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“I’ll stop him!” she told Gus. “Just give me a minute and don’t shoot!’
Rushing back to Slade, she grabbed him by one muscular bicep and tried to get his attention.
“Slade? Slade! Stop it! Stop it right now or they’re going to shoot you!”
The big Kindred didn’t even seem to hear her. His eyes were glowing coal red and he had both big hands wrapped around Grabbar’s thick throat, obviously intent on squeezing the life out of him.
“I’ll fucking kill you for touching her,” Brandi heard him growl. “Twist your head right off your fucking neck like I did to Rabbaz in CellStone. That’ll fucking teach you to touch what’s mine!”
Grabbar’s face was turning black now—his tongue protruding from his mouth grotesquely and Gus had finally gotten his gun out and was pointing it in a shaky way at Slade’s broad back.
“No!” Brandi cried. I have to find a way to get through to him—but how?
Suddenly she realized she could feel some of what Slade was feeling through the strange link they shared. The pure, protective rage, the possessive fury that drove him to kill anyone who dared to hurt her because Brandi was his mate, damn it! He’d claimed her and bonded her and he was damned if anyone else would even lay a finger on her!
The link—I have to use the link! she realized.
“Slade!” she sent as loudly as she could—turning up the mental volume, if you could call it that. “Slade you have to stop or they’re going to shoot you! And they’ll shoot me too because I’m in the way,” she added, realizing it was true. The shaky way Gus was holding his gun didn’t bode well for either of them.
“What?” This finally got the big Kindred’s attention. Turning, he saw the situation, with Brandi standing in front of him and Gus pointing the gun at both of them.
“Drop him,” Brandi urged him. “Drop Grabbar or you’re going to get us both killed!”
With a reluctant growl, Slade dropped her boss like he was a sack of dirty diapers. Grabbar hit the marble floor hard, his bald head making a clunk sound on the expensive flooring.
“Should have killed him,” the big Kindred growled. “Should have ripped his fucking head off.”
Like he had with Rabbaz from CellStone—whoever and whatever that was, Brandi thought. But that was for another time—right now she was just trying to defuse the situation.
“Okay, he dropped him,” she yelled at Gus, who was still pointing the gun at them uncertainly. “Put down the gun, Gus. My, uh, boyfriend dropped Mr. Grabbar!”
“But I don’t understand—what’s going on here?” Gus’s voice sounded plaintive and his gray eyebrows were pulled low over his faded blue eyes. “Why in the world would your boyfriend choke Mr. Grabbar in the first place?”
“Because Mr. Grabbar was trying to rape me.” Her voice carried and suddenly Brandi became aware that other people were crowding into the back of the bank too. Some were employees but some were also customers.
“He what?” someone asked.
Brandi bit her lip. Part of her wanted to sink into the ground but she knew if she didn’t get this out in the open now, it would get twisted by other people and she would never be able to get it right.
“He tried to rape me,” she repeated, her voice stronger now. “He’s been harassing me for the entire time I’ve been working for him but I just put up with it. I was afraid HR wouldn’t care and I need this job. But today, during my performance review he…he…pushed me against the desk and he…he tried to…” Her voice was suddenly thick in her throat and then Slade was beside her, putting one massive arm gently around her shoulders. Brandi looked up at him gratefully. “If you hadn’t stopped him—”
“Just glad I got here in time,” he rumbled. He was looking calmer now—at least his eyes were back to their usual colors, she noted.
“He came after me too,” someone spoke up.
Looking up, Brandi saw it was Genine—a girl who used to have a mid-management position at the bank but had suddenly been demoted to teller for some reason.
“Me too,” another teller said. “He told me if I wanted to keep my job I’d better ‘make him happy.’ But when I went to the HR department, nobody seemed to care. They told me to just keep quiet.” She was glaring at Toby Wenton as she spoke, who was the HR representative at the downtown branch.
Toby looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“Company policy is—”
“Fuck your company policy,” Slade snarled at him. “Your company policy nearly got my female raped! What the fuck is wrong with you human males?” he demanded, taking a step towards Toby, who abruptly turned as pale as his shirt collar and took a step back. “Can’t you understand that females are to be protected and cherished, not abused and violated? Why is that so fucking hard for you to understand?”
