37. Garrett

Iwonder if she knows how vulnerable she is. Or that everything she does is just another way of protecting herself. Her so-called contract is just another layer in that protective wall she'd built up around herself. It's sad and heartbreaking and makes me want to harm the people in her life who had brought her to this.

I read through the rest of it once we boarded the plane for her little shopping trip. I'm not sure why she needed to go to Hermes because even the beach house we'd left in Cabo was stocked with that shit, but far be it from me, a man, to mention that shit. Her crazy ass would probably have my balls.

I haven't told her that she had a new closet full of shit at the home I'd bought us in her hometown either, so maybe she thinks that the stuff in Cabo is all there is. The women in my family don't carry their shit from one location to the next, not unless it's something they use daily.

Instead, they keep whatever is suitable in each place around the world for when we visit. That's always been the way, and I guess in my ignorance, I believed that that's the way everyone lives.

The strange thing is, she doesn't have a materialistic bone in her body, unlike most of the women from my past, and yet, she's the only one I've ever wanted to spoil. Before her, I just made money because it was a fun thing to do, but I never really had much use for it beyond the necessary things in life.

Now, I want to give her everything her heart desires. When I had my people investigate her, I had them look into every aspect of her life, including her likes and wants. I think she's under the impression that I just did a surface search.

So, she doesn't know that I know and have pieced together who she is by looking into everything she'd ever made public as well as what my people had gathered from her friends and acquaintances without her or them knowing.

The only thing I have no access to is what is in her mind, but I'm finding it refreshing learning those things myself, just by being here. Her mind, like I told her, not only terrifies but astonishes me.

I don't think even she knows how unique she is. How much I appreciate her open honesty. But I don't want her to be that way with anyone else because less honest people than myself would use it against her.

She's vicious, uncompromising, and perfectly innocent all at once. I don't think she or anyone else around her has ever noticed. That wounded little girl is still in there. That's not to say that she's not strong, cold, and calculated in the way she deals with things.

But beneath all of that cold detachment beats the broken heart of a child who wasn't protected by the one person she sought solace from. It's good that her brothers always rallied around her, and I plan to repay them when the time is right. But they can never take the place of the father she idolized.

I know all about fathers and their daughters. My little sister is a Daddy's girl from her head to her toes. I've seen her cry rivers of tears if he was late for dinner when we were younger, so I can only imagine the hell that would've been her life had he ever pulled a stunt like the one my father-in-law did.

She has no idea how much more I love her for wanting to protect our future children. This whole contract is a manifesto to that very fact. How can I not love her? Does she think I don't realize what her loving me and trusting me means?

It's a heavy load to carry, and one that I am honored to. Because I know someone like her, with her strengths and weaknesses, couldn't have given herself to me easily. The fact that she admitted her feelings this soon is another testament to the brave woman she is, and I will spend every day of the rest of my life cherishing her.

On the other hand, and tantamount to all this, she's fucking nuts. I've been keeping an eye on her by having someone else watch Jackie's movements because even though I trust my team, I don't trust them enough to leave my wife in anyone else's hands.

So, I know that the two of them have been tormenting that Helen woman. I also know Jackie had found her the rabid raccoon; I just don't know what they plan to do with it, and I'm afraid to ask.

I have to give her Jackie because she asked, but the thing is, Jackie is one of my best team members, so I know what she's capable of. You don't really hear about female mercenaries, but that is exactly what she is and one of the reasons I hired her.

She has a story that I'm not going to share because it's not mine, but she burned out a few years ago and went into hiding. Before this, she was deep undercover to bring down an international trafficking ring, and some dark shit went down that almost splintered her mind.

I snatched her up, had her committed to a hospital where she was treated and hired her as soon as she was cleared. She left her whole life behind, and I respected her choice, but there's someone looking for her that, if he knows I know where she is, would make my life hell.

Marcus Blair is not someone anyone should mess with, and he wouldn't accept that I'm keeping her safe for him because I believe that she would return to him when she's ready, but it's been years, and he's getting crazier by the fucking day, and I'm not ready to deal with his shit.

Marcus and I go way back because his father and mine had done business together years ago. He's older than me by about ten years or so, but he's always been someone I could go to in certain situations, so it was only right that I keep his woman safe.

Jackie's only a few years older than Alyssa and has seen and endured some horrendous shit in her short life, so that is why I know the two of them would be good for each other. Two broken birds have found each other.

I always thought Marcus was good for her, even with their age difference, because someone like her needs that. But she's not ready, and she told me a long time ago when I sat next to that hospital bed holding her hand as she tried to heal that she loves him but was too broken and felt like she would only hinder his life.

I didn't believe that for a second, and now it's been two years since I helped her disappear. If she survives this one, I'll get the ball rolling on getting those two back together again. But for now, I'll let her and my wife wreak mayhem on unsuspecting people to satisfy their blood lust.

"Just so you know, there will be no more sex until you sign that." I hadn't said one word to her. She was busy on her phone, and I was busy watching her.

She has some kind of tourettes that's not on the books yet, I suppose because every once in a while, she comes out with these things that have nothing to do with whatever is going on at the time.

"Give me a pen." She held one out without looking away from her phone, and I just rolled my eyes and took it because I was not wrangling with crazy thirty-thousand feet in the air.

I signed and passed the pen and the papers back to her. She had the nerve to read it before signing it as well, and I realized that she was dead serious. I'll be sure not to break any of her rules because I'm convinced she'll kill me in my sleep like she has threatened more than once.

"Who are you texting? Your…. Corbin?" I have got to remember not to call him her Dad. Each time I make that slipup she looks like she's this much closer to doing me in.

"Why would you think that?"

"Do you plan on forgiving him at some point?"

"No!" She didn't even look up from what she was doing to answer.

"Why not?"

"See here, Alfred Adler, don't psychoanalyze me, better men than you have tried."

"My apologies."

"Why do you always sound like you have a stick up your ass whenever you're about to bother me?" She pointed the pen at me like a weapon. "I will not forgive him ever. I might talk to him again after about two decades, but I won't forgive his shit."

"Even after he explained the reasons behind his actions?"

"What reasons? The fact that he couldn't keep his zipper closed?" She looked down at her jeans and pulled the zipper up and down. "Look at that. Who knew there was a way to keep that shit in the up position."

"What about Helen? Did she never try to treat you kindly?" I knew that she never spoke to her therapists in over three years, and the last one was so traumatized she took a sabbatical after dealing with my little buttercup, so this was my way of getting her to open up.

"She tried once. That's why my brothers started coming over in force. She wanted to play Mom while stealing my mother's husband and our Dad. I threatened to burn her bed with her in it. I guess that's why she took out the hit or something. What do I know."

She went back to her phone, and I just sighed and dropped it. "What is it with you? Do you think I need help to deal with my childhood trauma? Let me relieve you of that worry. I know exactly what was done and who did it. I had no part in that shit and take no responsibility for any of it."

"What was done was done to me and my brothers, the only kids and innocents in this mess. Mom had her own demons to fight, but she did the best she could when she wasn't crying herself to sleep every night."

"If Corbin was living in hell, it was a hell of his own making. Betrayal doesn't just go away because the betrayer says sorry. Some wounds cannot be healed so easily. I am no longer suffering because of what he did because I choose not to be. He's a human, and so am I."

"That human didn't give a shit about me when he did what he did. If a stranger on the street betrayed me, I wouldn't just let it slide, so why should I hold someone close to me to a lesser standard than a complete stranger? Isn't that ass-backward? Now, does that answer your question? I am in the middle of something here, and you're annoying me."

"Carry on!" I'd give half my billions to have her fucking attitude.