Undercover Badge; Next Generation

Chapter thirty eight

CHAPTER 38

           So, if it wasn't clear how much I'd changed in the last two months, this was undoubtedly a good illustration. 

Two months ago, my reaction to scarily dressed, armed gunmen pointing semi-automatic weapons at my boyfriend and I would have involved screaming, running, fainting or cowering on my part. 

     ...Wait a second. Was Matthew my boyfriend? Well, it sort of seemed like it. But how the hell could Matthew be a "Boy" friend? There was nothing boyish about the six three man of two hundred plus pounds of rock hard, large sculpted muscle and the masculine, hard and brooding face of his. He was so not boyfriend. Ugh, this was too complex. Well, whatever. Matthew was mine. That's it. Done. Moving on.

     So instead of screaming, yelling or freaking out, I quite legitimately stomped my foot, rolled my eyes and, in total exasperation, said the words "Oh for fuck's sakes, really now?"

Matthew, a little in front of me and still holding my hand, audibly sighed, disappointment on his features.

   "Look." He started calmly, raising the hand not holding mine. "My girl and I just wanna go upstairs to our hotel room, and..." the two men I could see glanced at me, back at him. Matthew cleared his throat. "-ya know? So If you could just ignore us and we'll be on our way."

I swear, both men smirked. And their large scary frames didn't look the smirking type. 

"Get back." The biggest growled. Taller and wider than Matthew, with a red diamond shaped Mohawk and bullring piercing through his septum and a large gun that he looked itching to engage, neither Matthew nor I were in any position to argue.

I sighed and promptly turned around, my wings heavy on my back with the realization that they'd still have to stay there for a while.

    "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain calm." Red Mohawk announced, grinning and showing two gold teeth. His mom must be proud.

Five men filed in after him, each bigger, badder and more heavily armed than the last.

Kat and James turned. The first thing they looked at wasn't the large bad guys, but Matthew's hand in mine, and the fact that we were walking back from the door. Kat's eyes narrowed. My chin tilted up defiantly.

Then they saw the men and a bored, exasperated and annoyed expression crossed both their faces. Matthew's palm found my lower back, sliding to round my right hip, fitting his shoulder in behind mine under my right wing and squeezing my hip in his strong hand. It was a promise. We'd had our evening delayed but we weren't out. I looked up to find him close enough to brush his nose with mine. I smiled, he smiled. What could these thieves do to us that we hadn't already been through?

"Well." James said. Matthew and I looked over but didn't move. He had his eyes on me. "This is interesting."

"No." Kat snapped, looking furiously at Matthew. "It's not."

I scowled. 

      Okay. So maybe Kat wasn't what I thought she was. 

Matthew went to move away. I stepped closer. Kat's eyes narrowed further.

"I told you to protect her. To keep her away from this shit." She indicated the guys with the weapons who were corralling all the frightened rich folk toward us and her and James.

"And what do you do?" she snapped. "You bring her to us before we've figured anything out and you complicate everything by... by getting close to her?"