All Chapters of Married to my bodyguard : Chapter 71 - Chapter 75

The city smells like gasoline, rain, and secrets. After the forest, after the gunfire, after the river that tried to steal the air from my lungs, the city feels obscene in its normalcy. Neon lights flicker. Cars honk. People walk past coffee shops with their earbuds in, completely unaware that somewhere in the shadows, men are hunting me like I’m prey. Cole drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on my thigh like he’s anchoring me to this reality. His jaw is tight, eyes scanning every intersection, every rearview mirror reflection. “You’re safe here,” he says for the fifth time. I nod, but the word safe feels like a joke lately. We pull into an underground garage beneath an unassuming apartment building. It’s not luxurious, not rundown—just forgettable. The kind of place you’d never look twice at. Which, I guess, is the point. He parks and kills the engine, but neither of us moves right away. My fingers trace the veins on his hand, feeling the tension under his sk

The boardroom isn’t mine. I’m not sitting at the polished glass table with my father’s name etched into the wall. I’m not in a tailored suit with an espresso in my hand, pretending power is just another accessory. I’m barefoot on Detective Reyes’s couch, wrapped in an oversized sweater that smells faintly like Cole, watching a livestreamed emergency shareholder meeting on a burner laptop. But the room still feels like mine. Because every man and woman on that screen once smiled at me like family. And now, they’re sharpening knives. The camera angle is fixed on the head of the table. My father sits there, posture immaculate, fingers steepled, expression carved from stone. He looks exactly like the man who taught me how to ride a bike and exactly like the man who ordered my kidnapping in the same lifetime. “Volatility in the market is expected,” Richard Blake says smoothly. “Our company remains stable. This is a temporary media cycle.” One of the executives, a silver-h

The glass was meant for me. I know that now with a clarity that makes my bones ache. It was late—too late for the city to feel safe, too quiet for the penthouse to feel real. The storm outside pressed against the windows, rain stitching silver scars across the skyline. Cole had insisted on cooking, something simple and grounding after the week we’d had—evidence, Evelyn’s duplicity, my father’s shadow stretching over every conversation. He’d poured the wine himself. Red. Expensive. A bottle he’d found in the private cellar Reyes had arranged for us—security-vetted, sealed, untampered. Or so we thought. I was still in the bedroom, changing into one of his shirts—soft cotton, faintly smelling of his soap—when I heard the cork pop. I remember smiling, the absurd domesticity of it making my chest warm. We’d been living on adrenaline and paranoia. A quiet dinner felt like rebellion. When I walked into the dining area, he was already seated, rainlight spilling across his face. He look