Chapter 6 Devon
DEVON
My feet pounded on the treadmill while I scanned the two large TVs displaying all thirty-six security cameras surrounding the house.
It had been almost a week and the cops still hadn’t caught the asshole who was after Lofton.
I’d been checking in daily, waiting and hoping for them to at the very least sniff out a lead.
But so far, they had come up dry at every turn.
They had a laundry list of people they’d cleared, everyone from her ex-husband who had been in Tokyo all month all the way to an old acting coach who’d once made a pass at her.
So far, LAPD’s best guess was that it had to be someone she didn’t know—which, you know, really helped narrow it down to the other eight billion people on Earth.
Sweat dripped down my forehead as my attention lingered far too long on the empty black box in the lower left corner of the screen. It was the camera in Lofton’s room that we’d disabled before she’d even stepped through the front door.
She hadn’t left her room again since our encounter in the kitchen two days prior. Which, honestly, I thought had gone pretty fucking well, until she turned into the ice queen and ordered me around like I was her assistant’s high school intern.
Yeah, I managed to find a place to deliver her precious coffee and egg-white omelet. And when I’d taken her lunch some hours later, I’d thrown it away—completely untouched—too.
The self-absorbed princess bit was nothing new in my line of work, though the total isolation, ignoring basic hygiene, and refusal to eat was definitely something I’d never experienced before.
Trauma affected everyone differently, but with Leo in Tennessee helping Apollo, Johnson holding down the fort at Guardian by flying back and forth to Chicago multiple times throughout the week, I was the only one left to decipher if this was normal, or if it was time to sound the alarms.
I was a damn bodyguard, not a shrink. I wasn’t qualified to make that kind of call.
I’d spoken to her agent. She told me to give her space.
I’d spoken to her manager. She told me to keep a close eye on her.
Just that morning, I’d gone so far as to reach out to my biggest fan, Brooke Callahan, to see what she suggested. She’d let out a string of curse words and then said she’d call me back.
It had been nearly two hours since that call when my phone finally rang.
I cut the treadmill off and stepped off, using the hem of my shirt to wipe the sweat from my face before putting the phone to my ear. “What’s up?”
“We have a problem!” Brooke shouted.
My whole body went on alert. “What’s wrong?”
“Um, well. I got her out of bed. I stayed on the phone while she showered, and then we chatted while she did her hair and makeup.”
I searched the cameras, not so much as a light breeze happening outside. “Get to the fucking point.”
“I asked her if she wanted to watch the stream of Marty’s funeral with me and well, she—”
I was positive she kept talking; it was just that my brain no longer needed the explanation as I caught sight of Lofton emerging from her bedroom in the hallway camera.
It wasn’t the girl next door I’d met at the hotel.
Or the frail, disheveled woman I’d interacted with in the kitchen.
This was Lofton Beck, Hollywood’s hottest leading lady, full hair, makeup, and wardrobe, phone in hand, headed the wrong fucking way.
“Fuck,” I boomed. Ending the call, I tucked my phone into my pocket and then climbed the stairs three at a time to the main level, reaching her just before she made it to the front door.
I opened my mouth to speak, a whole lot of “where the fuck do you think you’re going” poised on the tip of my tongue. Leo’s warning flashed in my mind before my attitude could escape.
“Hey,” I called. “What’s up? You need something?”
In a pair of black slacks and an off-the-shoulder black top that hung on her thin frame, she lifted her chin and stated, “I’m going to Marty’s funeral.”
No, the fuck you aren’t.
I let out a low whistle. “Unfortunately, that’s not an option given your current situation.”
She shrugged. “Unfortunately, I’m going anyway.”
Reaching for the doorknob, she tried to step around me.
I blocked her path. “It’s not safe.”
“I don’t care.” She tried to fake me out with the old juke-and-spin maneuver.
I easily blocked her, only for her to try it again in the opposite direction.
When that also failed, she put both hands on my shoulder and gave me a hard shove.
I didn’t even rock to the side, but she bounced off me as though I had shoved her.
Honestly, the entire scene would have been comical if it wasn’t so damn infuriating.
“You need to chill,” I rumbled, quickly losing my patience.
“Move!” She rammed me with her shoulder like I was a tackling dummy she could force downfield.
I didn’t budge and after a few tries, she lost her footing and started to fall. On pure instinct, I snaked an arm out, catching her forearm to keep her upright.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she seethed, snatching it away. With a heaving chest and feral blue eyes, she stared at me. “I am not a prisoner here. I don’t need your permission to leave. You don’t think it’s safe. Fine. You don’t have to go. But I am. I already called a car, and—”
Any calm I had left evaporated as my head threatened to turn into a geyser.
“You called a car?” I boomed, my voice ricocheting through the hallway with a deafening echo.
To her credit, she didn’t even flinch. She kept her shoulders back and head held high. “I needed a ride.”
I took a hard step toward her. “What you need is a secure perimeter, a vetted driver, two exits, and a plan that doesn’t get you boxed into a church parking lot where half the country, including whoever the hell is after you, expects you to be today.
But did you ask for any of that? No. Last we spoke, you snapped at me about some quad espresso what-the-fuck ever, then disappeared into the bed for two days, only to wake up today with a wild hair in your ass to get yourself killed after we’ve spent a week keeping your location off the grid.
All for you to fucking blow it by calling a car? ”
She held her ground. “I’m not a moron. I didn’t book it under my name.”
“And you think that’s enough? Did you use your phone to book this car? Your credit card? A known service you’ve used in the past?”
She stared at me with wide eyes, giving me all the answers I needed.
“For fuck’s sake, Lofton, you are being hunted. A fake name isn’t going to cut it.”
She swallowed hard, cutting her gaze to the side, her anger morphing into emotion. “What was I supposed to do?” she croaked. “No one even told me his funeral was today.”
That was news to me. I figured her circle was keeping her up to date on that shit. Handlers, management, someone in her carefully curated bubble.
Apparently, grief hadn’t made it into their job descriptions.
It never occurred to me that I needed to be the one to inform her, mainly because there was no possibility I would ever allow her to go.
Her breathing stammered. “Am I just supposed to ignore the fact that he died for me?”
“Bullshit,” I snapped. “He died trying to keep you alive. I’m not sure you running off half-cocked and landing yourself in a grave beside him is quite the show of gratitude you think it is.”
Her brow creased, the fight in her eyes dimming. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”
“Then you should have talked to me.”
She scoffed. “Oh, now I’m supposed to talk to you? I thought you weren’t here to make friends.”
I blinked, confusion dawning on me. “Is that what you’re pissed about? That I’m not here to have a slumber party and make friendship bracelets with you?”
“No,” she shot back. “I’m pissed that you have to be here at all!”
“Well, guess what, Princess. Me. Fucking. Too.”
She drew in a sharp breath, but didn’t reply.
I had to watch myself. I was getting perilously close to breaking Leo’s “don’t cut a woman who’s already bleeding” rule. And, make no mistake about it, Lofton was hemorrhaging and headed straight for a flatline.
We both fell silent. I planted my hands on my hips, willing my heart to slow as I peered down at her.
Shattered, she was still fucking stunning. Her hair was pulled back in a loose twist, dangling pearl earrings brushing her delicate throat. In the short time I’d known her, she’d already lost weight—weight she didn’t originally have to lose.
The black fabric hung off her shoulders like it belonged to someone else. Her collarbones were too sharp, wrists too thin. And there were faint shadows under her eyes that makeup hadn’t been able to conceal.
Despite what she might have thought of me, I wasn’t an emotionless asshole. I didn’t take pleasure in watching her struggle, but it was my job to keep her breathing.
Though emotional health and physical safety didn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
I let out a strangled growl. “I can’t let you go to the funeral.”
Her lids fluttered closed, a tear slipping free and tracking down her cheek.
“But,” I added, already regretting what I was about to say. “If you give me some time, I can make a few calls. I’ll see what I can do about getting you a goodbye.”
Her eyes flew open, so much hope blazing within, I felt the warmth in my own damn chest.
Christ. I was a sucker.
“I’m not promising anything,” I warned. “But they won’t do a public graveside, not after what happened.
Interment will be tomorrow. Which means tonight he’ll be at a funeral home.
Closed. Quiet. Minimal staff.” I exhaled through my nose, already mapping hypothetical exits and sightlines in my head.
“We go late. Two, maybe three in the morning. No press. No crowds.”
Her breath hitched. God, her hope was suffocating.
“Johnson’s gone,” I continued, “but I can see if Arrow’s guys will help with a sweep. One on the perimeter, one inside. We clear the building before you ever step out of the car.”
And just my luck, she started crying again. Though this time the tears slid over a heart-stopping smile.
“And we don’t use a fucking car service, okay?
We take the SUV. We park in the back. You go in through a service entrance.
You get five minutes. Ten if everything stays clean.
You stand where I put you. You say what you need to say.
And when I tell you we’re leaving, you don’t argue.
You don’t look back. You walk out with me. Understood?”
“I can do that.” She smiled so wide it stirred something inside me.
I fucking hated it.
But I hated it more when she wrapped her arms around my middle, pressing her chest to my front, all soft gratitude and zero sense of personal boundaries.
My skin burned as I stood there, a wall of don’t-touch-me that she clearly could not read.
But I had shit to do and did not have time to shut her down, potentially earning myself an encore from the ice queen and her spinach omelet.
Or at least that was what I told myself as I waited entirely too long for her to release me.