Page 24 of The Darkest Touch

ChapterTwenty-Four

BRANDON

“Oh, God! Oh, fuck!” Fisting my hair, I pulled the strands hard as the smell of Katie’s blood curdled up my nose. Pacing the hall furiously, my heart beat too hard, too fast, to work, and my brain threatened to overheat. I couldn’t breathe under the immense pressure on my chest, and I crouched down and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Fuck! Fuck!” The rasping bellow tore from my tight throat, and I rocked back and forth as I drowned in my fear and worry. I fuckingdeservedthis meltdown. We were shot at! Katie was injured, and I didn’t even know if Nathan was still alive. He was with me everywhere I went, even if I forgot he was there, and I ground my teeth hard.

I took so many people for granted, even now—Audra and Nathan, the guy who drove my car whose name I didn’t even know, and even the lady who cleaned my house...

“Fuck, shit,argh!” Leaping to my feet as my shriek echoed down the empty hallways, I fished my phone out of my pocket with trembling fingers. Katie’s blood smeared on the screen, and I struggled to take a breath as I searched for my mom’s contact.

“Hello?”

“Mom! Mom! He shot her! He shot Katie!” Covering my face as I cried, I dropped heavily into a chair before my mom let out a shocked gasp. “Oh, my God! What do I do? What do I do? I–I can’t... I can’t live without her, Mom.”

“Where are you? What hospital are you at? Steven! Get my car!” Sputtering an answer, I slumped heavily and banged my head against the wall, but the pain didn’t register in my overloaded mind. “Okay, Brandon, just calm down, baby. I’ll pick up Caroline, and we’ll be there in two seconds, okay?”

Wheezing harsh breaths, I couldn’t reply, but my mom’s soothing words had some effect. Hanging up on her before I had a chance to think properly, I found Nathan’s Marine buddy, Lester, deep in the unused contacts in my phone.

“Do you have any idea what fucking t—” Cutting himself off, Lester’s deep, rasping tone hitched as he sucked in a sharp breath. “Wait... what happened? I thought Nathan gave you this number in case of emergencies?”

“H–he’s been shot.”

“What? That’s not an emergency.” Lester snorted roughly, his declaration resonating deep inside me, and the line crackled harshly before he spoke up again. “You do know that he’s been shot before. If he’s not dead then, he won’t be dead now. Let me know when he’s awake.”

“Wait!” Shouting in the receiver, I tightened my grip on my phone as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “I—I need your help. I need you to find someone for me. Nathan wasn’t the only one. My–my wife... she got hit, and she’s pregnant.”

“Who do you need to me find?” Pain ripped through the left side of my chest, and I raked my hand through my hair as I pushed myself up. Furiously pacing the length of the hallway, I closed my eyes to picture anything I could, but shock struck my heart.

I didn’t know what Mason looked like.

“His name is Mason. He lives near Landri Drive. I don’t have anything more, but..." Trailing off, I curled my fingers in my hair to tug hard, but no useful information came to light. “I’m sorry. I can’t... I can’t think of anything.”

“Okay, well, I’ve done more with less. I’ll get back to you. Let me know when Nathan wakes up so I can give him shit for getting shot again.” Just like that, Lester hung up, and I resumed my pacing as my body went into autopilot.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” The angry, hoarse snap made me blink, and I frowned as I took my phone from my ear to see whom I’d called. Pursing my lips, I inhaled as deeply as I could before speaking up, and my haggard face warmed from Bert’s annoyance radiating from my cell.

“I need a favor. Actually, it’s more like a trade.” My brain caught up with my mouth, and I silently cursed myself for thinking up this terrible idea. Clearing my throat roughly, I heaved a hard, sharp breath before continuing. “I will give you direct control of a promising startup, but you have to do something for me first.”

“Did something happen?” The concern in Bert’s tone was so faint that I thought I’d imagined it for a moment, and I sucked in a shuddering breath through clogged nostrils.

“For once, Bert, I’m gonna trust you, okay? This is really important, so I need you to not be selfish for once. I need to go... I need to go on sabbatical. Okay? And you need to take over for me for a little while. If you can prove that I’m not doing the wrong thing, I’ll give you whichever startup you want. This is serious, okay, Bert? This is serious, and I need you to not fuck it all up. If you try to do anything fishy, I’ll ruin you, okay?” My threat left my lips in a whisper, and I clenched and released my free palm by my side. “I’m going to make Audra watch everything you do, Bert. This is your only chance. If you fuck up and try anything she doesn’t think is ethical, I will puteverythinginto little boxes and sell it all off, and there won’t be a Global Technological Advancements anymore.”

“You’d seriously dismantle your life’s work, your father’s life’s work, my life’s work..." His wasn’t a question, but I jerked my head in a nod anyway, and Berthold sighed heavily. “And if I do this, you won’t interfere or restrict my choices?”

“The startup will be all yours. I won’t have any rights of involvement at all. You can do whatever you want, however you want, with no protests from me.”

“Any one I want?” I couldn’t shake the sense that I was making a deal with the devil, but I gave a gruff ‘yes’, regardless. “Okay. That’s enough for me. And Brandon... whatever happened, it’ll be okay. I know what I am, but you can trust me this once.Justthis once.”

“It’s so bad that evenyouare taking pity on me.” My voice cracked, and I barked out a half-laugh, half-sob before managing to regain some semblance of control. “That’s bad, Bert. That’s real bad.”

“Your father was a real piece of shit, you know, Brandon, but the fact of the matter remains that he at least wanted you. He told me the day he found out about you that I needed to do my best to help you. It might not have been the way he expected, and I’m not saying I’m a damn saint or anything, but I’m not so awful that I’d take advantage of your personal issues. Business, well, that’s another matter, but for you to ask me for help like this... I’m not stupid, and believe it or not, I’m not heartless.”

“Be careful. You almost sound sympathetic.” In a rare moment that only lasted until Bert promptly hung up, I felt like I believed him. Just this once, I could trust him.

And I had no reason not to. Not once had he ever cared about anything going on in my personal life. Everything he did was aimed at the business where the people he affected were numbers on a paper. Names with no faces.

But he knew me. Bert had known me since I was born, and even his greedy, self-centered, uncaring self knew that he couldn’t go there.

---