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"Okay, fine. You're right. I can do such a thing." His chest bowed out, showing me how proud he was of his illegal powers.
I rolled my eyes. "Then do it."
"And you'll come back?"
When I nodded, Quinn made a sound from his perch on the wall. I glanced at him, but he seemed preoccupied with whatever he was doing on his phone.
Mrs. Garrison laughed out a harsh sound. "Oh, please. Tell me you're not serious about meeting all her silly little conditions."
My father glanced at her. "I'm dead serious, Patricia. This is exactly why I came here."
Garrison sniffed, only to have her face leach of color when she seemed to realize just how serious he was. "No," she whispered. "Bradshaw, please don't do this." Hurrying to him, she fell to her knees in front of his chair and ran her hands up his thighs toward his lap.
He caught her wrists and pulled her claws away from him, clucking his tongue. "Really, Patricia. Don't be so unseemly. Besides, you're not that good of a fuck to sway me on this."
After he pushed her aside, openly dismissing her, he unfolded what I guessed was the deed to the club. Waving his pen, he grinned. "You know, I assumed you'd ask to have the club put into your own name. But I guess your heart is softer than I ever took it for. That's . . . disappointing. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter to me who it goes to. Getting you back under my roof is all that matters."
As he signed away the nightclub to Pick, Mrs. Garrison clutched her hair and screamed. "No! You can't do this. You made me a promise. I let you do all that shit to me. What about Mason?"
Bradshaw sighed and rolled his eyes as if extremely tired of her theatrics. "You were a means to an end, Patricia. And I don't give a shit about your little prostitute. My daughter wants you to stay away from him, so you're going to stay away from him."
"But—"
"You're dismissed," he cut in, glaring at her. "Get out."
Screeching out an inhuman shriek, Garrison tore across the room toward her purse.
I had no idea what she was after until she opened the top clasp and yanked out a gun.
I opened my mouth to scream. Bradshaw opened his mouth to yell. Quinn pushed away from
the wall, his eyes wide with horror. And Mrs. Garrison lifted the barrel, pointing it at my father's head.
"No one tells me what to do, you son of a bitch."
"No," he bellowed just before she pulled the trigger.
Watching his head explode imprinted itself in my retinas. It was something I'd never be able to un-see. Mrs. Garrison whirled to me, her eyes crazed and livid. She raised the gun in my direction, and my life flashed before my eyes. Pick, Skylar, Julian, Reese. They were finally free.
But shit, I didn't want to die.
Two-hundred and forty pounds of football player tackled me from the side, driving me to the floor as the gun went off. I screamed and landed hard, cracking my head against cold tile with Quinn piling on top of me. As he tightened his arms around me, shielding me from head to toe, my ears rang, my head swam, and my vision went fuzzy.
Just as Quinn went dead weight, a voice yelled, "Patricia!"
Though I was still seeing stars and couldn't focus properly, I saw a blurry image of Mrs. Garrison over Quinn's shoulder as she whirled toward the doorway of the office.
"Mason?" she gasped, her voice stunned as her gun aimed his way.
"Jesus, Patricia. What did you just do?"
He'd ducked back into the hallway but stayed right outside the door with his back pressed to the wall. I could see the corner of his shoulder from where I lay.
"I . . . I . . . he made me. He was taking you away from me again. Taking me away from this bar. I worked so hard to get him to buy this place and let me manage it. I let him . . . I let him do so much to me. And now he just wants to take it all away. Take you away? Just like that? No fucking way."
"But you just shot someone. Are you insane?"
"I was so tired of waiting. I missed you." Mrs. Garrison's chin trembled and tears filled her eyes. "You don't know what he did to me. Oh God, Mason. The things he made me do so I could get to you . . . "
