Page 238 of Branded
“I think you need to come?—”
The elevator doors opened.
“No, I don’t.” I stepped onto the car.
“Beth is?—”
Knots in my insides.
I clamped my hand on the metal door, stopping it from sliding closed. “Beth is what?”
Cas’s face was grave. “She’s down the hall, man.”
I was moving before I realized, in Cas’s face, my hand gripping my friend’s shirt. “Where?” I growled.
Cas, thankfully, didn’t get hackles up and snap back.
He just pointed to the right.
I let go then hauled ass down the hall, aware that Cas was following me, but not focusing on that.
Because…Beth.
Something wasn’t right with Beth. I felt it in my belly. I knew it because she wasn’t at the elevators, because Cas’s face, his voice, they weren’t right.
“Where?” I snapped when the hall split off into two directions.
“Left,” Cas said.
I spun to the left, my intestines in fucking knots…
And then I saw her.
Leaning against the wall, her neck bent, gaze on her feet.
“Beth, honey—” I took her hands, dipping down when she jumped, trying to see her face. But she didn’t make me wait, just glanced up, and her eyes were stark.
“Raph, I need to?—”
The door behind her opened.
And…my mom stepped out.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
“She…um…found me inside the arena,” Beth said carefully. “She?—”
A slender woman in a fitted jacket stepped out of the room, a security guard at her shoulder. “Do you know this woman?” the guard asked.
Tempting to say no.
But prevaricating wouldn’t get us any closer to sorting out whatever the fuck this shit show was about.
“My mother,” I gritted out.
The security guard nodded.
The woman next to me, the one in the jacket, said, “She accosted your wife. Grabbed her arm and wouldn’t let go even though your wife asked several times.”
