Page 32 of Tangled Like Us

Another breath, she nods. “Let’s go.”

6

THATCHER MORETTI

Dawn.

Fog hangs low outside the two brick townhouses in Philly’s Rittenhouse-Fitler Historic District, windows shrouded with mist. It’s where Jane, Maximoff, and Luna live, and by extension, their bodyguards. Left is their house.

Right is ours.

Exception being Farrow Keene, who lives with his client. Security makes a lot of exceptions for Farrow, and back when I was a lead and a third of the Tri-Force, I even helped pave that path for him.

Probably more than he realizes.

I step out onto the curb of the old narrow street. Tying drawstring pants tighter on my muscular waist. I didn’t have time to grab a fucking shirt.

Cover of darkness vanishes with daybreak, and the early-morning September chill bites my bare chest.

I used to always wake up at first light. Before the Marine Corps, before my parent’s divorce—our dad would tell us to get our asses up and finish our chores, all before breakfast.

I didn’t really mind it, and to let Banks sleep longer, I’d do some of his tasks. Folding his clothes for him. Placing shirts and pants neatly in one dresser drawer that we had to share.

Being on my feet at dawn is like any other day.

But what’s congregating on the old street—it’s not the type of shit that I deal with before I can even shower.

“Hey, man,” a stocky redheaded temp bodyguard greets me, coming up to my side. “I can’t see much, but they keep calling her name and paparazzi are waking up.” I hear multiple car doors shut.

Through an eerie layer of fog, I make out maybe…three or four men leaving their respective vehicles.

One is already on the street.

“Jane! Are you home?!” a guy yells. His whining desperation sounds less like typical demands of paparazzi.

He’s a fuckingsuitor.

It’s a polite term that the Alpha lead wants us to use.

Ever since the Cinderella ad, a bunch of delusional fuckbags have been congregating outside the townhouse. Swarming the street, along with the media.

It’s been one week since the ad’s been in print, and this should’ve died down already. But it’s gotten worse. More suitors keep coming in from out of state, staking claim to a girl that they cannot fucking have.

I fit in my earpiece. “Get eyes on the pap vans and keep watch of the left townhouse. I’ll handle the other targets.”

In the filmy haze, I see a line of paparazzi vehicles camped out on the street. Most are parked on the adjacent sidewalk to free the road. Some have been there long before the Cinderella ad, but the media attention has doubled. Cameramen are also waking up earlier than usual.

Several already spill out of their cars.

One cameraman is squatting on the sidewalk, positioning the lens towards misted windows of Maximoff’s room. Blinds and curtains shut.

Another guy sets up a tripod.

I look to the temp guard as he hesitates. “Copy?” I ask.

He frowns. “Sir, what’s protocol if these targets bring Jane gifts?”

I drop my voice another octave. “Donottouch whatever they try to hand you. Don’t accept any packages. Just tell them to fuck off without antagonizing them.” I let the cord to my mic hang on my bare chest, and I hawk-eye the most vocal suitor right now.