My Neighbor's Friend

CHAPTER 18: Gunner

What seemed like forever but only happened to be a few hours (still a long time) of nothing but questioning and trying hard to her whatever information we could get from Arya about her father, Joseph and the others and I was glad that she was able to eventually remember some details that were very important to our cases. 

The hardest part for me though was mostly watching her reactions when she talked about her father and learned about the things he did that he never told her. In which she was being honest about not knowing too much about what her father had done for a living but again, with the information she was able to tell us, was enough. 

"Before you both leave.." Healey says. "There is the matter of Joshua finding her along with possibly him having others try and get her. After all, Joshua has a tendency of being tricky." He explains. 

"So what should we do?" I ask him.

"You will need to take her to 'the location'." He says. 

"Shit." I say under my breath. 

"What? Do you mean we have to go to a secluded place?" She asks to confirm she heard him correctly. 

"Yes. You are the only one that can help us get him." Healey tells her. 

"But what if he finds me? I mean, he WILL find me. Like you said, he's tricky and he isn't stupid. If we try and outsmart him, he could catch on and become more pissed off." She mentions. 

"True but....." He begins and she stops him. 

"I don't want to hide anymore." She starts saying. 

Both Healey and I look at her shocked and yet Healey starts smirking at her with admiration while I am hoping deep sown inside she isn't saying what I think she's saying. 

"Baby?" I ask lowly. 

"I can't be afraid anymore. Not after all I have just found out about what he's done, especially to my father." She says. 

"But this is dangerous." I start to try and explain to her then look at Healey. "Can't we hire someone to look like her and then...." I started to suggest. 

"No." She stops me. "We all know how smart he is. It wouldn't work and when he finds out we tried to trick him things will be far more worse than if I had just done it myself."

We all sit there in silence thinking about what she's suggesting. She's wanting to sacrifice herself to help us take down this asshole among others and although I admire her bravery, at the same time, as her boyfriend, I can't help but want to convince her not to do this. However, it seems there is no other choice. So we went over the plan and although it appeared I had no say in it, I couldn't help but agree and to go along with the plan. 

When we finished for the day and left the building, the moment we got back into the car and before taking off, I had to make sure she was okay truly with all of this and to let her know if she wanted to back out or change her mind that now would be the time and it would be alright. First, I needed to apologize to her for ever getting her involved in this mess. 

"I'm sorry about all of this." I tell her. 

"It's okay." She replies but sounds upset a bit. 

"No it's not. I never meant to hurt you and make you go through anything like this." I began apologizing. "In fact, this is one of the reasons I don't do relationships. Not just because of the danger it would put you in but......." I tried continuing but she stopped me. 

She turned my head to face me and smashed her lips onto mine while holding the side of my face as I did the same with hers as we sat there making out for a bit. Although there was no lust involved, still just a passionate kiss. 

Then we pulled our heads apart so that we could take a breath and looked into each other's eyes. 

"I was upset because of what all I heard about my father but, I feel safe with you and I still want to be with you." She tells me. 

After she tells me that, I feel the most relieved since the beginning of this relationship and reassured about many things I had questioned before. Any worries, fears and doubts I have had, are gone now. 

"I love you." I tell her. 

She looks at me and though she starts to smile I can see more tears begin to fill her eyes up again. 

"I love you too." She replies and we give each other a kiss again. Then she pulls her head back and looks at me again. "Besides, I know you'll be right there to protect me." She tells me with a smile. 

"Of course. I won't ever let him or anybody ever hurt you again." I promise her. 

I next start up the engine and we begin taking off to the apartments and after convincing my Director to also have Ferris help us out too, we went over the plan with Ferris and he was like a kid in reacting as though he just got the present he has always wanted. So now we just had to get ready for the next few days when Joshua would be here in town. 

Next chapter will be posted soon! :)