After I gathered all of our things, remembering to grab my soap, shampoo, and conditioner, I headed back to Gannon’s room. Braiden was sleeping even harder as he had the entire bed to himself, and somehow the little thing was managing to take up most of it.
Splayed out, he was sleeping extremely comfortably, and I felt I had a few minutes to shower before he woke up. After a speedy shower and pulling on jeans, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes, I put my wet hair in a ponytail and put only a bit of moisturizer on my face. I knew we wouldn’t be going anywhere that day either; might as well be comfortable.
As I opened the bathroom door, I found Braiden was just now sitting up, rubbing his eyes and moaning a bit. Probably all the activity of trying to kick me off the bed had him sore too.
“Morning, my big boy.” I headed to him, picking him up and carrying him into the bathroom. “Did you sleep well, Braiden?”
He nodded and this time it came along with an “Um-hm.”
“Braiden! Oh, good boy!” It wasn’t much, just a mumble, but it was something more than a mere nod of the head. It hadn’t been long, and he was making progress.
I knew that being away from his mother had to be traumatizing to the young boy. And being in a new place was too. Taking in so many new things, a father, another woman caring for him, all the staff, it had to be hard.
With all of that against him, the little boy was moving forward, taking things in stride and developing, despite all that had happened to him. My heart swelled with an ache as I brushed his teeth for him.
How could his mother do what she’s done?
People who hurt other people intentionally didn’t make sense to me. So many things happened that were bad, completely out of anyone’s control. I could never wrap my head around people who purposely decided to hurt another person. And their own child? Well, that was inconceivable to me.
The boy who sat on the vanity top, letting me clean his tiny teeth, was not only utterly adorable but sweet too. So loveable and kind-hearted.
How could she do this to him?
After bathing him and putting his clothes on, I took him with me to find his father. I found Josh still in the hallway, and he got up when he saw that we were dressed and on the move. Silently, he followed behind us as we went to the kitchen.
When I found no evidence of Gannon having had coffee or breakfast and also saw that Samson wasn’t around, I had to ask, “Did Gannon and Samson leave?”
Josh looked at me for a moment as if he had been told not to tell me anything. But then he looked off to the right. “He and Samson went into town.”
I was a bit shocked. He’d left us alone, a thing he’d said he wasn’t going to do until the shooter was caught.
Had the shooter been caught?
“Did they catch her?” I asked as I set to work making Braiden’s breakfast after putting him in the highchair. We’d moved it to the kitchen so we could keep an eye on him while we cooked.
“No.” Josh took a seat at the island bar, opening up his book and reading again. “There were no prints found around the windows. No reason to take her in.”
He offered no more information so I chatted with Braiden as I cooked his oatmeal. It did little to help me not to think about Gannon and what he was doing.
Why’d he leave without saying a word to me?
He had to be up to something he knew I’d beg him not to do. Probably putting himself into a dangerous situation. I knew that had to be it.
Why else would he leave us alone here?
Well, we had Josh, and I knew there were still guards all around the property and at the gate. But he’d said he would stay with us until it was all over. But it wasn’t over, according to Josh.
After getting the oatmeal ready and cutting up some organic strawberries, I fed Braiden, all the while chatting to him. I shut up when it occurred to me that I might be aggravating Josh with all of my mindless chatter.
With my silence, he put the book down and looked at me. “You okay, ma’am?”
The man was at least ten years older than me, so calling me ma’am was ridiculous. I put my hand on my hip and looked right back at him. “Josh, don’t you think that calling me ma’am is a bit over the top?”
He shrugged. “What else do you call your boss’s girl?”
It hit me hard. He knew about us.
Well, of course, he does, you idiot!
I really was an idiot. The man had seen us practically naked on the floor in Braiden’s bedroom the night the shots were fired. What else would he think?
I let it go, nodded, and went to work, cleaning everything up after giving Braiden a wooden spoon to play with, or rather bang, on the tray of his highchair with. It kept him content, so I dealt with the noise.
When I was all done, I got myself a bottle of water from the fridge, picked up the child, and headed to the playroom. I was going to put all of my focus on him and working with him that day.
It would help me get my mind off Gannon and what he was up to.
Josh followed us to the playroom and took a seat in the far corner and got back to reading his book. I pulled out the blocks with the letters and numbers on them and sat on the floor with Braiden.
Holding up a block, I pointed to the letter. “This is the letter B. Do you know what word begins with the letter B?”
Braiden laughed as if I’d told a funny joke and he took the block away from me and threw it down. But then he did something amazing. He looked at me and looked around the room. Then one eyebrow rose as he asked, “Da?”
My heart skipped a beat as I teared up. I grabbed him and hugged him. “Da! You said a word, Braiden!”
He laughed and wiggled, so I had to let him go. Then he asked again, “Da?”
I was laughing as tears rolled down my cheeks. “I don’t know where your daddy is. Let me call him, and you can ask him that yourself.”
I took out my cell from the back pocket of my jeans and called Gannon. Wherever he was, he was going to love hearing his son talk for the first time.
Gannon answered the call. “Hey, baby.”
I put the phone on speaker so Braiden could hear his daddy. “Hi, babe. Someone was asking about you.”
“And who would that be?” Gannon asked with a chuckle.
Braiden’s eyes lit up, and he came to sit on my lap and look at the screen, expecting to see his daddy there, but not finding him. “Da? Da?”
“Oh my God!” Gannon was overjoyed. “Braiden? Is that Daddy’s big boy? Son, I’m so proud of you!”
Braiden was so happy, he jumped out of my lap and started jumping up and down, shouting, “Da,” over and over again.
The tears were streaming down my face. “Can you believe that?”
“No. God, I wish I was there to see him.” He slipped off into silence.
“So, where are you, Gannon?” I had to ask. It was driving me crazy not to know.
But all I heard was silence on the other end of the line.
Oh, this can’t be good.
Chapter 32
Gannon
All I could hear was Brooke breathing as I sat there, not knowing what the hell to tell her.
If she knew I’d put myself in the middle of what might turn into a very bad situation, she’d be worried. And she’d stay worried until I made it back to her safely.
As I sat there, dumbfounded, Samson reached over and poked me in the arm. “He’s moving.”
“Was that Samson?” she asked. “Gannon, what are you doing?”
“It’s going to be okay. We’re going to put an end to this today, baby. I’ve got to go.”
“No!” she barked at me. “Gannon, where are you?”
“Baby, I have to go. I’ll tell you all about it …”
“He’s going in the side door,” Samson interrupted me. “You have to call your crew and let them know they have to get out of there.”
“Baby, I’ve got to go. I love you. Tell Braiden I love him too.” I swiped the call to end it before s
he could stop me.
I felt like an ass, hanging up on her that way. But I didn’t know what else to do. I knew she’d push me for more and more information. But she didn’t need to know about any of this.
If she did, she’d tell me to stay out of it and to let the cops and my investigators handle it. Only I couldn’t do that. I had to see it with my own eyes. I had to have the chance to face the woman who wanted me dead and who would use our son to get everything I had.
Calling the crew leader who was inside the building, I found him answering my call. “Yes, boss?”
“Don’t panic,” I started.
“Oh, boss, that’s a terrible way to start a conversation.” He didn’t laugh; he knew something bad was coming.
“Get everyone out of there. But don’t make it obvious. Call out that you’re giving them an early lunch. Make sure everyone goes out through the front exit. Someone went in through the side door. I don’t want anyone interacting with him. Don’t lock the front doors after you leave, got it?”
“Got it, boss.” He ended the call, and I sat back to watch.
Samson and I stayed put in his Ford Focus with darkly tinted windows. It was a perfect car for blending into the surroundings. No one ever noticed a bland car that there were so many of on the road. The only difference between the one Samson drove and the ones other people did was that his had one bad ass engine. He could outrun just about anyone with the motor he had custom-made.
He and I watched as everyone walked out of the building. Each one of them looked happy to be taking an early lunch. And when I saw the crew leader come out, I knew he was the last one inside the building. “That’s the last one, Samson. Tell them to go inside.”
Samson got on his walkie-talkie to send in the policemen he’d personally lined up to work with us on this. I watched as a couple of unmarked police cars started to move, pulling out from where they’d been parked and waiting.
Samson had people watching Cassandra’s every move. When she had been spotted early this morning with a man who had a bandage wrapped around his right bicep, they’d really honed in her. And that’s when they saw them coming out of her house. The man was wearing a trench coat, and she was carrying a brown paper bag. It was the way she was carrying the thing that alerted them that something was going down. She was overly cautious with the package as she got into the passenger side of the car that was parked near the side entrance of the nightclub.
When Samson had texted me early this morning about it all, I’d hopped out of bed and told him I wanted to witness it all. I had to see the look on the bitch’s face when she went down.
And the time was getting closer and closer as more and more unmarked police cars moved in. One parked in a way that blocked Cassandra’s view from the front of the building.
We knew she was the guy’s lookout. And now she was blind to see if anyone went inside. Of course, there were policemen heading in through the unlocked front doors.
Wearing business suits, four policemen got out of the cars they had parked on either side of hers. They got out and got together on the sidewalk, right in front of her car. Another unmarked car pulled up behind her, and another police officer dressed in a business suit got out and was calling out to the others, acting as if they were all together and he had no idea where he should park.
Her car was quite effectively blocked in, and there would be no getting away.
Cassandra became aware of that fact and opened her door, stepping out and looking at all of the men. I eased my window down a bit so I could hear her. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I’ll be leaving soon.” She looked at the man who had her blocked in. “Can you please move? Once my friend comes out, we have to hurry to get to our next meeting.”
“Sure, lady,” the officer said with a smile. “Can you see any parking spaces from where you’re at? I can’t seem to find one anywhere.”
“No, I can’t see one from here.” She rubbed her forehead in aggravation. With her head down like that, she failed to notice the other men who were on the sidewalk, moving in on her.
Their plan had worked extremely well. They had her out of the car, where she’d be much easier to get to when the time came to make an arrest. One had slipped around the other side of the car and was coming up in front of her.
Acting as if he was trying to help his friend, that officer said, “I think there might be one over there.” He pointed off to one side, and they acted as if they were looking at something.
The other three, who were closing in on Cassandra from behind, were able to get her to step a bit further from the car so they could pass by. One of them pushed the car door closed and stepped in between Cassandra and the car. The other two were right behind her, and she looked a little panicked as she realized she was trapped outside of the car and the other car was still blocking her in.
Then the side door of my club opened up and out spilled her man in the company of two uniformed police officers. “She made me do it all!” he shouted.
Four sets of hands grabbed her as she tried to spin around. One of them forced her, face first, up against the car. Another officer began reading her rights to her.
And now she was lost for words as she looked around, dazed and confused as hell. “How?”
Her man-friend wasn’t through throwing her all the way under the bus yet as he shouted, “She made me do it. Cassandra Harrington made me take the shots at her kid’s father that night. She made me set those bombs in the club to lead the police to think it was someone other than herself that was threatening Gannon Forester and their son, Braiden Forester.”
“Shut up, you idiot!” she screamed.
“I will not,” he yelled back at her. “I took a bullet for you, and you couldn’t even be bothered to tell me you were sorry about that. And just so you all know, I could’ve actually shot that man; I just didn’t want to. I began to grow a conscience. And that bomb I made isn’t going to go off. I just told her it would. That ticking sound is an old clock I found to put inside of that plastic pipe.”
I looked at Samson. “Can we get out now?”
With a nod, he and I got out of the car and made our way over to the officer who had Cassandra. The guy she’d had do all this saw me and shouted, “Hey, Gannon! She had this planned for a year, dude. She wanted everything you had. She knew the kid was her only ticket to getting it.”
She turned to look at me then. Her eyes were wide. Her red lipstick was smeared. “He’s a liar. He’s the mastermind behind all of this. He made me do it all. Don’t believe him!”
I shook my head and looked her straight in her dark eyes. “You will never see my son again. I will get your parental rights completely revoked. My son has a real mother now. A woman who loves him and puts him first every single time. And you will rot in prison. I will make damn sure of that.”
“Gannon, no! Please!” Her begging only served to piss me off even further.
“My lawyers will meet you officers at the police station, where they will make sure she’s charged with every crime they can come up with.” I turned to leave, and Samson followed.
It was over. Finally.
Chapter 33
Brooke
Not happy with how Gannon had cut me off, I played with Braiden to try to get my mind on anything other than Gannon and what he was up to.
When Josh’s cell buzzed, I jerked my head up and saw him taking the call. His voice was very low. “Josh here, boss.”
There was a series of uh-huhs and some hmms, but Josh wasn’t talking much. I went back to playing with Braiden, knowing I wasn’t going to find anything out.
I looked up again when Josh stood up and started walking to the door. “Bye, ma’am. It was nice working for you guys.”
My heart stopped. It had to be over.
I got up, picking up Braiden, and went toward him. “Was it her? Did they get her?”
He nodded and went out the door. “Yep.”
I had no idea how to act. I wanted to jump up and dow
n and shout about them getting that horrible bitch. But she was Braiden’s mother. It just felt like the wrong thing to be doing.
The poor kid. His mother would spend a considerable amount of his life in prison for what she’d done. And I didn’t want him remembering that I jumped for joy and celebrated that horrible fact.
Monster or not, she was his mother and always would be.
Josh left, and little by little the staff came trickling in. It was crazy how they just all got back to work. Everyone was nice and asked how we were doing with the whole thing.
I didn’t know how I was doing with it. I wanted Gannon to come and tell me every last detail. I could’ve called, but I didn’t want to bother him. I knew he must be very busy, making sure Cassandra was put away for a very long time.
So when an hour went by and then one more, I just took Braiden to his bedroom after lunch for a nap. When I got to his bedroom, I saw men working on the bullet holes in the walls in his room and mine. So I opted for the next bedroom. It was an empty guest room, and I went in to put him down for a nap.
He was tired, rubbing his little blue eyes and leaning heavily on me. Taking off his shoes, I laid him back on the bed and pulled the blanket over him as I sang him a lullaby.
Since he was half asleep anyway, it took no time for him to go to sleep. I went into his bedroom and got the baby monitor. Then I went to mine to retrieve the one I had.
Going back to the guestroom, I plugged in the monitor and headed out into the hallway, not sure where I should go. The door to Gannon’s room was open, and I’d seen housekeeping working on it. So I turned and headed to another guest room across the hallway from where I’d put Braiden.
“Where are you going, baby?” I heard his deep voice ask.
I turned and saw Gannon coming my way. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with emotion and ran to him, throwing my arms around him as tears got away from me. “Gannon! You’re okay.”
I had known he was okay. Josh would’ve told me if he was otherwise. But it had just been there, that little doubt. But he was okay, and he was home. And it was all over.
Nightclub Sins: A Billionaire Romance Series Page 15