Page 68 of Breaking Matt

Understanding dawned in his features. "It's understandable."

Mark walked over to me and placed his hands on my arms, leveling our gazes.

"Try not to fixate on it." I nodded, feeling like a five-year-old who was being soothed by an adult. "Your parents think it would be better for you to move back home."

My parents' house was big, and the security was top notch.

"It would be easier to keep you safe there. A secure property with limited access is much simpler to secure than an apartment in a building with no way of restricting access."

I had been too stubborn to think about it logically, but I knew it made sense.

"Fine," I grumbled. "I'll do it."

Even I knew it hadn't just been what he'd said that had changed my mind. The possibility of seeing Matthew again was too tempting to resist. It wasn't like we could go back to having what we'd had before, but I wanted to see him even if he looked at me with nothing more than anger and hatred.

"Do you think we'll find something to tie Nick to the shooting?" I asked Mark. I didn't know if he could answer the question, but he had more experience with this type of thing than I did.

I just needed to know this would not go on forever. I had to believe there would be an end to it—an end which didn't include my death.

"I want to tell you it will be over soon, but I can't," he said optimistically despite the lack of information. "We've got some of the surveillance footage for the shooting. It isn't great but we have some guys working on it to see if we can get a better picture."

"But that will be useless unless there's a way to link him to the hit."

He nodded and released his hold on me.

"What if we can't?" I asked, feeling despondent.

If we couldn't link him with the information they had been able to obtain from Courtney's kidnapping and the attempt on my life, I really felt like it was impossible to stop him—until he made another attempt. I shuddered.

"Keep positive," Mark said. "We've got guys working on this."

I wanted to believe him so badly so I nodded my head and pushed out the negative thoughts that had been cycling through my mind.

"I'm going to call your father and make the necessary arrangements to move you to the house," he said before he turned to leave. Then he stopped and looked at me over his shoulder.

"Courtney is worried about you. Call her."

I nodded tiredly. I was nervous as I picked up my phone and contemplated what I was going to say to her. She still hadn't remembered anything about her attack, and she didn't know that being my friend was what had put her in danger.

It rang three times before she answered.

"Why haven't you called me back?" she asked, sounding annoyed.

I let out a heavy sigh, still struggling with what to tell her and what not to.

"I've been worried out of my mind," she said. "I heard Matthew got shot—and no one knows why?"

I swallowed hard. My emotions were still raw from the incident. I had hoped that she wouldn't have found out yet, but it had been a feeble hope.

"What happened?"

I let out another heavy sigh. "Someone's been making threats to my father. Some of the threats have been aimed at me."

"Oh, my God," she gasped.

"I was the target at the shooting, but Matthew pushed me out of the way," I said, leaving out the fact he was a bodyguard who had put his body in the way of the bullet as part of his job. It still hurt to talk about it. I could still feel the fear from when I had first noticed he had been shot and had seen the blood staining his shirt. I squeezed my eyes closed tightly for a moment as I rode the emotion.

"How is he?" she asked, her voice a little hoarse.