Close Protection

I convinced myself it was nothing.

A prank, like the detective said. Someone with a weird sense of humor and too much time. The kind of thing that would blow over if I just ignored it, if I just kept living my normal life, if I just refused to let fear win.

Code Forward had our quarterly board meeting that week. Elena and I had been preparing for months—enrollment numbers, success metrics, the new curriculum we'd developed, the partnerships we were cultivating with local schools. Real work that mattered to real kids who needed someone to believe in them.

"You look terrible," Elena said, not unkindly. "Did you sleep at all?"

"I'm fine."

"Avery." She put down her tablet and fixed me with the look she'd perfected over four years of friendship—the one that said I see through your bullshit and I love you anyway. "You're jumping at every sound. You've checked your phone seventeen times in the last hour. Something's wrong."

I showed her the photos.

Elena's expression went through rapid transitions—confusion, then concern, then the particular fury she reserved for injustice. "Have you told the police?"

"They're not worried."

"Then they're idiots." She spread the photos across her desk, studying each one like it was evidence. "These are professional quality. Someone invested time and equipment. This isn't a prank."

"I know."

"Then why are you pretending it is?"

Because admitting someone was stalking me meant admitting I was vulnerable. Because calling my father meant accepting his help, which always came with strings attached. Because I'd spent ten years proving I could build a life without Sinclair money or Sinclair connections or Sinclair surveillance, and this felt like failing.

"My dad is sending someone," I finally said. "A bodyguard."

Elena's eyebrows rose. "You called your dad?"

"He called me. Of course he already knew."

"Of course." She shook her head, but I could see relief underneath. "When does this bodyguard arrive?"

"Tomorrow morning. His name is Marcus Cole."

"Is he hot?"

"Elena."

"It's a valid question! If someone's going to be following you around, they might as well be attractive." She pulled out her phone, started typing. "Marcus Cole... former Secret Service... oh."

"What 'oh'?"

She turned the screen toward me. A news article from two years ago: SECRET SERVICE AGENT REASSIGNED AFTER DIPLOMAT'S SON INJURED DURING PROTECTION DETAIL.

The photo showed a man in a dark suit, face partially obscured, being escorted from what looked like an official building. The headline promised scandal, but the article was vague—something about a lapse in protocol, an injury that wasn't life-threatening, an agent who took the fall for circumstances that remained classified.

"He got fired," I said.

"Reassigned. Then resigned." Elena scrolled through more results. "Looks like he's been doing private security since. High-profile clients, good reputation, but definitely a step down from protecting world leaders."

"And my father wants him to protect me."

"Maybe your father sees something we don't." She zoomed in on the photo—the man's profile, the set of his jaw, the way he carried himself even in apparent disgrace. "He looks competent. And, yes, before you ask, decently attractive."

"I'm not asking."

"You should be. A little romance might do you good."

"My life is being watched by a stalker. Romance is not on my priority list."

Elena set down the phone and took my hand. "I know you hate this. I know you hate needing help, and especially help from your father. But someone is targeting you, Ave. Whatever issues you have with Sinclair money and Sinclair control—put them aside until you're safe."

She was right. I knew she was right.

But that night, alone in my apartment with every light blazing and every lock checked twice, I couldn't shake the feeling that accepting protection was the beginning of the end. The end of the life I'd built. The end of the distance I'd maintained. The end of being just Avery, the woman who taught kids to code, rather than Avery Sinclair, the heiress who needed a bodyguard.

My phone buzzed at midnight. A text from an unknown number:

Tomorrow, 8 AM. I'll be outside your building. —MC

Marcus Cole. My shadow, arriving with the dawn.

I didn't sleep at all.