Page 43 of Edge of Danger

Luke nodded. “I guess we can assume it wasn’t for Walker’s sake that he ended up on your doorstep.”

“Let’s say that if Robert took his son’s safety into consideration, I’d just about fall over in surprise.” Brax smiled, but it was a grim smile. Bitter.

There were people out in the world just dying to have kids of their own, while others treated their children like possessions. Pawns to be used in a larger game.

Just as there were men like his biological father who refused to accept a son’s existence and left him to suffer out of sheer selfishness.

“I can’t believe Tessa kept all this to herself.” Luke shook his head. “So much for one person to carry on their shoulders.”

Brax nodded. “She’s been through a lot. I wonder what those thugs must’ve thought when she didn’t scare easily. And the way she slipped past them and out of Eagle Pass.”

Even he could hear the pride in his voice. Hewasproud of her. She’d done well.

Once he was alone in his office, he opened his laptop and pulled up the list of dates Tessa had been terrorized. He’d asked her to compile the list in case there was a way of cross-referencing those dates with security footage in the areas in which she’d been accosted or attacked.

License plates, images of the men involved, anything—as long as he could get an idea of exactly who they were dealing with. It had been too dark to make out much about the two attackers who’d found Tessa in his car.

Brax wanted to see them. To know them before he taught them what happened to men who terrorized women.

He recognized one of the dates immediately. The night they’d gone to Nick’s. Her account of the situation confirmed this. She’d been inside the office building with Walker when two men had tried to get inside.

He sat up straighter, eager now, digging into the network to find their security footage. There were cameras mounted at each corner of the building, along with one over the front door. Perfect.

“There you are,” he muttered, staring at the men. One who glared in through the window, one who tried to force the door open.

The longer he studied them, going back and forth through the feed from all three cameras, the more certain he was that these were the men who’d attacked him behind the strip mall.

One of them had a pockmarked face—Tessa had mentioned him, had described what he’d done to her outside the mall before taking her purse. He was the one who’d tried to open the doors.

Brax was no expert in body language or reading facial expressions, but he knew pure frustration when he saw it. The sort of frustration that could turn into violence with little provocation.

Knowing she’d been inside the building and able to see the men who wanted to hurt her sent his blood pressure soaring. Oh, yeah, he was going to enjoy teaching them what happened to men who terrorized women.

He rolled back the footage in hopes of catching sight of the car the men had arrived in, but it was out of the camera’s range.

He switched to another camera, this one mounted at the corner of the building, and rolled the footage back to before he’d arrived with Walker. Just in case the car had passed in the distance, in case they’d been watching even then.

It wasn’t the two men he ended up catching sight of. It was Tessa, emerging from the alley next to the office building. Where had she come from?

He switched feeds, watching her emerge from the alley from a different angle. But there was no footage of her entering the alley, like she would if she’d come up behind the building.

He moved to the camera at the other end of the alley, mounted at the rear of the building, and watched the timestamp at the top of the screen. She hadn’t entered the alley from back there.

So where had she come from?

A sick feeling bloomed in the pit of Brax’s stomach. He rolled the footage back to the time they’d left the office together earlier that night.

There they were, talking. He’d asked if she could come in early, and she had accepted. Then he’d walked away, carrying Walker to the car. Tessa had watched for a moment or two before turning and heading for the alley. Only she’d never come out at the other end.

No wonder it had been so easy for her to get to the office in a hurry. And why she hadn’t even let him finish asking her to move in before accepting. It wasn’t just motherly love.

She’d been sleeping in the alley all along.

His fists tightened hard enough to make his joints ache. Robert had so much to pay for.

Brax was still furious enough when his phone rang that he practically barked into it on answering. “Yeah?”

“Brax. It’s Janice Morgan.”

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