Page 115 of Bleeding Hearts Duet

Chapter Five

Ryland

Unfuckingbelievable.

Did you know that science has actually proven swearing to be cathartic? Wonder how much it cost to figure that one out. I could’ve told them for free.

Brighton was poking the beast inside of me with her invisible stick. Would it be hypocritical to say that I didn’t like her keeping secrets from me? I'd tasted my own medicine, and it was bitter. So very bitter.

Still, she knew how I handled this kind of shit. I didn’t. Something was wrong, and she hadn’t cracked her code of silence after any of my various texts. My frustration bled through the messages the longer this act of rebellion carried on. Usually, a good dose of my cantankerous attitude would do the trick. Brighton didn’t like confrontation. She didn’t like anyone to worry. She was always so goddamned concerned about everybody but herself. Often, I could twist that in my favor, because… well, let’s be frank, a man such as myself needed her reassurances. But this time she wasn’t giving them. Cruel and unusual punishment, I’d say.

She’d know someone on my payroll was keeping an eye on her now. What did it matter? Brighton should know my M.O. Mick wasn’t just following her around for information. He was there to keep her safe. It was what I liked to call compromise. But I only had so much patience, and she’d just stretched it to the limit.

“Why didn’t you follow her inside?” I blared through the phone.

“She was onto me,” Mick rumbled. “You said not to get too close.”

“So you lost her completely?” My indignation was not well hidden.

“I thought you didn’t want me to scare her.”

Ah, touché, Mick. Pulling out that old fucking chestnut. No, I didn’t want him to scare her. And if she had any recollection of who he was, she probably would be scared.

“Not happy, Mick.” I rocked back in my chair and squinted at the bottle of Macallan across the room. I knew what I’d be doing as soon as this call was finished.

“I know, boss.”

“How many doctors are in that building?”

“A lot, sir.”

I could probably get her medical records. Eventually. But I’d need to know the doctor first. And if Brighton ever found out, she’d lay into me with a whole speech about ‘right and wrong.’ I hardly needed to supply extra reasons to hate me, so I’d put it on hold. For now.

“Oh, hang on. There’s something else, sir.”

I reached for the marble paperweight Brighton held in her hand on that first day, smoothing the pad of my finger over the inky blackness. If I didn’t know her so well, I would’ve wondered what it was that drew her to it.

“What is it?” I asked absently.

“That bar she was at yesterday?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I had a hunch, so I’ve been hanging around the place. And she just came back here.”

“With who?” I perked up.

“She’s by herself,” he said. “But she looks like she’s wearing a uniform.”

“A uniform?”

Oh, Jesus Christ, Brighton.

I was up out of my chair before I’d even fully processed his words. “Wait for me in the parking lot. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

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