Page 99 of The Bodyguard

“David didn’t hurt me.”

He raises an eyebrow, which kind of irritates me. “I think he did. You just wanted to believe that he didn’t.”

“You’ve come all the way from Sweden to psychoanalyse me?”

He smiles, and my heart starts racing again, my stomach flipping over what feels like a zillion times.

“I just wantyouto be honest too, Lena. Be honest. With yourself.”

I stare at him, it’s all I want to do right now. I don’t want to talk or try and work out what the fuck is going on here, I just want to stare at him.

“We can do this, if it’s what you want. And we can do this whatever way you want to.”

I frown again, I’m not sure what he means by that, either.

“You don’t have to distance yourself from your family, not anymore. Not if you don’t want to.”

“This isn’t just about you, Jonah. I didn’t make that decision, to distance myself from them, because of you.”

Notjustbecause of him, anyway. He was partly the reason, but not all of it.

“Or we can start again, just me and you, someplace else. Somewhereelse.”

“They won’t leave me alone. I know that, now. They won’t. And do you really want to be a part of that? Part of a family that does the kind of shit mine do?”

“I don’t want to be withthem. I want to be with you. Just you. I can deal with them if you don’t want to cut all those ties but, in reality, they don’t matter. Not anymore. I can deal with anything, Lena, I just want to be with you.”

I wasn’t expecting any of this, how could I have been? And it’s hit me hard, messed with my head, I don’t know what to do. What to feel. Do I trust my dad? Trust that his intentions are real and true and that he’s actually trying to compromise here?

“I love you, Lena. And I’m going to keep telling you that until you let me know howyoufeel…”

A noise from the back of the house stops both of us, and Jonah rushes back inside, holding a hand up behind his back to stop me from following. And now my heart’s racing for a very different reason. This was a trap. It was a trap. My father; Ollie, they lied, again, and the bigger part of me chose to believe them.

“Stay there!” Jonah hisses, but I shake my head and push past him, and I don’t feel the bullet hit. I didn’t even know itwasa bullet, at the time, I just felt a hard thud, like someone had punched me in the stomach, before the world went black…

Twenty-Four

Jonah

I blame myself, because it’s my fault. In my head, at least, that’s how I see it. What happened in here, just a couple of weeks ago, it wasn’t unexpected, and yet, I still couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stopherfrom getting hurt. And watching her fall to the floor, feeling her blood hit my skin, it was like the worst kind of history repeating itself. In that moment I felt everything I’d felt back then, when Kate died. Pain. Anger. The kind of anger that makes you see red: clouds everything, but I pulled it back just enough to take control.

Ollie had – albeit accidently – shot his sister. A bullet that was meant for me, and the shock of doing that caused him to drop the gun, leaving me to pick it up. Tuck it down the back of my jeans. Call for help. This had to come to an end, and now, as I sit outside on the small, tiled terrace overlooking the harbour, watching as the world carries on as normal, I’m going over everything I could’ve done differently, if I’d had a choice, and maybe I did, to some extent. But what I did that day, calling for help – and no, I didn’t call the police – I don’t regret it. I took control. I called on people I know, people who could deal with this in the way it needed to be dealt with, because Lena needed a hospital. What she didn’t need was the questions gunshot wounds kick up. None of us needed that.

I look up as she sits down next to me, wincing slightly as she places a hand on her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and she smiles, shakes her head and reaches for my hand.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

I do. Because I’ve thrown the family of the woman I love to the wolves. Opened up a multitude of cans of worms that everyone from the police to the security services and beyond are now investigating. Because I lied, to the woman I love. Again. I lied, again.

I never stopped working for MI5. Until now. Three days ago, to be exact. I never stopped working for them, because there was too much unfinished business. Shit I struggled with, in my head, because of Lena. Because of the way I felt about her. This was her family I was helping bring down, and that wasn’t an easy thing to deal with. And there were people who were quite vocal, Flick being one of them, about my involvement, given my relationship with Lena. But, at the same time, there were also people, including Flick, who knew I was the only person who could do this. There’d been rumours of Nielsen’s involvement in a huge weapons smuggling ring, and a possible connection to human trafficking, something I’d had no idea about before. But as we’d delved deeper into his ever-murkier world, it became apparent that Nielsen Construction was now involved in a way I’m almost certain Lena knew nothing about. And even though I’ve spoken to her myself, on a personal level, she knows she’s going to have to face questions back in the UK.

“I honestly had no idea, Jonah. About any of it.”

I squeeze her hand, bringing it to my mouth, my lips skimming her knuckles. “I know.” I believe her. Everyone else will believe her, too. She may share the Nielsen name but that’s all that connects her to that family. Now. “I’ll be with you, okay? They just need to ask you some questions – a lot of questions, probably, and all you need to do is tell them the truth. That’s all, Lena.”

She smiles again, nods, and drops her head as she takes a breath. She’s still in some pain, physicalandemotional.

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