Page 48 of Impressing Brett

Brett sets his hands on his hips. “I disconnected it, Lacy. You’ll either have to crash through it or get out and talk to me.”

I stare at him for several seconds before lowering my forehead to my steering wheel. I’m gasping for breath. I can’t get enough oxygen. The tears start to fall, and then I’m sobbing.

“Please open the door, Lacy.”

I ignore him. If he’s not going to let me go to my apartment, at least he can let me sit in my car for a while and cry on my own. I don’t want him to interfere. I don’t want him to touch me. I know what happens when he touches me. He makes everything go away.

Well, he can’t this time. He can’t make this problem disappear. Not even with soothing words and a back rub. Rocking me won’t fix it. A bath won’t fix it. Sex won’t fix it.

I cover my face and cry harder than I have since my mother died. Flashes of sitting in the back of my closet with my dolls come to mind. I wish I were there now, huddling in my closet with Jasmine, Molly, and Priscilla. They comforted me then, and they’ve gotten me through a lot of sticky situations since then.

The tears won’t stop. I’m going to lose my job. If I don’t go back to Indiana and face these two fuckers, they will probably torch what’s left of my apartment building. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.

I gasp and sit up straighter, looking out the windshield, seeing nothing as I consider other things they could do. What if they kill my friends? What if they saw me with Eve or any of the other girls? What if they kill Brett?

They could. They obviously mean business. If they’ll start a fire in my building and send compromising photos to my workplace to get me fired, they have no intention of stopping until I comply.

Finally, I glance out the window and see Brett still standing in the same spot. His face is tight with worry and hurt. Worry and hurt that I caused.

He leans his forearms against the roof of my car and stares down at me. “I’m sorry, Lacy. So fucking sorry. Sorry that I didn’t shut the blinds all around the house. Sorry that I left you vulnerable. You’re right. This is largely my fault. I should’ve paid closer attention to our surroundings. I should’ve noticed someone in the area watching us. I caused this problem, and I’m so sorry.”

My chest hurts. I hate him taking the blame. It’s not his fault. I should have paid attention, too. I should have realized that every time we played, I was visible to the outside world.

I let my guard down, and I shouldn’t have.

A noise behind me makes me jump and twist around. I gasp as the garage door rises. Who’s out there? I half expect to see Maximillian or his son striding into the garage, smirking.

That’s not who comes into view, though. It’s Blade.

Brett keeps his palms on the frame of my car but leans back to look at his boss.

Blade glances at me with a worried expression before looking back at Brett. “Sorry. You weren’t answering your phone, and I could hear you talking in here. I decided to try the door. Why is the automatic opener disconnected?”

I groan and drop my head back to the steering wheel. Their voices are muffled, but I can still hear every word in the silence of the garage. Everyone knows. Everyone.

Brett doesn’t answer Blade, but I assume he glanced at me and conveyed his meaning without words.

“Ah,” Blade says. “Cannon, Dagger, and Mace are combing this area. They’ll find out where the pictures were taken.”

Great. I’ve never even heard of those three men. They must be other employees of Black Blade Protection. Fucking fantastic. Why don’t we just show my humiliation to every fucking person on the block? Oh, wait. Maybe they’ve all seen it anyway.

“Colt and Davis are patrolling.”

What does that mean? That’s six men. Six men have arrived in less than half an hour to deal with my problem. As if they could. Who the fuck even cares where the pics were taken from? Who cares what the distance was? It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that they exist, and that can’t be undone.

Have they already been sent to my bosses? I don’t think I can even show my face at work again. Not now. I might as well resign by email and save what shred of dignity I have left.

Tears fall again. Fuck my father. Fuck his partner. Fuck Max. Fuck all of them. For ten years, I lived in relative peace, and now these assholes show up to ruin my life. For what?

The best part of all. One of them is dead. Dead. Ruining my life from the fucking grave. Is he watching and laughing like he got the last fucking word?

“You thought you could just flee the state and reinvent yourself, and I wouldn’t hunt you down and make you pay?” I can hear my father saying this in my ear as if he’s in the fucking car with me.

“Lacy?”

I jerk my head up at the sound of Eve’s voice and find her standing at the passenger door.

“Will you let me in?”

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