Page 116 of Trust My Bodyguard

“And you have an hour. If you don’t come up with something, I’m blowing your brains out.”

“I can’t help you. The judge has already decided. The kids have been placed in protective custody. You lost.”

He grabs me by the hair and yanks my head back. Painfully.

I grit my teeth and trap my scream in my throat. I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me suffer.

“I never lose. Especially not with my kids. Since you took them from me, you will get them back to me.”

“I can’t—”

“Try!” He lets me go, and my head bounces back, my chin hitting my chest. “Just fucking try. Open a case. Retract your claims.”

“They were not claims. I know what I saw.”

“You don’t know shit.”

I watch him pace. A case like that could always be revisited, but I’ll never let it happen. Not as long as I have air in my lungs. Which it seems, by the gun he keeps waving around, is not very long.

Brody will probably tell me to speak differently. Assure him I’ll help him to get on his good side. But I can’t pretend. He’s a monster, and I won’t grant him the mercy of hope.

“You don’t know anything,” he mutters. He faces me, eyes twin pools of hate. “I should’ve finished you off when I had the chance. You would never have given that testimony so my children would be taken from me.”

My heart beats faster. “Excuse me?”

“It was a clean shot. How did you know just when to duck? It was so easy.”

Oh god. “You were the one who tried to kill me.”

“I didn’t try. I was going to. I almost did. I should’ve planted a bullet between the eyeballs of the woman who came out of her apartment and interrupted me. But I left. Foolish me. I’m not making the same mistake twice.”

My lips tremble as I look up at him. “W-woman?”

“Some dark-haired, old woman.”

Yolanda. She almost died because of me.

“But she’s nothing. You’re my real target.”

“You wanted me dead,” I mutter.

“We’ve already established that. Now, get to the part where I get back my kids.”

It was never my father. This new info messes with my head. Luke is innocent. Of attempted murder, at least.

“The notes. Did you send them?” I give him a stern look.

“What notes?”

“The threats you sent to my sister.”

He scoffs. “What the—why would I send threats to your sister? I hope you’re still right enough in the head to do what I need you to.”

Christopher Lawson was solely responsible for that one then. “But you trashed my apartment.”

“You weren’t there so I had to leave a message. You apparently don’t know how to take a hint and leave well enough alone.”

Cold shivers wrack my body. Iris was never a target. Chris spoke a big game but didn’t follow through. It didn’t go beyond the letters with him.

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