Ten
This was why we weren’t supposed to get attached.
The barely-restrained anger, the shallowly-buried fear, the willingness to disregard your training, your rules, maybe even your mission, all because of a short phone call, and a handful of words.
“Come to the hospital. There’s been an incident.”
An incident.
An incident.
An “incident” didn’t say shit, but set off dozens of horrific possibilities in my head. So many that, as soon as I hung up from that call from Marcus, I got up from my desk to get dressed. Kay was sleeping, and I let her stay that way, giving her a kiss on the forehead before I pulled the covers up over her and left, making sure to set the alarm on my way out.
As I headed to the car, different scenarios played out in my head – none of them ended well. But there was little use in giving in to those thoughts when I had no details – that was another part of protocol, never giving more information than absolutely necessary over the phone. And apparently, Marcus only deemed it necessary that I know Monica was at the hospital, and I should come.
The rest, I would find out when I got there.
I didn’t like how the shit felt. Was there distance between us now? Yes. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be concerned about her. Was she sick? Had she passed out from stress? Had she done something to herself? Had someone done something to her? All that shit was swimming around in my head, to the point that by the time I made it to the hospital I was agitated as hell, and ready to fuck something up.
As soon as someone told me what the hell was going on.
Following the instructions Marcus gave, I found my way to the restricted area of the hospital where Monica was being kept – a string I knew someone in Five Star Security had pulled. I recognized the guard at the door, and he immediately moved aside to let me through.
“They’re in P5,” he told me, pointing out one of the doors that lined the hallway. Through each door, there was a private waiting area, and beyond that, the actual hospital room. Marcus and Chloe were the only ones waiting in Monica’s.
“Aiight, I’m here now,” I said, addressing Marcus after I’d greeted Chloe. “Can somebody tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Marcus nodded. “Chloe knows better than I do, so I’ll let her tell the story.”
My eyes immediately went back to Chloe, who gave me a wry smile. “I suppose that’s true, but even I don’t know very much.”
“Anything you can give me. Y’all called me in the middle of the night for a reason.”
She tipped her head. “Well, yes. Of course. So… today was Monica’s first day back at the office – she told no one that she was going ahead of time, as far as I know. I thought the distraction was probably good for her, so I didn’t press it, but I’d been checking in with her every few hours to make sure she was okay. Around eleven tonight, she didn’t respond. I knew she’d decided to stay at the office late, so I didn’t think much of it, but about an hour and a half later, she still hadn’t replied, so I called. When I didn’t get an answer, I tried to call her direct line in her office, but I kept getting a busy signal, which was odd for her business line at that time of night. That’s when I called the building security. They insisted that she was just fine, sitting at her desk working according to the cameras. But I insisted that someone go and physically check. Put eyes on her, not just watching through a screen. And… that’s when they found her.”
My eyes went wide. “Found her? What does that mean?”
Chloe let out a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was shaking. “She’d been attacked.”
“Attacked how,” I managed to grunt, my gaze stuck on the closed door to the hospital room. “What are her injuries?”
“Concussion. And um…” – her voice broke again – “Pretty bad bruising, uh… around her neck.”
“She was choked.”
Chloe nodded, and then cleared her throat. “Yes. Until she passed out. And… um, she was hit in the head, with something. Doctor says she’ll likely have a headache for a few days, but other than that, she’ll be okay.”
“Yeah. Physically maybe. Should I even ask if a culprit has been found?”
“Ha. No,” Chloe scoffed, shaking her head. “The useless security at her building didn’t even discover anything amiss until I called. Whoever did this had recorded part of the security feed earlier in the night, and had the cameras from her office, reception area, and hall playing on a loop. They called the police of course, but the culprit was already long gone. I called Marcus to meet me at the hospital, just in case whoever this was wanted to finish the job once it was realized that she’d survived. She needs protection.”
“Which is why I called you,” Marcus cut in. “Our client roster is completely full right now – I shouldn’t even be here. I have Mimi acting as attendant for me right now, but that’s a temporary solution. I know you’ve told me over and over that you aren’t interested in playing protector, but—”
“I’ll do it,” I said, interrupting whatever long-ass spiel he was about to go on. “Why exactly didn’t we already have her under protection already?” I asked, hoping to hear something that would make me feel a little less guilty about not having insisted on it before now. But before now, there hadn’t been a physical threat to her, there was no reason to think someone wanted to do her bodily harm.
Now we knew different.
“She didn’t want that,” Chloe answered, after Marcus gave me nothing but a shrug. “I asked her about that after her place was broken into, but she was adamant. Said she wasn’t a celebrity, didn’t need a bodyguard.”
I let out a dry laugh. “So, was that before or after somebody turned her husband into a human pin cushion?”
“Before. But now…”
“She doesn’t have a choice,” I said, finishing that sentence for her. “Marcus. Safehouse?”
He shook his head. “Everything we have is either occupied or on reserve. We’re already in process of setting up a few others, but you know it takes time.”
“Yeah. It’s fine. She’ll stay with me then.” Marcus nodded, but Chloe made an odd sound in her throat that made the two of us turn in her direction. “Problem, Chlo?”
She cleared her throat. “Well, it’s just… don’t you think we should wait to speak to Monica before these decisions are made?”
“No. For what?”
Her eyes went wide. “Well, we could start with the fact that I was under the strong impression that you wanted nothing to do with Monica, and insisted that she stay away from you, which will likely be difficult if she’s taking temporary lodging in your home. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“And, that’s my cue to leave,” Marcus chuckled, giving Chloe a quick hug before he turned to me. “Listen… Sam says that Monica’s office was trashed, and it looked like whoever did this was after access to the safe. Monica just happened to be there.”
I nodded. “So she wasn’t the actual target?”
“Maybe not. But, we don’t want to count on that, and then…”
“Right. I’ve got her.”
Marcus grinned. “I know you do. I’ve been begging your ass to leave Tech and come to Security since we started this shit, and you always told me no. I didn’t realize all you needed was the right damsel in distress to get your act together,” he teased, and I waved him off.
“Man, fuck that noise. I’ll get up with you later.”
“Uh huh. Bye Chloe,” he called, as he headed out the door.
“Goodbye Mr. Calloway. Always a pleasure.” Once Marcus was gone, Chloe’s attention came right back to me. “Please don’t think you’re going to get out of explaining exactly what the energy will be between you and Monica if we come to an agreement here. She has no family worth mentioning, so her girlfriends… we’re it for her. So you get to talk to Mama-Bear Chloe tonight.”
I shrugged. “Well, Mama-Bear, there’s nothing to come to an agreement about. Until Monica is released from the hospital, I’ll be here. Keeping her secure. When she’s released, her temporary place of residence will be my – very comfortable – guest room, where I will continue to keep her secure. Until we know who is behind all of this, and the threat is eliminated, I will—”
“Keep her secure,” Chloe finished. “Yes, you said that, but you have to understand… it is very curious to me that you’ve gone from “Don’t come around anymore”, to fucking… Liam Neeson, or something. Explain yourself.”
“Shit changes.”
She huffed. “Oh, is that what’s happened?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “It is. Now that I have the full picture, and more and more shit keeps piling up, I’m approaching it differently. I was pissed, and now there’s no room for that. I feel bad that all of this is happening to her.”
“She doesn’t need your pity,” Chloe snapped, stepping closer. “She needs someone to give a damn!”
“I do give a damn,” I shot right back, suddenly incensed at the suggestion that I didn’t. “Even before all of this, I gave a damn, back when she was crying and hurt because her “girlfriends” were too busy wrapped up in their men to really be there for her when that bitch-ass husband of hers really showed his ass last year. Remember that?”
Chloe’s tight jaw and lack of response let me know that I was right on the mark.
“I may have needed a few days to sulk and lick my wounds,” I told her, taking advantage of her silence, “but don’t you get this shit twisted – it didn’t take all of this for me to give a damn about Monica – I already did, before I saw a face or knew a name. I’m not about to go back and forth. I told you what the fuck I was doing, and I don’t particularly give a damn if you like it. I don’t particularly give a damn if Monica likes it. I said I would protect her, and that’s how it’s going to go. Are we clear?”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed at me – not in a scowl, but more like… scrutiny. She looked at me like that for several moments, until I raised an eyebrow at her. Then, she nodded. “Yes.”
“If she doesn’t have family, I guess you’re next of kin.”
“I’m her emergency contact.”
“Cool. Then, if you have questions or concerns, I’ll hear them.”
For some reason, that made her smile, which she quickly tried to hide by tucking in her lips. “Uh… no, no questions, Chadwick. I’m very clear now on where you stand, and I am very confident that Monica will be… uh… safe… in your hands.”
“This feels like a setup,” I said, and Chloe laughed.
“No, no setup. I just… saw what I needed to see from you.”
I furrowed my brow, confused. “Which was…?”
“Feeling. But, enough about that. Let’s discuss our plan of action.”
“Where is she? I want to see her!”
I looked up from the computer in my lap to glance at the door, wondering who the hell was being loud outside Monica’s hospital room. Whatever meds she’d been given upon arriving at the hospital last night had kept her asleep thus far, and I preferred to keep it that way. Based on what I knew about Monica, I doubted she’d been getting much sleep lately. She needed whatever rest she could get.
I hadn’t laid eyes on her yet. I was on the other side of the curtained partition, still digging for a culprit for all of this while her girlfriends took turns at her bedside. Chloe had left a few hours ago, and Kora Oliver – an award-winning stage actress and singer who Kay idolized – had taken her place. Now though, Kora peeked from around the curtain, a question in her eyes as I met her gaze, and nodded.
“Yeah. I hear it too.”
I put the laptop down beside me and stood, pulling out the concealed weapon I wasn’t technically supposed to be carrying. But getting caught with it was an issue I’d tackle only if it became an issue.
For now, I wanted whoever the fuck was on the other side of that door to be quiet.
I opened it just enough to see out of, and found myself face to face with one of the security guards that worked the floor. His hand was lifted like he was about to knock, but he dropped it when he saw me.
“Hey, man… sorry to bother you. But you have someone—”
“Asher Ross. Tell her it’s Asher Ross. I need to see her,” I heard, then looked past the guard to see some light-skinned dude with gray eyes looking pitiful.
“I don’t know who that is,” I told the guard, even though I’d just finished compiling a guest list from Kellen’s funeral, and identifying their relationship to the deceased. From my preliminary search, it appeared that “Asher Ross” was Kellen’s friend.
What the fuck did he want with Monica?
For all I knew, he was the person who’d attacked her last night.
“Did he say Asher?” Kora asked.
I looked behind me to see the curtain partially open, and behind her, Monica was awake – it was her hand using the remote control to raise the top part of the bed, but I couldn’t see her face.
“Yes,” I answered Kora’s question. “But I’m not sure if visitors are a good idea yet. Has the doctor even talked to her while she was awake?”
Kora frowned. “You might be right. But let me ask her if she wants to see him. I know he’s a college friend.”
My hopes that she would say “no” to a new visitor were quickly dashed when Kora came back with a smile. “She agreed to see him. You can let him through,” she said, looking at me expectantly.
I gave her a nod, and then went back to the door. “You patted him down?” I asked the guard, who nodded.
“He wouldn’t be down here with me if I hadn’t.” The guard glanced over his shoulder and then looked back to me, lowering his voice. “Look man, I’m sorry for even bringing his ass down here. He was insisting, and looked like he was about to cry, and—”
“You’re good,” I told him, then pulled the door open to let Asher come in, even though I didn’t want to. With everything happening, her homegirls were the only people in Monica’s life I trusted, and that was mostly because Chloe vouched for them. For now though, with nothing except my own suspicions about this dude and his begging-to-get-punched face, I couldn’t deny her seeing him if she wanted to.
But it wasn’t going to keep me from keeping an eye on that motherfucker.
For whatever reason, Kora seemed to have the same idea, because instead of leaving, she simply stepped back from the bed. She didn’t even close the curtain back before she came to stand next to me, crossing her arms in a stance like mine as we watched Asher bend to greet Monica.
A short prickle of anger rushed through me before it settled as a throbbing in my temple as I watched him kiss her forehead, then keep his hand cupped on her face. I had friendships with women, sure, but they never involved the type of lingering touches he was giving. I frowned a little, wishing I could see her face, see her reaction to him, but at this angle, he was blocking my view of her.
I was getting ready to move to a new position when my phone started buzzing in my pocket. A quick glance told me it was Kay, who’d probably just realized she’d woken up to an empty house. I made a mental note to call her back later, then returned the phone to my pocket. I felt eyes on me, and I when I looked up, Kora was staring right at me.
“So… who is Kay?” she asked, keeping her voice low so we wouldn’t draw Asher and Monica’s attention. “Wife? Homegirl? Girlfriend?”
“An off-limits topic,” I answered, chuckling at her attempt to pry. “And none of your business. I don’t know you.”
She sucked her teeth. “Boy stop, you know you wanted to ask for my autograph. I’m guessing “Kay” dragged you to one of my shows?”
“Multiples, actually,” I grinned. “How did you know?”
“Because you didn’t ask, when we were introduced. Most people I meet, they recognize my face as familiar, even if they can’t exactly place it, so they ask. You didn’t. So I assumed… correctly.”
A satisfied smirk spread across her lips, and I laughed.
“And here I was thinking you were just cocky,” I teased.
“Oh, I’m that too. I’m very good friends with four other beautiful women. We have to be cocky, or we’d eat each other alive. Confidence is a prerequisite around here.”
I nodded. “I see. So… why don’t you go ahead and spill the beans on why you sparked up this conversation with me now?”
Kora’s eyebrows lifted. “Am I that obvious?”
“No. I just assumed…correctly.”
“Ahh. Well-played.”
“I know. Now…. You wanna answer my question?”
She pushed out a little sigh while her gaze moved to Asher and Monica. It settled there for a few seconds before she looked at me again, stepping a little closer, speaking a little lower. “I don’t trust him.”
“You think he did this to her?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Not this. His concern feels genuine, but it’s like he’s… too concerned. I don’t know if he did anything or not, but something isn’t right. I feel it.”
“What do you know about him?”
She shook her head. “Not a lot. I know he invested money in Vivid Vixen four or five years ago, before it really exploded. He was good friends with Kellen. They all went to college together. He was dating Monica’s friend.”
“You know the friend’s name?”
Kora frowned. “Um… Ashley? Amy? Amber? Something with an A.”
“You met her before?”
“Yeah,” Kora nodded. “A long time ago, maybe six or seven years. She was… odd.”
“How so?”
Kora shrugged. “I’m not sure how to describe it. Just, the way she looked at and interacted with Monica. A little too eager, a little too interested. A little too… enamored. Like she wanted to peel Monica and wear her. Kinda how Asher is looking at her now,” Kora mused.
I followed her gaze to where Asher had taken a seat beside the bed, his profile still blocking my view of Monica’s face. I couldn’t see what Kora could, but the reverence had trickled even into his body language.
A solid knock at the door pulled me from my observation of Asher. I fought the urge to groan when I went to answer and saw who was on the other side, but still stepped aside to let the officers in.
“Well, look who we have here,” Detective Crowley said, loud as fuck for no good reason. “Loverboy. We thought you would’ve skipped town once you were cleared.”
“Loverboy?”
I stopped fighting that groan at the sound of Asher’s voice, and a few seconds later, he was right in front of Detective Crowley.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked the detective, and then turned to me. “What the hell is he talking about? I thought you were security?”
“I am. And you can see yourself out, so that Monica can talk to the detectives.”
“Not until someone explains what the hell is going on,” he said, crossing his arms as he looked me right in the face.
Here we fucking go.
“Listen, man,” I started, stepping right into Asher’s face. I had him by a good 3-4 inches and at least fifty pounds, something he seemed to only realize now that we were closer. “Don’t make this something it doesn’t have to be. You can see yourself out, or I can put you out. I think we both know which one you’d prefer.”
He stared for a few more seconds, then narrowed his eyes. “I’ll wait outside.”
“You’ll go home. After she talks to them, she needs her rest,” I said, firmly enough to leave no room for debate. The only person coming back in here after she talked to the police was Kora, who didn’t give me closeted psycho vibes like “Asher” did.
“Come on, Asher,” Kora intervened, grabbing his arm to pull him toward the door. “He’s right. Monica needs to rest after everything she’d been through. You can walk out with me.”
Asher didn’t give Kora any resistance – they were gone a few seconds after that. But Crowley and Bauer both turned to me, as if they were waiting for something that must have gone over my head.
“Are you going to talk to her or not?” I asked, and Crowley chuckled.
“Uh, yeah. Just waiting for you to step out.”
I shook my head. “Don’t think so. You two have tried to railroad her once, and it’s not happening again. I know her rights, and mine, and you aren’t talking to her alone. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Her rights?” Bauer scoffed. “What, are you her legal counsel or something?”
I shrugged. “Well, I do have a law degree, so sure. Call it whatever the hell you want. I’ll be right here while you’re talking to her.”
To stress my point, I finally stepped to the other side of that curtain, where Monica was, to stand beside the bed, bringing us face to face for the first time since that day in the store. I knew she was in bad enough shape that the doctor had insisted on keeping her overnight, but I didn’t expect her to look so… fragile.
I swallowed hard as I took in the troubled apprehension in her eyes, the shadows underneath, and the lurid purple bruising around her neck. I knew from experience just how hard someone had to compress to make markings like that – evident hand prints, if you knew what you were looking at – and the shit made it a little hard for me to breathe.
“Fellas,” I said, turning to the detectives. “Look, can this wait? She’s not in—”
“It’s okay,” Monica spoke up, catching me off guard with the roughness of her voice – a quality I would never have used before to describe how she sounded. “I just want to get it over with, so… what do you need from me?”
“Just a few questions, Mrs. Stuart,” Crowley said, stepping up to the foot of the bed. “Would you like your boyfriend to step out, give you some privacy while we talk?”
Monica narrowed her eyes. “He’s my security, and I would feel much more comfortable if he stayed.”
“That’s fine.” Per usual, Bauer parked himself near the window, away from the action, leaving Crowley the work of being the asshole.
“So… you claim you were attacked last night, at your place of business?” Crowley said, flipping open a pad to take notes.
“It’s not a claim. It’s a fact.”
He shrugged. “Fine. Tell me what happened.”
“I got attacked in my office.”
Crowley looked up, glaring at Monica. “Can you start from the beginning, with details?”
“Yes. I was… I was working late. My assistant had already gone home, but I stayed back, trying to finish up.”
“Why were you there without your assistant? If you were working, wouldn’t you need assistance?”
Monica puckered her eyebrows. “What? No, not necessarily. These were all things I needed to do myself. Emails directly to certain people, things like that.”
Crowley wrote that down. “Okay, so you worked late. Until when?”
“Midnight, I think.”
“You think?”
“Yes,” Monica snapped. “I think. I have a concussion, so it’s a little fuzzy.”
Crowley’s face turned just enough red to notice. “I… uh… yes, of course. Please continue.”
“Thank you. So, I shut down my computer and packed up, and I left. Wait… no, I stopped to put some files back in my safe.”
“What kind of files?”
“Important ones. Why?”
“Just trying to get a clear picture ma’am.”
“Fine. Financial documents. Proprietary formulas. Things like that.”
“Okay. So you put the files back in your safe, and then you left the office? I thought you said you were attacked in your office?”
Monica shook her head like she was confused. “No. I… left my office and went into the reception area. It was really dark – darker than it should’ve been. Someone had turned the ambient lights off.”
On purpose.
“Someone like who? Who had access?”
“Any of the housekeeping staff, security, and my assistant Kim, I guess. And she has an assistant, who comes in a few times a week.”
“Your assistant… has an assistant?”
“Kim’s job is very demanding,” Monica told him. “If I have to pay someone to assist her, I’m more than happy to do it. I just need the work done.”
Crowley nodded. “Fair enough. So what happened in the reception area?”
“I heard a sound, like someone was there. I ignored it at first, but then I heard it again. And I… I heard someone breathing I think. So I called out… I asked who was there. And then… something hit me in the head. I remember screaming. He had his hand over my mouth, and I used my nails to dig in, so he let me go. I tried to run, but…my hair. He grabbed me by the hair, and dragged me to the floor, where it was cold. Really cold. And then… his hands were around my neck. And that’s the last thing I remember.”
From the window, Bauer asked, “You’re sure it was a man?”
“No,” Monica answered. “But they were strong… much stronger than me. I couldn’t fight him off. And it felt like a man. Smelled like a man.”
“Huh. That makes this even more interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Crowley said, pulling a picture from the pocket of the notebook he was using, “This message was written in nail polish on top of your desk. This mean anything to you?”
Was the polish dry when they arrived? How much time would that have taken?
When he handed her the picture, I leaned in too, frowning at the “WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE” painted across the glossy surface of Monica’s desk.
It’s not the same person, I thought, but didn’t speak aloud. The detectives could surely use their own investigative skills to compare the shapes of these letters to the ones from messages left at the scene of Kellen’s murder and the break-in at Monica’s house.
“It’s another one of my polish names, from the Wicked Widow collection,” Monica said, pushing the image away from her. In it, her office had been ransacked, and it was probably disturbing for her to see it that way. “That color is gold, just like the polish.”
“They used the exact polish that matches the name?”
Monica shook her head. “No. They aren’t out yet. It was supposed to launch next week, but I had to recall every last bottle from the stores. They have to be quality checked again.”
“So, you’re saying that no one had access to this nail polish, to know the names or their corresponding shades?
“Of course not – what kind of marketing would that be? Lots of people have had access, because I want people using it, and telling their followers, friends, and family about it. It’s been all over social media, just not available to the general public.”
“Got it,” Crowley said, scribbling away. “Anybody besides you have access to the safe in your office?”
“Not currently, no. I changed the combination yesterday.”
That must have pissed someone off…
“What made you do that?”
“I don’t know… intuition maybe?”
Crowley lifted a brow. “You don’t trust your employees?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way. It was just that, with so much going on, I wanted a little extra assurance. Just being careful.”
Nah. She doesn’t trust Kim. Good.
“Right.” Crowley studied Monica for several long seconds before he spoke again. “You know anything about Tommy Woods?”
Tommy Woods, local mob affiliated loan shark?
Monica frowned, thinking for a moment before she answered. “No… it doesn’t ring a bell. Should I know something about him?”
“Not unless you make a habit of breaking the law,” Crowley answered, with a chuckle. “In the crime world, the man is a king… and your husband was one of his loyal subjects. Died owing the man close to two hundred grand. Based on what we know about Woods, we think he’s a viable suspect. He may be trying to intimidate you in an attempt to collect what he’s owed.”
Monica shrugged. “He can have his damned money, I don’t care. Kellen had that covered in death benefits – take it from there and leave me the hell alone.”
“Ma’am, Woods is a criminal. We’re not in the business of giving them what they want after they’ve committed crimes.”
“I don’t really care what business you’re in – I care about my life. If paying him money I don’t even want is what it takes to leave me the hell alone, it’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“We don’t even know for sure that it’s him.”
“Then why the hell are we talking about it?” Monica snapped.
“We’re updating you on the case, ma’am. Do you know anyone else who might be interested in harassing you? Anyone who’d want to hurt you?”
“Like this?” Monica said, then pushed out a sigh. “No. Not like this. Is that all? I’m tired, and would like to rest, please.”
“Well, actually—”
“Yes,” I said, stepping forward. “I think that’s enough. You heard her.”
“We have more questions.”
“And they can wait until she’s feeling better.”
Crowley and Bauer exchanged a look, then nodded, briefly making me wonder if I was going to have to physically put them out, but then Crowley inclined his head in my direction.
“Fair enough. Mrs. Stuart, we’ll speak with you again soon.”
“Yeah, make sure you arrange that with her lawyer,” I said, subtly guiding them toward the door. I didn’t see Kora, or anyone, in the waiting room, so I went back to the bed to find Monica curled up on her side, eyes closed, face half-buried in her pillow.
I dropped into the chair beside the bed to get eye level with her before I reached out to gently touch her arm. “Hey… you good?” I asked, when she opened her eyes to look at me, revealing the impending glossiness of tears.
“No. Not at all. Thank you for getting them out of here.”
“You don’t have to thank me for that. You’ve been through a lot. You need time to process, and grieve, and… heal.”
She scoffed, and then rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “I didn’t think you cared about all of that. Right? Mr. Leave Me Alone.”
I grinned. “Okay. I deserve that. I was harsh with you because I was pissed, and scared, and… pissed. I took a fucked-up situation out on you, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for hurting your feelings.”
It took a few seconds for her to give me any indication she’d even heard what I said, but then she turned in my direction just enough to look me in the face. “It’s worth a lot. Apology accepted.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Damn, that quick? You’re not gonna make me grovel, beg, none of that?”
“Nah,” she laughed. “I understood why you were pissed. If this situation were the other way around, whew. You’d be every derivative of “fuckboy” under the sun, and that status would be permanent.”
“Well, shit. It would really be like that?”
“Hell yes. But besides that… With everything getting turned all upside down, I need all the trustworthy friends I can get right now. Do I look like I’m in a state to be pushing people away when they’re trying to help?”
Immediately, my eyes went to the bruises on her neck. Self-consciously, she lifted her own hand, covering them.
“It looks bad, doesn’t it?” she asked. “You’re looking at me like I’m pitiful, just like Asher did.”
“I don’t think you’re pitiful,” I answered quickly, shaking my head. “Not at all. Yes, the bruises look bad, I’m not going to lie to you. But… you survived it.”
She scoffed. “Yeah. This time.”
“Nobody is going to touch you. Because to do that, they have to get through me, and nobody is getting through me. You understand?”
Monica smiled. “I thought you were a computer geek. Now I’m supposed to buy you as Billy Badass?”
I shot her a grin as I leaned in closer to the bed. “How exactly did you know my codename?”
“Oh please,” she laughed, just as the door swung open. I was on my feet quickly, weapon drawn, getting in between her and whoever had come in without knocking or announcing themselves.
“Whoa, shit!” the doctor exclaimed, putting her hands up. “What the hell is happening?!”
I lowered the gun. “My bad, Doc. I have to be on high alert.”
“Well, it’s just us,” Kora said, from beside the doctor. “You can put that away.”
She was right. So I did. And then I stepped away from the bed, back to the other side of the curtain to let her have some privacy while the doctor checked on her. I went back to my chair, back to my laptop, back to my search for the truth.