Page 49 of Courting Danger

One of Garrison’s hands tangled in the hair at the base of my neck. He toyed with the strands there, seemingly unaware that he’d turned me into his own personal fidget toy.

“I’m not sure if something went wrong, or if we just never had all the information in the first place. It was a standard mission. Intel said there were enemy combatants in the area, so we came prepared.”

The hand in my hair stopped and lay still against the base of my neck. I didn’t speak. I barely dared to breathe for fear of breaking the moment.

“We weren’t prepared for child soldiers. There were five of them, pointing guns at us they could barely lift. The oldest one couldn’t have been more than ten. If they were adults, I would have shot them on sight. But I wasn’t prepared for kids. None of us were.”

A hitch in Garrison’s throat distorted his words. He coughed, trying to cover the emotional reaction, but at such close proximity I could see the lights dancing off repressed tears in Garrison’s eyes.

I chose not to comment on any of it and instead pushed my head into Garrison’s hand to encourage him to play with my hair again. The action made me feel like a cat begging to be petted. In the span of a few minutes, I’d gone from fidget toy to emotional support animal.

Yet, it worked. Garrison’s voice returned to normal, and he was able to talk clearly again.

“I could tell from the looks on my comrade’s faces that they wouldn’t be able to do it. They couldn’t kill children. I was the one in charge. It was my responsibility to protect my people. But I hesitated. One of the kids managed to pull the trigger and shot me in the knee. It set off a survival instinct in me. For that brief moment, I no longer saw children. All I saw were enemies. I killed all five of them.”

I remembered the first time I’d had to kill someone. My father had set it up so that I could “get a taste for it”. The gun had trembled so badly in my hand that I missed my original target. Luckily, it had still been a fatal shot so no one noticed how badly I’d messed up.

I’d been a teenager then. Practically a kid myself.

In the years since, I’d killed enough people that my hands no longer shook. Yet, I still couldn’t imagine what it would be like to kill a child.

“At least you saved your people.”

I cringed the moment the words left my mouth. I couldn’t have been more insensitive if I just shrugged and said, “well, it could be worse.”

Luckily, Garrison didn’t seem to hear mw, too caught up in his own memories.

“It was all so pointless in the end. Those kids weren’t meant to be a real threat. Just delay us. With my knee shattered, I couldn’t keep up, so I sent my people ahead. I should have realized it was a trap. About a minute later, a bomb went off. Since I was so far behind, I avoided the main blast radius. But the rest of my people...”

Briefly, with delicate fingers, I touched the edge of a particularly long burn scar that wrapped around Garrison’s ribs. “That’s where you got the scars on your back.”

Garrison nodded, though his gaze never left the ceiling. “Close enough to feel the heat, but far enough away to avoid the worst of the blast. Though it did throw me across the street. A few of my people were also far enough away that the blast didn’t immediately kill them. But that was worse. Instead of a quick death, they suffered for a few days until they died from their burns.”

Sighing heavily, Garrison moved me off him. At first, I thought Garrison was going to leave. Perhaps recounting such memories had been a way to explain why he couldn’t accept my position in a mafia family.

However, Garrison didn’t leave.

Instead, the other man rolled over on his side, so he and I lay face to face.

“I spent the last few days thinking about the things I’ve done in the past, and what I’m willing to do in the future. But, before I can give you an answer, I still have one question I need to ask.”

“Anything.” It was a simple response, but I meant it. There was nothing Garrison could ask right now that would be too invasive. How many people I’d killed in his life. How many laws I’d broken. The details of my family’s business. It was all on the table.

Instead, Garrison only asked, “Why?”

It was so simple that I had to ask for clarification.

“Why did you hire me as your bodyguard? I’m sure your family already has plenty of muscle on the payroll, and hiding the truth from me only put you in danger since I didn’t truly know what I was guarding you against. So, why take that chance?”

Even if I could have brought myself to lie to Garrison, I knew I’d never get away with it. The man was too perceptive. It was a wonder I’d managed to hide the truth about my family for so long, and that was mostly by avoiding direct lies as much as possible.

“Honestly, I didn’t take the threat on my life seriously at first. My previous bodyguard got killed at the club, so I needed a new one anyway, and I was annoyed about having to take over for my father. I thought it would just be a temporary thing. You were attractive, and seemed interesting, so I thought you could keep me entertained. It was like a game. But then, things did get serious, and I actually was in danger. For the first time, I looked around and realized that none of the people around me were really mine. Everyone worked for my family, and I would inherit their loyalty from my father. Aside from Ghita, and maybe my mother, no one was loyal to me because I was Alex. They were only loyal to me because I was a Mariano.”

I smiled and sat up, wrapping my arms around my knees as I looked down at Garrison. The only time I ever got to see the man from this angle was when we were in bed, both naked and vulnerable.

“Except for you. You had no idea about the Mariano name, but you protected me anyway. It made me feel safe. I don’t remember the last time I truly felt safe around someone.”

Garrison sat up as well. The softness of the mattress meant that it was impossible to sit without slouching a little. This put their eye lines at exactly the same height.

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