Page 13 of Her Billionaire Protector

I leaf through the update file delivered along with the medical assistance. HPG is holding up their end of the bargain: supplies, intel, safehouse. Me, I don’t know if I’m holding it down over here, if I can keep Mia safe. While she’s unconscious, maybe.

When she wakes up, it’s another story.

I pause at the file photo of Mia’s attacker. Stefan “Iso” Mueller. Hired by Manning, the Assistant DA, his pockets lined with Harvey’s sex trafficking money, drug money. Some light local real estate fraud. Basically the same racket Harvey ran in East Greenwich.

Harvey Blagas was always a smart, slippery bastard. And here he was, not in town for two months yet and already getting some crooked lawman to do his dirty work.

Still, if it was Harvey’s assassin who’d nabbed Mia off the street, and not Manning’s loser, she’d be in an urn by now instead of sleeping in the next room.

In all my years as sheriff in East Greenwich, I’d never come close to putting Harvey away. God knows I tried. Especially after Hailey’s death. I made it my mission. And I failed.

“What are you thinking about?”

I jumped. She’d snuck up on me. Wrapped up in the shiny sheet from the bed, leaning on the doorframe of the study.

Her cheek is still swollen and bruised.

“I should have killed him. That’s what I was thinking.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “No way. It was a misunderstanding. He forgot to call and book the hours, whoever he was. That’s all.”

“You got tased, and shoved in a trunk, chained up. Forcibly drugged. Beaten.”

“Hey, some nights are rougher than others.” She shrugs a bare shoulder. “Girl’s gotta earn a living.”

Nausea rises in me, turns my stomach over. I hate it when she talks like that, about her job. But more than that, she’s lying to me. Passing off her overt kidnapping like it was all in a night’s work.

“You don’t, and you know it.” My voice betrays how angry I am. I can’t hide it.

We’ve had this discussion before. I want to support her. I’ve begged her to let me do it. No strings attached, no questions asked. I would pay any amount of money for her to quit working for Harvey. I’d give her everything, anything she wanted.

And she won’t let me.

But I’ll be damned if she doesn’t at least tell me why. Why she’s protecting Harvey, keeping close to him. Refusing to inform on him.

Hell, maybe she’s in love with him. Every fascist prick has a wife, don’t they? Maybe Mia’s aiming to be his.

Another wave of nausea hits me. And beneath it, an awful fear. I don’t see Mia clearly because I don’t want to. I’m in way over my head with her.

She gets a faraway look in her eyes. Her hand slips from the doorjamb, and I rush to her side, prop her up with one arm around her waist.

“I’m okay.”

But she’s not. She leans into me, unsteady, her footing unsure. I help her over to the little couch in the study and sither down. I force myself to go back to the desk chair, to put that distance between us.

Because we need to talk, and to do that I need to think.

And I don’t think with my brain when I’m touching her.

“The DA is ready to move on Harvey’s indictment. He’s looking for testimony. That’s why Manning got you.”

“He’s the one killing witnesses before they can make their statements?”

“Yeah. It’s Manning’s hit man, not Harvey’s. Don’t get me wrong, Harvey’s got one too. He was at the Aerie, clocking you yesterday. But Harvey’s guy’s a high-profile assassin. Imported. When he goes to work in this town, we’ll know it. Harvey doesn’t threaten privately.”

“Manning’s doing it for him,” she says.

“He’s got a good side hustle going with all that new cash Harvey sends his way. Protecting his investment.”