Page 19 of Mace

She took a deep breath and pulled her phone from her pocket and called her dad, thankful that he didn’t pick up on the first ring. “Brooke,” he said.

“Hey, Dad,” she breathed. “I’m calling to see if you have any information that can help the case I’m working on. Did you find anything?” she asked.

“What, no asking how I’m doing or any pleasantries at all?” her father chided.

“I’m sorry,” she grumbled. The last thing she wanted was for each of them to have a conversation about things that neither of them were interested in. “How are you, Dad?” she asked.

“I’m well,” he said. “How are you?”

“Do you honestly want to know?” she questioned.

“Of course I do,” he insisted.

“Okay, then I’ll give you the honest truth. Here’s the whole run down, Dad. I’m staying in a safehouse because a crazy woman is after me,” she admitted.

“Is it the same person you have me checking into?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sure that she’s the killer, not Mace, and I just need to prove it. I know that you don’t want me on his case anymore, but you might change your mind about that once I tell you this next part,” Brooke said.

“I doubt that, but what’s the next part, Brooke?” her father asked.

“I’m pregnant with Mace’s baby and now, it’s more important than ever that I prove that he’s innocent. My child needs a father in his or her life,” she said.

“What have you done?” her father shouted into the other end of the phone.

“Well, Dad,” she started, “I’ve fallen in love with a wonderful man and now, we’re going to have a baby together.”

“Over my dead body,” her father growled. She was sure that Mace would be fine with that ultimatum, but she wasn’t.

“I hope that it doesn’t come to that, Dad, but if that’s how you want things, that’s fine with me. My child doesn’t have to ever know about you, even though I was hoping that you’d want the chance to know him or her. But I won’t let you put Mace down and there is no way that I’ll ever let you bad mouth him in front of his own child.”

“Have it your way,” her father breathed. “It will be a cold day in hell before I accept a biker into our family, Brooke. When you come to your senses, I’ll accept both you and your child back into my life, but for now, I think that we should part ways. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave the firm.”

Brooke barked out her laugh. “I think that you’re forgetting one thing, Dad. I have a majority of the shares. You can’t let me go. But I can let you go, and right now, I think it would be best for us to part ways, Dad. You’re fired and I expect you to have your office cleared out by the end of the month.” Brooke wasn’t sure if she’d even be back in the office before the end of the month, but she could hope.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” her father insisted.

“I’m taking control of my life, Dad. I’m sick of you telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. I might have listened to you when I was younger, but now, I can stand on my own two feet. Mace has made me the confident woman that I always wanted to be, and you can’t stand that, can you?” she asked.

“I doubt that’s true, but you believe what you need to believe, Brooke. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” her father spat. He ended the call, and she sank to the closest chair at the kitchen table. Mace was right about one thing—the conversation with her father totally stressed her out, but she was stronger for having it. There was no way that she would allow her father to steal her joy. She was going to be a mother and have a baby with a man she had quickly fallen in love with. That was what Brooke was focusing on now—and her father’s opinion be damned.

Brooke was taking advantage of Mace being in the shower to get some work done. Ever since telling him about the baby two weeks ago, he was in hyper-protective mode. It was cute, really, but Brooke needed to kick up her defense for Mace if she wanted to keep her baby’s father out of jail.

She had just sunk onto the couch with her laptop when a soft knock at the back door had her spooked. They definitely weren’t expecting anyone, but she and Mace were having things delivered to the safehouse all the time. She was sure that Mace had probably bought something and had forgotten to tell her.

Brooke jumped up from the sofa and dashed to the back door as the knocking got louder. “Hold on, I’m coming,” she shouted. She pulled the door open and immediately tried to close it again when she saw Julie on the other side.

“Don’t fight, honey,” Julie insisted. She pointed her gun at Brooke’s chest, and she knew that Julie would have no problem pulling the trigger. She had already killed Mace’s half-brother, and there would be nothing stopping her from killing Brooke.

“I’m assuming that Mace is out,” Julie said. There was no way that Brooke would tell the psycho bitch that he was in the shower. There would be no telling what Julie would do to get to him—including killing Brooke to get her out of the way.

“He is,” Brooke said. “I can tell him that you stopped by.” Julie’s smile was mean, and Julie knew that she had struck a nerve. Pissing off Julie wasn’t her finest idea.

“That’s cute,” Julie drawled, “but, I’m sure that he’ll get the message when you aren’t here. Let’s go.” Julie shoved the barrel of her gun into Brooke’s chest and shoved her to the door. She wasn’t sure what she could do to stop Julie from taking her and alerting Mace wasn’t an option. That would only end up getting them both killed because Mace would do something stupid like try to rescue her.

“Where are you taking me?” Brooke asked.

“You’ll see,” Julie taunted. “You’ll be safe until Mace figures out what happened to you. Then, your fate will be up to him.”

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