by Alexis Leia
When his brain had started working again after she left, he remembered to call Emmet to warn him Selene was coming back. The cop had already been familiar with that, assuring Chris he’d pick her up himself and watch over her. That did nothing to soothe Chris’s nerves about her being in danger of whatever psycho was after her, so he insisted to send some security personnel of his own. Emmet had reluctantly agreed before warning him to stay away. He said it was Selene’s choice, and she made it clear she didn’t want him in her life anymore. To give credit to the cop, he hadn’t sounded overly enthusiastic about it, like Chris had presumed he would. He even promised he would keep Chris informed about everything that went down.
Every fiber in Chris’s being urged him to go back to Mountainview and keep a close watch on Selene himself, but he knew she wouldn’t have him. Instead, he spent his days asking for intel from his security guys that were stationed in Mountainview, annoying Emmet with info requests, and replaying that tape of Selene’s interview when she had won the election. He stopped counting after he watched it for the fiftieth time. And that was it, it was official – he finally lost his mind. Christopher Ledford, a dangerous, tough and relentless businessman finally snapped, not under the pressure of business, but from heartbreak. He was afraid he would never get better.
Currently, his lame ass was on the couch, he was wearing only a pair of shorts, his twenty-day beard in full growth, boxes of pizza and empty soda cans scattered all around the living room. He was staring out the window, the interview playing on TV. He paused it at the exact moment Selene smiled at the camera, her eyes twinkling with happiness. Every bone in his body turned masochistic, and he knew if he didn’t stop torturing himself pretty soon, he was going to lose his mind for real.
A knock on the door caught his attention, but not enough for him to get up and see to whoever it was. The knocking continued and he buried his head in the pillow, completely ignoring it. When it stopped, he sighed in relief, knowing he postponed facing reality for a little while. At least that’s what he thought.
“Holy shit, dude. What have you done to yourself?” Jackson’s shocked voice snapped him out of his daydreaming, making him get up in such a speed he didn’t know he possessed.
“How the hell did you get in?” Chris asked him.
“Picking locks is my specialty. What the hell is wrong with you? Jesus, this place is a mess”, Jacks said, disgust displayed on his face as he stepped around the garbage.
“Just go. Leave me alone”, Chris said and sat back on the couch, leaning his head and closing his eyes.
Jackson sat opposite of him on the couch and stared at his best friend, who looked like shit.
“So, this is a post-breakup reaction?” he asked Chris.
“This is you, messing with none of your business”, Chris answered in a disinterested voice.
“Cut the shit, man! Look at you, for God’s sake. I’ve never seen you suffer this much”, Jacks snapped.
Chris inhaled sharply, giving credit to Jacks for scoring the perfect guess; he was suffering.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“Yeah? What was I supposed to do? Let you suffocate in your own trash? Look at this shit, man. This is not normal”, Jackson scolded him some more.
Chris remained silent, having no strength to fight him.
“Have you even thought about why you feel this way. Huh, idiot?” Jacks kept on going, throwing a pillow at Chris.
Chris’s eyes snapped open and he pressed his lips together.
“Goddamn, Chris. I was waiting for you to realize it, but you’re obviously a real dumb asshole. You love her”, Jacks said, emphasizing the last three words.
His frozen heart sped up and he gave up on keeping his defenses; the walls around his heart crumbled down and disappeared in a cloud of dust.
“Yeah, I love her”, he admitted, for the first time saying the words out loud.
“Then what the fuck are you still doing here? Go after her!” Jackson yelled.
Chris let out a bitter laugh, putting his arms on his knees as he stared at his best friend.
“It’s over. She changed her number, she ran away from me, ending this, ending us forever like she said she would. She doesn’t want me anymore.”
“Since when do you care about what people want and don’t want? She loves you and you gave up on her, because you were a slow, stupid bastard, too deep in your own self-pity to see what you had with her. It’s time for you to get up and make that right, no bullshit this time”, Jacks said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.
“Even if I tried, I don’t know how to make everything right. It’s one thing admitting you love someone, and completely other making them feel loved. Jackson, I don’t know how to love. I don’t know how to show it, and Selene doesn’t deserve someone with half a heart”, Chris explained, on the edge of despair.
“The way it sounds to me is you have half a brain. You’ve spent the last twenty years of your life grieving over the remnants of your childhood, over what you used to have, and the consequences the loss had left on you. You let yourself be convinced in the biggest lie in the universe, that you’re undeserving of love. Dude, you took the easy road”, Jackson elaborated, sounding frustrated.
“I took the easy road?” Chris shouted. “You don’t know how it feels like, growing up happy and loved, until one moment they take everything away from you! You don’t fucking know how it feels like to lose every single person that has ever meant anything to you, even all the damn foster parents who gave you a slither of care and it was enough for you to start hoping!” Chris’s voice was now booming, his body tense as he watched fury cloud over Jackson’s features.
“And you can’t possibly know how it feels to watch the love of your life walk out on you, because you were too fucking scared to keep her, because sooner or later she would leave you too. By hew own volition or not, she would have left me anyways”, all his rage suddenly vanished and he sat down weakly.
“I would rather be alone than have something only to lose it, Jacks.”
Jackson sat next to him, his anger also subdued. “And this is better? Living one day to another, dedicating yourself to business only, sleeping with random women, and despising all of it? Spending your life just resenting your past and blocking it? Suffering over a woman who, despite everything you’ve done to her, came back to you over and over again?”
He shook his head. “I guess you’re right. You don’t deserve her, if you’re unwilling to change. You didn’t heal, Chris. You just buried everything deep down, and sooner or later it is going to come back up to choke you. Why haven’t you gone to the cemetery in twenty years?”
Chris’s head snapped back, as if Jackson had slapped him.
“Don’t mention her. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Jackson stood up and started yelling, letting all of his rage out on his best friend, who was too blind to see the truth. “You think I don’t know what loss is?! You think I’m living the high life, completely untouched by the harsh reality?! Don’t you fucking forget who took you in when you had nowhere to go. Don’t forget why I did that, you self-centered asshole. My family might still be alive, but I’m dead to them. I know abandonment, and I know pain”, his voice cracked, his eyes filling with tears. Not the manliest of moments between two adult men, but the conversation was long overdue.
“You have the chance to live again, but you’re throwing it away, acting like a pussy. Whenever I proposed therapy to help you deal with your shit, you shut me down. Whenever I told you you wouldn’t have to do it alone, you told me to fuck off. This time I won’t back off and watch you throw your life away, just because you’re fucking afraid!”
Chris stared long at his best friend, his only backbone in the past decade, and he only saw determination on his face. Jackson wasn’t going to let it go. He wasn’t going to let him fall into the deep hole of despair again.
“I’m fucking terrified”, Chris admitted, which made Jacks
on laugh bitterly.
“We’re all terrified, man. Of one thing or another. It’s just a matter of making peace with it. Yeah, Selene might leave you again, in more ways than one. But isn’t it the risk you’re willing to take?”
“I’d die for her”, Chris simply said.
“You already are”, Jackson spread his arms, making Chris take in the chaos he had created in the past month.
His gaze fell on Selene’s green scarf, and he took a deep breath, determination slowly creeping up into his mind again.
“I never forgot who took me in and why. I know you, brother. I’m sorry for repeatedly shutting you out. Let me make it up to you.”
Jackson groaned in frustration. “I don’t need you to make it up to me, I need you to –”, he started, but Chris held up his hand, interrupting him. “Let me make it up to you by taking you with me to Mountainview. There’s a woman I need to see, and I believe you have someone to visit too.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, Jackson snorted.
Who was the blind man now? Chris thought to himself, but only smiled in response. Taking Selene’s scarf in his hand and looking at the TV screen, where her smiling face still stood, he expressed his last fear to his best friend.
“What if she’s found someone else?”
“In less than a month? I highly doubt it. Besides, if she’s suffering the way you are, she won’t even glance at other men for a long time. She loves you a lot, man. It’s as clear as day”, Jackson explained.
Chris exhaled loudly and started giving out directions, which was something he was good at.
“Book us a flight to Denver. We’re leaving today”, he said and made his way to the bathroom to take a first shower in... he couldn’t remember, disgusted by himself. He should’ve fought for Selene immediately instead of giving up like a coward.
“It’s December 21st, man. I think all the flights are booked”, Jacks said.
Chris turned around and raised his eyebrow.
“Never heard of a private jet?”
Jackson slowly grinned and retrieved his phone from his pocket.
“Glad to see my dumb best friend is back. Are you sure you want me to come with you?” Jackson asked.
“I’m going to need someone to keep Annie away from me”, Chris said wryly, knowing that little witch would try to hurt him the moment he stepped his foot in Mountainview.
Jackson stood still for a second before wincing as he imagined what Annie might do.
“Riiight. I’m on it”, he said and started dialing the airports.
Less than two hours later, they took an afternoon flight on a private jet, on their way to Denver.
Chris was sitting in the comfortable cabin, sipping his whisky, looking better than he felt. But once they reached Mountainview, he would stop at nothing to win back the love of his life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Emmet watched his best friend give the performance of her life. She deserved an Oscar, and he couldn’t be prouder. Standing at the podium of the Community Center, she gave a speech to the residents and the press, describing Mountainview’s upcoming project in detail. At the same time, she looked professional and unconcerned about what was going on in her personal life, and that was a noteworthy mask.
In the past month, she had managed to get a multitude of investors interested in the project, who lined up to be a part of it. She had been working like a machine, almost robotically. That would’ve concerned Emmet if her focus wasn’t so sharp, not only on the project, but on catching the attacker. They were getting closer as the mystery figure became more impatient. The calls and letters had started again, the very day Selene returned, and they were keeping a close watch. It was more of an undercover thing, to Selene’s insistence. She believed the attacker would more likely show themselves if they believed she was unprotected and didn’t take the case seriously. Emmet’s gut was telling him the same thing.
But there was something very few people knew: at all times, there was someone armed with Selene. Annie was familiar with the situation, which was why she insisted on moving back into their house to present a false normalcy, which could further encourage the person behind the threats. Few select, trustworthy officers were stationed near their house, and the men Chris had sent from Los Angeles actually lived with the girls. At first, Emmet had been suspicious of the additional security personnel, but Chris had insisted so much, he left him no choice but to take them in. Luckily, they were really, really good. Ex Marines turned private security officers, they had the skills and the instinct necessary to protect people in danger. Ledford knew exactly what he was doing when he sent the two serious men, who were at the Community Center as well, blending in perfectly.
It was one of the reasons behind Emmet’s heightened concern for Selene; except that first day when she got back, Chris was a forbidden topic. She had fallen apart in his and Annie’s arms, explaining shortly what went down in Los Angeles. Now, he would have been seriously enraged if Chris hadn’t called every single day to check up on her. And it wasn’t out of false concern or guilt. Each time he called he sounded like a shell of a man he used to be, his despair so evident, even Emmet noticed. That itself spoke volumes, because he didn’t even know the guy that well. He once asked Ledford why he wouldn’t show, given all that was going on, but the man courtly explained it was Selene’s decision, which he had promised to respect. All he could do, he had said, was help out as much as he could without disrespecting Selene. That’s exactly why Emmet couldn’t be mad at the guy. For a guy with a God complex, Chris showed a great deal of restraint, just because he thought it would be best for the woman he cared about.
At the same time, Selene cooperated with men – Samuel and Sully – in charge of her security. When she had asked who they were, Emmet was forced to lie that they were his friends from the force a couple states away. What really had him concerned at that moment was the lack of Selene’s reaction. She had taken it as a given, not even questioning why they had hired outsourced help. She simply went with the flow, doing her job incredibly well, but retreating into her room the moment she came home.
Samuel and Sully never left her alone when she was in her house, because they anticipated the attacker to hit her home first. At work, she had civilian officers all around her, most of whom she had never even noticed. Tonight, however, everybody was there. It was her first public speech since the threats started, and they covered each and every possible scenario that could go down. To have her on stage alone, and in the spotlight, would give the offender a perfect chance to get to her, if they were at the verge of patience. That’s why Emmet had officers placed in the audience, backstage, on the exits, and in every room of the Center. His gut told him it was the night something significant might happen, and he sure as hell wouldn’t miss the opportunity to catch whoever was making Selene’s life hell.
“So, there you have it, folks. This is how Mountainview Resort is going to look when the construction is finished. I sincerely hope you like it”, she addressed the crowd, showing them a slide with 3D prints of the resort-to-be. People commented, gasped, smiled, and cheered, which made Selene smile and wink at Emmet and Annie, who sat closely to one another. She then proceeded to answer questions the residents had.
“She looks amazing out there!” Annie squealed and clapped in excitement.
“She does. She was born to do this”, Emmet commented, his attention divided between keeping an eye on the surroundings and acknowledging Annie.
“Do you really think the attacker is here?”
“Yes. It must be a local familiar with details about Selene, someone who’s following her work and personal life. I don’t think they’d miss this opportunity to feed on antagonism and rage.”
Annie growled in anger, which normally would’ve made him smile, but this time he understood her completely. “I need you to catch this guy, Emmet. I can’t deal having Surly and Burly in my house anymore. They barely talk at all!”
; Now that earned her a chuckle from Emmet. Yeah, former Marines focused on their task were a force to be reckoned with.
“They’re the best at what they do. I’ve done numerous checks, and Chris knew what he was doing when he sent them over.”
“Don’t talk about that prick, please. I don’t have it in me to tolerate the mere mention of his name”, she fumed.
“Annalise”, Emmet used her full name. “He hurt her, I know. But we have to stay out of it. We don’t know if their story is truly over, and getting too opinionated definitely won’t help Selene.”
“You weren’t the one who listened to her silent cries at night that first week. It hurts, Emmet”, Annie’s voice broke.
“I know. But as I said, there’s more to it than we know. Besides, he cares enough about her to call me every fucking day. I mean, it’s like I’m the one in a relationship with the guy.”
“Are you defending him?” Annie was full of disbelief.
“Not a chance. Just telling you to be patient and see what’s going to happen. They’re like two magnets, drawn to each other in inexplicable ways. Even when they’re over, they’re not over. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing Ledford again, which is why we have to let Selene deal with it. She’s a grown woman, and she can take care of herself”, he elaborated.
Annie merely sighed and murmured how “life would be so much better if she could make decisions for everyone” and how it sucked that Emmet “chose to be wise for the first time in his life about completely wrong things.”
Trying to convince Annie of something was virtually impossible. She had to see it to believe it, and that’s why Emmet learned to spare his nerves when it came to debates with her. The only time she actually listened to him was when it came to her and Selene’s safety, which was why he had instructed her to leave the Center when Selene finished with the speech and subsequent interviews. As the crowd slowly dissipated, Annie followed them out, and Emmet knew he couldn’t linger much longer either. The only people left were the Council members, and there were no suspicious markers evident on them.
