Page 13 of Her Bossy Bodyguards

“How long doyou expect me to stay here?” I grumbled as soon as we pulled up to the cabin. We’d driven for what felt like hours and had only stopped once we were several miles into the woods, with only trees and squirrels surrounding us. Zeke and Kingston hadn’t said much to me throughout the whole trip, which only made my anxiety about the situation so much worse.

Fucking hell.

Some asshole had actually tried to fucking kidnap me.

I pulled out my phone and hastily searched through its contents, hoping to find a text or a call from Kelly. But when I didn’t see anything from her, I decided to make first contact myself, my fingers flying across the screen as I dialed her number from memory.

But before I had a chance to put the call through, Kingston’s hand was on my device.

And then he swiftly threw it right out the driver’s side window.

“Hey! What the hell!” I turned toward him, unable to hide how pissed off I was at the moment. “What did you do that for?”

“For your safety and benefit,” he replied. “Honestly, I should’ve thrown it out a lot sooner, but since we stole that piece of shit’s car, I wasn’t too worried about it. Hemightbe tracking the van we left back at the campus, but you’d be surprised how rare it is that these assholes track their own vehicles.”

“You can’t just throw my phone out the window,” I argued. “What am I supposed to do if I need to get in touch with Kelly? Or with my dad?”

“We can get in touch with them for you,” he answered with a shrug. “In fact, for the next few days, anything you need from the outside world, we’ll handle it for you.”

“For the next few days?” I scoffed. “You expect me to stay in the middle of nowhere for the next few days? What am I supposed to do about school?”

“I’m sure your professors will understand.” Kingston shrugged again. “Besides, your campus is currently off-limits anyway. No way we could let you back there without finding out who the hell was trying to kidnap you."

“Let me back there?” I cut him off. “Who the hell do you think you are? Newsflash, Kingston, you’re not the boss of me. You’re the guy my dadhired, not the other way around. And if I want to go back to campus, you’re going to take me back to campus.”

“Ah. There she is.” Zeke chuckled. “There’s Daddy’s little princess. I knew she’d come out, sooner or later.”

“Sorry, Ms. Hanson,” Kingston continued. “But you’re not going to get your way this time. No matter how big a tantrum you throw.”

“I’m not throwing a tantrum!” I shouted. “You’re just being too damn bossy.”

“Get in the cabin, Natalie,” Zeke instructed.

“No, not until you—”

“Get in the cabin,” he repeated, his words coming out like a warning.

I cursed under my breath as I pushed open the car door, soon making my way up to the cabin’s front porch.

Chapter 7

Zeke

We should’ve seen that asshole coming.

I’d only looked down for a moment, just long enough for him to make his move on Natalie, long enough for him to knock out her best friend, too. But as soon as I spotted him dragging her toward his car, my instincts kicked right in. I grabbed for the nearest weapon I could, a Glock we kept in the glove compartment strictly for emergencies.

And I called on all of my years of training to aim two bullets right at the bastard’s head.

The shots were inelegant, the handgun not made to comply with the training of a sniper, but it still did the job, just the same. I had assumed Natalie would be upset and traumatized, unsure of what to do with herself after the attack.

But I was forced to hold back my surprise.

Because it seemed like she was neither upset nor traumatized, her resolve mainly being focused on sticking around to make sure Kelly was okay. And this morning, seeing the way she protested against staying at the cabin, as if she was the one in charge, took me by surprise, too. I’d honestly been expecting her to fold like a wilting flower in the face of grave danger, but it seemed like the situation only sparked her fire.

She was so much stronger than I’d ever expected.

“What are you doing?” Natalie asked across the kitchen counter. She’d spent the rest of her morning locked up in her bedroom, only coming out to raid the fridge for something to eat for lunch. She’d apparently taken the liberty of changing out of the clothes she’d been wearing this morning, too, now sporting a black T-shirt that went all the way down to her knees.

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