All Chapters of The Bodyguards boy : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Preston hadn't panicked once in thirty years.That fact had become something close to identity  the kind of thing people said about him at dinners he barely remembered attending. Preston Wexley doesn't rattle. He'd built an empire on that reputation as much as on the accounts hidden three shells deep, because control, real control, wasn't about what you did when things went well.It was about what people saw when things didn't.Which was why, standing at his study window at six in the morning, staring down at a garden his own security team couldn't explain, Preston made absolutely certain his hands stayed still.Behind him, the head of security shifted his weight, waiting."Say it again," Preston said, without turning."Two sets of impressions in the grass. Signs consistent with a physical struggle. No entry into the residence. Nothing taken." A pause. "We don't have a clean explanation, sir.""Then find one.""We

The tip came through Lennox's old contact inside the prison  a guard he'd once paid for small favors, back before Julian's arrest made every favor exponentially more valuable.Something changed with Ward today. He made a call. Different tone than usual. Scared, almost.Lennox read it twice before showing it to Rowan."Scared isn't a word people use about Julian," he said."No," Rowan agreed. "It isn't."They met at Rowan's apartment within the hour  Taryn arriving last, still in her work clothes, a folder tucked under one arm like she'd grabbed it on her way out the door without stopping to think."I couldn't focus at the office anyway," she said, by way of explanation, dropping the folder on the kitchen table. "Not after what happened at the estate."Rowan pulled out a chair for her without comment. The three of them settled around the table the way they had a dozen times before, except tonight felt different  

Lennox's laptop pinged three times in quick succession, then went quiet, like even the machine understood the weight of what had just landed."Rowan." Lennox's voice had changed. Flatter. Careful. "You need to see this."Rowan crossed the room already knowing it was bad. Taryn got there half a step ahead of him and stopped cold, staring at the screen like it might rearrange itself into something less true if she waited long enough.It didn't.The video was already live. Already spreading. A timestamp in the corner ticked upward in real time, view counts climbing in a way that meant this wasn't leaking it was being deployed.Cassian's voice, calm and unhurried, filled the room.Rowan's chest went tight before a single word registered."My name is Cassian Wesley," the recording said. "A year ago, the world was told I died. I let them believe it, because for a long time, it was safer than the alternative."Taryn's hand found the edge of the desk.Lennox didn't move at all."I want to te

The television in the common room wasn't supposed to be on this time of day. Julian noted that immediately noted, too, that none of the guards had bothered to turn it off, which told him more about how tonight would go than anything actually being said on screen."...disturbing new footage allegedly shows Ward Holdings' Julian Ward directly ordering the assassination attempt on Cassian Wesley..."He watched his own face fill the screen. Not a photograph. Footage. Grainy, long-lens, but unmistakably him, standing on a bridge he remembered vividly, saying words he remembered saying."It's done, right?"Julian didn't move. Didn't blink. A lifetime of controlling every visible reaction on his face held, even now, even with his own voice playing back to a room full of men who already hated him for entirely different reasons.Inside, something colder was already calculating.Recorded. Someone was there. Someone followed me.The footage cut to Marcus Kade's face captured separately, garage

Rowan hadn't sat down since the video ended.He'd meant to. Taryn had actually pulled a chair out for him at one point, gently, the way you'd nudge someone toward rest after they'd been standing too long at a hospital bedside. He'd looked at the chair, then kept pacing instead, because sitting felt like agreeing to slow down, and slowing down felt like giving grief room to catch up with him again.It had been circling all night. He could feel it, patient and enormous, waiting just outside whatever version of himself he was currently running on  the version built entirely out of next step, next step, next step  because the moment he stopped moving long enough to actually feel any of this, he wasn't sure what would be left standing."You should eat something," Taryn said, not for the first time."I'm fine.""You've said that every time I've asked, which is generally how I know you're not."He didn't answer that. He was watch