chapter 23

My gaze travels to the closed door; the silver plaque reads: office.

Farell has been in there with the Tri-Force for fifteen minutes already. The three leads think they can "further illuminate" the risks to him, but Moffy contemplates too much. Whatever they have to tell him, he's definitely already considered.

In short, they're wasting their time.

I peel off my black boxing gloves, my chest rising and falling heavily. Three rows of red boxing bags line the right side of the gym, where I stand. The left houses the boxing ring, racks of weights, and other gym equipment.

There are only five bodyguards in Omega. We're all young compared to the other Forces, and that's by design. The Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts hired us on to last a couple decades in this career, not just a couple years. Being closer in age to our clients, it's more likely we'll stick around for the long-haul.

While we wait for Akara to leave the office, the four of us squeeze in a workout, but we all slow around the twenty-minute mark.

Oscar tugs off his blue gloves, his damp, curly brown hair hanging over a bandana. "You guys hear that Luna pierced an 'unmentionable' place?"

I'm used to news traveling fast within the security team. Bodyguards gossip like family, but we never leak info to the public. Not even accidentally. Everyone's too careful.

Quinn pauses his sit-ups on his punching bag. "What…like her…?" He gestures to his crotch.

I roll my eyes and unravel my black hand-wraps.

Donnelly tosses his towel over his shoulder. "Her clit? It's not a big bad word."

Oscar butts in, "Everyone lay off Quinn—alright, my little bro is young, impressionable, and still has his innocence and virtue; whereas the rest of us have lost our ever-loving minds."

Quinn chucks his green boxing glove at his older brother, ten years apart in age. "Bro, I can say clit every day easily. Clit, clit, clit, clit—"

"We get it," I say, dropping my hand-wraps on the mats.

Quinn scratches his unshaven jaw, sweat built on his golden-brown skin, and a tiny scar sits beneath his eye. Likewise, his nose is a little crooked from a short stint and bad blow in a pro-boxing circuit. Oscar has similar lasting marks. Security jokes that no matter how many punches Oscar and Quinn have taken as pro-boxers in the past, they'll always be handsome motherfuckers.

"I purposefully censored myself," Quinn clarifies. "I wasn't about to mention a teenage girl's…you know."

"Clit," Donnelly says.

"Jelly bean," Oscar adds.

"Magic button." Donnelly smirks.

Quinn shakes his head like we're all the fucked-up ones.

My brows spike. "You're the one who assumed 'clitoris piercing' at the word 'unmentionable'." I tilt my head at him. "And weren't you like a teenager like one year ago?"

Oscar and Donnelly laugh loudly, and Quinn gives me a faint death-glare. He needs to work on his "intimidation" a bit—he's very green: brand new to security detail, and at twenty, he's the youngest bodyguard in the whole team. If he screws up, that falls onto Omega's shoulders, but really, it'll weigh on mine.

Akara texts me every day:

if Quinn needs anything, help him

check in with Quinn

keep Quinn in the loop

When I left Alpha and joined Omega, Akara told me straight up, "Don't go rogue on me. I need you to help the new guy." Because I'm around Quinn as much as Farell hangs around Jane.

Which is literally every hour.

Inadvertently, it's made me Quinn's unofficial mentor, and I'd never call myself a teacher. I like to do shit on my own.

Oscar should fill this role, but the Oliveira brothers requested to be separated to avoid "family in-fighting". Probably because they almost stopped talking a few years ago when Oscar trained Quinn as a boxer.

No one ever talks about the old rift. I can barely tell it existed.

Quinn grabs his nearby water bottle. "What'd Luna really pierce then?"

"I think belly button," Oscar says.

Donnelly hangs onto his punching bag, a colorful tattoo sleeve covering his fair skin. He's a chestnut haired, blue-eyed shameless twenty-six-year-old from South Philly. "Real or rumor, Farell?"

"Why would you know?" Quinn asks me like I've withheld information from him. Technically, I did.

"Because I'm closer to the Hales than all of you combined." They're each a 24/7 bodyguard to a Cobalt, and at the end of the day, we're all partisan to the families we protect. The Hales, Cobalts, and Meadows love one another to the very death, and they'd prefer that we love all three equally too.

But spending day-in, day-out with one specific family, we grow attached.

Oscar reties his bandana. "You'll see, little bro. Soon you'll be taking European vacations with Jane and the rest of the Cobalt Empire—while Farell, here, will be stuck at comic book conventions with the geek squad."

I smile. "You mean you'll be trapped on a private jet with seven Cobalts, their mom and dad, and fast-paced banter that'll give you a permanent migraine thirty-thousand feet in the air."

Donnelly points his water bottle at me. "Pokin' at our lion's den, Farell, you're gonna get bit."

My lips stretch wider, my allegiances always clear. The Hales are known for being welcoming to oddballs and black sheep, very fandom-loving, and all-around laidback and cool. The first day I guarded Lily, she asked me, "What house are you in?"

She meant a Harry Potter house. When I told her I'd never read the books, she bought all seven for me and post-noted her favorite parts.

The Hales are a bunch of dorks. For me, they're instantly lovable.

But I respect the other two families, too. The Cobalt Empire is the largest, known for their regal poise, intellectual prowess, and fierce commitment to one another. Each Cobalt is prideful and passionately unique, but when push comes to shove, they'll band together like an army of one.

Quinn asks us, "Where do the Meadows go for family trips?"

"Costa Rica," we all say together.

Quinn chucks his other glove down the aisle of bags. "Akara is one lucky bastard."

Bodyguards vie to protect the two Meadows girls. The family of four is wild, adventurous, and they spend more than half the year outdoors. Since Akara protects Sullivan Meadows, the oldest daughter, he's backpacked around South America, swam with sharks in the Keys, and last summer, he was backstage when she won four Olympic golds for swimming.