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He leaves the room without a word, and Dominik decides to sit in the heavy cherry wood armchair that leers in the corner of my bedroom like a dark voyeur.
“Well, are you ready to apologize yet?”
2
DOMINIK
It’s the second day that I’ve been posted to guard Remi’s daughter, and she’s made sure to give me hell every minute since I arrived.
For starters, she’s been refusing to eat anything until she’s able to speak with her mother. Unfortunately for me, her mother lacks the constitution to converse with her due to her rampant addiction to benzodiazepines. She sleeps for the majority of her days, and when she’s awake long enough to hold a conversation, they’re typically kept with members of her staff who dry-clean her clothes.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when Remi told me that his daughter needed a bodyguard. He’d given few details about her whereabouts, and what hewaswilling to say didn’t tell me enough to answer any questions. In fact, I’d say I have more questions now than ever.
The entire day has been spent holding standoffs with her as she sits on her bed with her arms crossed like a petulant, spoiled brat. Occasionally, she’ll glance over at me, glaring as hard as she can with her bright blue eyes as if she could ever intimidate me. Something tells me that she thinks of herself as some kind of bad girl or man-eater, which I find more amusing than anything. I can tell just from looking at her that she’d wilt like a flower if I really chose to put her in her place.
“Don’t you ever eat?” she asks, breaking the three-hour long silence as she inevitably grows bored of staring at me.
“Yeah, but I don’t need to eat every four hours. I’m fine though, thank you for your concern,” I reply. “You haven’t eaten anything all day, though, and we need to change that.”
She scoffs at me, whining a little as she lies down on her back to study her bedroom ceiling. Her bedroom is still a disaster from her meltdown yesterday, and she’s lucky that it’s still warm outside for mid-September. I know Remi plans to have her windows fixed as soon as possible, but there’s no way to predict whether she’ll just break the new ones.
“Maybe I don’t need to eat either,” she replies, seething to herself.
Personally, I don’t care if she eats at all. She’s much softer and more spoiled than she realizes, and the second that she feels inconvenienced by the absence of food, she’ll start to lose her resolve.
After another hour of watching her pretend to ignore me, she gets up from her bed and grabs a heavy, large painting from the wall. I’m prepared to intervene, but not before she does something ridiculous and irresponsible enough to infuriate Remi. There’s something gratifying about watching her spiral out of control after she’s been so used to calling the shots.
The painting is clearly too heavy for her to lift, but she refuses to rethink her next move or put it down. Instead, she glares at me again, dying for an overreaction that would justify her vehement hatred of me. When I remain unmoved by her demonstration, she angrily tosses the painting through the last intact window, causing the custom frame to splinter as it hits the ground below.
“Why won’t you fucking do anything? Aren’t you going to stop me?” she says, panting from the exertion of throwing the painting.
“No, I don’t give a shit if you burn every last thing in here. All I’m supposed to do is keep you from running off and doing something stupid. Why don’t you try doing some of your homework?” I reply, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair to demonstrate my boredom.
“God! Fuck you!” she screams, searching the space in a frantic blur for anything she can use to destroy the rest of her bedroom.
As soon as she realizes that she’s already tossed every heavy blunt object out the window, she decides to tear down the curtains. When she reaches for a large shard of glass, I realize that I don’t have time to decide whether she’s actually capable of hurtingherself.I have to stop her, whether she means to slash the drapes or her own wrists.
“Put that fucking glass down,” I warn, projecting my voice in order to scare her back into her right mind. “I’m not going to play games with you. Put it down, Mika.”
She pauses, her eyes wide as her knees shake from being startled. She behaves as though she’s never been disciplined in her entire life, as if right now is the first time she’s encountered any opposition.
“I’ll walk right over there and take that from you with my bare hands if you don’t drop it,” I continue, getting up out of my chair and approaching her slowly.
As I grow closer to her, the size difference between us grows more apparent. I tower over her, at least a foot and a half taller. She’s somewhat frail, and I remember thinking to myself how weightless she felt when I threw her over my shoulder the day prior.
No wonder she feels like she has something to prove. It’s because she can’t defend herself.
I don’t have time to break down the hidden meanings of her insolent behavior right now. I have no idea if she’s ever attempted suicide, and given how irrational she’s been acting in the past twenty-four hours, I can’t chance anything.
“What are you going to do if I don’t?” she teases.
I step right up to her, glaring down at her as my shadow engulfs her tiny body. “You don’t want to find out.”
Almost immediately, she drops the glass.
With no time to waste, I grab her by both her wrists and drag her over to her bed, reaching for the cord from the curtains. Tossing her back onto her bed, I pin her to the bed frame and tie the cord around her wrists as tight as I can without cutting off her circulation.
“What the fuck! You can’t fuck tie me to my bed! You’re a sociopath!” she shrieks, kicking at me and jerking away from the cord to no avail.
