herself. We step inside. Even with the ear protection, the faint pops I heard out in the warehouse are louder.
A guy with salt-and-pepper hair and a curvy redhead stand at two of the seven stalls, shooting handguns at targets on the wall in front of them.
She directs me to the stall on the end, where the targets are set at only fifteen yards. “See what you can do with that target,” she says with a nod at the fresh target clipped on the wire in front of me.
I nod and reel off five shots into the center of the target. I turn to her and lift her ear cover. “Are we ready to get serious now?”
A slow smile creeps across her face, and she pulls back one of my ear covers. “Twenty? Or twenty-five?”
“I’d do fifty if you had it, but I guess I’ll have to settle for twenty-five.”
We drop each other’s protective gear back into place and she sends the target back up the wire to the end. She nods and I empty the rest of the clip into dead center.
“So we’re good with the firearms section of the application,” she says with a lift of her brows. She struts toward the guy up the row and taps his arm, then steps two stalls down and does the same to the woman. They stop shooting and we all pull off our headgear.
“Steve Spencer, Danni Bates, this is Robert Davidson.”
“Rob,” I correct, shaking their outstretched hands in turn.
“Provided everything checks out,” Elaine continues, “he’ll be working with the team once we get him on board with protocol.”
“Welcome to the jungle,” the redhead says.
“Danni is one of our best,” Elaine explains with a nod at her. “She’ll be working with you over the next few weeks to get you up to speed. And Steve is our pilot, so you might get the opportunity to work with him down the road. We pay two hundred a day during training, and if you don’t kill yourself in the process, you’ll get your first assignment when Danni clears you. Once you’re in the field, pay is per assignment and varies from two grand for an evening, to ten for round-the-clock.”
I whistle through my teeth. We never paid anywhere near that for our muscle.
“Don’t let my wife scare you away,” Salt-and-Pepper says, looping his arm around Elaine’s waist. “Her bark is worse than her bite.”
They’re married. Good to know.
“What hours are we looking at?” I ask.
“We’ll do most of your training in the mornings, when we’re slow. I’ve got a field staff of eight drivers, and five highly trained bodyguards. Most of your work will be in the Tampa or Miami area, and we’ll probably need you one or two nights a week. I won’t send you on any overnight or long-term gigs until we’re comfortable that you know what you’re doing.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“I’m going to be honest and tell you I lost two guys in the last month. One moved away and the other couldn’t hack it. I need someone up and running ASAP.” She gives me the once-over. “I’m going to expedite your background check and application, and if you’re everything you seem to be, I don’t see an issue.”
I nod, hoping she’s right.
“Plan to be here from nine to noon for a few weeks starting Monday. We’ll see how your training progresses and go from there,” she says, moving toward the door.
“Great to meet you,” I tell Steve, then turn to Danni. “And I guess I’ll see you Monday.”
“Looking forward to it,” she says with a smile.
I follow Elaine through the warehouse back to the offices.
“If you have any questions, call me,” she says, flipping a card out of a holder on the wall near the entrance. “If there are any issues, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, we’ll see you Monday.”
I shake her hand and leave the way I came in, thinking about how fucked up this is. Mafioso turned bodyguard. Definitely not where I saw my life going.
Chapter 10
Adri
What I know about Sherm’s family so far: 1) Lee cooks breakfast, usually eggs and bacon, but sometimes French toast, and Ulie cooks dinner. 2) Sherm wasn’t a big fan of the shrimp stew Ulie made last week. 3) Rob’s story is that both their parents died in a car crash. 4) That story is a lie. 5) Their mother probably is dead, but I don’t know how. 6) Their father is in jail, but Sherm doesn’t know why.
What I don’t know: 1) Why