Page 106 of Guarding Bristol

He frowned.“Gone?”

“Missing.His wife too.”

“What?”That wasn’t possible.Nico had barely survived the surgery, and Liana was wheelchair bound.“What the hell happened?”

“We don’t know for sure, but he somehow dragged his half-dead self off the recovery room bed and out of the hospital without anyone noticing.Maybe she put him on her lap and wheeled him the hell out the back door, I don’t know.But we can’t find them, and neither can the cops or FBI.Anyway, that’s the update.Now I gotta go.Talk to you tomorrow.”

TJ lowered the phone to his lap, stunned.Bristol shuffled over behind him to wrap her arms around his chest, her warm body pressed against his back in silent comfort.He laid a hand on her forearm.

“What happened?What’s wrong?”she whispered.

He told her.

“Wow,” she said softly.“Do you have to go in?Help them find him?”

“No.I’m staying here, with you.”He turned, pulled her around and into his lap, cuddling her close.He felt so at peace with her like this.

“You okay?”she murmured, one hand rubbing between his shoulder blades.

“Yeah.”He was silent for a long moment, trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

Where would Nico go?He’d only been concerned about his wife when he’d come out of the anesthesia.It was possible he was still high on meds, but Nico was damned smart, and it had almost seemed like he’d been speaking to him in some sort of code in the recovery room.

Gotta get her help there,he’d said while staring at that cabinet on the wall with the red—

Oh, man.Oh, ofcourse.

“Europe, huh?”he murmured against Bristol’s hair, already looking forward to exploring it with her.“How do you feel about starting in Switzerland?”

Epilogue

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“It doesn’t look real.Can you believe this is real?”Bristol wanted to pinch herself.

She had always dreamed of going to Europe someday, had imagined what it would be like to experience all the different cultures, the cobbled streets of ancient towns and villages with their historic buildings.But nothing could have prepared her for this view.

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