The Mercenary Next Door (Rogues and Rescuers #2) - Lucy Leroux Page 0,5
portrayed in the media.
“Auric isn’t like the outfits you’ve heard about. The type of work I do involves protecting people. The last mission was a K & R.”
“What is that?”
“Kidnap retrieval. My team went in to extract to an oil exec and his wife from a hostage situation. We got them home to their three little girls.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Wow.”
Mason had never tried to justify what he did before, not to anyone. He wasn’t ashamed of the work, but he knew how some people saw his kind. Mercenary was a dirty word in certain mouths. And this was Laila.
He hadn’t realized until now that her opinion mattered to him so much. Enough for him to try to paint himself as a hero in her eyes—whatever he needed to undo the damage caused by throwing her to the ground like a maniac.
“That’s amazing. Those people got to go home to their kids because of you,” she added, giving herself a little shake. “But I, um, I should get going. My shift starts soon.”
Nodding like a marionette, he let her go. But long after she was gone, he kept replaying the way she left, backing away as if afraid to take her eyes off him…because he was a threat.
Chapter Four
Laila looped her infinity scarf around her neck one more time, trying to draw it high enough to cover her ears. The nights were colder now than when it had been raining. But she had to be out here. It had been over a week since she last took a shift with the Night Witches, the group she helped found when she was an undergraduate at the school.
Named after a famous group of Soviet aviatrixes, their version had been created after she and Rosamie found one of their classmates passed out on the lawn halfway between the frats and their dormitory. Banding together with a few other girlfriends, they spread the word—anyone partying on campus could text them to get walked back to their dorm room at any time, no questions asked. The girls who volunteered worked in pairs, sometimes arranging to pick up a certain person in advance. They were a regular and unpopular sight on Greek Row, the street where the fraternities and sororities owned their houses.
Despite the fact she wasn’t an undergrad anymore and lived off-campus, Laila still tried to volunteer at least once a month—twice if her schedule allowed.
It was just her luck she’d chosen what had to be the coldest night of the year. If anyone had told me I’d be freezing in L.A., I would have laughed in their faces.
Laila had grown up in Chicago. After eighteen years of chilly autumns and frigid winters, she initially laughed at what passed for fall and winter in California, but, five years later, it was as if her blood had thinned to the point where she was always cold.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Rosamie observed, walking beside her with her hands in the pockets of her faux-fur bomber jacket.
“Sorry,” she apologized, aware she hadn’t been very animated. Being out with Rosamie or their other friend Jasmine was one of the things that made the Night Witches enjoyable, even fun most of the time.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“Is it your mom?” Rosamie asked, concern wrinkling her rounded features.
“No, although she’s not great.” Laila’s stepmother was her only family. Joyce James suffered from a case of progressive dementia. She was currently in a home in the Chicago suburbs, close to the siblings who had never really accepted Laila as one of their own. “I spoke to her yesterday, and she was fine…at first. But she became confused and hung up on me after ten minutes.”
That was how Laila judged her mother’s state of mind—by how long Joyce stayed on the phone. Her dad’s life insurance money ensured his second wife had the care she needed, which was a relief, even if it meant Laila had to pay her own way through school.
“Is that shorter than normal?”
A corner of Laila’s mouth pulled down. There had been a time when she would have spent more than two hours on the phone with her stepmother. “A bit shorter, but only a few minutes.”
The call before had lasted a quarter of an hour, but this kind of fluctuation had happened before. Laila knew better than to count the seconds. However, the overall downward trend was distressing.
But she can bounce back. It had happened before, and Laila lived in hope.