The Nasty Business of a Bodyguard by Elijah Douresseau (top 10 ebook reader txt) 📗

Smith most of the time, never having to reconcile the two under one roof.”

Meanwhile, the other man who was shifting uncomfortably in his seat was being increasingly less subtle about his unease.

“Coco, what is this? You show us a nice meal, and you also air out our dirty laundry?”

The other man started to bang the table, softly, then a hastened pounding. He was choking. Dean and the others finally took notice.

“Stefan, what’s the matter with you?”

“I think he’s choking.”

Confirmed, Alvin sprang into action to get behind Stefan, but Coco put up a shining hand to stop him.

“No, no. That won’t do anything.”

Stefan was out of his seat, throwing a silent temper tantrum. He knocked silverware on the floor, arms flailing. Oddly, he was losing mobility in his legs.

“What the hell is going on, Coco?”

Smith dropped his head in the remainder of his meal, splashing specs of grits everywhere. Alvin liked to think his food was delicious to the point of death. But only figuratively. At least, to the point that you would be hungry and angry if you did not have the chef’s feelgood dishes. What everyone was witnessing and experiencing in that hall was a couple shades past too far.

The other bosses started to writhe and moan in pain, certainly the result of something they ate. The lack of responsiveness from Coco’s guards was evidence this was planned. If it was not obvious already that Alvin’s boss was in the middle of some hostile takeover.

“What the hell is going on, Coco?”  

The woman would never cease to amaze her chef. Did she just mock the head guy in charge? A supervisor, by most counts. In any case, Dean was someone in a position of power that their subordinates would never dare not take seriously, not even at an afterhours function. And here was Coco, with something to prove. She was that student in the classroom, that stubborn child at home, who – testing their guardian’s authority – just trivialized an exertion of power from the leader to see what would have happened next.

Alvin was the younger sibling at the family table, confused. Anxious. He was the other kid in class who got nervous and uncomfortable. Not one of the several students who whooped it up after such a challenge had been made by the brave – or stupid – student who decided to talk back.

What was the parent or teacher going to do? And why was not Dean experiencing the same effects of the food the way the other men were?

The balls on Coco.

She was being wholly uncharacteristic of her usual calm and calculated ways. Juvenile.

Was this the real her? Dean was likely thinking the same thing. But if he was sweating, he never let his healthy audience of two know it.

“Call your men over to help us!”

“I will do no such thing, Dean.”

“So this is the result of your radio silence. You’re going to need us. And if these men die, you can’t get control of our capital.”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t forget – you were good teachers, if far from being decent human beings.”

Coco was laying it on thick. Happy to monologue, as a bonified villain would. Dean was beginning to get frustrated in their exchange for an inch of dominance that was a minute long.

The retching and fussing and the miserable dying was at a murmur. Alvin was beside himself. What in his food would have caused the reaction in front of him?

Dean was the last standing.

“Another thing you guys left very unprotected were your dietary preferences. You didn’t want anyone to know what tortured, disgusting souls you were, but you would cut the waiter a thousand times if he didn’t toast your bread just right, or call her out of her name if she gave you Pepsi instead of Coke.”

Dean understood immediately, his eyes widening in shock to the perpetration.

“The food was—”

“Don’t ruin it so soon,” Coco playfully interrupted. “I’m getting to that part.”

It came to Alvin at that moment.

“You men were so finnicky and privileged to be accommodated to the nth degree that you never had to worry about eating anything you were allergic to. You made sure everyone knew it. So who would get it wrong, even accidentally? Woe to them, right?

“The ingredients I ordered overseas…”

Alvin heard himself speak, but he could not process the conclusion he verbalized. He just watched. Everything went quiet.

Coco was beyond pleased with herself.

“Very good, Al. Turns out, exotic forms of your allergens can produce much worse results from being consumed. I didn’t know this months ago. Took a lot of researching. Had to get the reactions just right.”

Was that the aim the entire time, over the course of the cook’s employment? He was hired to be the ringer? The silent assassin with a chef’s hat and tasting spoons?

It was the perfect cover.

The men were never going to emerge from the dinner party alive.

Did that mean Alvin as well?

Even if he made it out, he cooked the food. If Coco was ever connected to the massacre, everything would point to the chef orchestrating the murder. Easily.

Then the part about the artificial arms and the dead agent…no fingerprints.

She protected herself from all sides, whether she was aware of Alvin’s double role or not. The question repeated itself: Why was he still alive?

“For all your conspiring and scheming, you missed me.”

“Dear Dean. So much in that head of yours to think you would be spared.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You said it yourself. We could be great together.”

“No. That’s not what you taught me. I don’t want to own the team. I want to own the stadium.”

“How do you plan to do that if I’m still here?”

“Alvin.”

It was like being asked to toast spontaneously at a wedding reception of three-hundred. You might get the butterflies, if only for a split-second. What was he supposed to do? He did enough.

“He included gluten in your plate. Plenty of it.”

For all the lethal ingredients in the other dishes that had the other men very dead,