Page 1 of Guarding the Shadows (Pulsetunes Rock Gods #5)

R aff

A smile curved my lips as I stood at the side of the stage, waiting for the band to wrap up their last number. I immediately became tense when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. My tense shoulders slumped in relief once I’d noticed Levi’s sweet sister Bethany approach me.

As she came up beside me, I diligently continued to observe the band’s surroundings for any hazard that might pose a threat to one of our guys I was paid to protect.

She touched my forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Her grip was light through my cotton jacket and aimed to get my attention, my heart kicked up its pace at that small, familiar gesture that somehow felt intimate to me.

“I’m heading to Levi’s place once the tour finishes. He was talking about having some people over to chill for a couple of days. Are you coming?” Beth, Levi’s youngest and most recent half-sister to come into his life, asked. Her unexpected question drew my gaze briefly to look down at her.

In those few seconds there was just something about the way she looked at me with her gorgeous light-gray eyes that drew me in.

The first time I saw her, I’d thought she was super cute, with her long dark hair, a sexy, curvy rack and pretty heart-shaped face.

But she was young, still in her early twenties, and besides, I already had a girl I was madly in love with.

Usually, girls don’t turn my head because I had never been able to see past my girl, Gwen.

But if I’d been on the market, I would most definitely have been interested in Beth.

She’d been through a lot in her young life, which had made her more worldly than other girls her age.

And she was ballsy and outgoing, with the kind of confidence that women twice her age would envy.

Musically, we had a lot in common, liking the same bands and even had a few similar playlists.

We were also both avid readers and had read most of the same thrillers and crime writers’ novels.

Our similar interests had given us plenty to connect with, and at the end of a boring or busy day, when time allowed, we tended to seek each other out.

If I hadn’t been in love with Gwen, I would have been tempted by her round-about way of inviting me to Levi’s because I really liked Beth.

We’d grown close pretty quickly in the few weeks she’d been around the band, considering I’d known other women for years and they’d never gotten past a few pleasantries in conversation with me.

In fact, in such a short space of time, we’d grown to be good friends, and I looked forward to the times when we hung out together.

Turning back to the band, I shook my head. “Wish I could, but I thought I’d take Gwen away for a few days to Hawaii or something. It’s been a while since we did something that was just the two of us.”

I stole another glance toward her, and I swear her bright, smiling eyes dimmed with that one sentence.

I didn’t get time to ponder whether that had happened because of my mention of Gwen or that she was sorry I couldn’t go hang out with her, as the band had taken their final bows and were heading straight for me.

Leaving Mikey behind, I strode down the corridor to the stage doors, where the guys would be leaving from and I’d barely made it outside before my communication headset came to life.

“Exiting in five, four, three, two, one,” Bodhi, the number one security detail for our band Screaming Shadows, muttered into his mic. On cue the doors burst open and Bodhi immediately took up his position to my right.

“Copy that,” I said, from the left side of the walkway. My suspicious eyes scanned the crowd for any potential obstruction or threats, mentally discarding each person as we moved toward the full-sized van waiting to carry our guys back to their accommodation for the night.

As we moved our VIPs through the horde of screaming females lining each side of the metal barriers, they were showered with all manner of panties and bras with phone numbers written with sharpies on them, along with various other ‘gifts’ of that nature.

Continuing toward the transport, I continued to eye the crowd, looking for any potential threats. As was normal for us, Bodhi and I mentally discarded each person until we reached the waiting transport.

“Clear,” Mikey, our number three called into his mic, letting us know there was no hazard behind us.

We rounded the van that had both side doors already open, Bodhi at one side and me at the other.

We piled the guys inside, each of them knowing which seat to sit in, then Bodhi climbed in beside them and each of us closed our doors.

“Secured,” I called into my cuff. I then gave two sharp knocks on the roof and huffed out a quick sigh of relief. Once the signal had been given the driver slowly edged forward, allowing our transport following to pull up at the curb.

Mikey and I climbed into the car as it continued to creep forward, Mikey sitting beside Bernadette, the band’s PA, while I sat next to Beth.

The second our doors were closed, both cars gathered speed as we took off behind them.

Sitting back on my seat, my knuckles brushed along Beth’s smooth, silky thigh and a spark ran through me that I didn’t expect.

Beth’s breath hitched as her gorgeous eyes immediately connected with mine, then she blushed.

“Sorry,” I muttered, moving my offending hand onto my lap and covering it with my other one.

“It’s okay,” she mumbled as she shook her head nervously and looked a little flustered. Still looking at me, she grabbed the hem of her thigh-length dress and tried to pull it further down her leg. Once she’d done this, I noticed her place her hand over where my hand had touched her.

“Well, that was a lot smoother than that shit-show in Atlanta last night,” Mikey admitted, sliding back into his seat, and running a hand through his hair. I welcomed his distraction and turned to look at him.

“Different audience here in Seattle,” I suggested. “The average age looked older too. Those kids in Atlanta were mid-teens,” I reasoned. “Teen crushes and hysteria go hand in hand,” I muttered by way of explanation.

“Yeah, that little redheaded chick was hysterical last night. Breathing hellfire and freaking out the way she did. She flipped the fuck out on me when I caught her around her waist.”

“Yeah, it was fortunate you kept your head back, the way that little filly bucked, she’d have broken your nose.”

“Deakon didn’t help, whipping them up like that by patting his bare chest and giving them a show,” he grumbled.

“Everything’s a joke to Deakon. Jude gave him shit about that after Bodhi complained about him. It would be a different matter entirely if that mob had gotten to him,” I agreed.

“Deakon’s … Deakon. He’s not half as bad as Joe was,” Bernadette argued. She’d been the one who’d had to figure out how to retrieve Joe from many precarious, risky or downright arrestable situations.

“You’re going to defend him and use Joe to do it?” I muttered. Joe used to be Screaming Shadows bass player. And where I agree, Deakon’s careless behavior wasn’t as funny as he’d like to think it was, Joe’s liabilities for the band were of a different kind altogether.

“No, what I mean is the band as a whole is more manageable now that you’re not running around trying to find Joe … or needing to carry a stash of Narcan to revive him when he was found almost comatose because he was high.”

“True … and Deakon appeared a lot more subdued this evening after Jude tore him down about how he put all of them at risk by breaking security protocol last night,” I conceded.

Bodhi’s communication interrupted the conversation. “ETA five minutes.”

“Copy that,” I replied. “I’ll cover Greg, you do Korry and Deakon, since Greg’s the least predictable tonight.”

“Copy that,” Mikey replied as we pulled up outside the Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle.

“Go. Go. Go,” Bodhi barked into our headsets.

Instantly, Mikey and I opened our car doors, climbed out and jogged along both sides of their van.

I guarded the driver’s side from the road as Bodhi and Mikey helped the band file out one by one onto the walkway.

The second Jude and Levi were out of the transport and began walking, Bodhi immediately took off behind them, his head scanning left to right as they approached the hotel entrance.

Next came Korry then Deakon. Once Greg came into view, Mikey moved in front of them, and I immediately ran to take up my position behind them.

It was a risky transfer, in that the band were entering the hotel through the front lobby this time. However, as the transfers between locations for the band had been rehearsed and carried out many times before, everything went off smoothly.

Bernadette had done her homework, visiting the hotel ahead of time, and furnishing Bodhi with a layout of the main lobby, where the elevators were, and the location of the floor.

She had also acquired three master keys for the floor doors for each of us, as well as individual room keys for each of our guys.

Fortunately, at that late hour there were very few patrons around, so we were able to cross the main lobby to the bank of elevators without any disruptions. Bodhi must have called ahead because two bell boys stood waiting with two elevator doors open, ready to transport everyone upstairs.

Once our charges were safe inside the first elevator car, Mikey and I jumped in the second one to check the floor before our guys entered.

Using the master key, we swept through each room, the hallways and stairwells.

Once done, I saw that the elevator had reached the floor and gave three sharp knocks on the metal doors.

At my signal Bodhi opened the elevator doors and Jude gave me a nod. “Thanks, Raff,” he mumbled before he strode down the hallway in front of me. “Any particular side?” he asked, gesturing left and right in front of him.

“To the left. Those rooms have a nice view of Elliot Bay,” I replied, hitting the key against the automated lock.

Jude heard the click as it unlocked and pushed open the door. “Very nice,” he agreed as he took in the night-time lights on the bay. “Thanks again, dude,” he muttered before he strode further into his room. As the doors had spring-back hinges the door closed behind him.

My head turned automatically when I heard an elevator and saw Beth and Bernadette arrive. Bodhi was standing with Levi and although I couldn’t hear them, I watched their short exchange before Bodhi opened a room door for Levi and led him inside.

“Am I in the room at the end?” Greg asked, distracting me from the two women who had begun to walk toward me. Greg hitched his thumb over his shoulder toward the last door on the left.

“Yeah, we figured if you were the furthest away from the elevators and stairwell, you’d have a job sneaking past all of us,” I replied, not even trying to make a joke of his previous escapades.

Greg had been known to go walkabout and had a special talent for getting himself into trouble. Not in a criminal way, but he was prone to acting impulsively. He also drank like a fish, and most times he had been thoughtless around the subject of cause and effect.

“You can rest easy tonight. No midnight jaunts for me this evening. Five gigs, three radio interviews and that live TV appearance we just did have just about wiped me out,” Greg confessed in his pleasant Irish accent, then yawned.

“Suits me,” I grinned. If Greg was exhausted, which he had rarely admitted to in the past, then there’d be no demands from him or the rest of the band for the night. Even Deakon had been yawning when he’d gotten out of the elevator.

Still, although I believed Greg was telling the truth, I went into the room with him and emptied the alcohol content from his hotel room wet bar, leaving him three small beers, three cans of soda, a bottle of water, some peanuts and an assortment of chocolate bars.

Like I said, I believed Greg’s intentions in that moment were good, but I’d previously been on the receiving end of his stupidly mindless impulsiveness. Although, when he didn’t protest as I left laden with alcoholic goodies, I believed the odds were in my favor that he’d be staying in that night.

“Locked and loaded,” Mikey said as he closed the door on Deakon’s room … his term for all the guys safely home. “There’ll be no more rock ‘n’ roll from these guys tonight.”

The band’s ‘tell’ they’d reached their limits for social contact was that there had been no conversation whatsoever on the way back from their TV appearance.

“They’re all worn out from their efforts this week. They’ve been up early every day, had multiple transfers, short flights and performances in their three plus weeks on the road,” I agreed with Mikey.

Where we’d all usually had some downtime on the tour bus, on this tour the distances between appearances had been too far apart, and that quality relaxation time was what had been missing.

“They’ve had no rest at all. Three weeks and three days since they had any real quality time to themselves,” Mikey pointed out.

“Donnie should be more mindful about the scheduling for these guys. My bet is they’ll all be snoring before midnight,” Bodhi agreed, as he caught up with us in the corridor.

“Good, because I think I’ll be joining them on that,” I replied. “Don’t just stand there, you need your rest too,” I prompted Bernadette and Beth, since all the guys were behind bedroom doors. “We’ve only got about ten hours left until we need to do it all again.”

We all turned and went our separate ways toward our rooms. While I unlocked my door and took one last glance down the hall, I saw Beth hesitate at her door, turn to look directly down the hall at me and smile. “Night, Raff,” she murmured.

“Night, Beth,” I replied, oddly pleased that she had waited to say that to me and flashed her a small smile in return.