Page 47 of Eye Candy

“I’m going to say it straight,” Vance spoke once we were alone. “I need you. Kieran was the only one I trusted with my daughter, and now that he’s out of commission for a while, I need you more than ever. I need to know you have my daughter’s back.”

I didn’t say a thing, though I did want to tell him that I was leaving, for good.

“The gunman got past security. His gun made it through the metal detectors the public has to walk through to get in. I’m… I’m starting to worry that this is an inside job,” Vance said, the worry plain on his face. He didn’t often show concern for his daughter, not like this. “I can’t assign anyone else to her while suspecting they might be involved, somehow. I need you, Mike. I need to know you’ll help me keep her safe.”

My jaw ground, and even though I wanted to walk away from all of this, even though that’s what I’d been doing when I’d left that bathroom and Laina behind, I still found myself muttering, “I’ll keep her safe. You have my word.”

Damn it. I couldn’t go quitting now, could I?

Vance set a hand on my arm, giving it a squeeze. “Thank you. I won’t forget this. I won’t.”

Still, I wanted to get out of this God-forsaken hospital, so I told him, “I’m leaving.”

“Ah, good. It’s probably best that you take her home, anyway.” Vance walked around me, poking his head into the room. Laina must’ve retaken her position beside the bed, because he added, “Laina, Mike’s going home. You should go and get some rest. It’s been quite the day. I’ll probably be home late tonight.”

I half expected Laina to argue with her father, but she didn’t. She said nothing, and within a moment, she was walking out of the room, her mouth drawn into a pout. That pout was meant for me, leftover from our earlier exchange, but her father read her expression differently.

“You can visit Kieran every day,” he said. “But right now, there’s nothing you can do for him. Once he’s in surgery, it’s going to be a little while.”

All Laina did was nod once.

I turned and started walking away, mentally cursing at myself for being unable to stick to my guns. I wanted to quit this stupid job and never see that girl again. I… goddamn it, I was just so ticked off at her, it was hard to think straight.

And that was saying something. It took a lot to piss me off, a lot to get me into a bad mood.

The hospital hallways were long and winding; it took us a while to get to my car. Neither one of us said a single word as I drove us to her home, my temporary home. My hands gripped the wheel tightly.

What I wouldn’t give to go back to the easy days, when everything was simple. I used to think this job would be an easy one, that it’d be one and done. That her kidnapper would try to come after her since she’d escaped, but now I wasn’t so sure. If he hadn’t hurt her, like she’d said, why would he hurt her now?

But no one else knew that. Laina had kept those particular details to herself, and that meant my job as her guard got a lot more complicated. If the gunman wasn’t related to her kidnapping, it meant someone else was after her—but who?

I guess knowing the truth hinged on whether or not the gunman would talk. He was in custody, so he very well might. Then again, sometimes you couldn’t torture the truth out of someone no matter how hard you tried.

After a tension-filled twenty-minute drive, I pulled into her driveway, parking near the front door. Laina got out and went to unlock the door, and though she didn’t say a word, I could tell she was miffed, internally seething at either me or the fact that she’d told me the truth.

Whatever. If she wanted to live a lie, then she could. Who was I to stop her? I was nothing but a glorified henchman, so what did I know?

Once we were in the house and the door was locked behind us, I went straight to my room. I pulled out my gun and set it on my nightstand before sitting on the edge of my bed, working on calming myself down.

Really, there wasn’t any use in being so upset. It wouldn’t get me anywhere; it’d do me no good whatsoever. Hell, I didn’t even know why it pissed me off so much, knowing Laina had done all that to herself. It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t bother me at all. She was… she was nothing to me, nothing more than a job.

She was just a job. Just a goddamned job.

Why did that thought ring so hollow?

I leaned forward, running my hands along my face, silently groaning. This wasn’t the first time I’d been placed on guard duty. If this was anything like what Viper felt when we were rotating guard duty on Lola, I didn’t know how he managed to hide it so well.

After a while, I’d calmed myself, and I figured I should go see how she was doing, make sure she was all right. I wouldn’t apologize for getting pissed at her—I wouldn’t. I had every right to be upset with her for hurting herself.

In two minutes, I was standing before her bedroom door. She’d closed it, probably to keep me out. I lifted a hand and knocked.

Laina answered the door within a moment, standing there with her hip cocked and an attitude on her face. She’d taken off the wig and changed into pajamas—shorts and a tank top. Her pink and blue hair was a little unkempt after being hidden away for so long.

But it was her. Multicolored as it was, it was her, just as the self-inflicted wound was on her left hand.

“What do you want?” she asked, glaring up at me as if she was tough, like she could intimidate me or something. If the situation was different, I might’ve got a kick out of it. Maybe.

“I want to talk about what happened,” I said, pushing past her to get inside her room.

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