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“Of course. We’ll be just fine, darling. That’s a promise.”

I didn’t even realize I asked the question out loud.

An indeterminable amount of time later—but it feels soon—there are six men in dark suits and an unmarked black van pulling up, although it’s a pedestrian area, and then the body dripping blood under his shirt is gone. So is the red smear and the puddle on the green bench, though the white concrete is a little stained.

It’s over.

It’s over.

Then why doesn’t it feel like it?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

LIV

For the first time in my life, I don’t see the parade, though I had the best seats. There’s no party later. The upper echelons of Anderia likely hate my guts now, because Callum cancels his orgy at the last minute for my sake.

It’s not until the next day that I realize what the dread coiling in my stomach is about.

Callum’s clean-up crew wiped away the incident like it never existed. There’s no report of death by knife on the news. No policeman comes to question either of us.

But someone did know the thug was coming after me today. Someone who would kick up a fuss, if only to get my attention. Blackmail me with the information.

He sent him. He sent that guy, no doubt telling him to hurt me if I didn’t comply. And maybe after I complied too, to make sure I stayed in line the next time he texted.

“My father is a problem.”

My voice is so broken. I don’t think I’ve talked all night, and most of the morning.

Callum has stayed glued to my side. He’s pulled me on his lap now, and is feeding me grapes I wouldn’t eat if he weren’t shoving them right into my mouth.

“I know,” he replies simply.

My eyes meet his, now gray and cold, as they get sometimes. I’ve always found it hot—the way they can turn to ice. Now I understand it.

He knew exactly how to kill. Quickly. Efficiently. Like someone who’d done it before.

“You’re going to kill him?” I ask.

He presses a fruit to my lips. I part them obediently.

“I don’t have to, love. He wants cash. I’ll give it to him.”

My stomach drops; that’s the last thing I want. Dad doesn’t deserve a reward for…well, anything he’s done my entire life, and certainly not yesterday.

“A substantial amount that can turn his life around, attached to a laundry list of conditions in an ironclad contract. First of all, he’ll have to leave the country.”

That’s a start, but he wasn’t there last night. He still found a way to get to me. What’s to stop him from doing it again?

I make myself nod. It’s not like I can ask Callum to killsomeone elsefor me. He was right anyway; it was self-defense—or my defense—with my aggressor. If he went to my father with the deliberate intention to kill him, it’d be an entirely different story altogether.

I can’t ask. So I don’t.

“I’m sorry you had to live through that. I thought…” He sighs. “Foolish of me, but I believed that while we were just dating, you didn’t need a security detail. You don’t have enough money, or a rank, to make you a person of interest to the wrong crowd. I never considered this. You’ll have a security detail starting tomorrow.”

Some of my dread fades.

If someone had told me before yesterday that I’d want someone to follow me around, I would have rolled my eyes so hard. But right now, it sounds amazing.