Page 1 of The Bodyguard

CHAPTER ONE

Stockholm syndrome did not exist. At least, that was the lesson that Angela Sorenson should have taken from her therapy sessions. Her shrink said it. Google said it. Even her mother, the all-powerful senator from the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania, said it, albeit privately and in a whisper far away from the press releases and news conferences that occurred after Angela was rescued from her kidnapper; because, after all, it wouldn’t do to avoid using crucial buzzwords that polled so well and created sympathy amongst voters.

But no matter how often that supposed truth had been explained to her, Angela didn’t believe it. Here she was, wearing a bulky bulletproof vest during her weekly therapy sessions that required an escort by a bodyguard, wishing she could snap her fingers and remove the puzzling parts of her past that still gave her nightmares and tugged at her heartstrings.

“Angela?” Ibrahim, her therapist, raised his brows. “I asked if you had been reading the headlines.”

Oh, she had. Even in her highly secure cocoon that was Titan Group’s Abu Dhabi headquarters, headlines from the United States were hard to ignore—especially when they were about her. Most articles included recent photographs of Tran Pham, the man who had her abducted. Sometimes, the articles used law enforcement sketches or AI-generated composites that had been circulated when international agencies argued whether Pham even existed. Until Angela’s rescue, he’d never been photographed.

Every image of Pham bothered her. None showed him as the man she knew. He’d been grandfatherly and giving. Logically, she understood how many years of her life he had stolen. Pham, the man who asked her questions and learnedabout who she was, was different than Pham, the man who had her kidnapped and kept as a political prisoner.

Angela wondered if Ibrahim thought she was a lost cause. Maybe she was. “Well…”There’s no such thing as Stockholm Syndrome. There’s no such thing as Stockholm Syndrome. Her feelings were simply an expected emotional response to trauma. Her relationship with Pham was best described as a trauma bond. There was no diagnosis to be made, and she wasn’t supposed to let her years with Pham—years of captivity and mental abuse—define her. Easier said than done.

Ibrahim studied her. He wasn’t a fool. He had to know when she commingled the truth with what she was expected to say in the name of therapeutic progress. “Angela?”

She shifted her shoulders back and lifted her chin slightly, needing to find a minuscule level of control. “I’ve seen the headlines.”

“They’d be hard to miss.”

Angela nodded. “I don’t go searching them out, but with the trial looming…” She gestured toward the window and the busy, bustling city beyond the safe confines of Ibrahim’s office. “It’s news. International news. And even if it weren’t, my head isn’t in the sand.”

The corners of Ibrahim’s mouth rose in a way that encouraged her to continue. When that didn’t work, he pressed, “Does that worry you?”

“The news?” She gestured to her bulletproof vest. “Even if that didn’t worry me, I don Kevlar anytime I walk out of the hotel.”

“The bulletproof vest should make you feel safer.”

“No one knows where I am, yet if I leave Titan’s property, I have to have my bodyguard with me.”

“I thought you liked your bodyguard. Sawyer, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course, I like him. Who wouldn’t? He’s a good friend. But it’s overkill.”

“Jared Westin doesn’t think so.” Ibrahim tilted his head, apparently curious if Angela would counter the orders from her boss.

“Jared Westin thinks about every possible possibility and outcome, then plans for it, then plans for his plans to catch fire and burn to the ground.” All of Jared’s many, many plans made her feel safe. Bulletproof vests? Not so much.

“You’ve been wearing the vest in public for quite some time now. It’s the intensity of the news cycles that I’m more interested in. With the upcoming trial…” Ibrahim gestured. “It’s more of a reminder—”

“It’s a reminder of what I already know. I lived it. I survived it. It can’t worry me.”

Ibrahim waited.

Angela smirked. “The vest worries me. That’s what makes my head turn somersaults. Not the trial.”

“Only a few weeks are left until you testify against Pham.”

“Just like there’s only a few more weeks to wear this vest.”

His lips quirked. “And then the whole thing’s over. You will forget any of it happened. Pham will be gone. In prison. A figment of your imagination, maybe? Is that what he will become after you testify?”

Life after testifying… She hadn’t thought about it that way. Pham had stolen the latter part of her twenties and left Angela wound so tight that it was a miracle her head didn’t pop off like a bottle rocket. But Pham was the same man who knew her better than her family, who listened when she talked and spent time with her when he likely had a laundry list of to-dos just as long as either of her parents had in their busy careers. Would he feel like a ghost from the past? An illusory friend from a nightmare? “That’s a sneaky way to ask how I feel about Pham.”

“I’m not trying to be sneaky, Angela. The death threats are real. Testifying could be a paradigm shift for you. You’re treading water, and I think you’re tired of that.”

“That’s not true.”

“I’d like to see you feeling stronger about yourself before you face Pham. Wasn’t that one of the goals you wanted to work on?”

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