Page 4 of Tamed Enemy
“I need additional protection in Georgetown.”
That’s a lesson my mother taught me when I was just a kid: Never jeopardize your home base. Unfortunately, Shannon never understood when to pull back from the dangerous cons she ran. Drunk off the power of fooling her marks, she took stupid risks. That’s why my sister and I lived in three dozen different apartment before my tenth birthday.
It’s also why I was locked up as a teen, pleading guilty to half a dozen variations on fraud. So now I’m on the hook withNikolai Fucking Tarasov, about to pay ten mill a month to keep my juvenile record secret and preserve my business empire.
“What are we talking about?” Best’s reply is intense enough to melt the screen on my phone.
“Nikolai Tarasov is coming after me.”
“The Baltimore pakhan?” Of course Best knows his criminals. “He’s a ruthless motherfucker.”
“That’s why I need your highest level of protection.”
“Both houses?”
Sawgrass men already patrol my home and the one across the street, where my chief of staff, Lars Nilsson, lives with his wife Anna. When my greatest concern was Pyotr Tarasov, I trusted to the most sophisticated biometric access control on the planet and supplemented with Sawgrass guards at the gates and canine teams on the grounds. But now that the bratva pakhan has made his threats…
“Both houses,” I confirm.
“You’ll want cameras—thermal, infrared, and high-definition.”
“Install them.”
“You’ve got, what? Twenty-foot-high fences?”
“Brick,” I confirm. “With concave iron bars on top.”
“You should add microwave beams, to alert if anyone manages to scale them.”
“Do it.”
“Some people would say that drone detection isn’t necessary?—”
“I’m not some people.”
His quick laugh passes for confirmation. “It’ll take a week to set up. The rest I can do in forty-eight hours.”
“Get moving on it now.”
He doesn’t bother reminding me it’s a holiday. Instead, he says, “You need an onsite command center. We can take over the basement?—”
“That space is not available.” Of course, Best knows the basement in my Georgetown mansion was a fully equipped BDSM dungeon two weeks ago. His men stripped the place to the studs when they cleared out the corpses of Pyotr Tarasov and his bodyguard.
Bestdoesn’tknow that renovations are already substantially under way. But he takes me at my word, prompting, “The carriage house across the road would be ideal.”
Not with Granny and Breagha settled in it, along with Granny’s full-time nurse, Helen Watson. “I’d prefer not to disturb the guests living there right now.”
“Your garage?”
It’s not ideal, but I’ve never been as vehicle-mad as most billionaires. My Bentley and Jaguar, Mercedes and Camry will be fine on the driveway. “That will work,” I say.
“Last but not least,” Best says. “Executive protection agents.” My silence lasts for long enough that he clarifies: “Bodyguards.”
The ghost of Shannon rears her head again. I bend too many rules—outright break too many laws—to have anyone sticking close to me twenty-four, seven.
Best clearly anticipates my reaction, because he says, “Sawgrass only recruits from the FBI and Secret Service, from Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. My men aren’t just muscle. The lion’s share of their job is planning trips you take outside the house. They’ll analyze transportation routes for possible ambush sites, sweep destinations for bugs and bombs, and coordinate with local law enforcement.”
Jesus. I want to say that’s overkill. But with Nikolai Tarasov looking to avenge the death of his son, I’m not sure any amount of protection is too much.
