Chap­ter 4: Rhys/Bridget start­ed off in the frost­bit­ten atmos­phere of Athen­berg, where even the cold could­n’t com­pare to the ten­sion sim­mer­ing between Brid­get and me. Four days ago, our jour­ney began with glares and icy silence, nei­ther of us will­ing to offer a truce. I didn’t need her approval to per­form my duty, but that did­n’t stop the chill from seep­ing deep­er than my leather jack­et could block. I main­tained a close watch as we entered Eldorra’s Nation­al Ceme­tery, a place so still it felt like the ground itself mourned. Bridget’s choice to spend her only free after­noon here was unex­pect­ed, but the moment I saw the graves she knelt before, the pieces clicked into place. Pain carved into her pos­ture as she whis­pered to her par­ents, Jose­fine and Fred­erik von Ascheberg, and for the first time since we met, the hos­til­i­ty between us shift­ed into some­thing raw and real.

My focus nev­er wavered even as sad­ness rip­pled through the air around Brid­get like a sec­ond skin. Respect kept me a few paces away, but I caught enough of her expres­sion to feel a pang I couldn’t sup­press. In the still­ness, my phone buzzed—Christian, my per­sis­tent boss, offer­ing infor­ma­tion I didn’t want. Old scars and old ques­tions were bet­ter left buried, much like the pasts we both tried to escape. Tuck­ing my phone away, irri­ta­tion buzzed under my skin, only to boil over when I heard the click of a cam­era shut­ter near­by. The bas­tard paparaz­zo nev­er saw me com­ing until my boot crushed his expen­sive equip­ment into shards, a vis­cer­al sat­is­fac­tion bloom­ing through the anger. I didn’t care about tabloid head­lines or his out­raged shouts; no one had the right to vio­late moments meant to be pri­vate. Espe­cial­ly not hers.

The paparazzi’s depar­ture left only the sound of brit­tle leaves stir­ring, and when Brid­get came over, she sur­prised me with a small, gen­uine smile—a rare peace offer­ing between us. She joked about tabloids twist­ing the sto­ry, her voice lighter than expect­ed, though sad­ness still dark­ened her eyes. It hit me hard­er than any blow I’d tak­en in the Navy, that echo of lone­li­ness she car­ried, and I almost said some­thing I shouldn’t. But instead, I offered her what lit­tle reas­sur­ance I could: that shar­ing grief through whis­pered con­ver­sa­tions at grave­sides wasn’t sil­ly. As we left, Brid­get’s casu­al ques­tion about my Navy bud­dies tugged anoth­er piece of my guard­ed past into the open. Mem­o­ries of deploy­ments, loss­es, and friend­ships too painful to main­tain rose unbid­den, yet I man­aged to answer her hon­est­ly. For the first time in years, I felt some­thing thaw—a dan­ger­ous thing to hap­pen around some­one like her.

Brid­get slipped her hand on my arm briefly, her grat­i­tude clear even with­out words, and though instinct screamed at me to pull away, I let it linger. Her touch burned through my jack­et, warmer than any win­ter coat could offer, and that ter­ri­fied me more than the wind cut­ting across the ceme­tery. Shak­ing off the moment, I ush­ered her into the car with my usu­al gruff­ness, deter­mined not to allow the lines between us to blur. But when she called me out on choos­ing body­guard work after the Navy, her curios­i­ty chipped away at my defens­es. She didn’t real­ize the truth yet: pro­tect­ing oth­ers wasn’t about brav­ery. It was penance. If any­thing, guard­ing Brid­get made me feel like I was claw­ing my way back from the wreck­age of who I used to be. Whether she saw it or not, she was more than just anoth­er assign­ment.

In the fol­low­ing days, the ten­sion between Brid­get and me con­tin­ued its exhaust­ing dance. If our rela­tion­ship had a sound­track, it would flip between bat­tle anthems and bal­lads, depend­ing on which side of the hour you caught us. After a heart­felt vis­it to the ceme­tery, a lighter mood fol­lowed us briefly as we attend­ed a char­i­ty event and a school vis­it. Brid­get gave a speech so gen­uine and mov­ing it left even the tough­est staffers dab­bing their eyes. She smiled at the stu­dents, spoke about men­tal health with the con­vic­tion of some­one who had fought bat­tles no one could see, and for a moment, I for­got why I kept my dis­tance. Moments like those made it hard­er to remem­ber why keep­ing the lines clear mat­tered. She was still my prin­ci­pal, but every laugh, every smile cracked my armor a lit­tle more, and I knew deep down that one day it might shat­ter com­plete­ly.

Small moments of human­i­ty stitched them­selves into our inter­ac­tions, but mis­trust still hov­ered, wait­ing to tear the frag­ile truce apart. After the school event, Brid­get brought up the con­cert tick­ets she had bought with Ava, try­ing to sound casu­al but fail­ing mis­er­ably. I rec­og­nized the tac­tic immediately—bait me with infor­ma­tion and hope I’d nod along. My instincts went rigid. Even if she didn’t real­ize it, every pub­lic out­ing came with risks, and I wasn’t about to let her dive head­first into a crowd with­out vet­ting the venue first. She bris­tled when I insist­ed on check­ing every­thing before approv­ing her atten­dance, but stub­born­ness had always been one of her defin­ing traits. She wasn’t wrong to want free­dom; she just did­n’t see the whole chess­board the way I did. I didn’t enforce rules to con­trol her—I did it because the price of one mis­take was too high to pay.

Beneath her frus­tra­tion, I saw some­thing else flash in Bridget’s eyes: fear and weari­ness, the same emo­tions that haunt­ed me too often at night. She masked them with sar­casm and an icy tone, but the truth was as clear as day. She had lost too much already—her par­ents, parts of her child­hood, and pieces of her iden­ti­ty under the glare of con­stant scruti­ny. Being her body­guard wasn’t just about keep­ing bul­lets away; it was about shoul­der­ing the invis­i­ble weight she car­ried. For all her strength, Brid­get was still fight­ing bat­tles that went unseen by the world. That real­iza­tion didn’t make me soft­er, but it made me steel my resolve even more. Pro­tect­ing her wasn’t just a duty; it was a respon­si­bil­i­ty I would bear until the day I no longer could. And God help any­one who tried to take her away from me.