You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

8
BRIDGET/RHYS
BRIDGET
One sec­ond, I was stand­ing. The next, I was on the ground, my
cheek pressed to the grass while Rhys shield­ed my body with his,
and screams rang out through the park.
It all hap­pened so quick­ly it took my brain sev­er­al beats to catch
up with my pound­ing pulse.
Din­ner. Park. Gun­shots. Screams.
Indi­vid­ual words that made sense on their own, but I couldn’t
string them togeth­er into a coher­ent thought.
There was anoth­er gun­shot, fol­lowed by more screams.
Above me, Rhys let out a curse so low and harsh I felt it more
than I heard it.
“On the count of three, we’re run­ning for the tree cov­er.” His
steady voice eased some of my nerves. “Got it?”
I nod­ded. My din­ner threat­ened to make a reap­pear­ance, but I
forced myself to focus. I couldn’t freak out, not when we were in full
view of the shoot­er.
I saw him now. It was so dark I couldn’t make out many details
except for his hair—longish and curly on top—and his clothes.
Sweat­shirt, jeans, sneak­ers. He looked like any of the dozens of guys
in my class­es at Thay­er, and that made him all the more ter­ri­fy­ing.
He had his back to us, look­ing down at some­thing, someone—a
victim—but he could turn around any sec­ond.
Rhys shift­ed so I could push myself onto my hands and knees,
keep­ing low as I did so. He’d drawn his gun, and the grouchy but
thought­ful man from din­ner had dis­ap­peared, replaced by a stone-
cold sol­dier.
Focused. Deter­mined. Lethal.
For the first time, I glimpsed the man he’d been in the mil­i­tary,
and a shiv­er snaked down my spine. I pitied any­one who had to face
him on the bat­tle­field.
Rhys count­ed down in the same calm voice. “One, two…three.”
I didn’t think. I ran.
Anoth­er gun­shot fired behind us, and I flinched and stum­bled
over a loose rock. Rhys grabbed my arms with firm hands, his body
still shield­ing me from behind, and guid­ed me to the thick­et of trees
at the edge of the park. We couldn’t reach the exit with­out pass­ing
direct­ly by the shoot­er, where there was no cov­er at all, so we would
have to wait until the police arrived.
They had to be here soon, right? One of the oth­er peo­ple in the
park must’ve called them by now.
Rhys pushed me down and behind a large tree.
“Wait here and do not move until I give the okay,” he ordered.
“Most of all, don’t let any­one see you.”
My heart rate spiked. “Where are you going?”
“Some­one has to stop him.”
A cold sweat broke out over my body. He couldn’t pos­si­bly be
say­ing what I thought he was say­ing.
“It doesn’t have to be you. The police—”
“It’ll be too late by the time they get here.” Rhys looked grim­mer
than I’d ever seen him. “Don’t. Move.”
And he was gone.
I watched in hor­ror as Rhys crossed the wide-open expanse of
grass toward the shoot­er, who had his gun aimed at some­one on the
ground. A bench blocked my view of who the vic­tim was, but when
I crouched low­er, I could see beneath the bench, and my hor­ror
dou­bled.
It wasn’t one per­son. It was two. A man and, judg­ing by the size
of the per­son next to him, a child.
Now I knew why Rhys had that expres­sion on his face before he
left.
Who would tar­get a child?
I pressed my fist to my mouth, fight­ing the urge to throw up.
Less than an hour ago, I’d been teas­ing Rhys over bread and wine
and think­ing of all the things I still need­ed to pack before we left for
New York. Now, I was hid­ing behind a tree in a ran­dom park,
watch­ing my body­guard run toward pos­si­ble death.
Rhys was an expe­ri­enced sol­dier and guard, but he was still hu-
man, and humans died. One minute, they were there. The next, they
were gone, leav­ing behind noth­ing more than an emp­ty, life­less shell
of the per­son they used to be.
“Sweet­heart, I’m afraid I have bad news.” My grandfather’s eyes looked
blood­shot, and I clutched my stuffed giraffe to my chest, fear spi­ral­ing
through my body. My grand­fa­ther nev­er cried. “It’s your father. There’s
been an acci­dent.”
I blinked away the mem­o­ry in time to see the man on the ground
turn his head a frac­tion of an inch. He’d spot­ted Rhys sneak­ing up
behind the shoot­er.
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the small motion was enough to tip off the gun-
man, who spun around and fired a third shot at the same time Rhys
dis­charged his gun.
A cry left my mouth.
Rhys. Shot. Rhys. Shot.
The words cycled through my brain like the world’s most hor­ri-
fying mantra.
The shoot­er crum­pled to the ground. Rhys stag­gered, but he re-
mained stand­ing.
In the dis­tance, police sirens wailed.
The entire scene, from the first shot to now, had played out in less
than ten min­utes, but ter­ror had a way of stretch­ing time out until
each sec­ond con­tained an eter­ni­ty.
Din­ner felt like years ago. Grad­u­a­tion might as well have hap-
pened in anoth­er life­time.
Instinct pro­pelled me to my feet, and I ran toward Rhys, my heart
in my throat. Please be okay.
When I reached him, he’d dis­armed the gun­man, who lay bleed-
ing and moan­ing on the ground. A few feet away, the man the shoot-
er had been tar­get­ing also lay bleed­ing, his face pale beneath the
moon­light. The child, a boy who looked about sev­en or eight, knelt
by his side, his eyes huge and ter­ri­fied as he stared at me and Rhys.
“What the hell are you doing?” Rhys bit out when he saw me.
I scanned him fran­ti­cal­ly for injuries, but he was stand­ing and
talk­ing and grumpy as ever, so he couldn’t be too hurt.
The boy, on the oth­er hand, need­ed reas­sur­ing.
I ignored Rhys’s ques­tion for now and crouched until I was eye
lev­el with the boy.
“It’s okay,” I said gen­tly. I didn’t move any clos­er, not want­i­ng to
spook him fur­ther. “We won’t hurt you.”
He clutched what I assumed was his father’s arm tighter. “Is my
dad going to die?” he asked in a small voice.
A clog of emo­tion formed in my throat. He was around my age
when my dad died, and—
Stop. This isn’t about you. Focus on the moment.
“The doc­tors will be here soon, and they’ll fix him right up.” I
hoped. The man was fad­ing in and out of con­scious­ness, and blood
oozed around him, stain­ing the boy’s sneak­ers.
Tech­ni­cal­ly, the EMTs were com­ing, not doc­tors, but I wasn’t
about to explain the dis­tinc­tion to a trau­ma­tized kid. “Doc­tors”
sound­ed more reas­sur­ing.
Rhys knelt next to me. “She’s right. The doc­tors know what
they’re doing.” He spoke in a sooth­ing voice I’d nev­er heard from
him before, and some­thing squeezed my chest. Hard. “We’ll stay
with you until they get here. How does that sound?”
The boy’s low­er lip wob­bled, but he nod­ded. “Okay.”
Before we could say any­thing else, a bright light shone on us, and
a voice blared through the park.
“Police! Put your hands up!”
RHYS
Ques­tions. Med­ical check­ups. More ques­tions, plus a few claps
on the back for being a “hero.”
The next hour test­ed my patience as noth­ing had before…except
for the damned woman in front of me.
“I told you to stay put. It was a sim­ple instruc­tion, princess,” I
growled. The sight of her run­ning toward me while the shoot­er was
still out in the open had sent more pan­ic crash­ing through me than
hav­ing a gun point­ed at my face.
It didn’t mat­ter that I’d dis­armed the shoot­er. What if he had a
sec­ond gun I’d missed?
Ter­ror raked its claws down my spine.
I could han­dle get­ting shot. I couldn’t han­dle Brid­get get­ting
hurt.
“You were shot, Mr. Larsen.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
I sat in the back of an open ambu­lance while she stood before me,
stub­born as ever. “You’d already neu­tral­ized the gun­man, and I
thought you were going to die.”
Her voice wob­bled at the end, and my anger dis­si­pat­ed.
Oth­er than my Navy bud­dies, I couldn’t remem­ber the last time
any­one real­ly cared about whether I lived or died. But Brid­get did,
for some unknown rea­son, and it wasn’t just because I was her body-
guard. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in the faint waver of her usu-
ally cool, crisp voice.
And I’d be damned if the knowl­edge didn’t hit me hard­er than a
bul­let to the chest.
“I’m fine. Bul­let grazed me, is all. Didn’t even go under the skin.”
The EMTs had ban­daged me up, and I’d be good as new in two or
three weeks.
The shoot­er had been sur­prised and fired using instinct, not aim.
A quick dodge and I’d escaped what would’ve been a much nas­ti­er
wound to my shoul­der.
The police had hauled him into med­ical cus­tody. They were still
inves­ti­gat­ing what hap­pened, but from what I’d gath­ered, the shoot-
er had delib­er­ate­ly tar­get­ed the kid’s father. Some­thing about a busi-
ness deal gone wrong and bank­rupt­cy. The shoot­er had been high as
a kite, to the point where he hadn’t cared about exact­ing his revenge
in a park full of peo­ple.
Thank­ful­ly, he’d also been so high he kept ram­bling about how
the kid’s father had done him wrong instead of shoot­ing to kill.
The ambu­lances had tak­en the kid and his father away a while
ago. The father had suf­fered heavy blood loss, but he’d sta­bi­lized
and would pull through. The kid was okay too. Trau­ma­tized, but
alive. I’d made it a point to check on him before they left.
Thank God.
“You were bleed­ing.” Brid­get brushed her fin­gers over the ban-
daged wound, her touch sear­ing straight through the gauze into my
bones.
I stiff­ened, and she froze. “Did that hurt?”
“No.” Not in the way she’d meant any­way.
But the way she was look­ing at me, like she was afraid I might
dis­ap­pear if she blinked? It made my heart ache like she’d ripped off
a piece of it and kept it for her­self.
“Bet this wasn’t the way you pic­tured your grad­u­a­tion night go-
ing.” I rubbed a hand over my jaw, my mouth twist­ing into a gri-
mace. “We should’ve gone straight home after din­ner.”
I’d used the lame excuse of walk­ing off our food to jus­ti­fy the trip
to the park, but in truth, I’d want­ed to extend the night because
when we woke up, we would go back to what we were. The princess
and her body­guard, a client and her con­trac­tor.
It was all we could be, but that hadn’t stopped crazy thoughts
from infil­trat­ing my mind dur­ing din­ner. Thoughts like how I
could’ve stayed there with her all night, even though I nor­mal­ly hat-
ed answer­ing ques­tions about my life. Thoughts about whether Brid-
get tast­ed as sweet as she looked and how much I want­ed to strip
away her cool demeanor until I reached the fire under­neath. Bask in
its warmth, let it burn away the rest of the world until we were the
only ones left.
Like I said, crazy thoughts. I’d shoved them aside the sec­ond
they popped up, but they lin­gered in the back of my mind still, like
the lyrics to a catchy song that wouldn’t go away.
My gri­mace deep­ened.
Brid­get shook her head. “No. It was a good night until…well,
this.” She waved her hand around the park. “If we’d gone home, the
kid and his dad might have died.”
“Maybe, but I fucked up.” It didn’t hap­pen often, but I could ad-
mit it when it did. “My num­ber one pri­or­i­ty as a body­guard is to
pro­tect you, not play sav­ior. I should’ve got­ten you out of here and
left it at that, but…” A mus­cle rolled in my jaw.
Brid­get wait­ed patient­ly for me to fin­ish. Even with her hair
mussed and dirt smear­ing her dress from when I’d pushed her onto
the ground, she could’ve passed for an angel in the fucked-up hell of
my life. Blonde hair, ocean eyes, and a glow that had noth­ing to do
with her out­er beau­ty and every­thing to do with her inner one.
She was too beau­ti­ful to be touched by any part of my ugly past,
but some­thing com­pelled me to con­tin­ue.
“When I was in high school, I knew a kid.” The mem­o­ries un-
fold­ed like a blood-stained film, and a famil­iar spear of guilt stabbed
at my gut. “Not a friend, but the clos­est thing I had to one. We lived
a few blocks away from each oth­er, and we’d hang out at his house
on the week­end.” I’d nev­er invit­ed Travis to my house. I hadn’t
want­ed him to see what it was like liv­ing there.
“One day, I went over and saw him get­ting mugged at gun­point
right in his front yard. His mom was at work, and it was a rough
neigh­bor­hood, so those things hap­pened. But Travis refused to hand
over his watch. It’d been a gift from his old man, who died when he
was young. The mug­ger didn’t take kind­ly to the refusal and shot
him right there in broad day­light. No one, includ­ing me, did a damn
thing about it. Our neigh­bor­hood had two rules if you want­ed to
sur­vive: one, keep your mouth shut, and two, mind your own
busi­ness.”
An acrid taste filled my mouth. I remem­bered the sight and
sound of Travis’s body hit­ting the ground. The blood ooz­ing from
his chest, the sur­prise in his eyes…and the betray­al when he saw me
stand­ing there, watch­ing him die. “I went home, threw up, and
promised myself I would nev­er be such a cow­ard again.”
What’s your biggest regret? Inac­tion.
I’d joined the mil­i­tary to gain a pur­pose and fam­i­ly I’d nev­er
had. I became a body­guard to absolve myself of sins I could nev­er
cleanse.
Lives saved in exchange for lives tak­en, direct­ly or indi­rect­ly.
What’s your biggest fear? Fail­ure.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Brid­get said. “You were a kid too. There
was noth­ing you could’ve done against an armed attack­er. If you’d
tried, you might have died too.”
There it was. Anoth­er hitch on the word died.
Brid­get looked away, but not before I caught the sus­pi­cious sheen
in her eyes.
I clenched and unclenched my fists.
Don’t do it. But I’d already fucked up mul­ti­ple times tonight.
What was one more?
“Come here, princess.” I opened one arm. She stepped into it and
buried her face in my non-injured shoul­der. It was the most vul­nera-
ble we’d been in front of the oth­er since we met, and it chipped away
at some­thing inside me.
“It’s all right.” I pat­ted her awk­ward­ly on the arm. I was shit at
com­fort­ing peo­ple. “It’s over. Everyone’s fine except for the shit­head