Page 120 of Chalk Outline

I hoped that brief moment of happiness would last, but once we entered, reality set in and shifted her mood.

“You need a haircut,” she declares, storming out of the bathroom. Her semi-wet hair sways back and forth. Her taut nipples cut through the thin fabric of my oversized t-shirt. She moves around, folding the few clothes I left on my bed, seeming nervous and out of her element.

“You don’t need to do that right now.” I stop a few inches from her, lifting my hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“I need to keep my hands busy, and I don’t want to sketch.”

“We can go outside and shoot cans or beer bottles.”

“Do you really think putting a gun in my hand is a good idea?” she asks, resting her hands on her hips.

“Nope. Scratch that. But I don’t think scissors will help either.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

I tug her to my chest, and she melts against me, taking a deep breath to calm her racing thoughts. I stretch my ringed fingers, pull the blanket from the table behind her, and wrap it around her trembling shoulders.

My hands find every excuse to touch her, softly rubbing her back and arms in an effort to soothe the deeper wound I’m about to create.

I feel like a monster, looming over her, while being gentle because I don’t want her to see all the ugliness inside me. I tore people apart, and I fucking left her lungs as a souvenir.

Who does that?

I was so angry about leaving her and witnessing all those horrors that I can’t seem to forget because they are now part of me. And the thing is, I’m not sorry; they all deserved it. But relentless people like me made her life a nightmare.

“I have something important to tell you,” I barely push these words out; they taste like venom on my lips and do nothing to alleviate the guilt I carry inside.

She gazes up at me from beneath her long lashes. “Are you finally ready to give me some answers?”

“Yes,” I nod. “But it’s going to be hard.”

“I want to know.” The pure determination in her eyes mirrors the one she had eleven years ago when I first met her as her new bodyguard. I knew she was trouble—the kind that made me think,I’d die for her.

I gently pull back to give her some space to breathe. Running my fingers through my hair, I momentarily focus on the rain still tapping against the glass.

At least it stopped snowing.

“I was the only person your grandma trusted,” I begin. “She had hired others before me to eliminate threats, but they eventually betrayed her or took on different contracts. She always protected you. I found information that gave me a new perspective because I couldn’t understand how it related to your grandma. It was merely a vendetta against her. It was a punishment for what she did by defying an order.”

Narrowing her eyes, she asks, “Like what?”

I turn my gaze to the balcony, trying to formulate a sentence that doesn’t sound absurd. I lick my dry lips as images flash through my mind.

“Please don’t look away from me.” Her soft voice jerks me back, and my gaze returns to hers. Those eyes make me weak beyond words. All I want is to shelter them from the things I’ve seen. From the darkness that exists in this world. “I want to feel the pain with you.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and press on. “Dick, the owner of the circus I told you about, was involved in the trafficking world before I was born. He helped transport children overseas and smuggle foreign babies into the country. Your grandma…” I pause, knowing she senses my hesitation.

“Just say it, Reeve,” she encourages.

My heart skips a beat at the mention of my name.

“She devoted her life to killing criminals after her husband was killed by one, so she became a serial killer. Not a documented one. The police arrested someone else for her crimes. He was a scumbag, not innocent—if that makes you feel better. She wanted to create something bigger, and she was already working as an officer at top-secret facilities while building her secret facilities. Coming from a wealthy family, money was never an issue. She knew how to connect with the right people. She made killing criminals something authorities could ignore as long as no one knew they were still alive. That’s why she faked their deaths. Her organization doesn’t exist on paper. No one can track it down because it’s off the radar. At some point, she bumped into a ring of traffickers. Dick was one of them. She found out they had kidnapped a baby, a few months old, but the person who had her had just come from overseas a day earlier, so she made a deal with them. She tried to locate the baby’s parents but couldn’t find them because the baby wasn’t born in America; she had been taken from somewhere else. However, the kidnapper never revealed where she was from before Dick shot him. Your grandma searched for months and eventually raised her on her own.”

Endless tears fall like diamonds down her cheeks. “That baby is… me?” Her voice is choked.

“Yes, Baby.” I wipe her tears and kiss her forehead. “They were robbed of you, and then they decided to go after your grandma. They played twisted games for years. But then your grandma did it again. She saved me from the same ring. Third Eye, the man who wanted you gone, was Dick’s cousin and the chief of police. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d be dead by now. I had no skills at fifteen and no one to look out for me.”

I take a moment to absorb it all myself. It still sounds unbelievable, all because they thought it would be easy and profitable. Good business.