Cazzo_A Reed Security Romance Read online

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  “Can you feel that?” the doctor asked as he trailed the pen down my leg.

  I nodded and sighed in relief. “I can’t feel it all, but there’s definitely some feeling there. It’s kind of like tingling and I can feel it throughout my legs. Is that weird?”

  “No, because of the swelling, it’s just taking longer for you to gain back all the feeling and it may take some time. Normally, after your surgery, we would have you up and walking around by now, but the way things are, we recommend that you go to a rehab facility. I have some pamphlets here on different options. The longer that you aren’t moving around, the more your muscles will atrophy. You need someone to come in daily and work with you so that when you regain feeling you’re able to learn to walk again.

  “What? What the hell do you mean ‘learn to walk again’?”

  “Sorry, it’s not so much that you need to learn, but in cases like this, you’ll need to basically train your body to walk again. It’s not that your brain doesn’t remember how to do it, but you won’t regain all feeling over night and your muscles will continue to deteriorate. When you do regain feeling, you’re going to have to work hard to make your body move the way you need to.”

  I was stunned. I literally had no fucking clue what to say. When I started to feel the tingling, I thought for sure that it wouldn’t be long before I was out of this fucking bed and walking around again. Now he was telling me it wouldn’t happen that way.

  “What are the chances that he’ll regain feeling faster than you’re saying?” Cap asked. I had forgotten that he was in the room the moment the doc started talking about learning to walk again.

  “It’s not that it’s impossible, but there’s nothing we can do to make you regain feeling faster. The rehab facility can try various techniques to stimulate your body, but it’s not a guarantee. There’s a specialist that I’m going to refer you to that can better explain all of this and what you need to do from here.”

  I laid my head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. The doctor and Cap continued to talk while I laid there in my useless body and wondered what the hell I was going to do. If I couldn’t walk again, I was basically out of a job. I couldn’t protect people from a wheelchair. That would leave working behind a desk at Reed Security, watching all my teammates going out on jobs and shooting me pitying looks when I was stuck behind.

  “Cazzo, hey.” Cap was standing next to the bed and staring at me. “I’ll get the names of the rehab facilities and start getting things set up for-”

  “No,” I shook my head. “No fucking way am I staying at a rehab facility. I’ll go crazy.”

  “Okay, then I’ll set it up for someone to come to you. We can have a nurse stay with you to help out and have someone go to your house for rehab until you’re moving around more.”

  “Until I’m moving around more? I can’t fucking feel hardly anything. I’m going to be stuck in a fucking wheelchair. He just said he can’t do anything to make me walk again.”

  “No he didn’t, you fucking idiot. He said that he can’t make you heal faster. He said it’ll take time for you to regain the feeling, but he didn’t say anything about you being permanently stuck in a fucking wheelchair,” Cap yelled. “Get your head on straight and keep your eye on the endgame. You need someone to come work with you so that you can get where you need to be. Stop throwing yourself a fucking pity party and let’s work this shit out.”

  I blew out a breath and nodded. I was freaking out, but Cap was right. I needed to focus on what I needed to do to get better.

  “That’s better,” Cap said gruffly. “Now, I’ll head over to your house and see what needs to be done so you can get home. We’ll do whatever we have to do so that you don’t have to go to a rehab facility.”

  He headed for the door, but I stopped him. “Cap, you’re going to need a few codes and some other shit to get on the property.”

  “Fine, write it down.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re going to need to get Becky over here to get into my system. I have some..different security measures in place.”

  “You’re such a paranoid bastard, Cazzo.”

  “Yeah, well that paranoia has kept me alive. Besides, I like my privacy.”

  “I’ll get Becky over here and I’ll talk with the doctor about when you can be released.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Vanessa

  “DAD, WHAT THE hell is going on?”

  I stormed into my father’s office at our house in New York, pissed that he was obviously refusing to tell me something important. I had been picked up by his bodyguards after the charity event where I was almost killed when someone took a shot at me. Sam had seen the shooter and pulled me to the ground, taking the bullet for me. It had been the most terrifying moment of my life and I still didn’t know how he was doing.

  “Vanessa, that’s no way to speak to me. If you would like to have a discussion, you’ll be more respectful.”

  “All due respect, Dad, but you’re hiding something from me and it almost got someone killed.”

  He waved his hand as if it was no big deal. “He was doing his job and he knew the risks.”

  “That’s bullshit. He’s a person. How can you pretend like this is no big deal? He almost died protecting me!”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, seeing way more than I intended. I was getting too worked up and he would know that what I felt for Sam was more than someone should for their bodyguard. Sam didn’t need my father prying into his life.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I would say you have feelings for him, but that can’t be because he’s a bodyguard.”

  My father still had this archaic notion that a person was only as good as their job. Apparently being a bodyguard was beneath him and he couldn’t even spare an ounce of gratitude for the man that saved his daughter’s life.

  “I don’t have feelings for him. I just can’t believe that you’re being so callous about everything. You could at least pretend to be concerned about the man that saved your daughter.”

  “Oh, don’t be dramatic, Vanessa. You were never in any danger.”

  “Someone shooting at me isn’t dangerous?”

  “Those men would have never allowed you to be hurt.”

  “Then why did you drag me back here and force me to stay here with you?”

  “Because I obviously need to keep an eye on you. You’ve gotten yourself into something and it probably has to do with that charity you’re always getting involved with.”

  “A charity that helps foster kids get into college is getting me into trouble?”

  He poured himself a drink and pointed to me. “You need to be smarter. Those kids are all hoodlums.”

  “They are not. It’s not their fault that they ended up in foster care.”

  “You say that, but do you have any idea what it’s like to know that you were given up as a child? It does something to their minds and they can’t help but end up as criminals.”

  “That is so narrow minded of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think. I have to clean up this mess that you’ve gotten yourself into, so you’ll be staying here where I can keep an eye on you until further notice.”

  “I’m an adult. You can’t just lock me up and keep me here. Besides, this doesn’t have anything to do with my charity.”

  “Then why did they attack you outside your charity event?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that and it was obvious that he had already made up his mind. Either that or he was hiding something and was using the charity as a scapegoat. I wasn’t sticking around to see what he would do. He had been getting more and more paranoid over the past year and trying to get me to stay with him more frequently. There was no point in arguing with him when he acted like this.

  “I’ll stay, but I won’t be locked in here.”

  “You’ll stay here until I say otherwise.”

  I stormed out of the room and went up to th
e guest room that had become more of a cage to me lately. I had my own apartment, but when Dad got like this, he usually had his guards escort me back to his house to stay until he deemed it safe. I had no idea what had spooked him so much, but I wasn’t sticking around any more to be a target.

  I found some of my spare things in the closet in the guest room and changed quickly, throwing extra stuff in a bag to take on the road with me. I was thinking about which guard I should sweet talk into looking the other way as I made my escape, but then I started thinking that it would be better for me to stick around and see what I could find out about what was going on. Besides, if I ran out right now, Dad would just have the guards track me down and drag me back.

  Something was just wrong about this whole situation. Dad had always had a driver and usual house staff since he made it big in the financial world, but over the last few years, he had started getting bodyguards and over the last year, that number had doubled. Something about what he was doing or who he was dealing with was very wrong. I had to find out so I could figure out how I was involved in all this. I knew that my charity had nothing to do with whatever happened at the event, which meant that whatever my father had gotten himself into had somehow put a target on my back.

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  I was hiding outside my father’s office door that was just cracked enough that I could hear inside. For almost two months, I had been taking every opportunity to pick my father’s brain and find out something that would tell me what the hell was going on, but he had cut off any conversation about what happened the night of the charity event. I had gone through his home office when he went into his New York office, but he hadn’t kept anything that would lead me to the answers I needed. Now he was on the phone with someone and I had a feeling I would find out everything I needed to know tonight.

  “The deal went south. It had nothing to do with me. I didn’t mislead you in any way..No, I won’t be paying you a dime..But..No, don’t even think about..Alright, wait! I have another solution for you. You can have Vanessa. She’ll make a very good wife and it would solidify any business dealings between us. As my son-in-law, you would have all of my financial skills at your disposal..”

  I stepped back from the door, unable to comprehend what I was hearing. Was my father really willing to trade me in place of a payment? I knew that he wasn’t the most loving father, but to have me marry someone because he didn’t want to pay them? Especially considering how much wealth he had accumulated. I took another step back and bumped into a tall, hard body. I whipped around to see the face of one of the guards that was always looking after me.

  Daniel had burns across three quarters of his face from when he was in the military and got caught in an explosion. From what he had told me, most of his body had been burned and it was a very long, painful recovery. He had shown me pictures from when he first joined the Marines and he had been handsome. Now he looked nothing like his old self, but he had a kind heart and most of the time, I felt like he was on my side. Until now, that is. Right now, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His face was hard and he looked pissed, but I couldn’t figure out if he was angry with me for eavesdropping or something else.

  In my panic, I sidestepped him and ran down the hall, hoping I could escape before anyone would catch on that I had left. It was stupid to run. Daniel was fast and I knew that I couldn’t possibly outrun him. He wrapped his giant hand around my waist and pulled me against him as his other hand covered my mouth.

  “Don’t make a sound. You’re going to go upstairs and pretend this never happened.” I shook my head violently, unable to believe that he would allow this to happen to me. “Shh. I know that you’re pissed, but you have to think right now. You have to leave when you can’t be caught and now is not the time.”

  I stopped struggling and forced myself to take deep breaths and think about what he said. Did that mean he was going to help me?

  “Go upstairs and wait for me.”

  When he released me, I turned and looked him in the eyes, trying to figure out what his endgame was. He flicked his eyes toward the stairs and with no other brilliant ideas, I chose to trust him. His head whipped back toward the office when he heard a noise and then he stared hard at me, telling me to get my ass moving. I turned and ran up the stairs as quietly and quickly as I could and waited in my room for Daniel to come.

  When dinner time came and went and I still hadn’t heard from Daniel, I got nervous that he wouldn’t come. I didn’t dare go downstairs for fear that my father would take me to whomever he was going to trade me to. I paced my room for hours, wondering what I was going to do if Daniel didn’t come. When pacing got tiring, I sat down on my bed and tried to think of how I was going to get out of this. Now that Daniel knew that I was planning to escape, he would be watching more closely. My best chance would be to slip out at the shift change for the guards. Since they didn’t live on the property, there was a chance that I could get outside and hide in the bushes until one of them opened the gate. Then I could slip out behind them. It would take me a few hours to walk to a friend’s apartment and by then, someone would know I was missing, but I needed to try.

  A hand over my mouth jerked me from my sleep. I hadn’t realized that I was even falling asleep. My eyes went wide as they tried to adjust to the dark and when they did, I saw Daniel looking down at me. He held a finger to his mouth to signal for me to be quiet. I nodded my understanding and he removed his hand from my mouth.

  “You need to go down the back stairs and out the back door. I’ve disabled the alarms, but only for five minutes. Meet me by the garage. Move.”

  I scrambled up out of bed and slipped into my shoes and followed him out my bedroom door. When he turned right, I turned left and slipped down the back staircase. He would have to inform the next shift guard of anything pertinent before he could meet me outside. I hesitated by the back door, knowing that if the alarm sounded, someone would be on me within a minute. I slowly turned the knob and was relieved when I pulled the door open without any issue.

  I waited by the garage behind some bushes until I saw Daniel walking toward the cars. Slipping out of my hiding spot, I fell into step beside Daniel and only hesitated slightly when he opened his trunk and motioned for me to get in. When I heard someone else approaching, I quickly scrambled into the trunk and slid in as far as I could, as if that would help hide me. I heard Daniel talking with someone else and then I heard him get into the driver’s side and start the engine. I held my breath as I tried to imagine where we were and then when we stalled, I counted the seconds until we roared out of the driveway and onto the road. Only once we were cruising down the road did I allow myself to breathe normally again.

  Once we were a few miles from the house, Daniel reached back and pulled the seat forward a little so I had more air. We drove for a long time and I started to doze from the rocking motion of the car. I didn’t wake until I heard his car door slam shut. I waited for a minute, unsure of where we were and what would happen from here. When he didn’t immediately open the trunk, I started to panic, thinking he had tricked me so he could take me to whoever my father made the deal with.

  When he finally opened the trunk, he reached in to help me out and I saw that I was at my friend’s apartment. I looked at him questioningly.

  “How did you know to bring me here?”

  He smirked and started pulling me toward the building. “You’ve come here several times.”

  “What? How do you know that? You’ve never come for me here.”

  “I always knew when you would run, so I started following you when I could. I’ve never been a fan of how your father treats you, but I needed the job.”

  “Needed?”

  He stopped and looked at me. I could barely make out his face in the darkness, but it was clear that he wasn’t happy about whatever he had to say.

  “When they look at the footage and find out that the cameras were out for five minutes and then I left soon after, they’re going t
o suspect me. I can’t go back there.”

  “You gave up your job to help me?”

  He glanced away and looked around the darkness. “Not just my job. If your father finds out, I’m as good as dead.”

  I pulled on his arm to get him to look at me again. “What do you mean ‘you’re as good as dead’? You don’t think my father would actually do something like that, do you?”

  “I know he would. There’s a lot you don’t know about your father. He’s gotten himself into some deep shit with some bad people. He’s had to become a different person to fit in with the crowd he’s running with.”

  I shook my head, unwilling to believe what he was saying. “No, my father is a financial mogul. He wouldn’t get involved with..”

  “You don’t know the type of person your father has become. Don’t underestimate him and once you get away, don’t ever go back. What you heard? That’s just the beginning of what he would do to save his ass.”

  I was shocked. My father had always been a hard man to understand, but I never would have suspected that he had gotten involved with the type of people that would trade human life for money.

  “What am I supposed to do from here? I don’t know the first thing about disappearing.”

  “If I could help you further, I would, but I have a little boy here and I can’t just leave him. You’re going to have to stay low and fly under the radar. Cash only, don’t use your real name, and when you get a job, you’ll have to be paid under the table. Is there anyone that you can trust where your father wouldn’t think to look for you?”

  I ran through a list of people in my head, but there was no one I could come up with. My list of friends was small because of how protective my father had become. No one wanted to go up against him.

  “I’ll figure something out. Thank you for helping me, Daniel. I hope this isn’t the last time we meet.”