
I proceeded downstairs and started making some calls. Max was supposed to arrive tomorrow. Miss Thorne required around-the-clock supervision so we had to take shifts. I also called a local CrossFit place. I normally liked to get my workouts out in the open, but the only pieces of green Los Angeles had to offer were the golf courses.
I sifted through emails, checked my Kink app for appealing like-minded people in the area, and then got back to sorting through résumés for the cybersecurity unit.
An hour after her dramatic departure, Brat reemerged downstairs, swathed in black from head-to-toe and dark sunglasses, holding a designer suitcase. She sloped her chin up.
She looked like an especially bad actress on a soap opera.
“I’m leaving,” she declared from her place by the door.
I didn’t answer.
“There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Wanna bet?
“I’m just taking my keys.” She let go of her suitcase and advanced to the kitchen, then came back, red-faced, to the dining table where I sat.
“Where are all my keys?” she demanded. “This is theft.”
“In my pocket.” I kept typing an email as I spoke. “And those cars are technically under your mother’s name. She confirmed I could confiscate them as I deemed fit for safety purposes.”
“You—”
“So much for being an environmentalist.” I continued typing on my laptop. “Owning four cars.”
“They’re all hybrids.”
“You’re one person,” I reminded her. I had a feeling math wasn’t her strong suit.
“That’s because I like supporting green companies.”
“Sure, on your father’s dime.”
“I’ll call my driver,” she mumbled, more to herself than to me.
“Mr. Drischoll is on an overdue paid leave,” I announced flatly. “He’s spending some time across the country with his family.”
“Dennis!” She gasped, slapping a hand over her chest. “He never had a vacation before.”
“My point exactly.”
“Well, I’ll get an Uber,” she shot back.
“Would they let you pay in pearls of wisdom?” I inquired dryly.
“What?”
I stopped typing. “Your credit cards have been canceled. Couldn’t risk you running into trouble while I wasn’t looking.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Oh, I should warn you in advance—I have no sense of humor. No joking in this household for the next six months.” I double-clicked one of the résumés waiting in my email.
“I’m going to get revenge.”
I yawned, wondering if all one-dimensional creatures of excess in L.A. talked in poorly scripted Riverdale dialogue.
“Revenge’s an admission of pain. Tuck your feelings back in. Everyone can see them, and what they can see—they can exploit.”
“I’m going to find a way out of this.” She was pacing back and forth now, peering at the walls like they were closing in on her. She was coming to terms with her new reality. Good.
I opened another Chrome tab of résumés. A bachelor’s degree in information security, UC Berkeley cybersecurity boot camp graduate, five years’ experience in NESSUS, SPLUNK, and APP Detective, blah, blah, blah.
Not good enough. Next.
“I am!” She stomped her foot. “Just watch me.”
My eyes snapped up to meet hers.
“I’ll watch you, all right, because Daddy Dearest pays me a hefty sum to do so. Your ass is under my supervision for the next six months, Miss Thorne, whether you like it or not. Forget about everything you knew to be your former life. Gone are your days of stumbling out of bars and clubs naked and drunk. From now on, you will have to prove to me that you are responsible enough to operate your social media accounts, to have a credit card, and to socialize with other adults. You will be abstinent, sober—those are your parents’ demands, and on your best behavior—the latter is mine. And by the end of my stay,” this was where I got to the cherry on the shitcake, “you will be gainfully employed, too.”
“Abstinent!” she shouted to the sky, outraged. I could kind of understand where she was coming from. Being sexually active had nothing to do with good behavior. But I didn’t make the rules—I simply enforced them. “Will you be abstinent?”
Wouldn’t put money on it.
I could go without for weeks, sometimes months. Finding the right partner for my flavor of kink was not easy—fortunately my self-control was second only to my stamina. But the Brat and I weren’t playing the same game.
“What I do with my personal time is my business,” I clipped out.
“Yeah, thought so.” She laughed mirthlessly. “And sober? I don’t even drink that much.”
“Then giving it up shouldn’t pose an issue.”
She glanced around, looking for creative ways to get out of the situation. Clearly, the Thornes had allowed her to grow as wild and free as a weed until she was not in the habit of answering to anyone.
“I’ll make your life a living hell,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Kiddo.” I flashed her an impatient smile. “I was forged in hell. I’ll feel right at home. You, however, are in for a challenging few months.”
“This is not over,” she warned, wiggling a finger in my face, an explosion of colors and attitude. “In fact, I’m going to walk out of here right now and sell this story about how you walked in on a naked, sleeping woman to—”
Not interested in hearing the rest of this sentence, or anything else to come out of that smart mouth, I stood up, picked her up, and locked her upstairs, in her room.
It was the first time I’d physically—unprofessionally touched a client.
But it was time Brat got some discipline.
Better late than never.