he was knocking at the door.”
“I’ll make sure my boss does that.”
“Pack up all your things. We’re going back to town. If they found us here, they’re tracking us somehow. We might as well be where you’re comfortable and I have my people close by.”
“What about him?” I gestured to the unconscious man.
“I’ll have him taken care of.”
Was he going to kill him? “What does that mean?”
“It means somebody will pick him up and take him somewhere secure where he can be questioned.”
“Is that code for tortured?”
Giorgio sighed. “We’ll talk more in the car on the way to Boston. Right now, I want you to get packed.”
At least we wouldn’t be stuck in this cabin anymore. I’d actually have space to do my work, but I didn’t like how easily Alan had tracked us down. “How do you think they found us?”
“I don’t know, but I assure you I’m going to figure it out.”
I packed as quickly as I could, taking much less care with my possessions than I usually would. I wanted to get out of there. What if they sent somebody else after me? I supposed Giorgio would beat them up too, even if they were larger than him like the man he’d brought down. As scared as I was, I had to admit it was hot seeing how easily he’d defeated the man. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Maybe he really was invincible.
It didn’t take Giorgio as long to load the car this time. I dreaded the two-and-a-half-hour drive, but even once I was home I doubted I’d be able to relax, not when I felt like someone was watching me. At least I had Giorgio to protect me.
Giorgio was silent as we started the drive. All I could think about was how I could’ve been killed. Eventually Alan or someone who worked for him would have gotten to me if I hadn’t listened to my mother. She was going to love saying “I told you so” when she found out what had happened.
Out of the blue, Giorgio spoke. “I was a sniper in the army. Special forces.”
“Wow. So when you say you never miss…”
“I’m really fucking serious.”
“And after the army?”
“I lost Thomas on my last mission. After I came back to the states, I drank a lot and felt sorry for myself.”
“Shit.”
He sniffed. “Yeah. Things didn’t end well. That last mission was… It was fucked up, and I got out afterwards.”
I wanted to know more, but I could tell this wasn’t something I should push him on. “You’re not just feeling sorry for yourself now.”
“No. Now I work for an organization that takes care of problems for people.”
“Problems like mine?”
“Yes. Sometimes we don’t wait for people to come to us. We see a problem, and we eliminate it.”
“You kill people?”
“Occasionally.”
That should scare the shit out of me, but my instincts told me Giorgio was a good man. Those same instincts had told me there was something wrong with Alan, but I’d ignored them. I wasn’t going to ignore them now.
“I let that man live today, but if he’d come for you, I would have shot him to ensure your safety. I won’t hesitate to use deadly force. I’m here to protect you. I may not be what you traditionally think of as a bodyguard, and that’s certainly not my usual function, but I assure you, you’re safer with me than you would be with anyone else, except maybe my boss or the other senior partners.”
“How did you get this job?”
Giorgio glanced at me. “It’s invitation only. You’ve got to know the right people.”
“But what you do isn’t…”
“Legal? Fuck no. But it needs to be done.”
That was a hell of a lot to take in. “How do you get away with that?”
“There are people involved with a lot of money and a lot of power.”
Trained killers with money and power. That was terrifying. “You really just called somebody to come take that man away.”
“I did. He’s tied up in the house right now. I gave him something to keep him resting while he waits.”
“A sedative?”
“Yes.”
“And you just happened to have one on you?”
“Always.”
Fuck. He was even scarier than I’d thought. “The first time I saw you I thought you were dangerous.”
“I am, but it didn’t keep you away, did it?”
“Not for a second. It was a total turn-on.”
“How about now that you know more?”
I considered that for a moment. “Nothing has changed.”
He gave me one of his half smiles, then focused back on the road. “What made