Page 21 of The Queen's Knights

Gwen opens the door. “Thanks so much for your help, Officer Lacosta.”

“My pleasure, Dr. Brennan. Hope we can find the perpetrator for you, give you some peace of mind.”

“I’ll walk you out,” I say.

The door closes behind us, and we step out into the warmth of a late spring evening. On the walk to his car, Ambrose says, “Nice woman. I get the sense that Percy isn’t just her TA, though. Too much overprotective alpha-tude from him.”

“He’s her bodyguard.”

Ambrose nods. “Figured as much. So where do you fit in?”

“Just a concerned student.” There’s no way in hell I’m telling my brother what happened on Saturday. Where I found the two of them. Their extracurricular hobbies have no bearing on the investigation anyway.

He shoots me a suspicious look. “You know I know you’re full of shit. You smell like you showered incoño,and those bruises are like neon signs this goes deeper. I know you too well to believe the two are unrelated. Was he the one who gave you that shiner?”

I touch the healing bruise under one eye. “No, he actually saved me when I got into it with a couple other students from her class—rich dicks talking shit about her. That’s all.”

Ambrose nods, his lips pressed tight together. “Just be careful. This goes bad for you, I’ll be the one picking up the pieces.”

I silently stare into the distance. I know he’s thinking about how much ass-kicking he had to do just to get me to graduate from high school. We’ve been each other’s only family since our dad left when we were kids. It’s through luck alone that I didn’t wind up in foster care, but Ambrose came through for me then, and I’ve vowed ever since not to disappoint him.

“You know I won’t do anything to fuck up my scholarship,” I say when we reach his black and white.

He just eyes me and shakes his head. “The age difference isn’t lost on me. My gut says you’re trying to fill a void with this older woman. You’ve done it before, just not to this extent.”

“This isn’t some Oedipal complex, I promise. And it wasn’t with my shrink, either.” Though I can’t deny I formed a particularly strong attachment to the therapist Ambrose started taking me to when I began acting out in a big way in junior high. I hadn’t had a mom in five years, and it took a toll.

But Gwen’s nothing like Dr. Mathis, and she definitely doesn’t resemble any of my memories of Mom that haven’t faded after all these years since she was killed.

I clench my teeth, pinning my brother with a stare that warns him not to dig deeper. He knows I don’t like discussing this topic. We restrict conversations about Mom to one day a year, and that’s it. Today is not that day.

He shakes his head. “Well, don’t do anything stupid. Let me do my job. Need a ride back to campus? I’m headed that way.”

“I’m actually staying.”

He laughs. “Now why am I not surprised?”

ChapterThirteen

Gwen

“What’s on your mind?” Percy asks after sitting for several minutes at my kitchen island without a word. I’ve been staring into the tea I made, to try calming my anxiety after sharing the details of my attack with Lance’s brother.

“It still leaves me feeling raw every time I have to tell someone,” I confess.

“Well, hopefully that’s the last time you’ll have to. Tell me what you need.”

I glance at the front door. “I need him to come back. You did say he had to spend the night, right?”

“He’ll be back. But Gwen, you know I can do everything he can do, right? That’s why I’m here.”

Taking a deep breath, I look at Percy over the island and our steaming mugs. “You’re here to help me feel safe. You’re here because I can trust you with anything. But I want you to trust me too. What I want from you now requires more trust than I think you’ve granted me so far.”

He stares down at the marble top between us, swallows, and sighs. “Yes. And I promised I’d tell you tonight. I’m waiting for him to get back, because if he’s going to be a fixture with you, I don’t want to have to tell this story more than once. I hope you understand.”

His expression is beseeching, and the weight of the request hits home. There’s a deeper reason Chloe chose him to be my bodyguard, but his deflection makes it clear he isn’t ready to share.

“What makes you think he’s going to be a fixture?”

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