Chapter 9

“Did any outside party help him?” Julian asked Selena as they stared at their own copies of the blueprint of the Central Prison.
“Nope.” Selena shook her head, her long black wavyhair pulled back into a ponytail. “Any friends he’d made were inside the prison. In fact, he even escaped like a rat, through the sewer system.”
“How?” Julian asked as Selena went over the map to show him the details.
Selena was wearing her usual outfit of dark jeans paired with a black company T-shirt and a black leather jacket over it. Not only did she prefer to dress like a badass, but she was also one in real life too—even if she just appeared on a screen on his laptop like right now. No one could question her efficiency.
Now she pointed her finger, its nail painted bright red, at a cell near the back of the prison. “This is where he had been kept for the last two years. In fact, this entire area is reserved for people with the most heinous crimes. But two years without movement was a stupid decision on behalf of the prison authority. Since he’d calmed down and showed fewer signs of aggression, the authorities had thought he’d accepted his fate. But Arthur seemed to have carefully calculated eachmove. He tracked the guards’ checkin times as well as the time for meal deliveries. And then he dug up his toilet seat and made a hole big enough so he could pass through, and voila! There went out our rat. Right through the sewer systems.”
“But this isn’t as easy as it sounds,” Julian told her after carefully studying the blueprint. “The only area of the prison which has their toilets linked to the sewers is in that particular area and only those two cells have such links. It would’ve taken him a hell lot of trial and error to finally make his escape, which wouldmean he had to spend a large amount of time inside the sewers to map out his escape route. And according to the data you gave me, the guards never found him out of place when they were on rounds.”
“Exactly.” Selena smirked at him. “This is why I told you that he’d made friends inside the prison.”
“Explain.” Julian folded his arms over his chest.
“The topsecret files that I hacked into told me it was David Muller who helped him escape. He was one of the prison guards on duty at the time, and coincidentally, he too had gone missing the very same night that Arthur Stone escaped.” Selena looked at Julian. “The police have searched their houses thoroughly, but they are nowhere to be found, and since three months have already passed without a sighting, the police have almost given up on the case.”
“Well, they can’t just disappear without a trace, and from the attacks that happened on Sia, they’re clearly still in town.” Julian rubbed his hands down his face before turning to Selena. “Find out if David and Arthur have any connection. The bastard’sbroke and doesn’t have a penny to his name. We need to find out what prompted a prison guard to suddenly go dark if money wasn’t in the picture.”
With that, Julian turned off the communication on his laptop and went back to watching over Sia.

* * *

Sia regained consciousness with a start.
Her head hurt like hell. Her temples were throbbing with a headache which she knew was just making its presence felt when the events of the day came rushing back to her.
Leo!
Her eyes snapped open as she inhaled a lungful of air.
“Sia? Sia are you okay?” someone asked, worry laced every syllable.
“Leo? Where’s my Leo?” A mother asking for her child out of her deep, deep love for him, a love that made Julian’s chest hurt.
“In his room. He’s still sleeping. I checked on him just five minutes ago,” he reassured her, taking her small hand in his large ones and trying to calm her down.
It worked. Sia exhaled and relaxed back down onto the pillows, her hand tightening around his.
“Feeling any better?” he asked lightly, knowing very well that a headache was on its way.
She nodded and winced.
Julian was up in an instant, rushing around the room and looking for water and medication. He came back in less than a minute with a glass of water and two Advils. Sia took them gratefully and gulped them down in one go.
“Thank you, Julian,” she said, gripping one of his large hands in both of hers. “I wouldn’t be here right now if—”
“Don’t say that!” Julian hissed, startling Sia. “Yeah, I would like to answer by saying that this was my job and that you’re paying me for it . . . but I would be lying.” He looked at her eyes then, holding their gaze. They stared at each other like they were the only ones in the world.
Sia was scared at the way she felt for Julian. What the feeling was, she didn’t know. But she knew that it had the power to undo her, to break down every single barrier she had built for the past ten years. Worse, she had no idea if it would be worth the risk.
“I didn’t just do it as a part of my job. I just couldn’t let that bastard hurt you anymore.”It was a sincere answer without revealing too much about his own feelings because he wasn’t yet sure how he felt about her.
Sia was struck anew,both by the honesty and beauty of this man in front of her. He truly was handsome. Arthur had been intimidating not only with his whiteblond hair and deep violet eyes (something that her son had inherited from him) but also with his personality. He didn’t really want a wife; he wanted a sex slave. It caused her immense pain to even think about him, but he was a part of her past she couldn’t erase, a part that haunted her to this very day.
Julian, however, was lethal grace. Tall and built like a tank, he emitted power from miles away. She was beginning to understand why women would so willingly throw themselves at him. But that didn’t mean anything could happen between the two of them. Despite what he had just confessed, he was her bodyguard, and it was his duty to protect her. At least that’s what she kept telling herself.
The bullet!
The sudden realization had her breaking the spell between them as she looked at him carefully for any signs of injury. She noticed just how close they had gotten, their breaths almost mixing together in an intimate whisper.
She moved back a little to find that Julian had been sitting on her bed instead of the stool next to it. Surprisingly, she didn’t mind him there. She lifted her hand slowly and placed it on his shoulder lightly. Julian flinched a little, and she immediately removed her hand. “Sorry.”
Julian simply smiled down at her. “It’s all right. I was just surprised.”
He turned her attention to the clock to find that it was nearly two in the morning. “Rest now. We’ll talk later.” He got up from the bed. “I’ll ask Martha to send you some food.”
He turned to leave, but she caught his arm, her eyes panicked. “Stay with me?” she asked uncertainly.
“Of course,” he said at once, going to sit on the stool, but Sia nodded and shifted in bed, giving him some room.
Despite Julian’s heart doing stupid flips inside his chest, he asked, “Are you sure?”
It was too big a step for him, for her. But he understood that fear had taken her in a chokehold, and she was simply acting on instinct.
“Yes,” she replied a little shakily.
“All right,” he said after a while. After all, he was only human, and leaving her now could cause problems for her health.
At her nod, he took off his shoes and lay down beside her, but on top of the covers. Otherwise, it would be too big of a step, one he knew she wasn’t yet ready for.
Sia was asleep in an instant after he turned the lights off, her body heat wrapped around him like a cocoon along with the scent of fresh cherry blossoms. It was a precious moment of intimacy shared between them. For now, they would rest. But Julian knew that the dark clouds at the horizon had just started rolling towards them. This was far from over.
This was just the beginning.