The Alpha Bodyguards Books #4-6

Chapter Twenty-One

“D on’t wake him,” she warned .

Three words.

The first she’d spoken since Luna’s speech in her hallway.

“I won’t.” I opened the rear door of Ty’s truck and shouldered the Marine camouflage backpack with the boy’s belongings. Unbuckling the boy, I gently picked him up. Dead weight, his breathing heavy, his limbs fell against my body. “This way.” I led us across my garage to the door to my living space.

She watched me punch in the security code and unlock the door, then she followed me inside. I shut the door behind her, punched in the security code from the inside to re-arm the system then turned on a light for her to see.

“I’ll put him down.” I didn’t ask permission. There was only one place he could sleep. Crossing the open, converted warehouse space, I took the boy to my bed. Pulling the covers back, I laid him down gently.

Without opening his eyes or making a sound, he rolled to his side and curled in on himself.

His small body in my bed did something to my chest.

Inhaling past the uncomfortable tightness, I covered him up and turned.

Her bag at her feet, her son tucked into my bed, she stood where she’d landed when we first walked into my place.

The unease of uncertainty filtered into my thoughts.

Wiping my expression clean, I strode back toward her, picked up her bag and took it to the sleeping area. After placing it on my dresser, I walked to the kitchen. “Thirsty?” My voice quiet, it still carried across the cavernous space.

Her arms went across her middle.

My pace measured, I took two bottled waters out of the fridge and made my way back toward her.

I held one out.

Her eyes met mine. “You live in a warehouse.”

“Yes.” For now.

Her gaze shot to my outstretched hand. She studied the ink. “Is there any part of you not covered in tattoos?”

“Yes.” Two areas I had no intention of inking, and a spot I was reserving.

“Mm-hm.” She took the water and looked over my shoulder.

Identifying the source of my unease, I studied her. Mouth set, darkened skin under her eyes, eyebrows drawn wearily. A quiet Mercy Asher was an anomaly, and it made my ink itch. “Hungry?”

Her breath left her lungs as if she were in distress. “It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

I was aware of what time it was. “I realize.”

She shook her head, and a thin veneer of her attitude came back. “Of course you do.” She opened the water like she’d opened the ice-cream container seven years ago.

Flippant I could handle. “I’m sorry.”

“Mm-hm.” She took a sip, then sarcasm bled out from her full lips. “I’m thinking of quitting my job. Thought I’d offer my services to André Luna. Be his patch-up girl. Fix all his employees’ boo-boos.” She gestured at my eye with her water bottle. “Including your face.” She took another sip. “I’d probably make more money and have better benefits.”

“You probably would.” Luna paid well.

She scoffed. “And what exactly would I tell my son? That I work for a vigilante fixing gunshot wounds and bloody faces because they chase bad guys all in the name of rescuing women?”

She needed rescuing. She’d needed it for seven years. “My face isn’t bloody.” I’d cleaned up before I’d stepped inside her house.

“Your hands are. Your shirt is.” She leveled me with a look. “Your whole life is.”

I didn’t engage. “I’m sorry about tonight.”

“You said that already.”

“It’s worth repeating.”

“Why? Worried I won’t forgive you?”

Yes. “No.”

She snorted out a half laugh. “My brother seems to have forgiven you.”

“We came to an understanding.” Marine to Marine. After we shot at Estevez’s men and they fled, after the police came then left courtesy of Luna’s connections, Ty had made me swear to protect his sister and nephew with my life. Then he’d punched me in the face. Twice.

I’d let him.

After, he’d admitted to something I’d known for seven years. He’d said Rollins wouldn’t have wanted to live without legs. I’d agreed, and he’d walked into the house to get his nephew, leaving me to collect his sister.

“Good for you.” Mercy looked around my place again as she took another sip. “You only have one bed. Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“My bed.”

“Right.” Incredulous, she rolled her eyes. “I bet you’d like that.”

I would. Very much. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She pointed out the obvious. “It’s half your size in length.”

It was more than anything I’d had growing up. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?”

“No.” The opposite.

“All right.” She crossed her arms in frustration. “Then what the hell are you doing?”

Caught off guard, I blinked. “I’m sorry?” Did she not see what I was doing? Did she not hear my words in her house earlier?

“Stop saying that!”

I took the kid gloves off. “What exactly would you like me to say? That every day I regret my actions seven years ago? That I wish I hadn’t been testing you when I let you walk out of your house? That I regret not stopping a dead man from going after you?” I blamed myself.

She drew in a sharp breath.

I closed the distance between us and backed her up to the wall. My hands landed on either side of her head, but I didn’t touch her. “I regret all of it. But I don’t regret tonight if it brought you here, because I can’t walk away from you.”

“Preston.” She drew in a breath as if for patience. “If you think five years of following me around means there’s something between us, then….” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”

A reality different from the one I’d been planning in my head started to set in. I countered. “I apologize for the danger I’ve put you and your son in, but you know I never would’ve done that intentionally.”

“I’m not saying you did. I’m saying—”

I cut her off. “I understand regret changes nothing and circumstances remain resolutely the same.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

I took an uncalculated risk. “If you had to do it all over again, would you have chosen me?”

“Jesus, Preston.” She looked away.

My heart, my pulse, my body—I stilled. Then I spoke in a lethally calm voice. “Answer the question.”

“My son is the best thing that ever happened to me. Don’t ask me to answer a hypothetical question based on the past. Everything’s different now.”

Thoughts left my head.

Air left my lungs.

Unwelcome emotion gripped my chest.

Then I did what I had always done.

I started to scan.

One-sixteen a.m.

Blood in her hair.

White tank top.

Blood smear over her right breast.

She wasn’t choosing me.

Blood smear on her left arm.

Black leggings.

Black flip-flops.

She wasn’t choosing me.

Bright pink toenails.

She wasn’t fucking choosing me.

Black duffle.

She couldn’t even say the words.

Feet shifting.

“Nothing is different.” I wasn’t her choice.

I was chasing a ghost.

Cut losses.

One-seventeen a.m.

Cut losses .

“I will keep you and your son safe until Luna handles the threat of Julio Estevez.” I gave her my eyes as I absorbed her choice. “Then I’m letting you go.”

Her lips parted, her eyes blinked, but she said nothing.

It wouldn’t have mattered if she had.

Cut losses.

Show intent.

“You won’t see me after your late shifts. You won’t run into me at the coffee shop. You won’t lay eyes on me at the café by the hospital. You have your life back.” I was keeper of no one.

“So you admit to stalking me?” The words may have been meant to cut, but her tone didn’t hold animosity. It held fear.

I breathed it in and allowed myself one moment to hold it. Then I let it go. “I watched out for you.” Leaning down to her ear, I inhaled what I never had. “You’re on your own now.” Standing to my full height, I pushed off the wall and turned.

Seven strides and I was in my bathroom.

Seven strides and she didn’t say a word.

Seven strides and I threw away seven years.