Page 54 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part One
“Sampson.” Evan looked around at us all. “I’m not leaving you vulnerable because you want me to take care of some random girl you guys just picked up,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ve seen you guys do this time and time again. You find a girl to obsess over. You fuck her and two weeks later, you forget her. I am not watching her ass and leaving you vulnerable because you’re getting your dicks wet.”
I let out a surprised yell as Sampson threw a punch at Evan, but the guy was a former Marine. He was fast, and Sampson’s swing barely grazed his cheekbone, which just infuriated him more. “It’s not fucking like that.”
Evan stepped back, looking at us all with something akin to disappointment on his face. “What’s it like then? You’re passing her around like she’s a cheap bottle of beer and not a human being.”
Now it was my turn to be mad. “You’ve got it fucking wrong.”
Evan bared his teeth at me. “Explain it to me then, because you kidnap a fucking girl from a psych ward, drag her across the fucking ocean and then all fuck her. Unless I’m going blind and she wasn’t spread out on Sampson’s lap in fucking public this morning?”
“I like her,” I hissed. I’d never heard Evan speak to us like this. Normally he was completely professional, or more like a big brother—cool but firm.
“Obviously.”
Sampson cocked his head to the side, watching Evan’s face closely. “Why do you care?” he said softly, and I knew that tone. He was about to go in for the kill.
Evan swallowed hard and shrugged like he didn’t give a fuck. “She’s a nice girl.”
Sampson made a rude noise. “So were the others, but you didn’t get self-righteous over them. And don’t give me some bullshit about my safety. We both know that you’ve been giving me fucking disappointed looks since London.”
Evan pressed his lips together, but didn’t answer. We stood there in silence, the object of contention sleeping blissfully unaware in the other room. Finally, he sighed, all the posturing leaking right out of him. “She’s broken already, Sam. Anyone with two eyes can see it. She’s a good person under all that damage, and I don’t think she could survive the usual bored rich boy treatment you give women.” He paused. “When she ran away, she looked so fucking sad. Like she’d been kicked around every day of her life and didn’t know how to stand back up. It doesn’t sit right with me to just let that happen again.”
Sampson frowned. “You like-like her.”
Hendrick snorted. “What are we? Ten?”
Sampson waved him off. “Youwanther. You’re nearly a fucking decade older than her.”
A light flush touched Evan’s cheeks, but the rest of his face stayed impassive. “Just looking out for her. I’ll hire extra security for the whole group.” He turned and left, pulling out his phone as he went.
We watched him leave, and Hendrick was laughing softly beneath his breath. “He has it bad.”
Sampson shook his head. “He needs to remember his place. He can’t bitch at me about watching her back and then whine that he likes her. What could he give her anyway?”
Oh shit, now Sampson was jealous. “A normal life? One without bulletproof glass and paparazzi?” I couldn’t help but poke the bear a little bit. I’d never seen Sampson like this before; he usually was the very essence of a fucking insouciant overlord. Rarely did he get this worked up, unless someone crossed him, or it related to me and Hendrick.
“He made a good point, though.” Both Hendrick and Sampson whirled on me. “She is different, and you guys are different too when she’s around. You better figure your shit out, because if you don’t, Evan will be right. We’ll ruin her for no other reason than that we’re selfish.”
With that, I strode into Aviva’s room, stripping off to my boxers and climbing in beside her. I needed to hold her, because Sampson, Hendrick and Evan might not know how they felt, but I did. Aviva had captured something in me, and I was fairly sure it was my heart.
We were stuck in Paris for another day while Evan cobbled together another bodyguard or two. Not giving Aviva time to overthink, we hustled out of the apartment early and down to a Parisian bakery to pick up pastries that were insanely good. We sat on the grass beneath the Eiffel Tower and ate, and I watched the tension flow from Aviva’s body as I played with her hair in the sun.
Even Hendrick looked more relaxed, his hand wrapped around her ankle as he dozed. Sometimes getting out from beneath his dad’s thumb really helped. He opened one eye and looked up at me. “Maybe we should just stay here. I like Paris. I’m sure we could buy the apartment.”
Aviva snorted. “Sure, we should buy a Parisian apartment that probably costs more than the GDP of a small country, just because you like lying in the sun.”
“What makes you think you were included in that ‘we,’ Viva?”
She stiffened beneath me, and I was about to chew Drix out but Viva just gave him the stink eye. “The way you haven’t stopped touching me since we got to Paris. And you look at me with those big ‘fuck me’ eyes all the time.”
Hendrick rolled onto his hands and knees, crawling up over her body. “If anyone is giving out ‘fuck me’ eyes, Viva, it’s you.”
“You’re right,” she purred, and then bucked her hips, throwing Hendrick off balance so he rolled down the small embankment we were sitting on.
Sampson chuckled and I laughed, pulling Viva back up into my arms as Hendrick stormed back up the hill. She was laughing, crawling around my body to hide behind me. “Protect me, Otto.”
“Ha, no way. Between you two, I’m Switzerland.”
She sprung up, hurtling over Sampson’s body like a gazelle as Hendrick chased after her. When she ran behind Evan, who was sitting a little bit away, Hendrick stilled.
