I Told You To Run But You Didn't (Georgia) novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30

84%

Finishe

Georgia’s POV

Lucas flinched as if he’d been struck. He straightened his tie, his face a mask of humiliation. “I’ll expect your call,” he muttered, before turning on his heel and stalking out of the room, leaving a final, resentful glare in his wake.

When the door closed, leaving just the two of us, I glare at him. He turned and met my frown with a raised eyebrow. I immediately schooled my features into a neutral expression and looked away, a hot flush of anger and embarrassment creeping up my neck.

Damn it. Why did he say that?

It was a power play, pure and simple-a casual, cutting remark designed to humiliate Lucas completely.

“Perhaps I simply have better taste than you.”

The arrogance of it was stunning. But beneath the arrogance was a clear, unmistakable message aimed as much at me as it was at Lucas. He wasn’t talking about my skills as a pilot or my business acumen. He was talking about me.

“Well,” he said, walking behind his desk with the easy grace of a predator returning to its lair. “Welcome to your first day.” He picked up a thin file from his desk and tossed it onto the long leather couch that faced him. “Let’s get to work.”

I walked over and picked up the file, my hands not quite steady. Inside were several grainy, long-lens photographs of a man’s face. The sniper.

“Our security team swept the sniper’s nest,” Estevan said his eyes already on his computer screen, his tone all business. “That’s who they identified. Do you recognize him?”

My heart leaped into my throat—a nauseating mix of terror and a wild, desperate hope. I stared at the face, at the sharp jaw and dark hair, searching for any trace of my brother. But the eyes were wrong, the set of the mouth unfamiliar.

A long, slow breath I hadn’t realized I was holding escaped me in a sigh of both relief and frust

I shook my head, closing the folder. “It’s not him. It’s not Zane.”

“Good,” he said, his voice clipped. “One less complication.” He gestured toward the couch. “Sit. Your now is to be observant. And quiet.”

I sat on the edge of the ridiculously expensive couch, feling useless and out of place. This is it? This is being a bodyguard? I had never been a personal protection agent before, but my time in the military had prepared me for long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Yet this felt different.

This boredom was a leash or maybe an enclosure where I was the main exhibit. I stared at the man who was now, unbelievably, my boss.

He was completely absorbed in his work, the fierce intensity he had shown me earlier now channeled into the documents on his screen,

My trained eyes couldn’t help but take him in, assessing The way his powerful shoulders filled out his suit jacket, the clean, sharp line of his jaw as he concentrated the controlled, economical movement of his hands across the keyboard,

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11:42 Sat, Mar / ▲ M

Chapter 30

林家84%

Finished

There was no wasted energy, no unnecessary motion. He was a creature of pure, focused intent.

I gulped at the thought of the salary suddenly popping into my head. Ten grand a month to sit here and watch him. It was an insane amount of money.

Enough to fund my own search for Zane, if it came to that. Enough to buy a new life. If I survived this one.

As I sat there, watching him, a slow, unwelcome realization dawned on me. My professional assessment was blurring into something else, something personal and deeply unsettling.

He wasn’t just a monster or a means to an end. He was captivating. The quiet confidence of a king in his castle, the contained energy of a panther at rest.

I had to admit the most terrifying truth of all: Estevan Salvatore wasn’t just dangerous. He was handsomely, intoxicatingly dangerous. And that, I knew, made him the biggest threat in the room.

I stood up, the silence in the office becoming unbearable. My bodyguard instincts, newly reawakened, took over. I paced the frame of the room, my gaze falling on the massive window he’d been sitting in front of just a few days ago.

It was different. The glass was thicker, the tint darker, almost opaque from the outside.

Bullet-resistant, I realized. And polarized. He learns from his mistakes. And he has the resources to correct them instantly. The thought was chilling.

If he was this strategic about a window, what else was he strategic about?

I turned, my arms crossed, and faced him. “The restaurant,” I said, my voice steady. “The day I was there with Patricia. Was that a coincidence?”

Estevan leaned back in his chair, a slow, predatory smile playing on his lips. “Coincidence is a lazy man’s explanation for a series of calculated events, Georgia.”

My blood ran cold. “So it was planned.”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” he countered, turning my question back on me.

“I’m not talking about the restaurant,” I said, my voice quiet but firm, deciding to lay my own c table. “I’m talking about before that. The funeral parlor. A month ago.”

The confident smirk faltered for a fraction of a second, eplaced by a look of genuine curiosity. The mask of amused control slid back into place. “You saw me there?” He seemed impressed. “And here I thought I was the only one doing the observing. What business would you have at my father’s funeral?”

I looked away from his piercing gaze, out at the city below. The memory was still raw, a wound that had never properly healed.

“I wasn’t there for your father,” I said, my voice low and ight with old pain. “I was there for my parents.” I took a shaky breath. “I was interring their ashes. I… I couldn’t bring them to the Sterling mansion.” The memory of Fatima’s cold, dismissive words still stung. he told me they were ‘bad luck’ and that there was no room for my past in her house,”

Estevan was silent for a long moment, his intense gaze sarching my face. Then, he said something so unexpected, so out of the blue, that it touched a part of my heart I thought had long turned to stone.

川

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11:42 Sat, Mar / A

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