The Bodyguard (Aces #6)

CHAPTER ONE

Stockholm syndrome did not exist. At least, that was the lesson that Angela Sorenson should have taken from her therapy sessions. Her shrink said it. Google said it. Even her mother, the all-powerful senator from the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania, said it, albeit privately and in a whisper far away from the press releases and news conferences that occurred after Angela was rescued from her kidnapper; because, after all, it wouldn’t do to avoid using crucial buzzwords that polled so well and created sympathy amongst voters.

But no matter how often that supposed truth had been explained to her, Angela didn’t believe it. Here she was, wearing a bulky bulletproof vest during her weekly therapy sessions that required an escort by a bodyguard, wishing she could snap her fingers and remove the puzzling parts of her past that still gave her nightmares and tugged at her heartstrings.

“Angela?” Ibrahim, her therapist, raised his brows. “I asked if you had been reading the headlines.”

Oh, she had. Even in her highly secure cocoon that was Titan Group’s Abu Dhabi headquarters, headlines from the United States were hard to ignore—especially when they were about her. Most articles included recent photographs of Tran Pham, the man who had her abducted. Sometimes, the articles used law enforcement sketches or AI-generated composites that had been circulated when international agencies argued whether Pham even existed. Until Angela’s rescue, he’d never been photographed.

Every image of Pham bothered her. None showed him as the man she knew. He’d been grandfatherly and giving. Logically, she understood how many years of her life he had stolen. Pham, the man who asked her questions and learned about who she was, was different than Pham, the man who had her kidnapped and kept as a political prisoner.

Angela wondered if Ibrahim thought she was a lost cause. Maybe she was. “Well…” There’s no such thing as Stockholm Syndrome. There’s no such thing as Stockholm Syndrome . Her feelings were simply an expected emotional response to trauma. Her relationship with Pham was best described as a trauma bond. There was no diagnosis to be made, and she wasn’t supposed to let her years with Pham—years of captivity and mental abuse—define her. Easier said than done.

Ibrahim studied her. He wasn’t a fool. He had to know when she commingled the truth with what she was expected to say in the name of therapeutic progress. “Angela?”

She shifted her shoulders back and lifted her chin slightly, needing to find a minuscule level of control. “I’ve seen the headlines.”

“They’d be hard to miss.”

Angela nodded. “I don’t go searching them out, but with the trial looming…” She gestured toward the window and the busy, bustling city beyond the safe confines of Ibrahim’s office. “It’s news. International news. And even if it weren’t, my head isn’t in the sand.”

The corners of Ibrahim’s mouth rose in a way that encouraged her to continue. When that didn’t work, he pressed, “Does that worry you?”

“The news?” She gestured to her bulletproof vest. “Even if that didn’t worry me, I don Kevlar anytime I walk out of the hotel.”

“The bulletproof vest should make you feel safer.”

“No one knows where I am, yet if I leave Titan’s property, I have to have my bodyguard with me.”

“I thought you liked your bodyguard. Sawyer, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course, I like him. Who wouldn’t? He’s a good friend. But it’s overkill.”

“Jared Westin doesn’t think so.” Ibrahim tilted his head, apparently curious if Angela would counter the orders from her boss.

“Jared Westin thinks about every possible possibility and outcome, then plans for it, then plans for his plans to catch fire and burn to the ground.” All of Jared’s many, many plans made her feel safe. Bulletproof vests? Not so much.

“You’ve been wearing the vest in public for quite some time now. It’s the intensity of the news cycles that I’m more interested in. With the upcoming trial…” Ibrahim gestured. “It’s more of a reminder—”

“It’s a reminder of what I already know. I lived it. I survived it. It can’t worry me.”

Ibrahim waited.

Angela smirked. “The vest worries me. That’s what makes my head turn somersaults. Not the trial.”

“Only a few weeks are left until you testify against Pham.”

“Just like there’s only a few more weeks to wear this vest.”

His lips quirked. “And then the whole thing’s over. You will forget any of it happened. Pham will be gone. In prison. A figment of your imagination, maybe? Is that what he will become after you testify?”

Life after testifying… She hadn’t thought about it that way. Pham had stolen the latter part of her twenties and left Angela wound so tight that it was a miracle her head didn’t pop off like a bottle rocket. But Pham was the same man who knew her better than her family, who listened when she talked and spent time with her when he likely had a laundry list of to-dos just as long as either of her parents had in their busy careers. Would he feel like a ghost from the past? An illusory friend from a nightmare? “That’s a sneaky way to ask how I feel about Pham.”

“I’m not trying to be sneaky, Angela. The death threats are real. Testifying could be a paradigm shift for you. You’re treading water, and I think you’re tired of that.”

“That’s not true.”

“I’d like to see you feeling stronger about yourself before you face Pham. Wasn’t that one of the goals you wanted to work on?”

Angela laced her fingers and squeezed them, hoping the pain in her hands would overpower the pain of the past. Why couldn’t she get over the whole ordeal? Hadn’t enough time passed that she could simply forget who Tran Pham even was? When was the adage time heals going to kick into gear and wipe away that mysterious mental burden she couldn’t shake? “I wish you could prescribe me a magic pill or something that would fix everything.”

“You’re not broken. You’re healing.”

A pain lodged in her throat. “Broken bones heal.”

Ibrahim’s lips twitched.

“Testifying against Pham feels real,” she said. “It will hurt. He hurt me, and now I am going to hurt him.”

“He has hurt many, many people, my dear.”

“But I never saw it, and logically, I know that makes me sound selfish—”

“It’s a testament to the hold he had on you. Logic doesn’t work in abusive relationships.”

“I understand that. Logically,” she tacked on again. “But the betrayal of testifying against him feels more real than the actual threats against my life. Because I haven’t seen it. Again, logically, I know his terrorist network has made clear they won’t let me testify. But that part feels like a storybook. Like something that would happen to someone else.”

“You’re trailed by security and wearing a bulletproof vest because of Pham.”

“And I don’t need to be.” Very few people on Earth knew where Angela had disappeared to. Outside of her family, she’d put her complete trust in Titan Group, and with that came a set of rules she’d lived by easily. Stay offline, be careful of her connections in the US, and avoid travel unless it was with Sawyer. “I’m following the rules. Doing what I’m told. What’s expected of me. I’m surviving.”

“You’re treading water. Not moving. Not growing.”

“ Surviving .”

Ibrahim waited for an eternity before offering a slight nod. “Self-preservation is important.”

Angela looked out the window. From her spot in the small office of a posh Abu Dhabi high-rise, she could see no way forward. She had to testify, she had to face Pham, and, eventually, she would have to find herself again—but she wasn’t there yet.

“Angela, you have to voice your thoughts if I’m going to help you walk away from Pham’s trial unscathed.”

“I’m already scathed, Ibrahim. You know that better than anyone.”

“Let’s stick with positive self-talk.” He didn’t wait for her pithy retort. “You’re working on your inside”—he gestured to his head—“as much as your physical well-being.”

“Positive self-talk,” she agreed, crossing her hand over her heart. Sarcasm and self-control were the reasons therapy wasn’t working, but she couldn’t let go of her crutches.

Ibrahim waited as though he could read her mind. He waited as though this time, she would say aloud everything she alluded to but wouldn’t verbalize. His positivity would let him continue waiting beyond the end of this session, the one after that, and the one after that. Ibrahim had the patience of a saint, and she wanted to scream.

Finally, he broke the silence. “You have so much negativity bottled in your chest.”

She almost smiled. Angela tugged at her blouse collar. “Good thing it’s well hidden behind the Kevlar.”

“Let it go, Angela,” Ibrahim said. “What do you have to lose?”

Control . Her throat constricted. If she let go and shared what she really thought, she would lose the memories from captivity that she’d labeled as good—as loving. Ibrahim would force her to label them correctly as coercive manipulation. What would she have then? The good memories, the ones she’d clung to during years of imprisonment, would disappear. She’d be lost and heartbroken like a little kid who wasn’t ready to learn the truth about Santa Claus.

“You have to name the struggle before you let it go,” Ibrahim said.

“I’ve been trying to name the struggle.” Her throat ached. “Stockholm syndrome. You won’t listen.”

“Trust me.” Ibrahim waited, holding her with an unblinking stare that tried to pry loose what needed freeing. “Trust yourself .”

The knot in her throat thickened. “I’m not struggling with the trial, how long Pham will go to prison, the threats…” Emotion choked her words. “But with the man I came to know.”

“Pham.” Ibrahim nodded once, acknowledging the single most significant source of her pain and confusion.

A tear trickled down her cheek. “He was the grandpa I never had.” Angela pulled a heart-tugging breath. “He was the only person who ever acted as though he cared for me like family.”

“It’s time to let it out, Angela. Shine a light on the ugly, and eventually, it fades.”

She wanted Pham to fade. “Let it out” was so cliché, but it somehow worked. The chokehold on her voice released, and she admitted, “Pham smiled. He cared. He talked to me and asked questions and remembered what I said.”

Ibrahim didn’t tell her she was a fool or explain the manipulation. He listened to her darkest secrets, which she hadn’t revealed in years of therapy—the reasons she couldn’t get over her captor.

“That probably felt nice,” Ibrahim said.

Validated, Angela let the floodgates open. “Pham knew I wanted steak and scalloped potatoes over barbeque chicken and mac and cheese. He knew I liked retellings of classic novels over bubble-gum-cute fairy tales but preferred entertainment magazines—the ones with movies and shows—over everything.”

When she finally stopped talking, silence pervaded Ibrahim’s office. Tears had dried on Angela’s cheeks. The remnants of her near-manic outpouring made her feel lighter, untethered, and honest but far too raw.

Angela sniffed and ran her fingers under her eyes, summarizing in a whisper. “He spent the time to figure me out.”

“No one else did that for you before?” Ibrahim asked, already knowing her answer.

She shook her head.

“Did he do that for you? Or for himself?” An eternity inched by before he added, “He kept you against your will.”

“ I know that .” Memories collided with facts. Her tears welled again. Angela wiped her cheeks. “I know he’s a narcissist; I know he’s evil. And most importantly, I know I was a replacement for the daughter he lost. Logically, I’m not an idiot. I know .”

“Logically.” Ibrahim smiled and then cocked his head. “I’m curious; when did you learn that he blamed your mother for his daughter’s death?”

“Early. A man like Tran Pham can’t abduct you and not connect it to your power-hungry senator mother.”

“So you spent years knowing why he treated you like family?”

Angela bit her bottom lip. She was told about Pham’s daughter, Quy Long, almost immediately and then quickly realized that, despite Pham’s career choice and his daughter’s involvement in the criminal world, he loved and missed his daughter. He was a grief-stricken terrorist. “Yeah.” Pham’s relationship with Angela was never real. She was a replacement for the daughter he’d lost and a punishment for her mother, who Pham blamed. “Nothing was real—but it felt real.”

“Feelings can be deceptive.”

“That might be, but even now, I can put myself into his shoes and, given his worldview and resources, understand how avenging his daughter made sense.”

“Tran Pham is a narcissist. That’s what narcissists do. They can make you feel things that don’t exist.” Ibrahim’s expression tightened. “You said Pham treated you like family.”

She nodded.

“And that you’ve never had that experience,” he pushed. “But what about your boyfriend?”

She balked. “Paul?”

Ibrahim chuckled. “Do you have another boyfriend I’m unaware of?”

Nope. Paul Bane was her only one. Perfect Paul with the perfect hair and the perfect body had been around for years. Paul was pre-abduction. Angela saw her life that way: everything before captivity and everything after. “What about him?”

“You’ve been together for so long,” Ibrahim prompted. “Would you consider him family?”

No. Paul was practically a stranger. He and Angela were a superficial couple. She pressed her lips together and finally confessed, “Pham acted more like family than any other person I have called family. Paul included.”

“How do you think Paul would feel about that?”

“That I don’t consider him family?” She snorted. “If I ever managed to get a hold of him, he would agree.” However, the opposite was true this week. Paul had broken character and tried repeatedly to get a hold of her. She had been busy. Though she should have felt a hint of guilt, his insistence had been aggravating.

Angela sighed, not wanting to dissect her relationship with Paul today. That was more of a conversation to hold with a friend. Not a shrink. Or maybe she would ask Sawyer and not only get a friend’s perspective but a man’s.

Sawyer was one hell of a man. His opinion was like gold. Her cheeks heated. Angela refocused on Ibrahim and tried to lighten the conversation. “So, Pham is more of a family than my flesh-and-blood family. That’s what I’ve been keeping to myself—man, you have your work cut out for you.”

Ibrahim chuckled. “I’m glad you told me.”

Angela shrugged with a sheepish laugh. “Now that I’ve said everything out loud, maybe I’m cured.” She crossed her fingers. “Maybe?”

Ibrahim studied Angela for an uncomfortably long moment. She didn’t feel as if he were waiting for another profound revelation from her, yet it felt like she was supposed to say more. Feel more. Experience a bigger, deeper revelation, and she didn’t have it in her. “I’m tapped, Ibrahim. I don’t have anything more to share.”

“No…” He stroked his chin. “But I do.”

She raised mental barriers and guarded herself for whatever he might share. But she wasn’t about to let him know her anxiety needled her. Angela faked a grin and beckoned. “Come on. Hit me with it. I can take it.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “When you put our therapeutic sessions like that, how can I resist?”

Angela laughed. “Come on.”

Ibrahim nodded but paused as though gathering his thoughts. “Your struggle isn’t with Tran Pham.”

“What?” After everything she’d just poured out, this was Ibrahim’s dramatic takeaway? “I’m sorry, but Psychology 101 students could figure out that I’m screwed up because of Pham.”

He held up his hand. “It’s not that simple, Angela. Pham listened to you. He provided for you, and while it was a definite perversion of the act, he cared for you, unlike your parents or boyfriend. That’s where your burden lies. Not what Pham gave you but what you never received from your loved ones.”