Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I’m on this detail because I volunteered for it, and I volunteered for it because I don’t know how many job details I’ll be getting over the next few months given my pregnancy. Dr. Anchors and I discussed that privately.
I didn’t want Bodie involved because I don’t want him to know I’ve been pregnant before and had it end in a miscarriage, an event I still blame myself for to this day, despite being told repetitively by medical personnel that it hadn’t been my fault.
But I know a part of it was due to the lifestyle I’d led at the time. I know it down in my bones, so I have to tread very carefully with how I treat my body over the next few months. I should keep stress to a minimum as well.
I decide to check on the various hospitality rooms they have set up in the concert venue. There’s one for the star of the show—an incredibly skinny girl of seventeen named Janie March, who wears outrageously miniscule outfits and sings into a headset microphone, which, in my opinion, only Madonna can make cool. There’s also one for the media and another for music industry VIPs. There will be someone from Jameson in each room following the concert. Our team for this detail totals eight, including Bodie, who I’ve hardly seen since we arrived a few hours ago. I have my perch set up, and I won’t ascend until the venue doors open.
I check Miss March’s room first. She’s in there with her own security as well as Hannah Miles. Hannah is a retired Chicago cop who still needs to work to support her husband’s gambling needs since they moved to Vegas. She’s been with Jameson for four years now. She nods at me when I pop my head in, and I return it.
As I head toward the VIP room just down the hall, I’m surprised to hear Bodie and Cage’s voices coming through the open doorway. They’re probably just hanging out in there since they’ll both be in the stage wings during the concert, those two being the ones who would swoop Miss Miles off stage if something were to happen. There’s a well-constructed plan that was developed between our team and hers weeks ago to ensure her utmost safety.
When I turn the corner, I halt when I hear my name—definitely Bodie’s voice. That first zing of adrenaline that I’ve caught him talking about us immediately gives way to relief as I realize he’s talking business.
“Hart could pick any shooter off from anywhere in this colosseum from her perch,” Bodie says, and is that… pride in his voice over my abilities?
“I’d sure as fuck hope so,” Cage says with a snort. “Her Olympic medals are decent credentials in my opinion.”
My hand comes to my mouth, so I don’t snicker out loud while they talk about me. I press against the wall about three feet from the open door, and shamelessly listen.
I don’t talk about my Olympic experience much, although everyone at Jameson knows I competed. It’s not that I’m not proud of my accomplishments—because I totally am—but it was just so long ago. These days, there’s better crops of young athletes coming through that would smoke me all over the place.
I was a winter athlete and competed in the Biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. I attended the Games when I was seventeen, and again when I was twenty-one. I competed in the 15-km individual and the 12.5 km mass start events, receiving three silvers and a gold between the two, and then I was just done. I was tired of the grueling training regimen, which seemed almost exotic as I grew up in the sport because it kept me away from home and traveling all over the world. But then it hadn’t been fun anymore and, despite my coaches having a cow, I retired at twenty-one.
Of course, my skills with a rifle translated into this type of work. A biathlete can hit a target less than two inches in diameter from a hundred and sixty feet while exhausted, out of breath, and laying prone on the snow-covered ground. My current rifle is a little better, though. The CheyTac M200 Intervention can hit a target from twenty-five hundred yards, so yeah… better toys with The Jameson Group.
“She’s smokin’ hot, though,” Cage says, and I lean toward the door to listen more closely. “I’d love a crack at her, but she doesn’t give anyone in our group the time of day. But I bet Kynan’s had her at least once. They’ve known each other forever and are as thick as thieves.”
This type of talk should bother me, but it doesn’t. I know it happens. I’ve developed a thick skin. I can never let anyone know I’ve taken offense because, frankly, I’m playing in a world that’s heavily dominated by men. They don’t want to work in a dangerous situation with someone who lets emotions rule them or where they can’t just be their disgusting pig selves at times.