At 3:47 AM, his phone buzzes. It’s a text from a number he doesn’t have saved. “Wheels up in 90. Baku. Threat level: Amber.”
Then he puts on the suit. The tiredness vanishes. The wall returns.
He lives in a studio apartment with a concrete floor, a punching bag, and a single photograph: his late mother. No wife. No kids. bodyguard rocco
“Kids are the hardest,” he admits. “Adults listen to reason. A kid sees a balloon and runs into traffic. You can’t reason with a balloon. You have to love them enough to be the bad guy who grabs their collar.”
“Amber means somebody made a threat,” he mutters, pulling the suit jacket taut across his shoulders. “Amber means they’re stupid enough to talk but smart enough to run.” At 3:47 AM, his phone buzzes
“Ninety percent of this job is aura,” Rocco says. “You have to be the most boring, predictable, solid thing in the room. You are a load-bearing wall. Nobody notices a wall until it falls. My job is to never fall.”
He taps the steering wheel.
“You can’t have both,” he says. “You’re either home for dinner or you’re watching the fire exit. I chose the fire exit.”