Elizabeth Heiter - Bodyguard With A Badge

“Yeah.” She sighed and sank back into the chair, her head dropping back and her hands going limp at her sides.

It would be easy to jump up and snatch the gun off her lap now, but he didn’t. He just waited for her to start talking.

“Stupidly, I went to my local department, where he worked.”

“That’s not stupid. It’s logical,” Andre said, even though she probably should have gone to the FBI.

“Maybe it would have made a difference if I’d done it that night, instead of waiting to see if I’d misunderstood. But by the time I finally got the courage to turn him in, he’d already set the groundwork. They were expecting me. He’d told the chief that I’d...” She flushed, her voice getting quieter as she finished, “That I’d had a miscarriage and was suffering from severe depression.”

“Did you?” Andre asked quietly, not even realizing that he’d reached out to take her hand until she lifted her head and looked at it, perplexed.

But she didn’t pull hers away. She just shook her head and continued, “No. But he said the doctor had put me on medication and I was having delusions that everyone was out to get me.”

“And they bought it?” Andre asked with disbelief. “Even when you told them specifics about the money?”

“I never got that far. I tried to talk about Dylan meeting with Harkin, but they just patted me on my head and sent me home. The chief literally patted my head, as if I was a child. And when I got home that night...” She trailed off, as a shiver visibly went through her. “Anyway, that was when I knew I had to run. And I’ve been running ever since.”

“Three years,” Andre said, doing the math from the time he remembered seeing Manning’s death in the news.

“Yeah. Twice before, he’s caught up to me, but I managed to keep running, start over yet again. I thought this time I’d finally gotten away. I should have known better. I’m never going to be free of this.”

“Everything is different now,” Andre promised her.

“How?”

“This time, you’ve got help.” Andre squeezed her hand. “We’re going to nail him to the wall for this.”

He could see hope spark in her eyes, but just as quickly, she seemed to push it down. She carefully pulled her hand free and twisted it nervously in her lap. “How? All we have is the word of two criminals who don’t even know who hired them. And me. A woman using an assumed name who’s probably got a warrant out for her arrest now, too.”

Andre’s mind warred with what to ask next—how she’d managed to get that gun off Nadia in order to earn that possible warrant or what her real name was. He should ask about the gun, since knowing her ex’s name meant he could track hers down. But somehow, the question that came out of his mouth was, “What’s your real name? It’s Mya, isn’t it?”

Her nose crinkled. “Technically, yeah. But Juliette’s my middle name. I’ve gone by Juliette most of my life.”

“Kind of a strange choice for a fake name, then,” Andre commented.

“Yeah, probably, but I’m sure Dylan expected me to use Mya and a different last name.” He must have looked confused, because she added, “He called me Mya. He was the only one who did when we met, and we were only married for a year, but over the time we knew each other, my social circle just kept shrinking, and somehow I ended up in his. So by the end, no one called me Juliette anymore.”

“Controlling,” Andre muttered.

“It’s not what you think. He wasn’t cruel or abusive or anything, just...” She seemed to search for the right word, finally settling on manipulative.

Andre thought about arguing, because her relationship with her husband sure sounded abusive—maybe not physically but definitely psychologically. But the truth was, no matter the attraction he’d felt from the second he’d met her or how he wanted to help her now, her relationship with her ex wasn’t any of his business. So instead he just said, “You wanted to reclaim the name for yourself.”

“Exactly. I wasn’t Mya Moreau anymore or Mya Keane. I was Juliette Lawson. Lawson was my grandma’s maiden name.” She fidgeted. “I got some fake documents, just enough to get me by—a driver’s license and a social security number. I knew how from hearing Dylan talk about some of his cases. Anyway, my grandma and I were close when I was little, back in England. She was my rock, so that’s why I wanted to use her name. It wasn’t until after she died that my parents sent me away to boarding school here in the US.”

He made a face.

“They weren’t bad people. They just didn’t know what to do with a kid. The boarding school was them trying to provide for me in the best way they could.” She shrugged. “I always suspected it was because of my grandma that they didn’t do it sooner. I know I should have picked a totally random name, but I didn’t think...” She flushed and trailed off.

Still, he could guess what she was going to say. She didn’t think her husband paid enough attention to what she wanted or who she was to know her grandmother’s maiden name. But he was a cop; presumably, he knew how to chase a trail.

“None of that matters now,” Andre said. “What matters is we figure out how to turn the tables on him.” He tried to keep his tone even, but he could hear the aggression in his voice when he said, “It’s time for Dylan to be the one jumping at shadows.”

She stared back at him, shadows beneath her eyes and a weary slump to her shoulders. “How are we going to do that?”

“It’s time to call in reinforcements.”

Chapter Five

These were some reinforcements.

Juliette actually had to work to keep her jaw from dropping as Andre opened the door and ushered in two men who couldn’t look more different than him. He introduced them as his brothers.

“We’re not blood related,” Cole Walker, Andre’s older brother, said.

Clearly, he’d misunderstood her gaping. Thank goodness. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but two men equally as attractive as Andre hadn’t been it.

Cole had about two inches on Andre, and with his pale skin, light blue eyes and reddish-blond hair, they were total opposites. Throw in Marcos Costa, the youngest brother, with his jet black hair and piercing bluish hazel eyes, and no one would ever pick any of them as brothers. And yet they acted more like family than anyone who shared blood with her.

And, as she’d learned in the past two minutes, they all worked in law enforcement. Andre, in the FBI; Cole, a police detective just like her ex-husband; and Marcos, a DEA agent.

Women probably saw them together at family outings and wanted to suggest a Hot Men of Law Enforcement calendar. Still, as attractive as his brothers were, it was just Andre who made her pulse jump whenever she stared at him.

Which made no sense, because they barely knew each other. Besides, she should have learned her lesson when it came to instant attraction.

“—not quite what we were expecting,” Marcos said, humor in his voice, and Juliette realized that not only had she not been paying attention, but he’d been talking to her.

“Uh, sorry,” she mumbled.

“Juliette had a long day,” Andre said, earning inscrutable glances from his brothers.

Clearly, they both wondered why he was risking his career to help her. But the family loyalty ran deep, and they walked into Andre’s living room without a word, plopping onto the chairs on either side of the couch.

“What weren’t you expecting?” Juliette asked, trying to catch up.

“You,” Marcos responded with a dimpled grin as he flung his arms over the back of the chair and got comfortable.

“Knock it off,” Andre said.

Although Juliette wasn’t quite sure what he meant, she could tell Marcos was trying not to laugh. Cole was giving him a brotherly warning look, but underneath it, he seemed amused, too.