Chapter 32
Jenna
I can barely breathe, and I have no idea if he’s going to kill me or fuck me again, as he pulls out. Cum oozes out of me, running down my leg, and I should feel shame.
But instead, I just his feel absence of his warmth as his phone suddenly blares in the silence.
“Fuck,” he grits out.
I turn slowly to face him, watching as he puts his dick away. He thumbs the answer button on the screen of his phone, and then clears his throat.
“Molly?” He’s calm, but I see the vibration in his jaw, the knuckles gone white where he grips the phone.
I can’t make out her voice, but I know it’s a solid octave higher than its usual. Probably stressed over a bad grade. I pull my jeans back up, my throat and pussy sore.
Actually, my whole freaking body is sore.
I brush my hand over the real pain, where my brother tried to fucking kill me for a few moments. And I have no idea how to process everything that just happened. I just my fingers through my hair, my mind in a haze—to the point I don’t even realize that Cal has hung up the phone.
“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.”
I glance at him as she leaves the room. “You’ve done this before.”
His mouth twitches. “It’s all the same, cleaning up bodies.”
I swallow hard. “But he’s alive… We should call an ambulance.”
He shakes his head. “He’s stable. No concussion.” He then peers up at me, his voice lowering. “Jenna—”
Mark groans, cutting him off. It’s faint, but Bradford is on him in an instant, checking his pupils, smacking his face until Mark blinks and tries to focus.
“Can you hear me?” Bradford asks, voice stripped of all humanity.
Mark nods, slurs something like “what—happened—”
“You took a header off the table. Concussion. You’ll live.”
Mark’s eyes flutter, then settle on me. “No… No, Molly hit me,” he mumbles, but there’s no fight in it. “I know she did. Broke a fucking lamp…”
“No,” Bradford reiterates, and I see the way Mark looks at Bradford, then at the blood on his own hands. “No one fucking touched you, you clumsy piece of shit.” He hits once in the side of the head and knocks him out cold again.
I raise my brows, as Bradford drags him toward the couch. I take the moment to move toward the office, wondering exactly how much Bradford knows. When I step inside, I see Mark’s computer open and unlocked. I go straight for it, determined to see what they have on my brother.
“Stop.” Calvin’s voice sends a shiver down my spine, and I turn around, my heart in my throat. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I swallow hard. “I was just…seeing what was there.”
“No,” Bradford’s pistol is pointed at me once more. “There’s something I haven’t had the chance to ask you.” He gestures to me. “Who the fuck are you? Because you haven’t answer that yet.”
I take a deep breath and choose the truth. “Jenna Kellan.”