Desiring the Enemy

Chapter 6

“Mackenzie!” her father, Ivan Marshall, bellowed as soon as she walked through the front door ahead of DeAndre.

She grimaced, her step faltering to a stop. Smoothly, as though he had been expecting it to happen, her bodyguard stepped to the side, effectively avoiding crashing into her. The door closed behind her with a click that resonated like thunder in the otherwise silent hallway.

However, after a beat, the sound of heavy footsteps cut through the air, and it didn’t take long for Ivan to materialize in front of her, fuming like an angry bull. But Mackenzie knew he was more like a disappointed, gentle bear.

Standing at just five feet five, Ivan Marshall was a bald-headed man with a soft body that bordered the line of healthy weight. His skin tone was a shade darker than Mackenzie’s, giving him an almost light-chocolate color that had gained several wrinkles to account for his sixty-five years of existence.

At this ungodly hour of the night, the older man wore a checked button-down. Mackenzie thought he might have hurriedly dressed because the buttons were put together in a skewed manner. She would have chuckled if she hadn’t known how pissed her father had to be.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded, the outrage heavy in his voice. “Mackenzie… Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Just like that, any sliver of humor she’d felt evaporated. Mackenzie dropped her eyes to the floor. She shoved her hands into the pockets of the jacket and drew it closer around her, even though she had already buttoned it up and it hid the skimpy top from her father’s disapproving eyes.

“I’m talking to you, Mackenzie!”

Mackenzie flinched but didn’t look up. “No, Dad. That wasn’t my intention.”

“Really? Because I think that was your intention when you climbed out of your bedroom window in the middle of the night and went out to a club, of all places. You are nineteen, Mackenzie! Nineteen! How the hell did you even get into a club?”

Yeah, that wasn’t a question Mackenzie thought she should answer. Luckily, her father was on a roll and didn’t care to wait for a response.

“What was the point of my hiring a bodyguard for you if you were going to do stupid things like this? Or have you forgotten the reason DeAndre is even here? Do you want to die? They are still out there, Mackenzie. Don’t you understand that?”

Mackenzie’s chest squeezed at the break in her father’s voice. She finally looked up, her vision blurry with tears as she shook her head, unable to find the words. Of course, she hadn’t forgotten the reason DeAndre was hired, but how was she supposed to tell her father that it was for that same reason she’d gone out tonight? That she had felt the need to do something daring, be alone, and experience a normal teenage life, and not what she’d had to live for the past year and a half. She couldn’t.

So, instead, Mackenzie said the only thing she could. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Ivan shook his head, his glare hard. “I don’t want to hear it. You threw out all the college brochures I gave you. It is a miracle you graduated from high school, and now all you seem to be interested in is causing trouble.” He shook his head again. “No, Mackenzie, sorry, won’t cut it.”

The urge to scream in frustration bubbled up inside her, but she bit it down even as tears slipped from her eyes and rolled down her face. “I will do better,” she croaked out finally.

Her father sighed heavily, looking older than his years. Some of the tension seemed to drain out of him, and the softer side he usually showed her came to the fore. After a beat, he closed the distance and held her shoulders. Mackenzie was taller than her father by a few inches, but that never stopped her from feeling small when he held her like this.

The aromatic scent of coffee she associated with her father filled her nose and soothed some of the ache in her chest. His voice was calmer. “I know this has been hard and painful, Mackenzie. And this is your way of dealing with it. But… it can’t go on. They… They wouldn’t have wanted this.” He stopped and cleared his throat, blinking rapidly as though to hold back tears.

Guilt coiled around Mackenzie’s ribs like a vise, and she felt as though a melon was lodged in her throat. She should have been used to it by now, but it still managed to steal her breath and burn the backs of her eyes. Unable to do anything else, she jerked forward and wrapped her arms around her father’s larger body.

Despite his anger, Ivan didn’t hesitate. His arms came around her, and he tried to give them both the comfort they needed. It didn’t work. Mackenzie felt his strength and warmth, and all it did was remind her of what was missing. Still, she held on and lied to make him feel better; the words tasting like ash on her tongue. “I’m sorry. I won’t… do it again.”

The sigh that left Ivan let Mackenzie know he wasn’t fooled. Not that she blamed him. She’d said the same when she stole the car and crashed it into the fence. And when she’d sneaked into his alcohol cabinet and wasted herself on the most expensive bottle he owned. Even so, he hugged her back, and Mackenzie soaked up the warmth, promising herself that she would do something to make her father proud.

***

The following morning, Mackenzie stared at her now sealed window with dismay. She had promised her father she wouldn’t sneak out again, but it was obvious he couldn’t trust her and had ordered the window to be welded shut.

What a shame. Mackenzie had loved that window. This had been her room since she was a toddler, and although the design of the room had changed over the years, the view outside the window had remained a timeless beauty of rolling hills, lush green pastures, and trees.

She knew the welding didn’t disrupt the view, but now Mackenzie was unable to open the window and feel the cool, earthy breeze blow over her skin as it rushed into her room in the morning. She could no longer just leave the window open during the night and be woken up the next morning by the sounds of birds chirping and the rustle of leaves on the trees.

Suddenly, her room felt like a prison. She didn’t have to open the bedroom door to know that DeAndre was standing outside like a sentry. She was technically no better than a prisoner, and she didn’t think she was being dramatic to think that way.

Huffing, she turned away from the window and stormed over to the door. As she had guessed, DeAndre was there in her space as soon as she threw the door open.

Honestly, at times, Mackenzie wondered how the man was able to blend into the background and hide in the shadows undetected. Because the truth of the matter was that there was nothing subtle about DeAndre Wise.

At only thirty years old, her personal bodyguard was a mountain of a man standing at just an inch over six feet. He had dark skin and biceps the size of her thighs, which were always on display since the man only wore tight, black T-shirts over black jeans and black boots. The unexpected round rimmed spectacles he wore made him seem human, but that was only until he fixed his glare on a person. And unfortunately for her, that glare was fixed on her this morning.

Mackenzie cleared her throat. She shuffled on her feet for a second and then lifted her chin and met his unwavering gaze. “I’m not apologizing,” she declared. She’d done enough of that last night, and even though she felt guilty about worrying her father, she couldn’t really bring herself to regret her expedition. Especially not with her souvenir now hidden at the back of her closet like a treasure.

She wondered if the guy she’d met, Hunter, would even be bothered that she’d gone away with his jacket. There hadn’t been anything in the jacket pockets she’d checked; for some reason, hoping to get a clue about the man she would probably never see again.

But that didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about him once she’d gotten over the guilt brought on by her father’s lecture. Did Hunter live in the city, or had he just been passing through? Why had he saved her from that creep? Was he some do-gooder, or had he just been drawn to her somehow?

Mackenzie didn’t want to add fairy tale sparkles to the encounter, but it was kind of hard not to when Hunter had shown up like a knight in shining armor. Even the way he moved to protect her when DeAndre had shown himself had been heartwarming. It was just a pity she hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye.

DeAndre grunted, not bothering to respond to her declaration. Good. It meant they understood each other. Without another word, she moved past him and made her way through the loft to the stairs, intent on heading to the kitchen for breakfast.

While the house she’d grown up in couldn’t compare to a palace, Mackenzie had always thought it was too big for their small family. It had only gotten bigger in the last year and a half when their family was reduced by half with a single act.

A beautiful blend of traditional and modern architecture right at the edge of the city, the house sat on twenty acres of land. The house itself was a mix of stone, brick, and wood, with large windows that let in an abundance of natural light.

There were six bedrooms, four of which were upstairs. Mackenzie’s room was upstairs, but her father used the master bedroom downstairs, which worked fine when they were trying to avoid one another, like she hoped to do this morning.

At least, that was the plan until she reached the last step and heard her father’s angry voice coming from the study, which was right off the foyer.

“Those Wex brothers are ruining our business! We have to do something or we won’t have anything left by the end of the year!”

Mackenzie froze, her hand gripping the railing like a lifeline. What was her father talking about?