Addi: Not since I started working with the Gods. Who needs more than 3 hours sleep, anyway?
Me: Do you need a day off?
Addi: Don’t get those either! Meeting arranged for 9.30 today. That good for you?
Me: Yeap. I will try to contain my rage until then.
Addi: I have coffee on if you want to come up.
Me: Best not. Not sure I’m in Frankie’s good books.
Addi: ???
Me: Nothing to worry about. I’ll talk to her today.
Addi: Good. I can’t handle any more drama for a while. See you at 9.30.
“I am utterly fucking disappointed in each and every one of you.” I let out a sigh as I took in the team of security I managed. They all stood in front of me, decked out in their black uniform, looking tense and so they should, because I was furious.
“I don’t know how you did things before I arrived, but I think I’ve made it very clear what’s changed and what I expect of you, yet all I’ve seen is a lax attitude to your job. So, let me spell it out for you in really plain language. Your job is to protect the band. No member of the band should even take a piss without one of you waiting nearby. They should not be going to the gym alone, they should not be taking groupies back to their hotel suite alone, they should be drinking at a bar alone, and they should not be getting in the elevator to wander the hotel alone.”
Addi furrowed her brow at me, but I didn’t want to say who I’d found doing what because most of it involved Frankie and I didn’t want it to sound like all this was focused on her. Yes, I wanted to keep her safe, but the Gods had been getting into more and more dangerous situations because they didn’t have the right security detail watching them and now that was on me.
“We’re not babysitters. If they want to get pissed and fuck around, why should we have to stop them?” Rob fired out, looking around at the rest of the team to back him, but luckily, no one did.
“I don’t want you to babysit them. If they want to get hammered and have an orgy, I don’t fucking care. You do not get to leave them alone for one second of it. You don’t have to stand and watch, but you have to be close enough that you could hear if they needed you.”
“That’s stupid,” Rob mumbled like a petulant child.
“What’s to say the groupie Tanner takes back to his room doesn’t have a knife? What’s to stop her stabbing him and the rest of the band? All while you’re on the floor below 'listening out' for any trouble in your room with the TV on while you watch porn. You should be outside their room at the very least… and I mean theveryleast.”
“When they get to their suite, we’re off the clock. That’s the way Mick did it. That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
“You’re kidding me, right? Tell me you’re joking, Rob?” I started pacing so I wouldn’t stride across the room and punch the idiot in the face.
“No. We all feel the same, don’t we, boys?”
The rest of the team avoided my eyes, looking nervously between each other and Rob.
“Because stalkers and weirdos only come out during the day or at their gigs, right? I mean, I didn’t have to step in to stop a bloke with a knife outside the hotel last night, did I? What if he’d got into the private elevator that was unmanned and got upstairs? With the knife. What then?”
“The doorman would have stopped him.”
I didn’t do angry. Shouting and screaming never worked. Instead, I lowered my voice and glared at Rob as I spoke. “We don’t pay the hotel doorman to stop shit like that. We pay you guys and if you can’t do your job, then I’m happy to replace you. Out of curiosity, who was meant to be watching the elevator last night?”
“Rob,” Neo replied before Rob could make any lame ass excuses.
“And you weren’t there. Why?”
“I told you; the boys were in the penthouse, and you had eyes on Frankie. What did you need me for?”
“Oh, I don’t know. To help me disarm a crazy fan with a knife, to get Frankie to safety, to even call the fucking ambulance so I could stop bleeding all over the street in front of the paparazzi?”
“You seemed to handle it pretty well on your own,” he replied, unable to hide the smug look on his face as his eyes glanced down at the large dressings on my arm.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I? And that’s why Addi broughtmein as head of security. Because I’m willing to do what it takes and not just the bare minimum.”
Rob mumbled something under his breath, making my jaw clench as I forced myself to stay professional and not tell him what a useless waste of space most of the people in this room thought he was.