1 hour earlier
Sipping his wine, Travis watched as Ana poked her salad around her plate and seemed to consider what to say and what not to say
"I don't want to betray Alejandro and Taylor, Travis"
"That's not what I'm asking of you, it's my job to keep Taylor safe but she's determined to push me away and do it all on her own, she's sleep walking into dangerous situations, do you really want her blood on your hands?"
"Of course not, Taylor is like a little sister to me"
"Then help me out, tell me what you know"
"I don't know anymore than you do" Ana pushed her plate from her and sipped her water "I know she went missing one day, I know Alexis and Austin never returned by Taylor did and I know she has never been the same since but she doesn't share the details with anyone, especially not me"
Travis gazed at the woman in front of him and not for the first time tonight wondered how things would play out in a different situation.
Was she attracted to him the way he was to her?
Did she know that he thought about her in the quietness of his room but that thought was almost always broken into a thousand peices by his thoughts of Taylor?
Taylor was work, she was his 'assignment' but her dead eyes and deafening screams had worked their way in amongst his own broken pieces.
He knew what she longed for, the peace of death but he also knew that was something he could never allow her to have.
"She saw everything" he said with confidence, she may not have admitted it but he knew it was the truth
"Ay dios!"
"I need your help Ana, she doesn't want to be here she wants to be with her mom and her brother. Which ever way you look at it, I'm fighting for her life right now, whether it's to keep her safe from gangsters or keep her safe from herself"
"Why do you care so much?"
"Because no one else seems to. No one else cares that she wants to suffer the same fate as her mother, that she longs to be taken and tortured and killed. You see her every day, how can you see that in her and carry on cleaning?"
"Because she doesn't show that to us, she shows that to you Travis, it's like I said, I think she sees something in you she wants to trust but she's scared"
"She acts like she hates me"
"If she hated you then you would be gone, believe me, she gets rid of people easily, the fact you are still here is simply because she wants you here" A beep from her purse told Ana she had a message so she reached down and pulled out her cellphone as Travis pushed his plate away from him. All this talk of Taylor had caused him to lose his appetite and as he looked up he noticed all the colour slowly drawing from Ana's face
"What is it?"
"Its from Taylor, she just sacked me!" Ana's head snapped up to meet Travis' concerned gaze "She can't sack me, I need that job. My mother is sick, she can't work, I need that job to pay for her to live"
"Ana it's okay, she's probably just throwing a tantrum because I told her we were coming out" he wiped his mouth with his napkin and signelled for the bill
"You told her?! Does Alejandro know?!" she threw her phone into her bag and stood up hastily "Why did you tell her?!"
"I didn't realise it was a secret"
"If she tells Ale we are both dead! Quick Travis, we need to get home and talk to Taylor, we have to stop her telling her dad"
"What's the panic? There's no rule that says we can't go to dinner, it's not like we're on a date"
"Look, Travis, I can't tell you everything right now but I can tell you that if Ale finds out about this he will cause hell like you have never seen. We need to get home, I need to stop Taylor speaking to her father, now! "
**************
"Hey man, where's Taylor?" Travis asked one of Alejandros guards as he entered the house, Ana having entered through the staff enterence at the side.
"Bedroom" the tall, burly man grunted without ever looking up and Travis rolled his eyes before climbing the stairs to the first floor and sighing as he realised he was probably going to have to beg Taylor to keep her mouth closed and she would never let him live that down.
Immediately he spotted her bedroom door was open and that set an alarm bell ringing. The rule was she was only left unsupervised if she was in her room and her door was locked
"Taylor?" Travis called out her name but there was no response. Entering her bedroom he immediately spotted the two empty wine bottles lying on her bedroom floor "GET THE FUCK UP HERE!!" he yelled at the guard whilst he searched Taylors room and then ran from it, meeting the guard on the landing "Where is she?" he grabbed the man's black shirt and spun him so his back hit hard against the wall. "Her bedroom door is open, who the fuck was watching her?!"
"We um.. Well..."
"She's been drinking, someone sent her a pair of human fuckin eyes in a box today, threatened her and you are sat down stairs looking at your phone whilst godknows what goes on up here"
"I..."
"Where the fuck is she, where is Taylor?!!"
A female screaming tore through the tension between the two men
"If any thing's happened to her I swear to God..."
"You're her fuckin bodyguard, where were you? Fuckin the kitchen staff no doubt" a second scream rang out from the garden and Travis finally released the man as he ran into Taylors room and out on to her balcony.
He didn't need anyone to explain who was screaming or why because he saw Ana immediately, on her knees by the side of the swimming pool, her head in her hands, her scream continuously ripping free of her throat and he saw why, the thin, partially clothed figure floating face down in the water, the image causing his entire world to splinter like shards of glass around him.
He tried to call out but no words came, his throat was restricted with terror.
Turning, he tried to run but his knees gave way beneath him as he crashed to the ground, crawling forward he managed to push himself up and propel himself forward, grabbing hold of the guards shirt he again tried and failed to find words but the guard must have seen the terror on his face
"No... God no!!!" both men began running, across the landing and then down the stairs, through the ground floor of the house, both mens vision white with shock, guided only by Ana's screams
'Please no, God no, please, please no. Please don't let this be happening again...'
