Page 18 of The Professor
A rash of fear swarmed up my neck and over my scalp.
I dashed into the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife out of the block. It was heavy, and the stainless-steel handle cool in my palm.
My mouth dried in terror, and my stomach knotted. I didn’t want to stab anyone, but needs must. If the fucker tried to attack me, I’d go for him…or her.
I went back to the study and stood outside the door, held my breath. There was definitely someone rooting around. Maybe my father had forgotten something and had come back to get it? Perhaps it was one of his enemies, and he’d garnered a few over the years, come to find evidence.
I swallowed, bolstered my courage, and then shoved at the door and flicked the overhead light on. “Who are you?” I stomped forward, knife at the ready.
“What the fuck?” A tall dark-haired man in black spun to me and withdrew his hand from the filing cabinet. “Chelsea!”
My eyes widened. “Vince!” I stared at my brother. He had a new tattoo, a spider’s web, on his neck and his stubble was the heaviest I’d ever seen it. He was dressed head to toe in leather, and his jacket had an image of a wolf, or maybe a bear, with drool dripping from its mouth. “What are you doing here?”
“Whyweren’tyou here?” He frowned at me and dropped a sheaf of papers on Dad’s desk. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I was out…with friends?”
He frowned. “You don’t look like you’ve been drinking. You get bright-red cheeks when you’re drinking.”
“I haven’t been…I was studying…Ted just dropped me back.”
“A bit keen on your studies, aren’t you? That’s new.” His attention dropped to the knife I was still holding aloft.
“No, it isn’t.” I set the knife on the desk. “You just haven’t been around to see. So a better question is, where the hell have you been for the last year?”
“As far away from here as possible.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “What were you going to do with that?”
“Stab the intruder.”
He nodded slowly and twisted his lips.
It was a mannerism that had always irritated the heck out of me. “What?”
“Never pick a weapon you don’t know how to defend yourself against.”
“What are you now? Some kind of weapon expert?” I pouted and folded my arms. “’Cause you hang out with bikers?”
He withdrew a gun from the small of his back. “I can shoot this thing.”
“Put it away.” I frowned, my heart rate tripping back up just at the sight of it. “I can’t for a minute imagine you have a license.”
“You always were such a rule follower.” He put the gun away.
“Am not.”
He huffed as though it wasn’t worth arguing the point. If he’d been anyone other than my big brother I’d have told him how I’d just willingly been fucked by a stranger. Offered my pussy up on a first come, first served basis. How was that following rules?
But I held that juicy snippet in. It wouldn’t go down well.
“So what are you here for?” I asked.
“Information.”
“About what?” I dropped into Dad’s swivel chair and spun around, kicking my legs the way I had when I was a kid.
“Information on where he was the night our mother died.”
I stilled and sat forward. “What the hell are you talking about?”
