Witness Protection ✔

The bodyguard

The days following the incident went by in a blur.

Turns out, she had witnessed an actual mafia execution. Though she couldn't get the gruesome image of the man's lifeless body out of her mind, the police seemed more than thrilled to have a witness and convinced her to testify.

They had been trying to gather evidence of the mafia's nefarious activities for years now but were never quite able to gather enough to convict the mobsters. With Nathalia as their key witness, that was about to change.

"...and at the bottom, we just need your signature and then we can start the whole process," officer Mclain told her.

She tore her eyes away from the tall, middle-aged officer and focused on the papers in front of her. She hadn't read a single page but she was determined to help the criminals get served a slice of justice. She picked up the pen and scribbled her initials at the bottom of the document.

This is it, She thought. In a few months, they will be in jail and I can continue on with my life.

"You're doing the right thing, kid," the officer stated, "I'll go get miss Julia Verne, she's in charge of the program."

"What program?" Nathalia asked, her voice cracking. She hadn't talked in a while now.

Officer Mclain gave her a funny look while getting up. "The witness protection program, of course. We went through this last Friday remember?"

Her memories of the past few weeks were vague. It had gone by so quickly that she barely registered anything that had been said. Blood crept to her cheeks as she blushed.

"Oh right. Yeah. I remember," she lied smoothly, or so she thought.

If the officer didn't believe her little lie, he didn't show it. Instead, he left the small room in search of this miss Verne.

A little while later the woman who Nathalia assumed to be Julia Verne entered the room, but instead of the old officer following her, there was a young man maybe a few years older than her.

Nathalia was raised well and knew it was rude to stare. Yet, she couldn't look away from the devilishly handsome man sitting down in one of the seats in front of her. By the way his large frame filled the doorway as he entered Natalia knew he'd tower over her. But instead of being lanky, he was strong and well built, not bulky, with his well-defined muscles visible from under his shirt.

"Miss Schuyler, my name is Julia Verne and I'll be your caseworker for the upcoming months," she introduced herself. Nathalia shook the blonde woman's hand and muttered a 'nice to meet you' back, but couldn't muster the strength to sound upbeat like she usually did.

"This right here is Darius Gardner, he is tasked with your protection and will be accompanying you the next few months," she continued while gesturing towards the man.

His grey eyes on her made her nervous, yet she didn't want to look away from them.

"N-nice to meet you," she stammered.

Darius only nodded, obviously not impressed by the whole conversation.

"So now that the pleasantries are out of the way we'll discuss the details of your relocation and backup plans, not that I think you'll need them but it's better to be safe than sorry," Miss Verne laughed softly.

Nathalia smiled back, but it didn't reach her tired eyes. The thought of moving to a new and unknown city made her very anxious and the fact that this stranger, who, if she was going to be completely honest, made her feel strange whenever his eyes were on her, was going to be living with her for the next few months made her anxiety even worse. She wasn't used to being around guys.

She had never even been in a real relationship before. She hadn't even been kissed. Her shy nature and the relatively recent loss of her parents made it very difficult for any person to get close enough to her to succeed in that. But she didn't mind, she liked being alone and had experienced romance through the many books she read in her spare time.

"Do you have any questions so far?" The blonde asked Nathalia.

This shook her out of her thoughts. She hadn't been paying attention and admittedly had no idea what had been discussed.

"No, no questions ma'am. All is clear."

This technically wasn't a lie, she had none and just wanted everything to be over with.

"Alright well, I'll leave the details of the security measures of the house up to Darius. That's his area of expertise. Just be sure to send me a copy of the plans so I can have them reviewed by your supervisor." This time she had spoken to him.

He nodded before replying, "I've created a baseline but adjustments will have to be made once the location is known and I've scoped out the area surrounding it. They'll be sent this week."

This was the first time she'd heard him talk, and he didn't take his eyes off Nathalia as he talked. His deep, rich voice commanded respect and gave Nathalia slight goosebumps. The way he talked showed his confident nature and left no room for discussion. This combined with his tall frame and muscular body greatly intimidated Nathalia.

Yet, Miss Verne seemed unaffected and slid an envelope over to them. Upon opening the envelope Nathalia found it contained an ID card with the name 'Katherine Peterson'. Digging further she found a plane ticket, a small blue debit card, and some documents.

Darius didn't open his, probably because he already knew what it'd contain as she highly doubted this was the first time he did something like this.

"Just to be sure, did you have any questions now?"

She could think of a few but didn't voice them. Instead, she shook her head no.

"Great! that means I explained everything clearly," Miss Verne laughed, "Now, if I'm not mistaken, your plane will depart in two hours which means you should probably head over to the airport about now."