“Family influence?”
“Local trust. Former hockey guy. Close to her family. That’s how he got access.”
My father’s breathing changed. Just slightly.
“Access,” he repeated.
I said nothing.
He understood enough.
Maybe more than enough.
“Is she safe with you tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have men at the house?”
“My team.”
“I said men, Cade.”
I almost smiled, and it felt like the strangest possible response to anything. “Some of them count.”
“Not enough.”
“No.”
“I’ll handle security.”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’m going to ask you something, and I want a direct answer.”
I stared at the back door.
“Do you love her?”
The hallway went so quiet I could hear the low hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the faint murmur of Briggs speaking to someone near the front room, the old house settling around me.
I thought about Bliss in my bed upstairs, bruised and swollen and still finding ways to make everyone laugh so we didn’t drown in what had happened to her. I thought about her hand in mine. Her lost Never. Her voice telling me she’d beentrying to say I was more than benefits. Her eyes when I told her I knew exactly where I stood with her.
There was no fear in the answer.
Only in what it meant.
“Yes,” I said. “She’s it for me.”
My father did not respond immediately.
For once, I didn’t fill the silence.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “Then we protect her like she’s family.”
The words hit me hard enough that I had to look down at the floor.
Family.
