Page 4 of Deceit

He bobs his head and gives me another look. "Yeah…you should. It's good to see you—" He shoves his hand into the pocket of his gray Adidas sweatshirt, but I notice his body begins to shake a little. "—it's…been a long time."

"Yeah, it has."

Hardy bows his head, the worry he's feeling not hidden from his lightly peppered face.

He was always a good kid, the class clown, while I was the one that took out the clowns that fucked around with me or my kid brother and sister. He didn’t like school much, but he knew how important I believed it was, so he did his best.

"Aren't you supposed to be restrained?" I jerk my jaw at his free hands, and my brother's lips curl wide before pulling out a small flat-head screwdriver from the pocket of his sweatshirt. "Scarlett is good at finding things."

I shake my head, amused and realizing these two are not what I expected.

Fucking Christ, it's been over two decades and they still grew up with my determination and smartass antics.

"Wanna sit down?" He offers me his chair with his hand and I shake my head.

"Nah, but you can for me."

My brother nods, taking a seat and exhaling a heavy breath. It's only seconds later that he mutters, "I'm so fucked."

I frown, not sure what he's referring to exactly, but I can imagine it being his young daughter.

So I ignore the comment, filing it away to come back to it later. "I made Scarlett get some air. We gotta talk."

Hardy raises his chin and hits me with a little touch of my scowl. "I'm not leaving my little girl alone. We can talk here."

"You need some—"

"I need—" His tone is stern, but then he swiftly softens it. "—I need to just be here."

"Alright." I steal a glance at the little girl when the door behind me opens, drawing my focus to a lanky cop in a blue uniform with a pair of handcuffs in his hands.

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Hardy Bishop?"

My brow lifts. "For?"

He shifts his buck twenty of weight. "There has been some destruction of hospital property." His ballsy focus trails down the length of me. "Are you him?"

I notice no badge on his chest and the large flashlight that hangs from his belt where a gun would reside. "I don't know—" I shrug, pinning him to the doorway with my glare. "—wanna come in here and search me, rent-a-cop?"

He frowns, his dirty blonde hair ruffled like he was just woken up from a nap to do this shit. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to—"

"Come in."

He hesitates, opening the door wider like he's going to do something but doesn't bother to take another step inside. Weighing out his chances of trying to pull me out of the room is starting to dawn on his face before he straightens his spine with confidence due to the distance between us.

"Can you please keep it down, sir? We can't have outbursts and—"

"Thanks for checking in."

He grounds his jaw but takes my dismissive cue and closes the door softly behind him. Pivoting, I find my brother looking up at me with raised brows.

"You have a lot of run-ins with the cops?"

I snort silently through my nose. "That was no cop. Security guard."

Hardy's lips attempt to smile, but he falls short. "Yeah…I…kinda lost my shit."

"Kinda?" I cross my arms along my chest and lean against the corner of the wall. "You're scaring the shit out of Scarlett."

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