THE BODYGUARD (The Gafanelli Mob #1)

2. Strange Devotion

Strange Devotion

DANI

For the next two hours, I learn two more things about my dream/nightmare man, Bishop. For one, he is no doctor. And from what I can see, he is no saint, either… though the name might give someone the wrong impression.

With eyes half-sleepy, half-wild and one-hundred percent ferocious, he stands as still as stone, watching me—watching the man who is a doctor watch me, and with every minute that passes, his hazel eyes darken by another hue. I can see the growing impatience in his eyes. He speaks slowly to the physician at my bedside.

“Well, doc…?”

The doctor turns to me, his gaze full of defeat and damnation. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Bishop. I’ve brought every machine I could. I’ve enlisted Lauren’s help,” he says, motioning towards a nervous nurse that accompanies him. “We think it’s some sort of blockage, possibly a blood clot, residual damage from the gunshot.” The doc places his hands gently over my scalp as his fingers remove the hair above my ear.

His voice is lilting, his accent thick.

“I’d like to put her on a blood thinner, just in case. I recommend taking some aspirin in the meantime.” He speaks French quietly to the nurse before turning towards me again. “It seems to have interrupted the flow of oxygen to the brain, possibly resulting in short to long-term memory loss. Hopefully, it’s temporary. It could be a product of emotional, as well as physical, trauma. I’m not sure what more I can say.”

His shrug is hesitant. His already frail shoulders sag as he shakes his head sadly. He’s been forced here, I’m sure of it. I guess that makes two of us. A stranger to me, he already seems to have some familiarity with the man, Bishop, but every time the doctor speaks, it’s with a silent reverence.

He fears Bishop.

I suspect that what I see in the doctor’s eyes is a bit reflected in mine. Something about the heat in Bishop’s stare puts a latent tingling under the surface of my skin. He approaches the doctor.

“Doc Durand, I only called you because Jackson said you could help us.” He glowers at the man. “Now, that was hardly helpful, don’t you think?”

The doctor frowns.

“Well, I—I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Bishop. These things happen,” he concludes.

The doc’s understated verdict is like the dropping of a judge’s gavel. The man named Bishop—the one who claims to be my husband—stands straighter upon hearing this. He moves toward the doctor, and it is more menacing than anything I can recall… which isn’t much.

“These things happen?” he grits through clenched teeth, directing his rage toward the elder man in the white coat. “No,” Bishop declares, shaking his head. “These things don’t just happen. People don’t just wake up one day and not know who the f**k they are. She doesn’t remember this place. She doesn’t remember me. She doesn’t remember herself, doc!”

Doctor What’s-His-Face’s scowl is deep. He removes his gloves and slowly hands them to the nearby nurse as we all crowd the space in the middle of my unfamiliar bedroom. I close my eyes, not wanting to listen to another word—hoping this is a dream while simply willing myself not to break down and cry…

Because this seems to be a hopeless mess. And this mess… is my life. Daniela Bishop’s life. At least, that’s what the name on the passport says. The woman is blonde. Her eyes are wide. Her irises sparkle in a beautiful green-blue. Perfectly symmetrical in every way, she carries the look of a woman who’s seen the world. Her smile is Mona Lisa-like, seemingly hiding a secret.

And she has my face.

What the passport doesn’t show is the scar just beyond the face, a hidden gunshot wound placed purposefully behind her ear. What the picture doesn’t show is her pain. Her pain seems only reflected in the man named Bishop’s eyes. He watches me, never leaving my side, as the doctor he has summoned examines me less than six hours after our “kitchen brawl.”

The doctor, speaking to me slowly in a thick French accent, abruptly stands from the stool he’s been occupying. “If you’d just allow me to take her to the hospital, I can run some tes…” the graying man starts to say. But Bishop interrupts. “No. She’s not going anywhere.” At his declaration, my eyes shoot open. “It’s not safe for her there. And I’ll do whatever…” Bishop leans in, speaking with hidden meaning. “Whatever it takes, doc, to make sure that she is safe.”

The physician swallows. “Of course, Mr. Bishop… I understand completely.”

Bishop smiles at him, but the gesture is threatening instead of happy. In deference, the doctor turns after receiving a quick nod from the indomitable man, and he begins to grab his belongings, hustling them into a bag while the nurse helps him whisk all of his equipment away. I start to sit up in bed.

“Wait…” I call out to the doctor, feeling feeble. “That’s it?”

The doctor almost looks at Bishop for permission before extending a hand, and when he seemingly finds it, he places a palm on mine, speaking softly to me in a voice that is almost unintelligible in English.

“Don’t worry, ma Cherie,” he commands soothingly. “Your memories will return. Just give it some time. The conditions from these types of incidents tend not to last for long and are usually temporary in nature.”

Tend? Last…? He makes memory loss sound like a cold I’ve just caught. How long is long? And “incident”? I think forgetting your entire life in one fell swoop is more than an incident. This is a f*****g life-altering catastrophe, and suddenly, I feel the uncontrollable urge to swing at everything, to rage with no reason or consequence.

Who the hell are these people? Who is Bishop? And why don’t I remember marrying my own husband...?

I can feel a sense of hysteria bubbling beneath the surface. It’s hard to breathe. And abruptly I feel the need for everyone to leave. I raise my hand slowly. “Please… go. I need to be alone.”

I watch Bishop, my eyes tracing the line of him, as he escorts the doctor and nurse to the bedroom door and shows them out. I hear the living room door close behind them shortly after. And soon after that, here he comes—heading back towards me, his jaw set, his stare determined as he takes a seat at the foot of the bed. Right next to my bare feet. Awkwardly, I slide them away from him, hugging my knees as I pull my own thighs toward my chest.

The air inside the loft is still cool, chilled despite the summer night, and I shiver, wondering if the reaction is solely because of the thin sweater I now wear, or the man who handed it to me earlier. I think it’s a bit of both. And now that we are alone again, and the dusk is darkening, I have no other choice. I can’t spend the night with this man without knowing something—anything—about him. I decide to start with the simple questions first.

“So this might seem like an obvious question… but I’m guessing we’re in France?”

Bishop doesn’t blink. “You’ve guessed right.”

“And this doctor—he knows me?”

“He attended to you once before, yes.”

“And it’s a problem for me to go to the hospital?”

Bishop opens his mouth, closing it quickly, before responding quietly. “Actually, it’s a problem for you to go anywhere, Dani.”

The feeling of imminent danger, the one I woke up with this morning, the one that made me run from Bishop just hours earlier, chokes me like a cough caught in my throat. Now, I know about the bullet, the gunshot. But I hoped, just as anyone probably would, that it’d been a mistake, an accident—something gone terribly wrong. It’s hard to hear this man say, without really saying, that it wasn’t.

I caress the area of my head where the doctor just examined, now knowing that wherever the bullet came from… it was meant for me. I suppress a shudder, standing up out of the bed to face the window. I drop my head into my hands and listen to Bishop who rises off the bed behind me. I suddenly feel numb to it all.

“This is crazy… This can’t be happening…” I recite the words to myself, still halfway expecting to wake up from a bad dream.

Bishop answers, unprompted. “But it is, Dani. I’m…” He exhales loudly, his breath nearly reaching my neck. “I wish to f*****g God that it weren’t...”

I step away from him. “I need some air.”

I grab for the purse Bishop says I own, the only possession I have in the room that feels normal, and I head towards the bedroom door. Unfortunately, exiting doesn’t seem to be that easy. Bishop rushes ahead of me, blocking the way out, his large frame swallowing up the entire doorway, and I take a surprised step backwards.

My God, he’s so much taller than me—easily towering somewhere above six feet-three—and I gawk up at him. I know I should be intimidated by his sheer size, but I’m not. Looks like I’ve taken a bullet, and all of a sudden, I’ve got balls made of brass.

Go me.

I stare Bishop down, willing him to back away with a stare that could cut through glass.

“Just where do you think you’re going?” he asks me.

“Out.”

“Didn’t you hear a thing I said before? Or anything that the doctor said?”

“Yeah, yeah… bullet wound, memory loss, my life is f****d. I think I’ve got it all down.” I attempt to push past him.

“This isn’t funny, Dani,” Bishop tells me. His immovable chest shifts to my right, closing off any space on the other side. I contemplate hitting him with my purse, but I don’t want to go another round with him. I force my antsy hands to stay still at my sides. I sigh.

“I’m being serious, Bishop… and while we’re on the subject of serious things, let’s talk…” I cross my arms in front of my chest. “Why don’t you use your first name?”

He blinks. “Because I don’t like to be called by my first name.”

“Even by your wife?”

“Not by anyone,” he answers stolidly.

“Ok, so what about my family? Do I have any?”

“Some.”

“Parents?”

“Sure.”

“Well, where are they?”

“Far.”

“Any siblings?”

“None.”

“Where am I from?”

Bishop sighs, though I can already guess the answer based on how we both talk.

“America. New York.”

I snort in triumph. Finally. “Good. Finally, we’re getting somewhere.”

The look in his eyes says “Don’t press your luck” however. But of course, I do. I just can’t help myself. “If I’m from America, then what are we doing here?”

“We live here.” He turns his back on me. “At least, for now.”

His short answers make me want to tear my hair out. “What the hell does that even mean?? Why don’t you start with some real answers?”

“Because I can’t give you real answers… Not right now…” Bishop exhales, turning. “I’m not going to patronize you, Dani,” he declares. “I can’t have you giving up information without knowing what you should and shouldn’t say. Knowledge is a weapon… and we need to make sure it’s not used against us.” He points in the direction of my bullet wound. His low voice hardens. “It’s already been used against us before.”

I meet his eye. “Does that mean you know who shot me?”

“No… I don’t,” he answers. He walks closer to me, making the hair on the back of my arms stand up. “If I did, I’d have his head hanging on my f*****g wall, Dani… because that’s the kind of man I am.”

His dark brows sit low on his forehead as he fixes me with a glare that is both solemn and menacing. He comes within two feet of me.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks.

My lips part. “No.”

“Do you know who you are?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

I stand still, staring at Bishop’s face to see what my heart will do. “No… I… I don’t think so…”

“You see, Dani? That’s how I know you’re vulnerable. Because if you were in your right mind… you would know what I’m capable of.”

I exhale, frustrated. Bishop removes his leather jacket, placing it on the edge of a coat stand, and I point to the bruises on his forearms. The discoloration and scratches. Marks made by me.

“I think… I can handle myself,” I comment dryly.

He stops… and in that moment, we have our own version of a standoff. And neither one of us is backing down. Bishop speaks first. “I know this is hard for you, Dani,” he says slowly. “I wish I could make it f*****g easier… but I can’t. You just have to trust me. Now get some rest.” He turns his back on me. “I’ll go downstairs and get dinner started.”