CHAPTER 3 #2
“Distance doesn’t make you difficult to kill.”
“Neither does security guarantee survival.”
“No.”
The simple agreement unsettles me.
He lifts my jacket slightly. I take it from him and push my arms into the sleeves. The torn seam pulls across my shoulder.
“I’m going upstairs,” I say.
“You’re leaving.”
“I have a board meeting in forty minutes.”
“You have blood on your hand and two men just tried to put you into a van.”
“Both excellent reasons to avoid giving Victor Halden control of the company.”
Kellan looks toward the elevators.
“Your meeting moves.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then it happens somewhere secure.”
“This is my building.”
“Someone inside it gave them access.”
He walks to the attacker and removes a plastic badge clipped inside the man’s jacket. The Armand Atlantic logo is printed across the top.
Kellan brings it to me.
The name belongs to Marcus Bell, a security officer dismissed seven months ago after repeated absences. I remember the termination review because his supervisor asked whether addiction treatment could be offered before final dismissal.
Marcus accepted treatment.
He never returned.
“This badge should be inactive,” I say.
“It opened the garage.”
June appears from the elevator with two more security officers. Her face changes when she sees my hand, my bare feet, and the men on the ground.
“What happened?”
“Someone objected to my attendance.”
She looks at Kellan. “Is she making jokes because she’s fine or because she isn’t?”
“I’ve known her less than a day.”
“Then you’re doing well.”
June takes off her flats and puts them in front of me.
I stare at her.
“You’re not walking through the lobby barefoot,” she says. “People are already frightened.”
“What will you wear?”
“I have sneakers upstairs.”
Her shoes are half a size too small. I put them on anyway.
Kellan watches the exchange without interrupting. When June turns to the scattered reports, he shifts his body so she does not have to step near the blood.
A small movement.
Practical.
I wish I had not noticed it.
“We need to delay the board meeting,” June says.
“No.”
“Celeste.”
“I’m not signing anything, and I’m not disappearing after an attack Victor will use as evidence that I cannot lead.”
Kellan’s eyes settle on mine.
“Twenty-four hours.”
“What?”
“You asked for time to consider the marriage. You have twenty-four hours.”
“The proposal says seventy-two.”
“The proposal assumed the threat was outside the company.”
“You don’t get to revise a marriage deadline because someone attacked me.”
“I’m revising it because they knew your route, your arrival time, and the status of the garage booth. They used an internal badge. The next attempt will account for what you did here.”
The words force images into my mind I do not want: another van, another empty security station, a man who remembers to disable the barrier first.
I press the pencil into my uninjured palm.
“If I refuse?”
“I protect you until I can’t.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a threat.”
“It isn’t.”
“How long until you can’t?”
Kellan looks at the badge in his hand.
“I don’t know.”
At last, he sounds as though the answer disturbs him.
The conscious attacker laughs from the floor.
It is a wet, ugly sound.
“You don’t need to protect her,” he says. “She just needs to sign.”
Kellan turns toward him.
The man’s grin fades.
“Sign what?” I ask.
He closes his mouth. Kellan’s gaze moves from the attacker to me and then to the folder beneath my arm.
The transfer of authority.
The marriage proposal.
Two documents presented after my father’s death.
Someone wants my signature badly enough to send armed men.
Kellan steps closer, lowering his voice so only I can hear.
“Hold the board meeting if you need to. Do not leave the secure floor. Do not eat or drink anything that wasn’t opened in front of you. And do not go anywhere alone.”
“You’re giving orders again.”
“Yes.”
“Do you find that generally effective?”
“No.”
The answer is immediate.
Despite the blood, the cold concrete, and the man who tried to drag me into a van, a sound escapes me. Too small to be a laugh. Too strange to be anything else.
Kellan hears it.
His expression does not change, but his eyes do.
Then his attention shifts past my shoulder.
He reaches for me without warning.
One hand closes around my upper arm, and he pulls me behind him as a car turns down the ramp too quickly. The headlights flood the garage. Security officers raise their weapons.
The vehicle stops.
An elderly board member stares at us through the windshield, horrified.
Kellan releases me at once.
“Sorry,” he says.
The apology is quiet and imperfect, as if the word is unfamiliar in his mouth.
My arm retains the shape of his hand long after the danger proves ordinary.
He looks at his watch on the car roof, then at the blood on his cuff.
“Twenty-four hours, Celeste.”
I should tell him no again.
Instead, I look at the attacker’s stolen badge and hear my father’s voice ending in the middle of a sentence.
“I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”
Kellan nods.
It is not victory on his face.
That worries me more than satisfaction would.