Page 83 of Guarded Knight

She exhales slowly. “I’ve been off socials for a long time. I stopped going on when Cameron first started getting weird, but let’s say not being on there didn’t stophimbeing weird.”

She turns her screen toward me so I can see. I lean in, peering over her shoulder.

Her inbox is a storm. Three hundred unread messages. Two hundred seventy-eight from Cameron Jenkins.

Some messages are angry. Some are pleading. Some are sick. I could grind my teeth to powder both at the audacity of this man and at myself for taking this risk.

I want to put my little Firefly in a glass jar to keep her from this sicko.

But sometimes you have to walk through hell to get what you need. And she needs her freedom back.

I run my finger down her milky thigh and sit up straighter in bed, instinct kicking in hard and fast. My protective calm gives way to something colder, and I tap into the part of me that knows how to get the job done.

Today is the day. I need to shift some of this anger, and desire, and replace it with focus.

She stares at her cell, bolts of blonde falling down and framing her face. “I guess I better write something.” But something in her tone tells me she doesn’t want to.

I hate this.

I reach out for her hand. “You…wedon’t have to do it this way.”

We don’t. We don’t have to set a trap. It was Xander’s idea. Not a bad one. I get it, a restraining order won’t do shit, and Lara doesn’t have days to waste worrying, running, hiding… least of all when she has multiple ex-SEALs in her life with a taste for vigilante justice.

“Lara… Arthur’s cabin? You don’t have to go there or text Cameron…”

“No, I want it over. I’m just thinking of the best way to phrase things in a text. To draw him out of hiding but still stay as honest as one can be anyway. In this situation…”

Lara doesn’t like lying.

But needs must.

She lets out a sharp breath. “Okay.” She types and dictates at the same time. “Hi, Cameron. I haven’t replied to your messages because I felt things are getting unhealthy on your end and I hoped that by giving you space, you might focus on yourself and sort out your mental health. I’m concerned you haven’t and feel strongly that you should get some help, because there is a perfect person out there for you, it’s just not me.”

My jaw clenches. He doesn’t deserve a single ounce of that kindness.

I want this guy locked up, not finding someone else. He’s had months’ worth of time to be a decent man and he chose otherwise.

Call me protective, possessive, or even obsessed…fuck him.

She types another email but with a different angle. “Hi, Cameron. I didn’t reply because I hoped giving you space might help you focus on yourself. But nothing’s changed. These messages have been hard on me, and I’ve moved to Echo Valley to work on myself, too. In fact, I’m on a solo art retreat tonight to reflect. Maybe you should try something like this, too. It’s time to move on.”

She sends this one.

She stares at the screen like it might crawl out of her hands and burn her. Then she sets it face down on the blanket and goes still.

I catch her hand before she can bury it under the covers.

She doesn’t look at me. “Don’t say it.”

“Say what?”

“That I should’ve told him to go to hell.”

“I wasn’t going to say that. You did good.” My grip tightens, grounding her.

She had to benice.

She stares at the wall in front of her like she’s just done something dirty.