Page 93 of The Casualty of Us
Rosemary for remembrance.
Given by my namesake herself.
No take-backs.
Act Two
THE VIRTUE OF YOU AND ME
Chapter Twenty-Two
OPHELIA - AUGUST 2013
I stareat Talan over the kitchen island while taking my first sip of tea for the day, playing the same game we have all summer and waiting for it.
The same game I have with all of them, really.
The additional bodyguards my father mentioned before turned into a fully outfitted four-person team quicker than I could blink. One that rarely left my side these days.
Jack from London, who’s the brains of the operation. A former profiler from Scotland Yard in his mid-forties who burned out but still needs to pay his child support, apparently. Bobby from Jersey, who honestly makes me feel guilty for being a bitch sometimes because he never lets me open a door, much less walk into a room first. Mia from Florida, who I’m slightly nicer to considering that she’s a woman working in a male-dominated field, and I figure she probably puts up with enough shit on the daily. I’m also ninety-nine percent sure that she has a thing for Bobby, which he is completely oblivious to.
Then there’s Talan…the former Navy SEAL from California is the one closest to my age, surprisingly. Only twenty-six himself. He’s usually the most suspicious of them all. The one leastlikely to take me at face value and question whether I’m up to something.
Which just makes him and Ollie best friends these days.
Apparently some variation of the stupid poem the kidnapper—or stalker now, to be correct—sent me had also been left in the room that I had been kept in during the kidnapping. Which made everyone nervous enough to agree that I needed a little more security but not nervous enough to mention it to me. The actual object of his fascination.
Assholes.
He blinks at me, losing per usual with a drawn-out sigh. “So, Ophelia, what do you have in mind for the day?”
I make him wait, running my gaze over his buzzed blond head and letting him think there might be some slim reason for hope. “Hmm.” I drag the sound out before delivering blandly, “I’m feeling like a run. How about you?”
“Goddammit.” A fork clatters loudly against its plate down the island from me. “O—”
“It’s fine, Oliver.” Talan raises a hand with an asshole smile rising up to bait me. “We don’t mind Ophelia’s penchant for cardio.”
“Right,” he snorts. Loudly. “My beloved baby sister and her need for speed.” The sarcasm in his voice makes it very clear that it’s the last thing he’s buying. “How could I forget?”
I shrug, taking another sip and flicking my eyes his way. “Not my fault you don’t like that I’ve finally discovered my athleticism.”
“Right,” he scoffs, face hardening with obvious anger. “That’s what I don’t like.”
“Hmm.” I roll my eyes away from him to find Talan watching us curiously, immediately setting me on edge and making me purse my lips with a sigh. Looking down into my tea to avoidhaving to look at both of their faces for just a minute and making the ponytail swing high on my head.
Just a freaking—
“It couldn’t possibly be—”
“I swear if I hear one more—”
“Hello, my darlings.” Mine and Ollie’s words die in the air as our mother floats into the room, completely ignoring the hostility filling it while smiling at everyone. “And Talan.”
“Good morning, ma’am.”
I roll my eyes at the polite smile he gives her in return, letting the scoff that’s trying to escape out as another sigh instead. Reminding myself that I love my mother.
She’s been my only ally in all this.
