Page 56 of The Player

Bryson comes over to me, places a hand on my shoulder, and looks me in the eyes. “Whatever it is, let me help.”

There’s no denying he’s going to fight me on this. If I don’t let him help, he will just follow me. “Alright, but brother, I want you…”

“Shut up. Get us an Uber so we can get this shit taken care of. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter as long as we get it done.”

There’s no doubt in his mind that whatever I am about to face is something he will willing to help me with. Gulping, I nod. “Got it.”

I click the application for Uber and see it’s going to take another forty minutes to get us there. That’s too long. “Fuck, it’s too long.”

Kaylee smiles. “Take the car, I’ll get Lennox home.”

Lennox smiles and hugs me. “Yeah Dad. Go get mom.”

How the hell he knows that’s the issue? I’ll never know, but I’m proud of him. “You know it.”

Bryson gets in the passenger seat and clicks his seatbelt shut.

“You drive like you did when I was trying to teach you, I’ll kill you myself.”

A laugh leaves me and I smile at him, grateful. “Thank you, Bry.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” He grumbles but doesn’t say anything else. The phone is still on, and I can hear her whimpering.

“Let me have the phone, Aaron. You focus on getting us to her house.”

My hands shake, but I keep one on the steering wheel and hand him the phone. As soon as he hears what’s going on, he growls. “Faster, Aaron.”

He doesn’t have to tell me twice. If he is doing what I think he’s doing, I’m going to be carving his cock off him. The mother fucker better not be trying to get in my Sugar Plum’s pants. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that’s exactly what he’s trying to do.

* * *

The house is eerily quiet when we get there. I barely have the car in park before I jump out with Bryson limping right behind me. Before I can get in the door, he tugs on my shoulder.

“This could be a trap. I need you to follow protocol on how to go through a house.” He looks at me, a deadly look in his eyes. He’s in military mode, and I’m in awe of it.

“Alright. What do we do?” My heart is hammering its way out of my chest, and I realize now that when I was younger, stalking Julie, she must have felt like this. Scared. Fuck, I have so much to make up for.

“We are going to go around back. Just be quiet and follow my steps.”

There’s no way I would deny I would follow him to the ends of the earth if it meant I could have Julie back in my arms. As we walk around the house, my stomach starts to flip, and I shiver with fear that something bad has happened.

The windows are locked until we come to the back of the living room area and see the window has been shattered.

“Don’t Aaron,” Bryson tells me before I try to dive head-first into the window.

“Everything is going to be alright. We don’t want to go in that way. Go to the door, check, and see if it’s unlocked.”

Dammit, if Ju-Ju left her doors unlocked, I’m going to have a damn coronary. Taking a deep breath, I try the door, and it opens up. My eyes blackout for a moment, and Bryson has to hold onto my shoulder. “You can punish her later for being a bad girl. Right now, you have to save her.”

The fact he just said that makes me realize that he understands me a hell of a lot more than I thought he did. He steps through the door, and there’s blood on the floor. I hold it together and keep going, ignoring the sinking feeling I have in my bones.

“Stay away from the glass and the blood trail. Just follow it. I’m going to make my way the opposite way to see if there are any other trails.”

“Got it,” I grit out. Killing this bastard isn’t good enough. I’m going to make him suffer. He’s going to know pain before the last light dims out of his eyes.

Moving along the line of splatters, it leads to the bathroom downstairs. Pushing the door open, I find Josh, the therapist, on his back, bleeding from a wound on his side. He can hardly move his head but looks at me and grunts.

“That bitch is crazy. She fucking stabbed me in the side with a knitting needle.” I chuckle.

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