“Let’s go,” he says, no argument, grabbing up the gun from the desk. “Now.”
I eye the thing in his hand, and then obey. Honestly, I’d probably do anything he told me to. I follow him to his truck, which is just outside of the office. I hear a dog baying somewhere in the distance, and a shiver runs down my spine.
My brother is out there somewhere.
And that scares me.
Bradford rips open the passenger door, like a sudden gentleman, but doesn’t wait for me to close myself in before he’s jamming the engine into life. He sets his gun in the side part of his door, and I pull my seatbelt across my lap.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask stupidly, gaining a weird look from Calvin.
“No,” he snorts. “Believe it or not, I like you too much.”
My eyes widen, as I wring my hands in my lap, choosing not to dig into that whole blowjob at gunpoint thing. Instead, I settle into my seat, my mind going blank for the first time in months.
The drive is a single, stretched-out nerve, neither of us speaking. His foot is a lead weight on the gas, and I clock our speed at twenty over the limit, then thirty, then enough that I stop looking. Finally, we pull into the driveway of Molly’s mom’s house, and the garage door immediately raises.
Cal pulls straight in, and the door drops behind us.
He doesn’t rush as Molly comes plowing through the garage door. He moves thoughtfully, every step measured, a controlled demolition. I follow him, meeting Molly’s eyes.
“Dr… Dr. Williams?”
Calvin’s jaw ticks. “She’s not a doctor.”
Molly’s eyes grow wide. “Um…”
“It’s a long story,” I say quietly, noting the way that Molly’s entire body is trembling. Whatever happened, isn’t good.
And when we step inside… I cringe.
Mark is on the floor, his head at a strange angle against the baseboard. There’s a slick of drool and blood on the carpet. Molly rushes to the far corner, arms wrapped so tight around herself I think she’s trying to strangle her own heartbeat. Her face is a mask of horror, mascara running in messy streaks down her face.
Maren stands a few feet from Molly, shaking her head. “I walked in on this.”
Bradford doesn’t respond. He crosses the room in two strides, kneels by Mark, and checks his pulse with the same clinical indifference I’ve seen in men checking for a dead animal on the highway. “He’s alive,” he mutters, and only then does he look at Molly. “What the hell happened?” The fatigue in his voice is evident, and yet somehow, he still keeps his composure.
She sobs, then spits it out. “He said things about you. Said you’re a fucking murderer and everyone knows it—he called you a psycho, he said you did things overseas—he wouldn’t stop, I told him to stop?—”
Bradford just waits.
She shakes harder, voice shredding itself. “He—he grabbed my shoulder and I—” She gestures, helpless, to the shattered lamp and the spatter of blood on the wall. “I just hit him. I hit him and he went down, and I thought he was dead—” She folds in on herself, choking on her own snot.
“Molly. Hey.” His voice is soft, all the rage and adrenaline smothered under a layer of fatherly calm. “Look at me.”
She does, and her eyes are huge, pupils dilated. “I fucked up.”
“You did nothing wrong. Do you hear me? You defended yourself. He attacked you.”
She shakes her head, barely able to breathe.
He wipes her face with his sleeve, gentle, then tucks her under his arm and guides her toward Maren. “You go upstairs.Use the guest bath, not the hall one. Wash your hands. Don’t come down until I tell you. Okay?”
She nods and stumbles toward the stairs, her mother pausing to turn to Bradford.
“I don’t know what the hell you did that caused this,” Maren’s voice is tense as she gestures to Mark on the floor. “But one, he’s not cybersecurity. He’s NCIS. And two, he was clocking you. And three, he’s a fucking creep for touching our daughter.Fix this.”
Bradford nods. “You know I will.”
