I shake my head, not understanding. “Order of the Goat? None of this makes sense. Why would someone want to hurt me?”
“Like I said. I don’t know as much as I would like. I only know that word has circulated within the order about a hefty reward for your death, and some of the information provided to aid any who would make an attempt on you is too sensitive to come from an outside source.” He stands abruptly, motioning to to the two men by the door to unlock it. “Be careful, Misss. Pierson. This is the last time I will contact you.”
I sit in stunned silence as the three men silently file out of the café. My head is spinning and it has nothing to do with the wine I drank earlier, which is all but gone from my system. It all feels so unreal, like one of the plotlines from Stalked. I keep expecting to hear “cut” called from the shadows and turn to see the crew getting ready for the next shot. But it’s just me, the empty café, and the dark street beyond.
Someone I trust? That’s a relatively small group of people. I can’t even think of what sort of sensitive information there is about me to give away. I guess my address or my schedule might qualify, but it’s not as if a determined paparazzi couldn’t figure either of those out. I bury my face in my hands, trying to clear my mind, to get a reprieve from the constant stream of doubts and questions that have been bouncing around my skull since I first saw the stalker in the gold mask. I laugh a little humorlessly. Actually, the mental strain really only began to be too much when Jesse came back into my life. I think I could handle the threats more easily than I can handle his broad, beautiful…
I blink a few times, sighing and standing. The past two days have been bizarre, and the last hour has been stranger still, but it’s not like me to sit and wallow or feel sorry for myself. I’m going to do the smart thing. The logical thing. Someone wants to hurt me, so I’m going to go back to the bodyguard I’m paying a small fortune for. I’m going to be as mature as I can about the fact that he’s deadly attractive and doing all kinds of things to my emotions. I’ll either figure it out or I won’t, but the most important thing for me to do is get somewhere safe. I’m a big girl. I’ll figure out the rest.
I step outside just as someone big crashes into me, squeezing me to his body.
“Kay” whispers Jesse. He wraps a protective arm around my back and leads me down the street, eyes hard with determination.
I cling to him, not proud of how good it feels to be back within his protective circle, but accepting it for once. I squeeze him tight. “We have to get out of here,” I whisper, still not confident those three masked men really had my best interests at heart.
“I know,” he growls.
A taxi slowly pulls onto the street ahead. Jesse tries to hail it, and when it seems clear the taxi isn’t stopping, he motions for me to stay put and jogs into the street, pulling out his gun. My breath catches. What the hell is he doing?
The taxi screeches to a halt. He moves to the driver’s window, leans down, and says something in quick, clipped tones. I see the driver nodding furiously and then he gets out of the car. Jesse hands him a card and claps him on the back before shoving him toward the sidewalk. He waves me toward the car.
I approach hesitantly. “You’re just stealing his car?”
“I’m borrowing it. Get in.”
I take the door handle and sit in the passenger seat. “What if he calls the cops?”
“Then he won’t get the money I promised him.”
“Oh,” I say quietly. “But what if--”
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he snaps, throwing the car in reverse and turning us around so that we’re driving away from his apartment.
“I was overwhelmed and embarassed,” I say. “I just wanted some space to think and I knew you wouldn’t let me.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
The way he’s talking to me like a child irks me, but I notice the blood on his face and the way his breathing is pained. He’s also holding his left arm a little tentatively. “What happened to you?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“It looks like nothing happened pretty hard, then.”
He licks his lips, ignoring my sarcastic tone. “You said we had to get out of there. Did something happen?”
I cross my arms. “Nothing happened.”
He glares at me briefly before looking back to the road. “One of the stalkers was waiting for me in the stairwell when I came after you. I knew him.”
“He wasn’t wearing a mask?”
Jesse laughs through his nose. “He was. At first.”
“Who was he?”
“Someone I thought died a long time ago.” He shakes his head, twisting his hands on the steering wheel and squeezing until his knuckles go white. “I left him there. Everything that happened to him was because of me.”
“I don’t understand…” I say.
He sighs. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
I touch his thigh, regretting the decision when I feel how warm and perfectly hard it is. “You don’t have to put up walls around me.”
He huffs a laugh. “You sound like the army shrink they used to make me see.”
“I’m serious, Jesse.”
“Yeah, well, I can take care of myself. The only thing I’m concerned with right now is keeping you safe.”
“And those flashbacks you have are good for keeping me safe?” I ask carefully.
His jaw flexes. “I have pills for them.”
“Do they work?”
“Some.”
“You can talk to me. I’m not here to judge you. Whatever you had to do over there couldn’t have been easy, but it’s not your fault. Soldiers have orders. You had to follow them.”
“Not my fault?” he asks. I sense a tinge of anger in his voice that makes me pull my hand back, suddenly anxious. He looks like he’s about to say more but he just shakes his head, eyes still locked on the road ahead. “You couldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
He glares at me and I can see he’s going somewhere mentally, calling up old ghosts that he would rather leave dormant. “The thing that sticks is the guilt. In the moment, it’s just about the mission. People become targets. Objectives. When you’re over there, it all feels so vital, like if you don’t eliminate the target, our way of life back home will be over in an instant. But then I came back and realized most people hardly pay it a passing thought. All the shit I did to protect the country… how much of it mattered? And if it didn’t matter, how can I justify it?”
I frown. I’ve never been the most patriotic person, but hearing his side of it breaks my heart. I feel guilty for being one of those people and never really thinking much about the soldiers fighting to protect us. “You’re protecting that innocence,” I say. “Think about it. If people had to be aware that their freedom was so fragile, it wouldn’t feel like freedom at all. The fact that people are able to go weeks, months, or even years without really thinking about it means you were doing your job. It was worth it.”