A knock sounds out on the apartment door, and Cormac looks at me. “You can go into the bedroom if you don’t want this man’s face in your head. I don’t want to corrupt you.”
“I’m your wife. I stand with you.” I grip his hand, gloves now absent.
“Good girl.” He turns and struts to the door. I follow but choose to linger in the kitchen in case they want to have a private word first.
“What the fuck aretheydoing here?” Cormac spits, and my world turns upside down, thinking it’s the Feds.
His contact turned him in.
I eye that same steak knife Cormac used to slice my dress in half. Closing my fingers around the handle, I whisper, “They arenottaking my husband.”
Chapter 52
Cormac
Ican’t believe this is happening. The two men behind Dr. Davis Harrow fan out and stop my heart.
“I can explain,” Harrow says, looking guilty, pushing glasses up his nose. “Please let us in.”
“Professor O’Rourke,” Bradley Ford says, his tone somewhere between not surprised and impressed.
It’s really the third man in my hallway that has me spiraling, thinking my medical career is truly over. When I worked so hard to bring it back from the dead.
“Ramses Langston.” The titan of medicine holds out his hand for me to shake. “I don’t believe we’ve formally met.”
My life flashes before my eyes, and my legs go weak as the worst-case scenario runs through my brain. Ford is here to fire me, and Langston is here to take Scarlett away from me.
The only bit of comfort I have is that if either of those happens, they will be dead by sunrise.
I should spit in Langston’s face. Tell him to go fuck himself for what his son did to Scarlett. What he did to me.
But I had a father who did terrible things. And I would find it brutally unfair if someone made me pay for those sins. This is just reversed.
“Cormac O’Rourke,” I say and shake his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”
There’s no getting around this man if I want to keep my medical license.
“Can we come in, Cormac?” Harrow asks, his face still red.
I assume Ford and Langston know everything. Butwhy are they here?
“Sure. Come in.” I step aside.
The three men cross over the threshold, and I hear Scarlett shriek. “Dad!”
“It’s okay, Scarlett.” Ford holds up his hand to assure her.
Of what, though?
I move into the kitchen and put my arm around her. “Someone start explaining.”
Ford opens his mouth first. “I ran into Harrow last month. He had a little too much to drink and said something that had the hair on the back of my neck standing up. After a good amount of coercion, he admitted to mixing the cocktails that were killing the street dealers.”
“I didn’t give you up, Cormac,” Harrow says.
“I hired a PI,” Ford admits. “I understand what you’re doing, Cormac. Those drugs are tearing apart communities and destroying families.”
“I’ll handle it from here,” Ramses Langston says, confidence dripping off his tone. “My reach goes farther than you can imagine. There is usually someone very high up at the root of these community surges. Those people can beinfluenced. I’m also installing a mole in the customs department. I can’t guarantee to eliminate the influx one hundred percent?—”