Free Ryan Lock 04.5: Lock & Load by Sean Black Page A

board.
       "Do you know how many women I have throwing themselves at me every single time we go out?"
       She rolled her eyes. "I said 'hello' to the guy."
       "Sure you said 'hello', but that wasn't what you meant."
       Maybe he would sleep it off. She picked up her wine glass. "I'm going to bed."
       She walked around the bar and towards the set of stairs on the far side of the house, which led to the master bedroom. As she passed him, he grabbed her wrist. She tried to shake him off, but his grip was too strong.
       "I mean it, Jason. I'm done talking about this."
       "Well, maybe I'm not," he said.
       His lips thinned, his eyes opened, and she knew he had lost it. He let go of her wrist and grabbed her neck. She clawed and scratched at him as he grabbed her with one hand around the throat, and pushed her towards the wall. The more she tried to fight him off, the harder his grip became, until she couldn't breathe. The black spots in her vision grew bigger and merged into a giant mass.
     
    When she came round, she was lying on the floor. He was sitting on the couch on the opposite side of the room. His head was bowed. He was sobbing, fingers kneading his scalp.
    "I'm so sorry. I get jealous. I can't help it. You're so beautiful. I see guys looking at you and I can't handle it."
    He got up and started towards her. He reached down and helped her to her feet. She was still too weak to do anything so she let him, but inside she knew that she had to get away from him, for good this time.
     

Two
    NEXT TO THE  word bodyguard, Ryan Lock's least favorite description for his profession had to be bullet catcher. Although sacrificing your life to save the person you were protecting was the ultimate price you might have to pay, close protection work was more a matter of intellect than muscle. In a world that mostly attracted what his former colleagues in the British Royal Military Police's elite close protection unit dubbed 'thick-necked twats', Lock saw himself as more of a problem solver than hired muscle. Right now he was headed to Los Angeles to deal with a rather obstinate Antipodean problem who went by the name of Jason Durham.
       "Man, I could get used to this," said Ty Johnson.
       Lock glanced over at his six foot four black business partner as Ty stretched out his long legs and waved over a member of the private jet's crew to freshen up his drink. Next to Lock, his fiancee, Carrie, was busy tapping away at her Mac Air, their yellow Labrador, Angel, asleep at her feet. She looked over at him and he smiled.
       "You okay, cowboy?"
       He leaned in for a kiss. "Better than okay."
       Across from them, Ty rolled his eyes. "You two are disgusting."
       "Not jealous are you, Tyrone?" Carrie teased.
       "Hey, don't even go there, sister."
       "I dunno, prison together? I've heard the stories about how that goes. And it's not like I'm saying there's anything wrong with it," she teased.
       Ty tutted his disapproval, put his headphones back on and went back to reading his magazine. For his part, Lock was glad that Carrie could find some humor in what had been a terrifying experience for both men when they had recently gone undercover in Pelican Bay Supermax in Northern California.
       "You're bad," Lock said, feigning seriousness.
       "I know," she said brightly, returning to her work, a story she was fleshing out for her job as a TV reporter back in New York.
       Lock dug out a folder of papers outlining his and Ty's latest job and began to review them for the third time. It all looked pretty straightforward – an easy, well paid gig that would tide the business over and pay for his and Carrie's wedding.
       The principal – the term used in close protection circles for the person you were actually protecting – was a young actress called Summer Clements. The threat was a highly unpredictable movie star boyfriend called Jason Durham. Durham had grown up in Australia and built his