Bishop dropped his head back. “This is happening?”
She was hesitant and didn’t know how to react. The guy was paid to slime her, but he just morphed into an okay fan. “Hi, yes. That’s me.”
“I’m, like, a huge fan. Seriously. I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
“Not a big deal.” She bit her lip, having no idea what the right response was. People played Pokémon Go, they married after meeting online, so surely they would take online money and agree to play paintball. Why would anyone think it was nefarious? Right? The guy was a college kid. This was their world… how they grew up. She tried to put herself in his shoes and understand.
“It is a big deal, El,” Bishop added, not putting himself in anyone’s shoes but his own. “It’s a big fucking deal. You, asshole, threw crap on a stranger for cash. Do you realize how screwed up that is?” He shook his head, backing up, and mumbled, “What kind of world do we live in right now?”
The kid pulled his phone from his back pocket. “Could I get a picture with you?”
“Are you shitting me?” Bishop snapped.
“Um…” She grinned uncomfortably. “It’s been a really crazy night. I’m not sure.”
Bishop pivoted to her, and his hardened jaw hung slack. “This is not okay. Do you not know that, Ella? The answer is no. No pictures.”
She tried to turn on some sort of telepathic portal between them that screamed this was her job and she was trying to figure out what the right move was. Him yelling like a protective buffoon wasn’t it. But, obviously, they didn’t have their telepathic wavelengths set up yet.
Awkwardly, Ella shifted between the two men. “He didn’t know.” Really, what she needed to do was manage how this conversation went before it ended up on a Monarch forum. Ella had one chance to control how the story would be presented to the public. “Sure, one picture would be sweet.”
“He took money to slime a stranger. He’s lucky he’s living.”
“Bishop, give me a minute.” She stepped closer to the man. “What’s your name?”
“Stan, and dude, I’m sorry.” The guy was sidling up to her for a selfie. “This is really epic. I can’t believe this is what—oh! And I was supposed to tell you good luck this weekend.”
Bishop mopped at his face with his sleeve, unsuccessfully wiping away the green smears. “Good luck?”
“I guess at the Bloggies, right?” Stan asked. “You’re up for everything.” He snapped a pic and shrugged. “It’s going to be so rad. Win everything, Ella. Win it all.”
“No, wait. That was awful. One more.” She cheesed it for another pic. “I plan to.”
“What else did he say to say?” Bishop pushed.
“That’s it.”
“Make sure to tag me, okay?” Because she wanted Tara looped in on the comments in case anything sketch was said.
“And don’t mention the sliming part,” Bishop added. “Okay?”
Ella countered Bishop’s grumbling, trying to lighten up his death-and-destruction disposition. “I’ll make sure to say something on your pic too.” Yes, she agreed that the sliming part shouldn’t be mentioned, but they were on opposite ends of the spectrum on how to make that happen.
Bishop handed Stan his card. “This is my number. If anyone gets in touch with you about this, makes you another offer, follows up, whatever, you get in touch. Deal?”
Stan nodded.
“It’s important.”
“I get it, man.”
Bishop didn’t look convinced. “It’ll keep her from pressing charges.”
“Bishop!”
“Hey!” Stan balked. “I said I was sorry.”
“And give me your phone now.”
Few people in the world wouldn’t have complied given the tone of that order, but if Bishop so much as deleted a single picture from that kid’s phone, Ella would have his gonads in a jar.
Instead, Bishop punched numbers, and a moment later, his phone rang. “I have your number. My number is programmed into yours. You have my card. There’s no excuse.”
“Got it.”
Bishop eyed Stan until he apparently believed it. “Anyone contacts you about Ella, you call me. Immediately. Read me?”
“Loud and clear, officer sir.”
“Christ,” he mumbled.
“It was great to meet you, Stan,” Ella offered. “Circumstances aside.”
Bishop seemed to ignore the remainder of the conversation, instead nudging the guy to leave.
“Don’t forget to tag me.” As soon as there was enough distance between them and Stan, she turned to Bishop. “You didn’t have to be rude.”
“Are you nice and accommodating to everyone but me?” he challenged. “Because really, it’s your life. I’m the one trying to keep you in one piece.”
She walked the remaining block and headed for the door, waving to the doorman as they passed. “You need a shower and to start making your calls, I’m sure. Or I can call Agent Byrd. I’m sure she’d love to hear about my goo incident. This will go far in having my case treated seriously.” Ella rolled her eyes. “I have to make sure you don’t wind up as part of the story. Tara is going to love that.”
He trailed behind. “Don’t you think the picture was pushing it too far?”
“He wanted a picture, Bishop. An inconsequential picture.” She closed her eyes, recounting the entire scene. “And you pulled a gun on him.”
Slamming to a stop, he glared at the front entryway as though it was a danger zone. “We rounded a corner, and a lunatic was waiting, ready to come at you.”
“It was a water balloon filled with gunk.”
Bishop closed the distance, towering over her. “Do you think I had time to process what was in his hand?” Even with a sheen of drying green film over his skin and clothes, his serious attitude was inescapable. “Action, reaction. Incoming assault? You bet your ass I was prepared to defend what was mine to protect.”
His to protect?
Bishop took her hand, lifting her wrist, inspecting her arm, turning it enough to see that her elbow had been scraped. “I’m sorry that I manhandled you.” For as angry as his lecture had been, his fingertips were feather light. “I had to get between you and the unknown.”
He didn’t think, simply put himself in the line of danger. Talk about perspective. Gone was the embarrassment from kissing him and the adrenaline from the ambush. Emotionally tapped, all she could manage was, “Thanks.”
Had she said that yet? Had she said it enough?
“I have to keep you safe,” Bishop whispered. “It’s what I do, Ella.”
A waterless, legless lightness ran through her. Each breath, each thought reminded her that his sacrifice was on a level of selflessness that she didn’t deserve.
Wow.
Bishop was ready to give so much when she deserved so little. Served her right for being aroused simply by the blink of his green eyes and getting nothing in return but a pity kiss.
“So…” She hated how her insides craved him. “Errands tonight are shot.”
He broke away, turning his head. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
“You can shower real quick while I wash your shirt. Your jeans seem fine. Just get it out of your hair.”
“I’m good.” Bishop took a step back, running his hand into his hair, but his fingers got stuck in the tangle of dried goo.
Ew. She made a face. “That’s disgusting. Shower. My shower doesn’t have cooties, and don’t worry, nothing I have is fruity-tooty-foo-foo. You’ll walk out, still smelling like a man. No guy-card-stealing soap, I promise.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a pain in the ass. Whatever, I don’t care. Don’t let Furry Baby and Little Kitty lick you. No telling what’s in that stuff.”
“Ella.” He threw his head back and rubbed his temples. “My point exactly. No telling what was in it. Okay. Fine.”
“All right—wait. Hold on.” Ella pulled out her keys as they passed the row of mailboxes.
> Bishop rubbed his face, and some of the dried slime flaked off like she had predicted. “You’re checking your mail?”
“It’ll take two seconds.” She twisted the key in the box. Truth was, she wanted to check her mail, needing to find some junk mail to be preoccupied with. But that wasn’t something she would loop him in on. “Cool your jets, Muscles.”
“Nice place you have here, by the way, excluding the slime-throwing asshole.” Bishop brushed past her in the hallway after she had collected the mail. He led the way to the elevators as though he had been in her building a thousand times. “A little overly modern. Even the mailboxes are… artful.”
They didn’t look like mailboxes, more like a piece of seamless metal that opened.
“What’s your place like?” Junk mail! She knew she would have it, despite the amount of times she requested off lists. “Look, this is all unneeded stuff. I need something to be upset about besides me. Do you know how many times I’ve told companies not to do this? How many trees didn’t need to die so I wouldn’t have to recycle it?”
“You do have a focus,” he mumbled.
She shuffled through the papers and envelopes. “Bills, bills, more bills. All of this stuff is on direct debit for a reason. I don’t want the mail. But no, they have to mail me to say they’ve been paid.”
There was a flyer for a Chinese take-out place she would likely never eat at, and—oh, something interesting. An envelope addressed to her, and it was on stationary. Her parents traveled the world—that was where she’d picked up her nomad gene—and treasures and notes came from them in the mail. Even when she’d been a little girl, they’d traveled and sent her letters and gifts, things she’d always treasured.
“Scoot boots, babe.”
“I’m coming.” She shuffled the envelope to the front of her pile as she walked in front of Bishop. “My building, thank you very much. I can call my own elevator.”
She punched the button. The elevator came quickly, and the doors opened.
“Then you should walk faster.” He snagged the Chinese food menu she had mentally labeled for the recycling bin. “This might come in handy if I keep hanging in these parts.”
That was a nice thought—him hanging around, making himself at home—and Ella grinned as they walked inside the elevator. “If you insist. One day, we can talk about how animals are treated.” She tore the envelope open, and pulled out the homemade card. As she opened it, something struck her as wrong. Homemade? Her mom didn’t do homemade. “And there are ethical options, free… range…”
Confetti scattered to the ground.
Not confetti. Dime-sized cutouts of her face interspersed with circular cutouts of graphically mutilated animals. Her stomach dropped as she jumped back. “Oh, God.”
“What the…” Bishop dropped forward as she pushed back to the elevator wall, letting it catch her.
Vomit teased the back of her throat, and watery acid coated her tongue. There was so much violence and blood captured in the bite-size photos scattered on the floor. Ella’s weak grip slipped from the railing, and she slumped, her weak knees propped against the wall. “It’s… that’s me mixed in there.”
When she leaned closer, she saw that the eyes had been poked from each of her pictures.
“I’m going to be sick.” Surrounded by the grotesque images, she couldn’t understand why her eyes had been gouged out, why there was such depravity, or why people had done such horrific things and taken the time for pictures. She collapsed, bile slushing in her stomach.
Eyes closed, crying maybe, hyperventilating for sure, Ella felt Bishop’s powerful arms scooping her off the floor as the elevator stopped. He pressed the Stop Elevator button so the door would stay open, then he took off. Down the hall they went, him cradling her to his chest. She hadn’t been sick, but her entire body had gone numb, except for the tears. They flowed freely. “Where were my eyes? And why was there so much blood?”
He didn’t answer. At her door, he dropped to his knee, supporting her against the wall, still clinging her to his chest as he went through her purse. With her keys in hand, he unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, and moved through her unit before placing her on the couch. “Ella, I’ll be back in two minutes. Don’t answer the door for anyone but me.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Bishop had the phone pressed to his ear. With each ring, he wanted to rip apart a man he didn’t know. Heaven help the bastard, because when Bishop got his hands on the man, it would be game over.
The elevator doors remained wide open, and Ella’s confetti face covered the floor.
“Someone’s going to pay.” He wanted to punch the wall and crush his phone. Screw that. Bishop wanted to hunt. He wanted to scour the green, green earth that Ella so desperately wanted to protect. But for the moment, he waited for somebody at Titan HQ to answer the phone.
An automated voice picked up, irritatingly offering a variety of options. He punched the one that would process this headache and return the most amount of intel in record speed.
Parker answered. “Whatcha got for me, buddy?”
“A problem.” Bishop seethed, staring at the cutouts. “The police aren’t doing anything. The FBI isn’t doing a damn thing. And I don’t know what to do. I can’t protect her from her goddamn mail.”
“Whoa, all right. Slow down, man. What’s going on?”
Bishop couldn’t slow his roll. This wasn’t bodyguard work. This was personal, for both Ella, and for him. A complete mindfuck. “I can save her from bullets. I can take out fuckers with slime bombs. I can do a whole hell of a lot. This is…” He stared at the tortured animal and eyeless pictures. “It’s fucked up.”
“Start with what’s happening.”
Bishop took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Parker, man. Ella opened her mail, and confetti made out of her face and dead animals fell out of the envelope.”
“Damn.”
“The eyes have been gouged. The animals…” Bishop dropped to a knee, and his stomach turned. “Sick stuff. That’s not the kind of thing I can protect her from; that’s the kind of thing that law enforcement, the investigators have to find the fucker for. To make this stop.”
Parker blew deep into the phone. “Shit.”
“It came right after someone tried to throw crap at her.” Bishop pulled his phone from his ear and quickly snapped a few pictures, texting them to Parker’s cell phone. “Check your phone. It’s messed up. She’s in a bad place, and this isn’t helping.”
Immediately, Parker whistled. “That’s screwed up.”
“Can you pull the video surveillance outside her building? You’ll get the incident before we came inside. Then send it over to her FBI POC?” And if her point of contact didn’t have a fire lit under his ass after two instances, Bishop wanted heads to roll.
“Yeah, right now. We’ll get them out there ASAP.”
“What do we have on the stalker?” Bishop pushed.
“Nothing, man. We’re not an investigative arm. Whatever we see, we’re sending their way.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“We’re not contracted for it.” Parker sighed. “She’s got you and Locke to keep her safe. FBI’ll figure it out. Hang tight a minute.”
Bishop stared at the mindscrew on the floor; his rage only building.
A minute later, Parker came back on the phone. “All right, wait there. Someone from the Bureau will be there ASAP.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll relay it to Rocco too. Call back if you need anything.”
Bishop ended the call and called Ella.
She answered on the first ring. “Caught the bad guy?”
He shut his eyes, wishing like hell he could tell her yes. “Hang tight. I’m going to call your doorman and wait for the crime scene team to arrive.”
Her good-bye was soft and sad, a gut shot that made him hurt. The FBI techs arrived thirty minutes later, which was apparently the
ir version of ASAP. It was probably a reasonable amount of time. He was just being a dick.
Bishop stood back and watched them process the scene, then ground his teeth after he led them to Ella’s unit and watched two damn good investigators do their job. An hour and a half later, all statements had been given and all signs of the mail were gone.
What an awful damn night.
Except for kissing her. That’d damn near been a career highlight.
Ella had curled onto the couch with FB and LK, which is what he’d decided to call her dog and kitten.
“Rough night.” Bishop sat on the opposite end of the couch and listened to the kitten purr. “Need anything?”
“I should probably call Tara.”
He rolled his bottom lip into his mouth, keeping his disagreement to himself. To Ella’s credit, she hadn’t broadcast the night’s troubles to the world.
“She’s pissed I went silent tonight.”
He turned, ready to change his stance on keeping quiet. “She told you that?”
“No. I just know. No time to go quiet. But I’m sure she had things scheduled, or posted something on my behalf. So it’s fine.”
“Good. That’s her job.” Ella trusted everybody. She trusted her team. Tara, he hadn’t met, and Jay, he didn’t get a good read on. Bishop didn’t trust any of them, and hell, right now, he blamed each and every one of them for letting this situation spiral.
They were all at fault. Ella had put herself in this predicament, surrounding herself with crazy people and a team that couldn’t see logic or reason. Her life was documented on the Internet—her condo, where she ate breakfast, where she went out to dinner. She showed people how she dressed and where she went on almost a twenty-four-hour basis. It wasn’t safe. Was it a big surprise that someone had found her home mailing address?
“Tara is…” A piranha. Or a leech. Actually, much more like a leech.
Bishop wanted to see her face when she learned about this latest incident. Would she be excited that it was newsworthy, which would mean bigger ratings?
Yeah, Bishop wanted to talk to the FBI and see what they thought about little Miss Tara, the publicist. For that matter, he wanted to talk to them and see what they thought about Jay. He wanted access to the investigative file. He wanted to be read-in on everything. This was too close to home. This was too close to his girl—or someone who used to be his girl. She was somebody he cared for, regardless. Somebody he worked for. Someone he had just kissed.
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