Guard Me (Broken Heroes 4)

“I can’t always be hanging around your cell and I can’t keep you up here with me all the time, even though I want too. I have some burner phones down in my office. I’m going to give you one and have you keep it with you during the day.”

I pause my eyes bleeding into her as I say my next set of words,“Kitten, you have to promise you won’t call anybody but me. You need to trust me on this just like you trusted me earlier to take the pill. I have a plan to get you out of here, but if you do something that could compromise it I don’t know if I will be able to protect you, or get you out alive.”

Her eyes light up, like I’ve never seen them before.

“You can really get me out of here?”

“Yes, and I promise I will, but if someone finds out I gave you a phone we are both as good as dead. This place is a fortress… a well armed fortress. If some would alert the police of this place Rossi would know right away. He is connected, has people everywhere. He would burn this whole place down before the cops could get a strike team together. Do you understand me?” I can’t even begin to explain the importance of this to her.

“Yes I understand, but how are you going to get me out then?” She seems unsure and she should be. I don’t know yet how I’m going to do it, but I’ve already killed for her and once Rossi discovers what I’ve done he’ll have us both killed. There is no way around it.

“There is no way I can just walk you out of here, but the place the auction is at is not this heavily protected. They still have tight security but I know some people there. I can pay some guys off, call in some favors to get you out quietly, and if that doesn’t work then I’ll take you out by force. One way or another I’ll get you out of this mess and together we will go into hiding.”

“Together?” She sits up a little straighter, her eyes wide, like she doesn’t believe what I’m saying. “You said…” She stumbles over her words, “Before you said that you wouldn’t want to… keep me, even if you could.”

I clench my fists against the sheets.

“I know I said that…and it’s still true, partially.” She looks sad at my response, and I hate it. But she’s also acting like she expected more, like maybe I’d want her forever…and though the thought is appealing I’m not so sure I could keep her. She deserves better, a life where she doesn’t have to remain in the shadows.

“I can’t keep you Violet, and you wouldn’t want me anyway. There’s things about me that you wouldn’t like, and thing I can’t share. This is temporary. A means to an end. I will save you and then you’ll be rid of me, free of your own will to do as your please.”

“I just…” She starts, and averts her eyes down to the sheets, “Nevermind, you’re right. A means to an end.” There’s a bitterness to her tone but I can’t force myself to think any further into it. I can’t admit to her how I feel, or the things I want to do to her.

“Go take a shower, and I’ll go down stairs to my office and find a phone, okay?” I give her a soft smile, but she doesn’t look at me. She just moves away from the bed and towards the bathroom. All I can think as I watch her walk away is how if I could save her and keep her all to myself I would.

But I won’t subject her to a life on the run.

She’s already broken enough, and the thought of hurting her, or putting her in a position where she could be hurt again isn’t something I will let happen.

Chapter Ten

Violet

I don’t know how to feel about what Ivan told me. Freedom. A life without him. It seems like those things can’t coexist together… not anymore. Not after being locked inside this place for so many weeks. Weeks that feel like years. I try to imagine it. I couldn’t go back to my old life. I couldn’t just go home and put my sister in danger, pretending as if nothing happened. If I regain my freedom I have to live somewhere else, far away from the only family I have left. I won’t be Violet anymore, but a shell of my old self.

I’ll have to remain hidden just like Ivan will.

It should be easy for me to imagine being on my own, knowing Ivan doesn’t want me, not like I want him. I try and analyze the reasons I want him the way I do and none of them make sense. I tell myself it’s because he’s been the only sliver of light in the darkness surrounding me that makes me want him, want him in a deeper way but I’m not so sure. I think maybe it’s the fact that deep down I know he too wants me. Though the circumstances of how we’ve come together are fucked up I can see it, feel it in the way he touches me…but if he won’t admit it to himself what can I do?