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"What are you going to do?"

"Don't worry about that. They won't make it anywhere near the house; like I said, Jake and I have a plan."

Jennifer snuggled up close to him again, breathing him in and then resting her head on his chest. "Okay, I trust you."

Mark, too, relaxed with Jennifer by his side, at ease knowing she would be careful until he dealt with the treasure goblins. Later, when this was all over ... he would tell her the whole truth.

Chapter 11 – Jennifer

The next two days were tense and quiet. Mark was gone a lot of the time, supposedly patroling the grounds in search of his would-be assailants and setting up his plan to deal with them alongside Jake. He spent a lot more time at the mansion, too, but he kept to himself, and Jennifer just tried not to think about what was going on.

Of course, Arabelle wanted to know why they couldn't leave the house, and Jennifer and Dr. Variety tried to pass it off as it just being for the best for her health. Arabelle wasn't having any of that, though, and Jennifer had to spend a lot of time just trying to make sure Arabelle didn't go outside on her own.

It would have been a lot easier to convince her had Jennifer been able to explain what was going on, but she didn't want to try explaining that her new husband's family had been killed by assassins who were after his fortune and now they wanted him, too. She didn't even want to think what Arabelle's reaction to that would have been.

Regardless, they spent several hours in the sunroom, which had large windows and fresh air, to make up for not going outside. They read what books Mark had lying around, and played chess, but Arabelle didn't seem too pleased regardless.

"I read online that there is a river in the area," Arabelle said. "It would be nice to go on a walk and see it."

"We can't right now, mom. Maybe in a few days," Jennifer said, moving her knight across the chessboard.

"Why not?"

Jennifer just shook her head, tired of trying to come up with different ways to say the same thing. She couldn't blame Arabelle for being restless; she was, too.

In response, Arabelle completely disregarded the rules and captured Jennifer's knight.

On the afternoon of day two, Arabelle went for a nap, and Jennifer went out to the kitchen in search of lunch. Jake was in there making a sandwich. With one half stuffed in his mouth, he said, "want one?"

"Sure, that would be nice," she said and leaned against the counter. The kitchen was large, the kind that should have been equipped with a whole staff, but Mark only ever had two staff members besides Jake at a time.

Now that she knew what was going on with the assassins, it made more sense why this whole place was as hidden as possible, including very few people knowing about it. Mark didn't want to put anyone else in danger for his sake.

"If I have to hear my mom complain about chess rules one more time, I'm going to go crazy," Jennifer said.

Jake gave her a sympathetic look while he prepared another sandwich. "It should only be for a few more days. We're going to put an end to this."

He spread mayo on the sandwich, and placed cheese and ham on top of it, and Jennifer watched in silence. When he finished and handed it to her, he said, "how much do you know?"

"Enough." She took the plate. "Thanks."

"I'll see if I can find something to better keep Mrs. Wright occupied. I'm sorry that you have to deal with all this, and that you can't tell her, but it's for the best."

"I know." She bit into the sandwich, chewed, swallowed. "So what's your stake in all this?"

He shrugged. "Mark is a good friend; he's helped me out when I really needed it. Zoe and I are together because of him. I couldn't leave him to deal with this all alone."

"Can you two really handle these ... assassins that are coming after him?"

"They're not as refined as you're thinking, just dangerous. They won't be slipping through the windows in the middle of night. At least, not without getting detected by our security systems. Don't worry, everything is under control."

From the way Mark and Jake both talked about what was going on, Jennifer was starting to form the impression that they were keeping something important from her. At least, besides any of their plans for dealing with the attackers. The fact that they were being attacked at all was such a strange concept to her—that wasn't the sort of thing that happened to normal people.

But she was going to trust that in a few days, this would all be over, and she could go back to her dreamlike life with Mark at her side, her mom in recovery, looking forward to a bright future.

"Anyway," she said, pushing off the counter, "I better go back to watch my mom. Don't want her running off."

Jennifer finished her sandwich on the way down the hall to the room that was now Arabelle's. She planned on just sitting on the window seat on the opposite side of her mom's bed and playing a game on her phone until her mom woke up again. But when she pushed the door open, there was no sleeping figure beneath the blankets.