I’m already stepping in front of her before I register moving.
“She did save him,” I say, low and sharp. “She kept Alderton breathing until EMS arrived. Campus security wasn’t around, and no other professor came to our aid. The kid out there, cuffed and being led away by the police, had a knife and was still in the room. I couldn’t treat Alderton,anddeal with him,andkeep Scarlett safe. Should I have madeyour daughterwrestlea knifefrom the attacker? I followed scene safety protocol. Scarlett knew how to treat Alderton, and I let her.”
“She shouldn’t have been in here in the first place!” Ford grills me with a brutal glare. “All students are supposed to be locked down.”
My chest tightens… He’s right. She should have been in the closet like the other students I sent to wait. Wait for rescue. But she insisted on being by my side.
I’m not sure who would get into more trouble for breaking protocol. I’m thinking it’s me. Or he could reprimand his daughter to make a point that she is not above the law here at Hamilton.
“Scarlett, come with me,” Dean Ford barks. “Right now.”
“She needs to decompress. You know trauma protocol,” I fight her father anyway.“You taught it.”
Ford fixes an icy glare on me. “She needs to decompress becauseyoumade her handle a trauma!”
Scarlett swallows, face pale, all her glory strippedaway. That does it. Fury lights my veins.
“You have no idea what she’s capable of,” I bite out. “She kept a professor alive. I wouldn’t ask any other MS-3 to do what she did.”
Ford points at us both. “In my office. Now.”
Scarlett’s breathing quickens. “Yes, Dad.”
I take her hand, slick with blood, but I squeeze it anyway.
She looks up at me, startled. “My hand is bloody,” she whispers.
“And now, so is mine, baby.”
I pull her next to me as Ford storms ahead, and we walk together into the lion’s den.
Chapter 44
Scarlett
My father doesn’t speak as we walk behind him. He just storms down the hall, I’m sure thinking of all the ways he’s going to punish Cormac for something I did. I could have hidden with the other students. But I couldn’t watch my husband rush toward an active crime scene. Alone.
Cormac’s hand stays wrapped around mine. Warm. Steady. The blood on our skin has already dried, sealing us together.
We look like we climbed out of a Civil War battlefield instead of a faculty wing.
My pulse is a wild drumbeat, but not from fear. Not exactly. This is the moment where everything will snap. Apart or into place.
Dad throws open his office door and storms behind his desk. “Sit. Both of you.”
Cormac stays standing. And I do, too.
Dad’s nostrils flare. “Scarlett. Sit.”
“I have blood on me, Dad!”
“I don’t give a fuck about the upholstery,” Dad barks. “I’ll have it burned tomorrow.”
“Sit down, baby,” Cormac whispers, voice calm. “You’re gonna crash. I don’t want you to fall over.”
Dad bristles, seeing how I complyto him. My husband.
The tension shifts and the air fizzes. My father is used to bulldozing everyone. As the dean, he’s in charge. But outside of school, he’s not in charge of me. Not anymore. Now I belong to Cormac. My husband.