Kimberly Meter - Trusting the Bodyguard

“I called 911.”

“Okay and then what?”

“Well, I had to give a statement to the police,” she answered, but the information well trickled to a drip and she was holding on to something she didn’t want to share. “And then I went to get Jenna,” she finished, averting her eyes.

“And like I said before, I doubt he just handed her over. Plus, you’re sporting a nice bruise from someone’s fist. Let’s start with the easy stuff. Who hit you?”

Her hand went automatically to her lip and her mouth tightened.

“Was it Ruben?” Archer prompted, anger rising again at the thought of Marissa being manhandled by anyone. He forced the red-hot emotion down and focused as if she were just another victim in another case that he was assigned. “Who hit you?” he repeated, this time more forcefully.

“Not Ruben,” she answered.

“Then who?”

“His name was Manny…Ruben’s cousin.”

Archer stilled. “Was?”

Marissa swallowed hard, the telling gesture sending spikes of dread straight to his gut. He had a feeling things were about to go from bad to worse in her world and by proxy his. “What do you mean? Was?”

She looked at him, her eyes misting but she didn’t elaborate.

He stared, not quite able to believe what his brain was telling him. “Marissa…did you kill him?”

“I don’t know,” she answered in a small voice, her fingers nervously fiddling with the beer label on the bottle. She met his gaze, imploring him to believe her, save her, hell probably anything aside from hauling her into the authorities, and he wanted to curse. “It was self-defense,” she started, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I swear it. He’d attacked me and there was a struggle…”

Archer had a hard time imagining how Marissa, who stood at a petite five feet four inches tall had managed to overpower a man who was likely taller and stronger unless she’d been prepared for a fight when she walked in there. “Did you shoot him?”

She gave him a wounded look. “You know I hate guns.”

“Okay…so what’d you use?”

Marissa hesitated, clearly wishing she could refuse an answer but she knew he wouldn’t quit, so she finally relented. “A knife.”

“Something small that you could easily conceal,” he surmised and she nodded. “So you knew when you walked into that place that it might come down to someone getting hurt.”

She shook her head vigorously. “I didn’t have a plan per se, I just wanted the knife for protection. And as it happened I ended up having to use it,” she added defensively.

He sighed. “Okay, so you killed this Manny guy…”

She blinked hard. “I don’t know…he was bleeding pretty badly…but maybe he lived. Ruben keeps a doctor on staff at the compound for his own personal uses.”

“Where’d you stick him?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she whispered. “I really didn’t. But I was scared and…”

“Where, Marissa?”

She glanced down at the warm beer in her hand. “In the stomach.”

“He’s dead.”

Her head shot up, her expression crumpling.

“Unless the doctor Ruben keeps around has a surgical suite at his disposal…the guy likely bled out.”

Marissa put her beer down and dropped her head into her hands. Her shoulders shook as she silently wept. He looked away, not able to watch her pain without feeling it himself. But he was unable to stop from reaching out to her. He tried to ease her pain. “Don’t waste your tears on that scum,” he said. “I’m not saying what you did was okay but some people deserve what they get.”

What he didn’t mention was that he was privately glad to hear that the man who’d punched Marissa had taken a knife to the gut. Bleeding out from the stomach was a nasty way to die.

“I didn’t mean to kill him,” she protested, tears strangling her voice. “I just wanted to get out of there and when he hit me all I could think was ‘If I die what will happen to Jenna?’ She’s already lost so much. I couldn’t take the thought that she might lose everyone who would ever love her. Now that Mercedes is gone, I’m all she has.”

Knowing what he knew of Marissa, he sensed she was telling the truth, even if she was still skipping out on all the details.

“What was this Manny character doing with the baby?” he asked.

“He was the guard assigned to the nursery,” Marissa said, wiping at her eyes and trying to put herself back on track. “He knew I was her aunt so he let me enter. But something must’ve tipped him off that I wasn’t planning to just visit because he came back in to check and that’s when he saw me trying to climb out the window with Jenna and her diaper bag.”

“You were going to climb out a window with a baby?”

“The nursery was on the ground floor. It wasn’t like I was trying to jump from a great height. Anyway, he yanked me back inside and Jenna fell to the floor. She started screaming but before I could try to comfort her, he punched me in the face and I was seeing stars for a minute.” Marissa winced at the memory. “And then he kicked me in the ribs. Manny was always a sick bastard. He liked to inflict pain and he hated Mercedes, so when I heard he was guarding the nursery I knew I’d run out of time. I was afraid Manny might hurt Jenna because of who her mother was. But I never expected him to check on me and that was my mistake.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because…” Her cheeks started to pink and she refused to meet his gaze. That in itself made him worry. Something she’d done was more shameful to her than stabbing a guy in the gut. She squeezed her eyes shut as she answered haltingly, “Because Manny knew I’d—I’d come there at, ah, Ruben’s request.”

“Hold on. Why would you do that if you thought Ruben killed your sister?”

Tears sparkled in her eyes as she cried, “Because I knew he wanted me and if I pretended to play along…then he would let his guard down long enough for me to get out of town with Jenna.”

She’d slept with him. That’s what she wasn’t saying. What she was dancing around, too ashamed to admit. She’d slept with Ruben to save her niece. He swore under his breath. He stood and walked a short distance before Marissa’s voice at his back made him stop.

“Don’t you dare judge me,” she said, her voice hot but wounded, as well. “I did what I had to do to save her life. You don’t know what kind of people Ruben deals with. She was a novelty to him. He wanted her because she was his blood, not because he loved her. He pressured Mercedes to get an abortion and when she refused, he beat her in the hopes that she would lose the baby. You can’t tell me that’s the kind of man who would make a good father!”

“So the first option you go with is to whore yourself to a man you despise?” he said, turning slowly, anger and pain creating a toxic mixture. He was rewarded with a sharp crack across his jaw. The slap echoed in the room, the only sound between them. He deserved it but he was too angry to acknowledge it. “Feel better?” he asked, his voice tight.

Her nostrils flared ever so slightly as she said, eyes boring into him, “My sister is dead. I’m on the run from a drug lord. And the one man I thought I could count on is looking at me like I’m trash. How do you think I feel?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, which was good because he didn’t have one for her. She pushed past him and ran up the stairs.

MARISSA CUDDLED JENNA and tried to keep from sobbing. It was bad enough that she carried the stain of what she’d done like a brand on her soul but to have Archer look at her in that way…it was more than she could handle.

What had she expected? She wanted to rail at herself for being so naive and hopeful for his unquestioning support. She’d done nothing to garner that from him. She’d pushed him out of her life with the excuse that his job wasn’t conducive to the life she wanted. She’d wanted stability and quiet evenings; blessedly normal and suburban, perhaps a child or two, and a membership to the local gym. It was bad enough she had a sister who was constantly putting her on edge, she hadn’t wanted a husband who did that to her, as well.