Page 11 of My Bodyguard Neighbor
"No."The word came out harder than Holly had intended."You remember how well me living at home worked out last time.”
"Forget about that. That doesn’t matter right now.This is about the Popov case, and these people don't make idle threats."
Holly blinked in shock."The Anatoli Popov trial?The arms dealer?"
She'd been avoiding news about her father for years, but that case was impossible to miss.Anatoli Popov ran an international weapons trafficking operation that had supplied guns to criminal organizations across three continents.The trial had been going on for months, and her father was the presiding judge.Why were they making a move now?
"The prosecution is pushing for life without parole.Popov's sons have been trying to find leverage to influence the outcome."
"Leverage."Holly's stomach dropped into her shoes."You mean me."
“I had thought our estrangement would have kept you off their radar, but I wasn’t completely sure. That’s why Jonah has been watching you.”
“Yeah, that was a shitty thing to do without telling me.”
“Had you taken my calls, you would have known.”
“Don’t put this on me.”
“I’m not.”Her father sighed.“I don’t want to fight. I want you to come home.”
If the case wasn’t so notorious and if she hadn’t heard a Russian accent in her intruder’s voice, she might have thought this was one of her father’s elaborate schemes to get her back under his thumb.
"I don’t want to live with you," Holly said, even as her words shook slightly.She had barely escaped from him last time.She’d take her chances with the Russians.She hung up.
The silence in her apartment was deafening.Jonah was staring at her like she'd lost her mind.
"That was remarkably stupid," he said finally.
"Probably."Holly shrugged, surprised by how calm she felt."But I'm sure as hell not going to let my father use this as an excuse to control me again."
"He's trying to keep you alive."
"He's trying to keep me dependent on him.There's a difference."
"What are you going to do?"
“My father hired you to protect me, right?”
He nodded.
“I guess he’s going to get his money worth, isn’t he?”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.I can protect you better in that walled fortress, he calls a home.”
"Over my dead body."
"That might be the alternative."
Holly shot him a glare that could have melted steel."Whose side are you on here?"
"Yours," he said.
"Then stop trying to ship me off to my father."
"I'm trying to keep you alive."
"And I'm trying to keep my sanity and hard won independence.”Holly zipped up her bag with more force than necessary.“There has to be a middle ground."
