I turned to the shooter, Instructor Ramirez, who walked in behind us.
“Who was that guy, ma’am? There was only supposed to be one of you.” Behind her, the mystery assailant disappeared out of a door on the other side of the arena, rubbing his arm.
She raised a perfectly manicured black eyebrow. “What do we always say to you students?”
“Expect the unexpected.”
“Si.” She pulled her gloves off and opened a locker to secure her firearm. As a weapons expert, she was meticulous about safety and expected us to be, too. “Get cleaned up, Nicole. You’ll hear from Xene before long.”
My instructors walked out of the locker room together, leaving me alone to shed my pads, secure my baton, and stress. Returning to the warehouse I’d just shepherded my client through, I squinted at the observation room where Xene and several other instructors had been watching—and grading—my final test. The glass was almost opaque, but I could just make out the silhouettes of a group of people in there.
With the lights on, the warehouse resembled what it basically was—an Airsoft arena. Filled with the shells of old vehicles, freestanding concrete walls, and empty metal barrels, the training arena provided Juno Academy students a place to practice the skills we learned. Here, women like me trained to be close protection operatives, or CPOs. Bodyguards.
Xene always had her reasons for what she did, but at this moment I wished I could read her mind. Why had she changed my CPO certification test at the last minute? And what did she think of my performance? I’d saved my client, but I’d been shot. Did I pass? I bit my already tattered thumbnail.
The door to the hallway opened, and Ramirez popped her head through. “Xene wants you in her office. Ahora.”
My breath caught in my throat, and my mouth went dry. What was this? The staff hadn’t had enough time to make a decision about my test yet.
I passed several instructors in the hallway. Juno’s small staff was mostly men, aged thirty to fifty, fit, with short hair and the occasional tattoo. They looked like what they were: ex-military, ex-law enforcement, ex-security.
Me? I was ex-high school.
The director of training nodded to me. I couldn’t read his expression.
“Can you tell me how I did, sir?” I asked.
“Your principal survived. That was the objective. But you took some unnecessary risks, Rossi. You moved when you should have waited.”
Again, he didn’t need to say.
My instructors had repeatedly pinged me for not being more cautious. It can get you killed, Nicole, Xene had chided, or worse, your client. In the heat of the moment, I often lost my head, jumped the gun.
Heart pounding, I moved on to Xene’s office.
I’d endured Juno’s grueling training in weapons handling, combat techniques, defensive driving, and intense classroom work on threat assessment and planning. I’d learned ten-minute medicine—how to keep a principal alive until they could receive professional medical care. I’d studied, worked my ass off at part-time jobs to help my mother with the rent, pushed through injuries, and sacrificed the college degree Mom desperately wanted for me for the chance to be a CPO.
And I couldn’t afford to take the course a second time. Which meant this could be it for my dream—the dream that had grabbed hold of me that black day four years ago when my world had turned upside down. A desperate, sick feeling swamped me.
Shoving the dark memories aside, because the bastards never really went away, I paused at a window to the parking lot and automatically took stock of any changes since I came in earlier. The red Ford F-150 was gone, and a gunmetal gray Chevy Malibu had taken its place. That white service van idling over there was new. The driver held a can of Red Bull and talked on his cellphone.
In a side lot, a sleek, black Mercedes sedan now crouched, and a few feet away from the Mercedes, the side of beef from my test stood, sweating in the Las Vegas sun. From his watchful stance, I’d swear he was on the job—a security professional. But who was he protecting? No one else was in sight.
Distracted, I smoothed my rumpled suit, knocked on Xene’s door, and when she answered, opened it. The office was a windowless box with a simple desk sporting a computer and piles of folders and papers, two cabinets full of books against the wall, and an oval conference table and chairs. No pictures or other personal items, other than one on the desk of Xene shaking the hand of a former U.S. president.
Xene stood as I came in, poised in her signature black pantsuit and white collared shirt. Her olive skin was flawless, and her dark hair waved to her shoulders. Low heeled boots poked out from under her pants legs. She never wore actual heels, she’d told us. Terrible for running.
The rare female CPO of her generation, Xene had taken protective assignments all over the world for decades, famously saving the life of a European princess from an assassination attempt. After she’d gotten too old for the CPO circuit, she built Juno Academy to exclusively train female CPOs. I nodded to her as I entered.
A well-dressed Indian couple and a Black man sat at the table across from Xene. She extended her hand toward them and spoke, her Greek accent spicing her voice.
“Nicole Rossi, meet Mr. and Ms. Venkatesan.”
I circled the table to shake their hands. They both had firm grips. Ms. Venkatesan’s ebony hair was elegantly knotted. A delicate diamond earring pierced her nostril, and a golden scarf shot through with bright fuchsia and aqua thread lay over the back of her chair. Her husband wore a tailored suit with no tie, and his straight hair was clipped short. Diamonds winked off his watch.
“And this is D’Andre Brown.” Xene indicated the other man. “Mr. Brown is a team lead with Spencer Security Associates.”
I blinked, and my pulse picked up. I’d applied to SSA a
