Against Protocol (Protocol Series Book 1)

by Eden Butler

  Cruz seemed mesmerized by the low cast of my eyes as I watched him and the slow progression of my hand as I moved it to his shoulder. He didn’t breathe, he didn’t do anything at all but watch and wait for what I’d say or do next.

  “I remember you liking the things I could do for you.” He flared his nostrils, eyes hardening at my words as though he liked them and hated himself for it, but he didn’t push me away. A small inhale, taking in his sweet scent and I trembled, feeling my nipples harden further. “I remember you liking so many things I did for you.”

  “Lia...” It was a warning, two syllables that told me to back off before I did something I might not be forgiven for. I didn’t want to push my luck. I didn’t want Cruz asking to be reassigned because I couldn’t keep myself from trying to seduce him.

  He opened his mouth, maybe to add depth to the warning, but I didn’t give him the chance. Instead, I offered him a nod, throwing a quick, “Goodnight, Mr. Solano” over my shoulder before I left the bathroom.

  It took everything in me not to watch him as he hurried from my room and left me in front of the fireplace with only the memory of all the times we’d been together running on repeat in my mind, and the hopeful hint I’d caught on his face. It made me believe he hated leaving me. It made me wonder how many more times Cruz would tell himself that walking away from me was the right thing to do.

  FOUR

  Cruz

  If Lia had stayed a vegetarian, there would have been less drama. But, it turns out, when she left New Orleans after graduation, she left behind her devotion to her clean diet along with anything resembling good sense. Three weeks into our detail, she wanted a pizza, meat lovers with a cheese-stuffed crust just as our shift changed. Johnson and I switched after a short three-hour nap I’d grabbed, but he’d been late to relieve me, and a full five minutes lapsed where no one manned the front door or the back courtyard gate. It was all it took for Lia to court a little drama.

  It was noon and Lia took it upon herself to fix her carnivorous hankering. She was a smart woman. She was kind, tended to give people the benefit of the doubt. I don’t have that luxury so when I heard her laugh and the low, breaking tone of a voice I didn’t recognize, I gunned it toward the courtyard, finding Lia missing from the house.

  “You by yourself, ma’am? Ain’t got none of those agents around to...”

  The kid was maybe eighteen with a wiry frame and orange-red hair in a riot of curls underneath the grimy ballcap he wore. He went down like a snowman under boiling water when I caught up to him.

  “Holy shit...” he managed, spotting me as I careened from the back of the townhouse to the courtyard gate to tackle him to the ground. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe it was overkill that couldn’t be explained by how important that promise I’d made to Lia had been. But, I’d meant it. No way in hell I’d let anything happen to her.

  “Cruz!”

  Her voice was high and worried, then silent as a tomb when I flashed her a look and ground out a loud “Inside. Now.”

  She hurried from the courtyard, followed by Johnson who hustled her into the townhouse, jacket missing, and white button up already rumpled as he rushed Lia inside.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked the kid, flipping him onto his stomach with my knee in the small of his back and his wrists held together in one of my hands. “Answer me.”

  Half a second later, I noticed the kid shaking. “Nothing...man...I was just delivering a pizza! I swear!”

  There was a knock on the den window and I glanced up, spotting Johnson nodding to the closed pizza box laying ten feet from us. I could smell the marinara and pepperoni from where I rustled the kid off the ground.

  “Where the fuck is Nelson?” I asked Johnson, head shaking when I remembered where the agent’s loyalties lay. Nelson had an agenda and it had nothing to do with protecting Lia.

  “Next time,” I told the kid, voice in a growl, “use the front door.” I turned the kid around, pulling him up by the scruff of his collar, my attention focused on him as I frisked him. He was empty-handed except for an iPhone with a cracked screen and a marijuana leaf charm hanging from the ring holding together a set of five or so keys. He jerked back when I released him, flinching a little as I went for my wallet and grabbed a hundred. I glanced at the stain on his shirt, the green from the grass leaving a mark against the monogrammed letters of his name, Lewis, on the right side of the jacket he wore. “And no one knows who is here, you get me?”

  “Man, please,” the kid said, wiping his nose before he grabbed the cash when I waved it at him. “I was just doing my job.”

  “We need to get this shit straight, don’t we?” One step closer, my mouth tight and drawn, and the kid rushed backward, only stopping when his back hit the gate. I didn’t feel shitty for scaring him. Lia’s security mattered more than hurting some kid’s feelings. “You came here to deliver a pizza. You ring the bell?”

  “I knocked. For like ten minutes. No one answered.” He exhaled, the shaking in his hands still making him twitch. “Sometimes the rich people have their maids answer the doors from the back.” Lewis tore off his cap, wiping his sweaty forehead against his jacket sleeve. “They don’t...most of them, they don’t like to see delivery people in the front of their place. So I walked to the back.”

  I gave no reaction and kept my attention on him, narrowing my eyes as I looked him over. “Who’d you see here today?”

  He didn’t hesitate, gave no consideration to what I wanted to hear him say. “The...the first lady. Well, the old first lady. Harris’s widow.”

  Hardening my frown, Lewis’s eyes went round and wide, his attention on the step I took closer to him. “Try that again.”

  He was slow on the uptake but my proximity to him and what I guessed was a pissed off glower from me and the kid caught on. “No...nobody?” He tilted his head, pausing to watch me. I gave him nothing. “Some kids? An old lady?” I exhaled, and Lewis nodded, quick, long curls of orangey red hair falling into his eyes. “A... a bunch of twelve-year olds? Man, whoever you want me to say, that’s who I delivered to.”

  “Good,” I said, waving another bill at him. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  He didn’t wait for me to tell him twice. Instead Lewis nodded once, shoved the money into the back pocket of his jeans, and hurried out of the gate like his ass was on fire.

  The pizza was a bust, cold when I grabbed the box and headed into the townhouse. Johnson looked dead on his feet and immediately started in with the apologies by the time I shoved the pizza box in the trash and wiped my hands clean.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you were in here. I had no idea...” The agent went silent when I shot a look at him, still drying my hands with a towel from a drawer in the kitchen island. I had seniority on Johnson, but he wasn’t a subordinate. We had equal rank, equal clearance, but when we went into this duty it was clear who had led. I’d made it my priority to keep Lia safe, something I’d made promises to do. Something I’d fucked up inside three weeks.

  “Get this straight and hear me clear.” He nodded, those bloodshot eyes of his unblinking as he looked up at me. I dropped the towel and folded my arms, leaning back against the counter. It wasn’t a tactic. I wasn’t trying to intimidate the guy, though by how still he stood, I got the feeling that was happening without much effort on my part. “Protocol dictates you don’t get to rest unless you see relief face-to-face. You didn’t see me, but then, I didn’t get a clear from you. That was my mistake.”

  “No, sir...” Again he went silent with one shift of my gaze at him.

  “When I’m wrong, I say it.”

  “We’re not exactly working off standard protocol, are we?” Johnson said, gaze veering to the den when the volume on the T.V. grew louder. He went still when I glared at him, nodding toward the glass door at the back of the room and away from the den.

  I could make out the low sound of CNN, Anderson Cooper’s voice by the sound of it. Lia watched Cooper around lu
nchtime and generally napped during the show. It seemed to give her some sort of comfort to hear the guy’s voice. Less than a month under my guard and Lia had withdrawn more than she’d been the weeks after Harris’s assassination. I knew what the problem was, and it was getting under my skin—she’d heard nothing about a suspect or any whispers from Gabel’s camp on an investigation. Lia assumed, from the complaints she made, that whoever took out her husband, had gotten away with it. She was frustrated and a little scared. Lia just wasn’t the woman I’d known since college, but I hadn’t tried to get her to open up to me. That would lead us down a road I couldn’t travel. Not with her. Not again.

  I’d messed up this morning’s detail because my worry over Lia had gotten the better of me. She’d spent the entire day before locked in her room, reading book after book, watching press conferences Gable’s Press Secretary gave about non-specific details on the investigation and whatever bullshit initiative the new First Lady had taken on. In every press conference reporters mentioned Harris and Lia. The comparisons were ridiculous, sad, and they got under her skin. She wanted to leave that life behind her, but no one was moving forward. Lia was idle, and she wasn’t the type of woman to be content with that shit. I’d neglected getting a report from Johnson. The kid’s appearance in the courtyard was on me.

  “This is a special situation, you get that, Johnson. I know you do.” He nodded but didn’t give me a verbal confirmation. “She’s getting antsy. Maybe a little cabin fever. Nothing to do about that except make sure we up our guard until it’s...time.”

  “Sir...” he started, features relaxing as though the idea in his head seemed more pressing than him looking contrite. “Do you think this location is compromised now? Should we maybe...”

  “Move her?” He nodded, and I scrubbed the underside of my chin, weighing the wisdom of that suggestion. “Maybe we should let it play out. See if the kid keeps his mouth shut. Or, maybe...”

  “I’m not furniture, you know. You don’t get to move me whenever you want.” Lia stood in the doorway, arms tight and crossed, face clean of makeup, hair pulled back in a low bun. The anger flashing in her eyes made her look more awake than I’d seen her in days.

  She was fucking beautiful. Scary, but damn beautiful.

  “Agent Johnson, get some rest,” I told him, watching Lia as she walked into the kitchen. The man didn’t hesitate and was down the hallway, shutting his door in under a minute.

  “I’m serious, Cruz. This is bullshit. You don’t get to move me around like furniture.” She moved to the island, arms still crossed as she scanned my face. Didn’t much like the frown I got, but she was allowed her feelings. Besides, if she was yelling at me, then that would keep her from calling up some other stranger to bring her food.

  “Mrs. Harris...I am well within my rights to move you where I see fit.”

  “The fuck you are.” The language surprised me, but I held back a response, figuring her cursing wasn’t my business. I wasn’t her man and, gotta be honest, I kinda liked that word coming from her mouth.

  “Ma’am...I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?” She dropped her hands, coming around the island to stand in front of me. She wore some flowery scent I couldn’t place. I’d smelled it on her before but just then couldn’t pinpoint what it was. It distracted me, something I didn’t need after dropping the ball once already.

  “You don’t like the way I ensure your safety?”

  “No, I guess I don’t.” Lia could hit me where it hurt. I figured she was grasping at straws, looking for shit that would cut deep and her complaining about how I kept her safe was the easiest. She stepped closer, chin lifting like she was about to challenge me. “You keep me locked in this place, won’t let me tell my friends or family where I am. You won’t let me email anyone for fear I’ll be tracked, you won’t let me use my cell, you won’t let me run the trail around the park, and the one pathetic excuse for a conversation I have with someone who isn’t you or Johnson or the other agents around my home, you pin him to the ground like a calf you need to brand. So no, I don’t like the way you guard me.”

  “Doesn’t make a lot of sense that you complain I’m not doing a good enough job while you bitch about me keeping you off anyone’s radar. Take a pick, ma’am...am I too good or not good enough?”

  She wanted a fight, that much I could sense. It was in the tightness in her mouth, the way those full lips shook like she held back something truly filthy itching on the back of her tongue. Lia was usually calm and collected. Being the First Lady, hell, being a politician’s wife had given her the skills needed to control temper and unease. But just then, that smooth exterior she showed the world fractured and I got offered a glimpse of the woman I’d known back in New Orleans. Didn’t hate seeing her like that even if I knew it wouldn’t last.

  “You are keeping me hostage.”

  “No,” I said, meeting the half-step she made toward me. “I am ensuring that whatever asshole killed your husband doesn’t have the chance to finish the job he started.”

  I regretted it the second it left my mouth. She didn’t need me dredging up the shit she tried burying deep. She didn’t need the reminder that she’d been shot, too.

  “Lia...”

  She shook her head, looking away when I reached for her. “You think I forgot what’s out there waiting for me.” It wasn’t a question and she didn’t wait for me to respond. “Long as I live, that won’t ever leave me.” She glanced up at me and I hated the tears I saw collected on her lashes. “You of all people should know that.”

  “I do and I’m...sorry. I told you...”

  “Yeah...I know what you told me.” She moved away from me when I attempted grabbing her arm. Then, just like that, she was in First Lady mode. Chin lifted, the calm returned, and her polished ease was perfectly in place. “There isn’t much here to eat and I’m in the mood to cook. Can you send one of the agents out for groceries?” She hesitated, inhaling before she released a gentle, “Please.”

  For a second, I wanted to pause who we were. I didn’t want to be the guarded agent willing to piss her off to keep her safe. I wanted to be the guy who took away the tears on her face, not the one causing them. I wanted her to hold tight to me, to tell me she needed me because of who I was, not what I’d been charged with doing for her. Lia blinked away those tears, holding her breath, keeping me further from her than the years or distance that had been put between us by her husband. I fucking hated it. I hated everything about how we’d ended up here, but I wouldn’t tell her that. Couldn’t. My job was to protect her, not to keep her happy. If being a bastard kept her safe, then I’d stick with that.

  “Yes, Mrs. Harris. That’s no problem,” I finally said, stepping away from her to alert the outside detail we needed a man for the job.

  “Good.” She nodded then, pulling her thick sweater tighter around her. “Thank you. I’m in the mood for comfort food. I’d like to make a gumbo. You remember what I need for it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Great.” She nodded once, then disappeared into the den, increasing the volume on the television so that Cooper drowned out any other discussion I might have with my fellow agents.

  GUMBO, GOOD, PROPER gumbo takes all day to make. When Lia started cooking, utilizing the holy Trinity of spices only a true Louisianan would recognized—onion, bell peppers, and celery, a flood of memories crowded into my head. New Orleans was distinct. The music, the people and, my God, the food lived inside my memory. I’d never be free from it. My father was a second-generation Puerto Rican who’d fallen for a young Cajun girl he’d married when he was twenty. They didn’t have a happy marriage and when she died four months after my second birthday, who she’d been, where she’d come from, got lost to me and my sisters. Nearly all of my father’s culture vanished in a haze of liquor with the poor exceptions of calling me a pendejo when he was pissed off or mijo when he was sad. There wasn’t a lot of my people I could recall fr
om my childhood, but New Orleans had filled in the empty spots loss and addiction had left in my life. Lia in that kitchen, filling her townhouse with the smells and tastes of our hometown wreaked havoc on my composure.

  It made me drop some of my defenses.

  Just before the gumbo was ready, Lia took a glass of wine out onto the courtyard and sat in front of the firepit, watching the sun setting in a haze of orange and gold sky. I watched her from the den window, forgetting for a second that she was the job, that because of who we’d been to each other, I’d nearly lost everything I’d worked hard to call mine. The job, the duty, the honor of the gig all got paused as she sat out there on her own, downing her drink as the ebbing sunlight danced around her. She might be out of my reach in every way that mattered, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look, that I couldn’t want her still knowing nothing would ever come of it.

  “Are you stalking me now?” she asked, attention on that setting sun as she drank from her glass. “Only stalkers stand there and gawk at you.”

  “I’m gawking now?”

  She shrugged, glancing at me once before looking back at the sky. “Feels like gawking.”

  Lia relaxed against her chair, holding her glass in a loose grip that I took from her as I sat, tempted to finish the last swallow she had. Instead, I sat it next to her chair on the brick floor, following her lead by watching that dimming light overhead.

  “Sky’s so clear here.”

  “It’s so quiet, too,” she admitted, almost as though it was a thought she was surprised she’d shared. “Not like home.”

  “Nothing like home,” I said, looking at her when the sun disappeared completely. “But that, what you got going in the kitchen, that reminds me of home.”

  “Does it?” There was nothing of her earlier irritation in the smile she gave me and something deep in my chest twitched with a sensation I recognized as regret.