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“You’re hopeless, you know that?” Melissa says with a faint edge to her voice. “You’re not as slick as you think you are,”
“What do you mean?” I ask, genuinely surprised. We were just laughing. How is she mad at me now? This is exactly why I don’t get involved.
“You’ve brought up that night several times, and you keep acting like it’s just casual. Like you’re just asking me a simple question. It’s infuriating.”
She storms out of the kitchen and heads toward her bedroom. I immediately follow her, easily catching up with my large steps. She turns on me and shoves a finger against my chest.
“I’m entitled to keep things to myself,” she says. “We’re not in a relationship. You’ve made it very clear you aren’t attracted to me in any way, so regardless of what this is”—she gestures between the two of us—“you don’t get to know my business.”
“I’m just worried about you, Melissa,” I say as calmly as I can. “Let’s review the facts. The first night we met, someone was trying to kidnap you. The other day, someone sent you a voodoo doll. You can have your secrets all you want, but I’m trying to protect you. And I can’t do that if I don’t know what I’m protecting you from. Did something happen when you two went out?”
“A guy was stalking me, okay?” she shouts, her small voice filling the entire space. “It wasn’t a big deal. That happens at clubs sometimes, guys just get overbearing. I’m sure you’ve done it on occasion.”
“This is so not about me,” I say with an eyeroll. “I would never stalk anyone, and if a woman showed me she wasn’t interested, I’d back off. Regardless, you should have told me that. It could be related somehow.”
“Or it could just be a creepy guy in a club,” she answers with the same irritated tone, though her voice is lower now. “And, by the way, I didn’t ask you to keep me under constant supervision. What, did someone hire you to protect me?”
That feels like a slap in the face. Then again, she has a point. What the hell am I doing here?
“Who would do that?” I ask, curious. “Would someone in your life pay me to protect you? Is that why you’re so upset?”
She turns on her heel and storms into her bedroom, slamming the door. There’s no closure on the conversation, and I have a feeling that’s the last I’ll see of her tonight. I sigh and plop down on the couch, putting on the news. Melissa hates watching the news, but I feel like I’m cut off from reality here. I need to know what’s going on while I’m here.
I fall asleep on my makeshift bed and wake up to the sound of Melissa banging around, angrily slamming cabinet doors as she prepares her morning coffee. One thing I do know about women is that when they’re mad, they let you know it in subversive ways. I’ve seen Abigail and Tori do similar things to Pocus and Seer, respectively. When they’re upset, they pointedly do things to show their displeasure. Melissa is definitely mad at me for last night. Meanwhile, I’m still not even sure what we were fighting about. It’s exhausting.
While she’s busy in the kitchen, I make use of the time to take a shower. This is the unspoken routine we’ve fallen into over the last few days, and I get the impression she could use the time away from me. When I emerge from the bathroom, freshly showered and dressed, she’s already gone. Shit. I grab my keys and head for the front door, where I see a sticky note at my eye level:
I don’t need a bodyguard. Lock yourself out.
Well, that’s definitive. She’s definitely angry with me. And as much as I would love to leave her alone and forget about the whole thing, there’s still a clear and present danger. I drive down to the center just to make sure she’s made it safely to work. Satisfied to see her car in the lot, I drive to the clubhouse. I haven’t been in days, but it’s time I go speak with Seer.
“It’s about time you showed up,” calls a voice as soon as I walk through the front door. I turn my head to the right and see Snake sitting in his office, furiously typing away as if he hasn’t been galivanting through Europe for the last several months.
“I could say the same to you,” I shoot back, in a bad mood after everything that’s happened in the last twelve hours.
“Bones.” Seer nods to me as he walks over from the kitchen. “I’m glad you’re here. Snake’s just been telling me something very interesting.”
“Good for him,” I grumble.
“It’s about Melissa,” Seer says gravely and my blood turns to ice. “Why don’t we sit down.”
Snake gets up and follows us into the room where we have church, a stack of files in his hand. Fuck, this can’t be good. Every possibility swims through my brain. She’s a member of the Russian mafia or she’s in witness protection. Maybe both. I don’t at all expect what Seer actually says.
“Melissa’s real name is Melissa Prudent,” he says, ripping the Band-Aid right off. “She’s Mayor Prudent’s only child.”
A peal of laughter rips through me before I can stop it.
“That can’t possibly be true,” I say. “Her last name is Anthony. I’ve seen her employment paperwork, she wouldn’t be able to use a fake name on legal documents.”
Snake hands me a thick file, but my hands are shaking too much to open it.
“Anthony is her mother’s maiden name,” Seer tells me. “It seems she had it legally changed when she was eighteen.”
“Fuck,” I say, unable to think of any other adequate words to describe exactly how angry and betrayed I feel.
I take the file with me and go back to Melissa’s place to look at it in silence. She’ll be pissed when she comes home to find me there, but I don’t really care how she feels about it now. She’s lied to me for weeks, and now things are far too complicated for me to just walk away. Her father must have dozens of powerful enemies, and if I’m not there to protect her, someone’s definitely going to hurt her. That shit wouldn’t sit right on my conscience. But I’m done caring about her in any other sense. Whatever friendship we’d built is done. All trust I had in her is shattered.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
