Rescued By A Perfect Stranger: A Single Dad, Age Gap Romance (Bearberry Bay - Rescue Series Book 4)

Chapter 36

~~ James ~~

We’re all wet and tired and heading for the showers when I power on my phone and see the notification from the security app. “Oh my God!” My heart almost stops. My vision tunnels into black and white. I run for the truck.

Lucius is on my heels. “Sup, boss? What happened?”

“The panic room is activated and I missed the call.”

He stops me from opening the driver’s door and snatches my keys. “I’ll drive. You call.”

I want to argue, but he’s right. I’m holding my breath as I climb in the passenger side. By the time I buckle up, Lucius is already peeling out of the parking lot.

My phone rings before I can even press a button. “Trev.”

“They’re ok,” he says, and color comes rushing back in, blinding me for a long second. “Lorelai and Em are locked in the Room. But I’m looking at the cameras, and you’ve got a mad man loose in your house. He’s tearing shit up. Must be on something. Looks like the brother, but he hasn’t stopped screaming and kicking things long enough for a positive id.”

“As long as Em and Lorelai are safe, I don’t care.”

“My team is on the way.”

Lucius squeals to a stop next to Lorelai’s little car. “Gotta go, Trev.”

“James, wait for my team.”

“No can do.”

“Damn i—” I push the power button and hang up on him for the first time in three and a half years.

“He’s probably right, James,” Lucius speaks up.

But we ease the truck doors shut at the same time. I access the app on my phone again, and he comes over to watch the cameras with me. We see Brayden Mills downstairs in the game room hammering the back sliders with the coffee table.

Lucius looks up at me. “Polycarbonate?” I nod. “Sweet!”

I enter the code on the app to release the front door, and Lucius enters right behind me, closing it without a sound.

Lucius and I make our way down the dark hall to the game room. We stand in the doorway of a full sixty seconds, watching Brayden Mills in the light from the sliders. He”s losing his shit, taking it out on the clear doors, until the table breaks apart. He finally spins around and catches sight of us. His eyes search the room wildly for another exit, but there isn’t one. He knows he’s caught. He tightens his grip on the leg of the coffee table he’s holding.

“Want to give up now, Brayden?” I ask.

He looks surprised that I know his name.

“Who the fuck are you?” He swipes at his face with his shirt sleeve. It leaves a dirty streak across his cheek.

“This is my home you entered unwelcome. My child you scared. And my woman you accosted.”

“She... She’s my sis-sister,” he stutters out.

“You think that gives you a right to put your hands on her? Run her off the road? Leave bruises on her skin?”

“Sh-she won’t give me my money!” He’s rocking back and forth now. “I need it.”

“You need another hit, Brayden? You need a hit more than you need your sister?”

“Lai’s fine!”

I reach into the closet just inside the game room door and I grab the jacket Lorelai had been wearing the night of her accident from the top shelf. I throw it at him. He drops the table leg to catch the bundle before it hits him in the face.

“Look at that!”

He holds it up. Light streams through the sections that had ripped down to barely strings.

“That would have been your sister’s back. Your baby sister. That you saved.”

Brayden drops the jacket like it burns. “Sh-she’s fine, though.”

I pull out the helmet and throw it like a fastball pitch. It hits him in the gut just before he wraps his hands around it. He grunts and just stares at me.

“Look at that, asshole!”

He looks down, turning the helmet in his hands.

“That would’ve been your sister’s head. Look at the scratches! Look at that crack!”

He looks.

“She could have died,” I’m having difficulty keeping my voice regulated and it’s rising in volume.

“You almost killed her. She is kind. And loyal. And gives you all the credit for her being on this earth. And you almost killed her.”

I see my words registering. His mouth bobs open and closed. He sinks down to his knees on the rug, holding the helmet like a baby. Tears are pouring down his face.

Then we hear the sirens. I jerk my head to tell Luce to let them in.

Brayden looks up at me, snot running down to his lip. “You called them? You want to lock me up?” His eyes widen. “You want to lock me up!” He’s on his feet and charging faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move.

But I’m faster. I plant my fist in his face, follow that with a punch to his solar plexus, and he drops to the floor right as Trevor’s team walks up behind me.