by Burke, Lynn
Ruthless Sentinel
Vicious Vipers 2
By Lynn Burke
WARNING
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Ruthless Sentinel
Vicious Vipers 2
Published by Lynn Burke
Cover Art by Designs by L~
Edited by Avril Stepowski
Copyright © 2020 by Lynn Burke
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without written permission of the copyright holder.
Authors Note:
This book contains mature themes, includes explicit language and sexual scenes.
Ruthless Sentinel
Working security for my MC brother, I’m tasked with protecting a crooked judge who targets his willful daughter with emotional abuse.
She’s beautiful. She’s confident and has a backbone of steel, but I recognize the pain in her eyes.
She distracts me from my job, and echoes of Pop’s taunts of my being a failure fester in my head.
But I will prove him wrong.
I will withstand our connection, the relentless pull between us.
I will protect her family—her—from the unknown enemy, even if it costs me my soul.
DEDICATION
For Avril
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
About the Author
Also by Lynn Burke
Chapter One
Stone
Less than two hours in Judge Burtonelli’s presence, and I wanted to flatten his goddamn nose. Kick his ass rather than protect it like I’d been hired to do. I’d been put in charge of his personal security detail after a few death threats scared the shit out of him. What did he expect running for the Senate with a hard stance on cleaning up Massachusetts’s drug problems would get him? Roses and champagne?
Maybe from his rich-ass supporters who’d planned a party for the night with over three hundred invites sent out and RSVP’d. I held the guest list in hand, scanning quickly for names I might recognize. A handful from the news and another dozen or so Hollywood types planned to attend the Christmas Eve party.
Not my people, that was for damned sure.
Salt of the earth, my bastard of a father had called us. Hard working blue collars who ran the damn country, military grunts and brats. Hard asses who didn’t know what a cushy life felt like. My kind of people.
“Where the hell is she?” Burtonelli barked as we waited in their mansion’s foyer, and I glanced up from the elite list of individuals sure to donate millions to his campaign fund.
His wife fussed with his tux tie, making shush noises, the overhead chandelier glinting off the sequins in her silver gown’s bodice. “She’s on her way.”
“Late. As always.” Burtonelli’s tone revealed his scowl as I glanced at their other two children, Marisa and Cristian. While the older daughter looked just like their dark Italian father and had followed in his footsteps to become a lawyer, the younger boy looked fresh out of high school and took after their blonde mother. Both, thank fuck, seemed to have inherited her meeker spirit, too.
My Viper brother and fellow Tellier Security employee, Greed, stood beneath the circular stairs beyond the family in a black on black suit, fiddling with his ear piece. He raised a brow when I met his gaze.
Lips pursed, I shoved the list into my suit coat’s inner pocket and glanced at my watch.
Their middle child, Giada, was supposed to have shown up at her parent’s home twenty minutes earlier, since the family was to ride together to the night’s event.
“She’s doing this on purpose.” Burtonelli pushed away his wife’s motherly handling and straightened his wool overcoat. “Selfish from day one, that child. Why can’t she be more like her sister and put family above her own wants?” His glance at Marisa lightened his pissed off expression, and I found my stomach clenching.
A muscle in my jaw ticked. I’d never met their other daughter, but I’d learned a lot about her in the previous forty-eight hours since Warden had taken on the pain in the ass job, and put me in charge. Giada was the wild child, the black sheep. The Burtonelli who went her own way rather than go into law like her sister, father, and his father before him. A model who had begun to make a name for herself. And from pictures I’d seen, she was gorgeous as fuck with black hair and bright green eyes—a mix of both parents.
Had she gone her own way out of rebellion? To pay her father back for his obvious lack of love for her? His calling her selfish hadn’t been the first negative thing about her I’d heard out of his mouth since meeting him—and I doubted it would be the last.
I couldn’t handle bullying. Hearing and seeing that shit sent me down a dark path of memories I’d spent most of my life trying to rise from. Ashes of the past, drying to the soul.
For your own good, Pop had told me dozens of times. He’d taught me how to be a hard bastard, not easily provoked—unless I saw another person experiencing similar treatment I’d known as a kid. That kind of shit threatened my self-control like nothing else.
“She’s here,” a deep voice said in my ear piece, bringing my focus back on my job—where it should have been.
“Your driver said Giada has arrived,” I told the Burtonelli family, tugging on my own coat.
“We should have just left her behind.”
I fought to keep from glaring at Burtonelli, who’d insisted countless times the family needed to arrive together, bonded and strong behind him since—according to TV ads—he valued family above all else.
Lying fuck, same as everyone with political ambitions.
His wife’s smile wobbled, and she struggled to put her own coat on.
Cristian stepped forward to help her as his father stalked toward the front door.
“I’ll let her in,” I told him, stepping in his way, more to protect a woman I hadn’t yet met than to act according to my job as his guardian.
A blast of cold air hit my face, but my breath caught for an entirely different reason as subtle lilac and vanilla scents swirled around me.
Giada Burtonelli stood on the granite stoop, coat gaping open to reveal a jade-colored dress that wrapped around her body, cradling the type of tits I wanted to fuck. Tiny, tucked wais
t, perfect for the span of my hands. The skirt’s center split to display the top of her thighs, inches from the apex of where I bet heaven lay in wait—much too fucking short. Toned legs, tanned and smooth, led to spiked heels porn stars wore while getting their asses fucked.
My dick jolted, and I clenched my jaw against the combustion of lust that roared to life in my balls. Lifting my focus off her hot as fuck body to her face didn’t help matters. Eyes, green as spring grass, sharp as a damn Samurai sword, pierced through me with the type of instantaneous connection that robbed a man of his identity. Her full lips parted on a quick intake of air as her focus moved upward over my body to meet my gaze.
I’d seen pictures. Knew she’d be beautiful, but I didn’t expect my breath to be ripped from my lungs or the hairs on my body to stand at attention because of the energy crackling between us.
“You’re late!” Burtonelli barked from behind me.
Giada’s eyes hardened as she lifted her pointed chin, her ruby red lips thinning into a line.
I moved back, fucking tongue-tied.
“Hello to you, too, Father.” Low and husky, her voice thickened my dick even more.
“Could you make an effort to be on time just once, Giada?” Burtonelli moved toward her, his scowl raking down over her. “What the hell are you wearing?”
“Oscar,” she snipped her reply, her eyes flashing.
“You look like a whore. Fitting, I suppose, since you can’t seem to keep your legs closed to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who shows interest in you.”
I blinked, but her façade didn’t crack. Not the first time she’d heard such a thing, I expected as my fists clenched, but not my monkey...
Her father stalked past her. “I specifically said to be on time,” he continued. “You know how important this night is.” Stomping down the granite stairs toward the waiting limo in the circular drive, he muttered about people contributing to his campaign and what they might think of his daughter’s inappropriate attire—and the fact it was too late for her to change.
“You look lovely, dear,” Giada’s mother said, stepping forward, hands outstretched.
Kiss, kiss—fake as hell, before Mrs. Burtonelli hurried after her husband as though he tugged her along with a leash.
Marisa came next to greet her sister, her face pained as though empathetic toward Giada being her father’s verbal punching bag, but it was Cristian’s infectious grin and grabby hands to hug her that brought a smile to Giada’s face.
And Christ, what a smile. Dimple, flashing white teeth, eyes alight with enough joy to slam an uppercut into my gut, stealing my breath again.
I stared as they hugged, jealousy slithering in like a damn snake to wrap coils around my stomach and squeeze. Possessiveness wasn’t something I’d felt before, but fuck if I didn’t recognize its gut-twisting presence—even if it was her brother putting his hands on her.
Stretching my neck side to side, I tore my attention off the two siblings whispering to one another and glanced at Greed who watched me with a smirk on his face.
I scowled and spun to follow Marisa outside. I should have been the first into the night even though Burtonelli’s personal guards already awaited us in the circular drive out front, but everything about Giada distracted me.
My scowl deepened. Focus.
The plan had been for Greed to ride in the limo with the family while I took shotgun in the lead car, but I decided on a change while scanning their gated property in the darkening sky.
Three Burtonelli guards, including their driver and head of security who’d been placed beneath my command for the duration of the contract, stayed positioned where I’d commanded along the drive. All of us were connected by top of the line ear pieces provided by Tellier Security.
The driver stood by the car’s back door as Mrs. Burtonelli slid inside, the other two packing with heads swiveling where they waited by the cars boxing the limo in.
Hairs on my neck stirred, but without any sense of impending danger.
Giada.
I could feel her focus on my back like a soft caress, a whisper of fingertips along my spine, but I didn’t turn, even after the mansion’s front door slammed shut.
Fighting off shivers and my body’s distraction from my job, I strode toward the limo, waving the driver away. Cristian moved into my periphery as I pulled up by the opened door, and he slid in behind his oldest sister.
I feigned disinterest as Giada neared in a cloud of sweet, subtle lilac laced with vanilla.
My hand moved on its own, offering her assistance even though I continued to scan the property, senses beyond alert, my body strung fucking tight as hell.
Her smooth fingers danced across mine, and I gripped tight in sudden need to yank her close. Soothe the hurt her father had inflicted that she’d tried to hide behind a mask of who-gives-a-shit stubbornness.
I turned my focus on her face—she stared up at me, her eyes wide and lips parted. Currents raced through our clasped fingers, straight to my dick.
“Giada!” Her father’s annoyed call from inside the limo jerked her attention off me, and I grit my teeth while she bent down to get into the limo and join her family.
I released my hold on her hand and fought the need to watch her ass as she climbed into the limo. Greed approached, his inquisitive stare on my face.
“I’m riding with them,” I told him, my tone not welcoming argument or question.
“Right-o, boss man,” he said with a grin, touching his forehead in a fake salute. He sauntered toward the lead car, and I inhaled a bracing breath before following Giada, the non-princess, into the lion’s den.
I told myself I’d made the hasty decision thinking my presence would keep tempers from rising into a barrage of bullying, which I had a feeling Burtonelli had every intention of continuing.
He started in on Giada before the door closed behind me. “Marisa was in court this afternoon and she still managed to arrive on time.”
Cold eyes and an even colder smile met his scowl across the distance separating father and daughter. “Good for her.”
My lips twitched. At least she didn’t take any shit.
“Watch your tone, young lady!”
“Sorry, Father.” Her voice didn’t sound the least bit contrite.
“What were you doing that was so damn important? Taking off your clothes for another photographer?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
Lucky bastard, whoever he was.
“And I suppose you fucked him as well.”
Giada stared him down, lips sealed as jealousy coiled around my stomach.
Burtonelli muttered something beneath his breath—including the word “whore” again.
Acid burned my gut.
“What a disappointment.” Burtonelli huffed and sat back, tossing his hands in the air. “You’re not as smart as Marisa or Cristian, Giada, but you could have done something more with the life I’ve offered. Free college education. A position in my old firm. Instead, you’re stripping for strangers to take pictures that you’ll never be able to put behind you should you decide to one day get your head out of your ass.”
“The last thing I wanted to be was a lawyer,” Giada replied, cool as a fucking cucumber. “And for your information, the photographer was a woman. Not that you’d care.”
“I know why you’re doing this,” the judge continued as though she hadn’t spoken, “and don’t think it will work.”
Giada raised an eyebrow but kept silent, her hands lightly folded in her lap. To the rest of the world, she might appear unfazed, but I’d learned to see beyond the eyes, reading microexpressions as easily as a kids’ bedtime story.
Before her seemingly bored brow raised, a line furrowed between, disappearing before most would have caught it. The twitch downward on the corners of her lips also betrayed her sadness. Her pain.
“Anything to gain the spotlight,” her father muttered.
His wife touched his arm in attempts to stop h
im. “Dear—”
“A fashionably late entrance to get the attention you crave,” he all but spit at his younger daughter.
“Perhaps if I’d been given more attention as a child, I wouldn’t be so desperate for it now,” Giada had the balls to toss out with a bit of bite in her voice.
Fuck, how I wanted to clap.
“Giada,” her mother chided softly as the judge’s face reddened.
“Perhaps,” her father seethed, his brow furrowed, “if you’d showed one ounce of respect for your elders, you would have!”
“I’ve been on my damn best behavior since you announced you wanted to run for the Senate, Father,” Giada shot back, her fingers tightening their hold on one another. “Not one misstep. Not one whisper of scandal or inappropriate pictures, and yet you still find something to bitch about.”
“How you’ve managed, is beyond me.”
“Nicolo,” the judge’s wife tried again, but he brushed her off, same as before.
“You’re going to end up pregnant out of wedlock because of that group of friends you run around with. Or, in jail for a DUI. Imagine what that will do for this family’s image. As if you haven’t done enough damage already!”
I’d had about enough—but a voice in my ear let me know we were five minutes out.
I held up a hand as the judge opened his mouth to spew more shit at his silent daughter who fought to keep the effects of his words off her face. “We’re five minutes away from the hotel and need to go over the details of our arrival.”
Lips pursed, he nodded, and I launched into how I expected the five of them to exit the vehicle and make their way inside the hotel hosting the event. To avoid distraction, I kept my focus off Giada even though her gaze singed me.
Burtonelli had insisted on a front entrance drop off rather than the hotel’s underground parking lot which offered more protection. I’d given in to his “need” to be seen on the red carpet, his arrogant insistence on putting his supposed loved ones’ lives in danger.