Chapter Sixteen: Mike

To say I was furious would be a lie. I was so much more than that. Out of everything I’d believed, I’d thought Laina had been through hell these last two years. I’d thought she was a little miracle, having gotten herself out.

But it was a lie. She hadn’t fought her kidnapper to escape. It was an accident, and she’d hurt herself to make a new narrative, to frame it all exactly how she wanted.

I couldn’t believe that girl.

I couldn’t look at her after that, because when I did, I pictured her doing those things to herself, cutting off her own fucking fingers, and I got even more pissed off. At her, for feeling like she had to do it. At her again, for actually going through with it. And even more at her, for lying to everyone about it and not telling the truth.

I didn’t like liars, and I wasn’t appreciative of her threat.

Like I needed this. Like I needed any of this. Lola and Sylvester had given me this job, but fuck it, they could take it back. They could put someone else on the case, not me. I’d done so much in my life, put myself in danger countless of times… and a little girl was the thing that pushed me over the edge. Go figure.

I walked out of the bathroom, to the door. I walked past Kieran’s unmoving form, not so much as sparing him a second glance. He could deal with Laina when he woke up. She wasn’t my problem anymore. I wouldn’t do it.

Stepping out into the hall, Vance and Tessa were deep in a conversation. The doctor was gone, so it was just the two of them. Vance turned toward me, nodding his head once as he said, “Look, I know you’re not working for me, but… Tessa, would you mind grabbing me some coffee?” His way of getting his wife out of here.

Tessa didn’t want to go, I could tell by the way she remained rooted in place for at least twenty seconds, staring daggers at Vance. But, eventually, she relented, muttering, “Yes.” With her head held high, she turned and walked away.

The woman was remarkably fine considering her brother was in there, in a goddamned coma.

“I’m going to say it straight,” Vance spoke once we were alone. “I need you. Kieran was the only one I trusted with my daughter, and now that he’s out of commission for a while, I need you more than ever. I need to know you have my daughter’s back.”

I didn’t say a thing, though I did want to tell him that I was leaving, for good.

“The gunman got past security. His gun made it through the metal detectors the public has to walk through to get in. I’m… I’m starting to worry that this is an inside job,” Vance said, the worry plain on his face. He didn’t often show concern fo r his daughter, not like this. “I can’t assign anyone else to her while suspecting they might be involved, somehow. I need you, Mike. I need to know you’ll help me keep her safe.”

My jaw ground, and even though I wanted to walk away from all of this, even though that’s what I’d been doing when I’d left that bathroom and Laina behind, I still found myself muttering, “I’ll keep her safe. You have my word.”

Damn it. I couldn’t go quitting now, could I?

Vance set a hand on my arm, giving it a squeeze. “Thank you. I won’t forget this. I won’t.”

Still, I wanted to get out of this God-forsaken hospital, so I told him, “I’m leaving.”

“Ah, good. It’s probably best that you take her home, anyway.” Vance walked around me, poking his head into the room. Laina must’ve retaken her position beside the bed, because he added, “Laina, Mike’s going home. You should go and get some rest. It’s been quite the day. I’ll probably be home late tonight.”

I half expected Laina to argue with her father, but she didn’t. She said nothing, and within a moment, she was walking out of the room, her mouth drawn into a pout. That pout was meant for me, leftover from our earlier exchange, but her father read her expression differently.

“You can visit Kieran every day,” he said. “But right now, there’s nothing you can do for him. Once he’s in surgery, it’s going to be a little while.”

All Laina did was nod once.

I turned and started walking away, mentally cursing at myself for being unable to stick to my guns. I wanted to quit this stupid job and never see that girl again. I… goddamn it, I was just so ticked off at her, it was hard to think straight.

And that was saying something. It took a lot to piss me off, a lot to get me into a bad mood.

The hospital hallways were long and winding; it took us a while to get to my car. Neither one of us said a single word as I drove us to her home, my temporary home. My hands gripped the wheel tightly.

What I wouldn’t give to go back to the easy days, when everything was simple. I used to think this job would be an easy one, that it’d be one and done. That her kidnapper would try to come after her since she’d escaped, but now I wasn’t so sure. If he hadn’t hurt her, like she’d said, why would he hurt her now?

But no one else knew that. Laina had kept those particular details to herself, and that meant my job as her guard got a lot more complicated. If the gunman wasn’t related to her kidnapping, it meant someone else was after her—but who?

I guess knowing the truth hinged on whether or not the gunman would talk. He was in custody, so he very well might. Then again, sometimes you couldn’t torture the truth out of someone no matter how hard you tried.

After a tension-filled twenty-minute drive, I pulled into her driveway, parking near the front door. Laina got out and went to unlock the door, and though she didn’t say a word, I could tell she was miffed, internally seething at either me or the fact that she’d told me the truth.

Whatever. If she wanted to live a lie, then she could. Who was I to stop her? I was nothing but a glorified henchman, so what did I know?

Once we were in the house and the door was locked behind us, I went straight to my room. I pulled out my gun and set it on my nightstand before sitting on the edge of my bed, working on calming myself down.

Really, there wasn’t any use in being so upset. It wouldn’t get me anywhere; it’d do me no good whatsoever. Hell, I didn’t even know why it pissed me off so much, knowing Laina had done all that to herself. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t bother me at all. She was… she was nothing to me, nothing more than a job.

She was just a job. Just a goddamned job.

Why did that thought ring so hollow?

I leaned forward, running my hands along my face, silently groaning. This wasn’t the first time I’d been placed on guard duty. If this was anything like what Viper felt when we were rotating guard duty on Lola, I didn’t know how he managed to hide it so well.

After a while, I’d calmed myself, and I figured I should go see how she was doing, make sure she was all right. I wouldn’t apologize for getting pissed at her—I wouldn’t. I had every right to be upset with her for hurting herself.

In two minutes, I was standing before her bedroom door. She’d closed it, probably to keep me out. I lifted a hand and knocked.

Laina answered the door within a moment, standing there with her hip cocked and an attitude on her face. She’d taken off the wig and changed into pajamas—shorts and a tank top. Her pink and blue hair was a little unkempt after being hidden away for so long.

But it was her. Multicolored as it was, it was her, just as the self-inflicted wound was on her left hand.

“What do you want?” she asked, glaring up at me as if she was tough, like she could intimidate me or something. If the situation was different, I might’ve got a kick out of it. Maybe.

“I want to talk about what happened,” I said, pushing past her to get inside her room.

“Excuse me, I didn’t invite you in.”

The more I looked at her, the more pissed off I became. “I don’t care.” I’d spent however long working to calm myself, and it all went to hell the moment I was in her presence. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she did to herself, all in an effort to… to what? It didn’t even make sense.

“Did you forget what I said I’d do? I’ll—” Laina stopped when I got closer, swallowing when I towered over her.

“I remember,” I whispered. “Go ahead. Tell your father whatever you want. Then you’ll have no one, and the next time someone tries something, no one will be there to save you.” I hated how mean I sounded; it was so unlike me. This girl was driving me crazy.

“My dad has other men—”

“Who might be in on it,” I interrupted, taking another step forward. Instead of backing up, Laina sidestepped me, walking further into her room, stopping in its center to whirl on me and glare even more. “If that man today wasn’t your kidnapper, it was someone else. They got past all of the security measures. He was confident enough to pull out a gun knowing the room was full of cameras, guards, and police. He knew he’d be caught, and he didn’t care. Don’t you think that means someone else is pulling the strings?”

“You’re so chatty now,” she muttered. “Why can’t you be quiet like you always are?” The question was meant to hurt me, but it didn’t. It slid right off me.

“I should tell your father what you told me. Every single word.” The threat to tell on her made her take a step back, even though there was a good ten feet between us. “Why’d you tell me that back there? Why tell me, out of everyone?”

“I don’t know!” she shot back. “Because… because I—” Laina paused, glancing down at her left hand. “Because I’m tired. I’m so tired.” When those eyes of her returned to me, they were mistier than they’d been moments before. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch your dad get everything he’s ever wanted, all because you were taken one night? Do you have any idea what it feels like to know your sensationalized kidnapping didn’t hurt the one person in the world that’s supposed to give a shit about you?”

Politics wasn’t a favorite subject of mine, I’d freely admit. “Laina,” my voice came out softer, gentler, “I’m sure that’s not what happened—”

“He brought me a TV,” she muttered, the mist in her eyes threatening to spill over. “I saw it all happen, in real time. The candlelight vigils, the press conferences, the acceptance speech. I saw it all. His marriage to Tessa. All of it. Not once did he ever stop being a politician to be my dad. Not once.”

I hated how broken she sounded. It was so unlike her, and yet… maybe this was closer to the real Laina than anything else I’d seen from her.

“How could I walk out of that house without a scratch on me?” she asked, her voice breaking. “He would’ve used it. He would’ve used me to say the police found me and saved me, even if it was a lie. Of course, he’s still using me now, wanting me to be the traumatized girl that managed to escape herself, so I don’t know if I really won.”

A single tear fell down her face, cascading down her cheek. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful, sorrowful sight.

So, she didn’t hurt herself in a vain attempt to protect her kidnapper. Not fully. A lot of it stemmed from her father and the things she’d seen while in that room. How could I be mad at her for that? No, my rage shifted to someone else.

Her father.

Another tear fell down her face, leaving a wet trail as it traveled, and she stared at me like she was waiting, waiting for me to say something. To argue with her further. To try to tell her that all of her feelings were invalid—but they weren’t. She had every right to feel the way she did.

“Laina,” I whispered her name. It was all I could say in that moment. Nothing would be enough. Nothing I could say would make her feel better, take away the hurt and the pain she carried inside.

“I told myself I wouldn’t fall back into the same routine,” she said, biting her bottom lip as she shook her head once. “When I got out, I promised myself I was going to live my life how I wanted to, not how my dad wanted me to.” She lifted her hands, gesturing to the room around us, full of girly pink hues. “But I’m right back here, like nothing changed. I’m back where I started, and I don’t know how to get out.”

More tears escaped the corners of her eyes, and Laina turned away from me, furiously trying to wipe those tears away. She was pretending, all this time, doing what she had to because she didn’t know how to do anything else.

Goddamn it. I felt for her. I shouldn’t, but I did. Watching her shoulders shake as she attempted to get herself under control, to stop crying, made me feel some kind of way. It was hard to describe.

Before I knew what I was doing, I’d taken a step forward, then another. Soon enough I stood directly behind her, and I lightly touched her shoulder, turning her towards me. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, bringing her in, and then I just held her.

She was broken. She was barely hanging on. Everyone else was too blind to see it.

I knew it then. I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t quit this job and tell Sylvester and Lola to replace me with someone else. No, I had to stay here, with her, and make sure this world stopped hurting her.

I… I wanted to protect her. Again, it wasn’t like this was my first job. This was, however, the first one I felt in my soul.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” I told her, my other hand smoothing down her hair. Her face stood at the level of my chest, her nose buried against the lower curve of the muscles there. She was so small, and yet she fit so perfectly against me, like we were two puzzle pieces that had finally found its match.

Laina didn’t pull away from me, nor did she say anything. She stood there, letting me hold her, letting me stroke her hair, in silence. A minute or two later, she stopped crying… but even then, I didn’t release her. I kept holding her, not wanting to let her go.

“Whatever happens, whatever you decide is right for you to do,” I told her, the arm around her shoulders tightening and pulling her in harder, “I don’t want you to ever hurt yourself again, do you understand?” It still pissed me off when I thought about it, how she could’ve done something like that to herself.

She nodded against my chest, though she didn’t say a word.

I didn’t know how long we stood there, with her in my arms, but it was a while. A long while. By the time I let her go, she’d long since stopped crying. The area around her eyes was a little puffy, but not overly so. My arms fell off her, and she took the tiniest step back.

A small, tentative smile graced her lips as she lifted a finger and set it on my shirt, right where her face had been moments ago. “I got your shirt all wet,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” After pointing to the wet spot, she didn’t pull her finger off me; instead, her hand flattened against me.

“Don’t be sorry,” I told her, willing myself to pull away from that hand, to step back from her and put more space between us. For whatever reason, though, I couldn’t. It was like my legs refused to work, like I couldn’t move a muscle to put distance between us, even if my life depended on it.

Those bright blue eyes of hers lifted, slowly rising away from her hand on my chest to my face, and the look she gave me right then was unlike any other look she’d ever given me. Gazing up at me through those thick eyelashes, her lips parted, it was a look that gave me certain ideas—ideas I shouldn’t have, especially when it came to her.

This was dangerous. She was dangerous. She was hurting and vulnerable right now. And not only that, but she was a job. Just a job. She was the absolute last person I should ever want, the last girl I should have those particular thoughts about.

But as she stared up at me, my thoughts ran wild. I imagined pulling her close, grabbing her by the ass, and hoisting her up, pinning her against the wall and tasting those lips on mine. And then… well, then I’d carry her to the bed, where I’d—

“I should make dinner,” I managed to say, though it was a struggle to speak. “You haven’t eaten anything since lunch.” It was dark outside, way past dinnertime, but at least it would give me something to do, a way to give her some space while wrestling with my inappropriate thoughts.

Thank God she picked up the hint. Laina’s hand fell off my chest, and she took a step back, shaking her head. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want anything. I just… I just want to go to bed.” She walked past me, heading to her bed, where she crawled in and lay on her side, giving me her back.

I didn’t leave right away. I stared at the back of her head, wishing certain things, wanting those same things. But we couldn’t. I couldn’t. She was a pretty, broken girl trying to find her way in the world. She was at least thirteen years younger than me—too young. Everything about her was off-limits. Everything.

Breathing in deeply, I turned away from the bed and started toward the door. My feet did pause when I reached it, certain parts of my body aching with need, and it took every bit of self-control I had in me to let her be and walk out of that bedroom.

Let’s just say leaving a room had never been more difficult.