In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)

by Maya Banks

  “D-d-dad,” she stammered. “I’m in trouble.”

  Her father’s tone immediately changed. She could feel the tension vibrating through the phone as if she were standing right in front of him. She could well imagine how swiftly he’d shifted gears from thinking this was a casual call to knowing his daughter was in danger.

  “Tell me,” he clipped out. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Where are you?”

  She took a breath and related the events in as concise a manner as she could, knowing that time was of the essence. And then a horrible thought occurred to her because Derek still lay unconscious on the ground in front of her. Had she killed him?

  Holding the phone to her ear with one hand, she bent down, nearly moaning with the effort it took, and pressed her fingers into his neck to feel for a pulse. Relief coursed through her veins when she felt a strong, steady pulse against her fingertips.

  “Get in your car. Lock the doors. I’ll be there in five minutes,” her father said tersely. “If anyone and I mean anyone approaches you or you feel threatened in any manner, you get the hell out of there.”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “But Dad, what about Derek? Should I call an ambulance? I can’t just leave him here. Even if it was self-defense, I can’t leave him to die.”

  Her father’s voice was implacable, steel laced in his words. “Do as I said. I’ll be there in five minutes and I’ll take care of everything.”

  The call ended and Ari swiveled in all directions, looking to see if anyone was watching or had witnessed what had happened. Mercifully for her, Derek and his friends had hidden behind the stone enclosure that connected the parking lot to the fence surrounding the school grounds. Derek lay out of sight to anyone walking by on the sidewalk, but Ari herself was in plain view.

  Her father was right. She needed to get into her car before someone saw her standing there bleeding and came closer to investigate.

  Even though he’d tried to kill her, regret for what she’d done lay heavy on her. It went against every personal moral code to just leave him there. What if he’d suffered a serious head injury? What if he died because he wasn’t promptly taken to a hospital? No matter the kind of person he was, he didn’t deserve to die in the parking lot, alone and abandoned by his friends.

  Confident in her father’s ability to take care of the matter as he’d said he would, she shakily dialed 911 and then, in a low voice, she identified herself as a teacher at Grover Academy and reported a student lying unconscious in the teachers’ parking lot.

  Exactly four minutes later, her father’s Escalade roared into the parking lot and came to an abrupt halt beside Ari’s car. He was out and striding around to the driver’s seat of her vehicle before she could even open her door.

  When she stepped out and couldn’t control the wince when her ribs protested, her father’s face became stormy, his eyes like stone, his jaw clenched and ticking with agitation.

  “I called 911,” she said in a low voice, knowing her father wouldn’t be pleased that she hadn’t heeded his instructions. “I couldn’t just leave him there.”

  “The little bastard is fortunate he’s still out,” her father said coldly. “I’d kill him for what he did to you.” Then he put a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. “Are you all right? Are you in pain?”

  “I hurt,” she admitted. “I’m scraped up, but the kick to the ribs is what’s bothering me the most.”

  Her father’s gaze became glacial, but he bit back whatever response was burning on his lips.

  “Get in your car and follow me. If you called 911, an ambulance will be here soon and probably the police as well. I want you as far away as possible when that happens.”

  “Dad, the school has security cameras,” she said, her voice trembling.

  He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I’m already on it, honey. Now get in your car. We need to leave now.”

  She breathed out in relief. Her father would handle it. He would protect her just as he’d always protected her. She turned and hurriedly slid back into the driver’s seat, ignoring her body’s protest. They likely only had minutes until medical personnel and the authorities converged on the parking lot.

  There would be questions. She’d made the call to 911 and then left the scene. Most people would have remained, rendering aid or at least ensuring the safety of the victim until medical help arrived. And she’d have to answer for why she hadn’t done just that.

  But she had absolute faith in her father. He’d never failed her.

  She took off with a jerk as she hit the accelerator to follow her dad as he roared from the lot.

  Her father set a determined pace through traffic and she realized they were heading home—one of the many places they called home—but the place they stayed mostly during the year when she taught and her father managed his business.

  They zoomed through the security gate and it swiftly closed behind them. As soon as she pulled into the garage, her mother appeared in the doorway and she rushed over to open Ari’s door, her face a wreath of concern.

  “Be careful, darling,” her father told her mother gently. “She’s hurt.”

  “Oh Ari, what happened, sweetheart? Do you need to go to the hospital?” She turned anxiously to her husband. “Shouldn’t you have taken her straight to the hospital?”

  Gavin Rochester put a reassuring hand on his wife’s shoulder before leaning in to help Ari from the car. This time Ari was more disciplined and didn’t let her discomfort show because her mother was already verging on panic and Ari didn’t want to add to her worry.

  “There wasn’t time, Ginger. We have problems that needed to be addressed quickly. I’ve already put a call into Doctor Winstead and he’s on his way over. If he feels Ari needs to be hospitalized or that she’s seriously injured, we’ll do so discreetly in his outpatient clinic, where privacy and anonymity can be assured.”

  Ginger wrapped her arm gently around her daughter and Ari could feel her shaking in fear and agitation. In turn, she wrapped her arm around her mother’s slender frame and hugged her as tightly as the discomfort in her ribs would allow.

  “I’m okay, Mom. We have bigger problems than my injuries. I messed up.”

  As she spoke, she glanced apologetically up to her father, regret for letting him down flooding her heart.

  His expression immediately became fierce. He framed her face in his hands, turning her away from her mother, forcing her gaze to his.

  “Don’t you ever apologize or feel you’ve let me or your mother down for doing whatever it takes to protect yourself. You could have died today, Ari. If you hadn’t done what you did, your mother and I would be planning your funeral right now. This is one time I thank God for your extraordinary abilities, and for the first time, I believe there is a genuine purpose—some higher reason—for your gift. Today that gift saved the life of someone very precious to me.”

  Tears welled in Ari’s eyes at the sincerity brimming in her father’s.

  “Now let’s get you inside,” he said, urging her carefully toward the door. “I have some phone calls to make and Doctor Winstead should be here soon. Let your mother fuss over you like she’s dying to do and don’t worry about this, baby. I promise you, I’ll take care of it.”

  “I know you will, Dad,” she said in a low voice.

  FIVE

  ARI settled with a sigh into her bedroom her parents still kept for her, even though she had her own apartment—in one of the buildings her father owned, of course. It had been hard enough for her parents to let go, but her father’s tolerance only ran so far. He’d insisted she move into his building that housed upscale apartments not far from where she taught, because security was tight and he could be assured of her safety.

  It wouldn’t at all surprise her if he had a full security detail also housed in the apartment building just to keep an eye on her.

  Her mother had stood anxiously over Doctor Winstead as he examined Ari, almost as if she were a
fraid he’d miss something in his diagnosis. But other than the scrapes on her hands and knees, all she had suffered was severe bruising to her ribs; nothing was broken.

  She’d be sore and stiff for a few days, and he’d advised her to take it easy and not to overdo it, something her mother had firmly said would not be an issue, and then he’d written prescriptions for muscle relaxers and pain medication that her mother had promptly sent out to be filled and delivered within the hour.

  Talk of where they’d spend the summer hadn’t even been broached. Her father had spent the afternoon on the phone making quiet calls and she’d purposely not listened in because she didn’t want to know. Guilt still assailed her because she wasn’t a violent person. It went against her every instinct to willingly hurt another human being.

  Her father had always worried that she was too soft—like her mother—but he hadn’t worried overly much, because her mother’s sweetness was what had drawn her father to her in the first place. Her father was a hard man. Unyielding. He could be scary when crossed and yet with her mother? He was a completely different man.

  The idea of her quiet, delicate, softhearted mother being able to tame the ultimate bad boy had always been a source of amusement for Ari. And he’d often said that he thanked God that Ari hadn’t inherited any of his qualities. He didn’t believe himself a good man when in fact he was the very best sort of man.

  But Ginger brought out the best in him and who could fault a man for doing whatever it took to protect his wife and daughter from the harsh realities of life?

  Her mother had hinted on a few occasions that her father had not always been the most law-abiding man in the world but that after meeting her he vowed to change. He wanted to be better. For her. He wanted to be worthy. Of her.

  Ari thought it was terribly romantic, but at the same time her parents’ marriage had ruined her for ninety-nine percent of the male population, because she wanted what her mother had. A man who’d go to the wall for her. Who’d move heaven and earth to make her happy. To put her needs and desires above his own and to remove any threat to her.

  Which explained her lack of a social life. Her actual dates could be counted on one hand. Two hadn’t measured up to her father’s very extensive background check and weren’t men he—or she—wanted to become involved with. The others? There just wasn’t that . . . spark. The spark she saw every time her father laid eyes on his wife. How his face softened with so much love that it made her very soul ache.

  She wanted that. And she refused to settle for less even if it meant spending the rest of her life alone. Not to mention she couldn’t imagine many men who would be understanding or tolerant of her special “gift.” Hell, they’d probably run as far and as fast away as possible while making the sign of the cross.

  Who could she trust with her secrets anyway? And she refused to have a relationship steeped in secrecy and lies—even ones of omission. If she ever married, her husband would know the full truth about her and he’d accept it without reservation. Which didn’t leave her with many options.

  Not wanting to depress herself even further, she flipped on the TV as she snuggled further into bed, the effects of the medication starting to take hold and remove some of the nagging discomfort in her battered body.

  But thirty seconds later, she wished she had just gone to sleep when she saw the lead story on the local news, which would no doubt be picked up by bigger networks and by the morning would be on the major media outlets like CNN and Fox News.

  She watched in horror as a video, obviously filmed from a phone, replayed the entire confrontation in the parking lot. Damn it, but there must have been someone passing by that stopped and captured the entire whole damning scene.

  The anchor’s words were sensationalistic—of course. How one young woman, a teacher at Grover Academy, and God, they even identified her by name, had managed to fend off three attackers in the parking lot of the school.

  She knew from her father that he’d arranged for the video monitoring system for the school to be hacked into and to show the actual attack on Ari so there was no question of self-defense but the footage had cut off—an inexplicable “glitch”—when her powers became evident.

  Whoever shot this video caught the entire thing from beginning to end.

  Panic surged. Her pulse shot up and her throat closed in as anxiety viciously gripped her entire body. The medication that had eased the pain and tension was rendered useless, because the nagging ache was back with a vengeance.

  And then the anchor’s next words sent her right over the edge. The video had gone viral, with already a million YouTube hits and countless Facebook shares, and it was being picked up by the AP as everyone expressed shock and awe at what they’d witnessed.

  Everything her parents had worked so hard for in the last twenty-four years was wiped out in a single unguarded moment. She was exposed and vulnerable. Her life would be forever changed because of one self-entitled asshole who thought his parents’ money and status would allow him to coast through life unscathed.

  She scrambled out of bed, ignoring the sluggish effects of the medication and the pain that shot through her rib cage. She hurried down the hall and quietly knocked on her parents’ bedroom door. When she heard her father’s summons, she opened the door and entered, her hands shaking, her face bloodless. and Her stark fear must have shown on her face, because her mother immediately got up and hugged her and then urged her down on the end of the bed where her mother and father had been sitting up against the headboard.

  “Dad, you have to come see,” she said, wringing her hands in agitation. “I can replay it with the DVR. It’s bad. I don’t know how we can fix this now.”

  “We saw,” her father said quietly. “We leave as soon as we can get a bag packed. Tonight. We’re going to another of our residences here as a precaution since Doctor Winstead was just here just earlier. We can’t afford to be hasty in our decision, but neither do I want you exposed to the media feeding frenzy that will surely ensue. They identified you by name, and the school employees, students—past and recent—will be flooded with questions and requests for interviews by the media and even the police. Administration is going to be all over you and, honey, you need to prepare for the worst-case scenario.”

  “They’ll fire me,” Ari whispered. “I messed up. I’m so sorry, Dad. And you too, Mama. This will ruin your summer trip. It will change all our lives.”

  Her mom’s eyes filled with such staggering love that tears welled in Ari’s and she had to swallow back the knot of emotion nearly choking her. Then her mom gently wrapped her arms around her, pulling her head down to her breast as she stroked her hair as she’d done when Ari was just a little girl.

  “Baby, you are our life. You’ve always been the heart and soul of us both. Since the day you entered our lives. Never apologize for who you are. You did what you had to do. If I had been there, that little bastard would be dead right now instead of dealing with a headache,” she muttered.

  Her father tried to suppress his grin as he looked at his wife and daughter, love shining like a beacon in his eyes.

  Then he said to her mother, “Honey, go pack her a bag. She’s in no shape to do so. She’s shaking like a leaf and she took her medicine not long ago. We need to go. I’ll take care of what you and I need. Let Ari sit here and you go get her things together.”

  Her father waited until his wife left the room and then he slid out of bed, pulling on a T-shirt he’d discarded by the bed. Then he sat next to Ari on the edge of the bed and pulled her into his arms.

  “I know you’re scared, baby, but one thing you need to understand is that you and your mother are the two most important people in my world. The only people who exist in my world as far as I’m concerned and there is nothing, nothing that I won’t do to protect either of you.”

  He tipped up her chin so she looked him in the eye and could see the utter sincerity radiating from his expression.

  “We’ve always known thi
s was a possibility. We tried to protect you your entire life from just this sort of thing, but it was inevitable at some point because it’s who you are. And I can only imagine how hard it’s been for you to suppress something so integral to who you are out of fear. Fear of discovery and fear of somehow disappointing me and your mother. Let me correct something right here before this goes any further. We could not be prouder of you and who you are. And there is nothing you could ever do to disappoint us or make us love you any less. You are our only child. A blessing when we thought we’d never have a child, much less one as loving, kind and special and beautiful inside and out, as you are. So trust me to do what’s best not only for you but for me and your mother. Because you two come first with me. Always. And that will never change.”

  “I love you, Dad,” she whispered.

  He brushed a kiss over her forehead and gave her a gentle squeeze. “And I love you, baby girl. Now let me pack your mother and I a quick bag. We can always get what else we need later.”

  SIX

  BEAU Devereaux hit the pause button for the television after he’d replayed the evening news segment from the night before for his brother, Caleb, and the assembled members of their security specialist team.

  They’d lost good men to a madman who’d put Caleb and his now wife, Ramie, through hell, and they realized they needed better than what they’d considered the best in the beginning. After a thorough vetting, more men had been hired, and the new recruits had gone through extensive training headed by Dane Elliot, their head of security. He was a former Navy SEAL and all-around tough-as-nails warrior. He was partnered with Eliza Cummings, a badass in her own right. The two had been instrumental in hunting down the fucker who had tormented Ramie, though it had been Caleb who’d taken the bastard down for good.

  Zack was perhaps their most interesting addition. Beau had been drawn to him because he and Zack were alike in many ways. Quiet. Cynical. They were both content to sit back and observe, taking in their surroundings, studying quietly all the while gaining information. And neither were glory seekers. They simply got the job done.