“I wish we’d known,” Sandor said quietly. “But this will stop. I’ll see to it personally.”
“The police are all afraid of them or being paid off. As soon as you leave, it will start again.”
“We’ll see about that.” Sandor patted my hand. “I’m going to see about the damage to the café. I don’t want you to worry about anything but your family, all right?”
I nodded as Axel came down the hall and pressed a hot cup of coffee in my hand.
“I didn’t know how you liked it,” he said softly.
The tenderness in his eyes almost brought me to tears yet again. Who was this hulking angel and why was I so drawn to him?
2
Axel
I was momentarily distracted as Solange looked up at me with her big blue eyes. When Xander had called to tell me the local café was being attacked, something about owing the owners a favor, I hadn’t expected to find the bright-eyed beauty from the place I’d been getting my coffee most mornings. Usually her mother served me, but I’d seen her in the back, laughing with the staff as they prepped food and whatever else they did. I kept a low profile when I was in town, since my mission here required anonymity and kept me an hour away most of the time, so the last thing I’d expected was to be called to rescue a local family. Especially not one that included the gorgeous blue-eyed brunette I’d been watching from afar.
She took the coffee with a weak smile. “Thank you. Black is fine. We like our coffee strong in this part of the country.”
“You’re welcome.” I nodded and moved away to lean against the wall across from where she was sitting with Sandor and Xander.
She looked tired and terrified after the evening’s events, and I wished there was something I could do to reassure her, promise her I could help somehow. I’d done some heavy lifting tonight, though I had a feeling that busting a few heads wasn’t going to be enough to deter this group of thugs who thought they could rule the town. I’d seen a couple of them roaming around at night, behaving like they were far tougher than they were, so my gut told me they answered to someone else. Probably a mob boss in Turkey, since it bordered a portion of the country. I just hadn’t realized they were terrorizing the businesses here.
I wasn’t sure exactly what they were up to, but I didn’t like the idea of Solange and her family being harassed and bullied by these people. The new king, who’d been in power about eighteen months and was my boss, was doing his best to fix the mess that the country had become during his predecessor’s reign. However, it was a thankless, full-time job filled with setbacks, death threats, issues with infrastructure and even the occasional kidnapping. I loved my job, but I imagined the pressure on King Erik was often overwhelming. Situations like this undoubtedly fell through the cracks.
“I’m going to stay the night here at the hospital with Solange,” Xander said, joining me. “I’d like you to go back to the café and see if you can help her parents.”
“What about my mission?” I asked.
He glanced over at Sandor, who gave us a small nod.
“It can wait a day or two so we can see what’s what here.”
“Okay.”
“Solange said you can crash in her brother’s room, so try to get a little sleep, and in the morning, we’re going to see if we can find these guys and get some information.”
I nodded. “I’m on it.” I looked over at Solange, who seemed exhausted. “She needs to rest. Don’t let her stay up all night.”
“I won’t.”
“See you later.” I was halfway down the hall when Solange’s soft and accented voice called to me. I paused and turned around, looking into her pretty face.
“I just wanted to thank you,” she said quietly. “For coming tonight, saving us. I appreciate it.”
“It was no problem,” I replied. “I’m glad I could help.”
“My brother wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t…” She managed a tremulous smile. “Anyway, thank you. I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You’re very welcome. Make sure you get my number from Xander, just in case you need anything.”
Those bright blue eyes watched me until the elevator doors closed, blocking her from my view.
Jesus, she was beautiful. Not in a conventional way, like a lot of these movie stars today. They were pretty enough, but for some reason they all looked the same to me. Tiny little women that would break the moment you touched them. I liked a woman who was a little curvy, maybe even what other men might consider too big, but I didn’t give a flying fuck what other men thought. I was a big guy myself, both by genetics and by design.
I’d been a scrawny teenager, weighing a buck fifty at six feet three, but the Marines put fifty pounds on me and the gym put another seventy-five pounds of solid muscle on top of that. The worse things got while I was deployed in the Middle East, the harder I worked out, as if my size alone would combat the enemy. It didn’t work that way, of course, but my size served me well both in and out of the military. Now that I was a Royal Protector, I was often assigned to the king personally because people in general were intimidated by my sheer bulk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the bad guys. Women tended to run in the other direction as well.
Normally, I didn’t give a shit about that either. Getting laid wasn’t usually an issue on the rare occasion I had time, but women in general tended to be afraid of me. Between the height, the muscles and the bushy beard I sported these days, most women kept their distance. The nice ones anyway. And sweet, beautiful Solange had been terrified when she’d first seen me. Unlike other women, though, she’d warmed up to me. She’d been grateful for my help and I’d seen a vulnerability in her eyes that told me I’d made her feel safe. While that was my job, most people were too intimidated by my scruffy looks and bulked-up body to see that side of me. The protector in me.
But Solange had.
I wanted to see her again, talk to her, hear her lilting accent. Nothing would come of it, of that I was sure, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy being her friend, thinking about the things I would never do with her. To her. Her curves were made for fucking, something I’d thought of every time I’d seen her at the café. She hadn’t noticed me because I always got my coffee early in the morning, before she officially started work, but I’d seen her come and go, up and down the back stairway that only the family used. Her parents worked in the mornings, usually until mid-afternoon, and then Solange and Kostya took over for the dinner and evening shift. Sometimes she was there all day, even in the morning, but mostly she handled the night shift.
There were two other employees as well, but the parents opened up and Solange and Kostya closed. Always. Seven days a week. I wondered why a pretty girl like her worked so hard, and didn’t seem to have a life, but it hadn’t been any of my business and I was only supposed to be in town a week or two anyway. So I’d put her and her luscious little ass out of my mind.
Until tonight.
Now I would think of nothing else.
When I got back to the café, I cringed at the condition. The windows were broken, every piece of furniture was smashed, and glass and trash littered the floor. Solange’s parents, whose names I didn’t know, were trying to board up the windows, but her father was favoring his right arm and her mother wasn’t strong enough to do it herself.