Page 165 of The Enemy Protector
“I wish she would have had someone. I hate that she was alone.”
I hold the silence, letting her process.
“She was too good for my father. And yours. I remember one night, she told me I should get out before it was too late. She stepped between my father and me one night. I remember thinking she was brave. She was trying to protect me.”
“That sounds like her.”
“She loved you fiercely. That much was obvious, even to an outsider.”
“I’m glad you were there,” she says. “I’m glad she didn’t die alone.”
“I wish I could have helped her.
She’s quiet for a moment, processing. Then she shifts topics slightly. “The last few years...weird things kept happening. Things I didn’t understand at the time.”
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “Yeah?”
“Like that guy I went on a date with last year. We were at dinner and he went to the bathroom and just...never came back. I thought maybe I said something wrong or he got sick.”
I bark out a laugh. “He didn’t get sick.”
Her eyes widen. “That was you?”
“That was me. Well, Kirill, technically. He had a very persuasive conversation with the guy about appropriate behavior on dates.”
“He was perfectly nice!”
“He had three prior arrests for assault. All against women. All charges mysteriously dropped.” I brush a strand of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t letting him anywhere near you.”
She stares at me, her mouth slightly open. “What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else did you do that I didn’t know about?”
I think back over the years. There’s so much. “The girl you were friends with the first couple of weeks you started college.”
“Tori?”
“No. We cleared her.”
“Marissa?”
“Yes.”
Sofia sits up completely now, the sheet pooling around her waist. “She left school before the end of the first semester. Did you—kill her?”
“She left. Voluntarily.” I sit up too, leaning back against the headboard. “She was selling your personal information to a tabloid blogger.”
“I never knew that.”
“You weren’t supposed to.” I reach out and pull her against my side. She comes willingly, tucking herself under my arm. I can feel her processing, connecting dots she didn’t know existed.
“I can’t believe all of that was you.”
“Sometimes Nelson. Sometimes other guards.”
Her gaze drifts across the room, landing on the painting hanging opposite the bed.
