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couldn’t hold him any longer.
    Brady, against my pleas, had been secretly doing surveillance for John. I knew they both wanted a piece of Mike, but it just wasn’t worth it. Times were better in the era of an eye for an eye; our legal system is so fucked that people like Mike can get away with what he did , while someone like John would go to jail for even threatening him.
    Fortunately, John was so interested in Mandy that he’d been spending most of his time with her. Brady said that there’d been no sign of Mike at work and Joel and Brandon said they hadn’t heard from him since that night.
    Now that Mandy and I were friends, we were spending a lot of time together. My mother had taken some personal time off to be there for me to cope , and my brother had gotten six weeks leave. It was so awesome being able to spend time with both of them without life getting in the way. I got time off of work as well and was able to get a temporary leave from my class as long as I made up the work.
    We mostly stayed at home, visiting and telling stories. John had amazing stories of his time overseas. I was so enthralled that I would just sit for hours listening, but my mom couldn’t stay in the room. It was too close to the life she had lived before she’d lost Dad and the memories were too painful to rehash.
    We went to Carmine’s a few times, mostly because John had a hankering and it wasn’t for pizza. The only time that Mandy wasn’t at my house was when she had to work. John had always liked pizza, but all of the sudden, Carmine’s magically became his favorite place.
    “Mom, Liz,” John said, coming into the living room, smelling like an overload of cologne. “Let’s go get some pizza.”
    “Oh, come on, John.” My mom sighed. “We’ve been eating pizza and calzones since you met that girl.”
    “Yeah, I know. Luckily, she’s feeding us at cost. Just look at how much grocery money I’m saving the family.” He laughed, turning to me with puppy dog eyes. “Come on, Liz; she’s your friend, too.”
    “Sure, pizza sounds good.” I had my own reasons to get John and my mom out of the house. Brady was on his way over and I wanted to make new, better memories to replace the nightmares that had been haunting me since that night. “Mom, can you take John now and Brady and I will meet you there? He’s running late.”
    “Sure, honey,” she replied. “John, let’s talk about this girl on the way.”
    “Oh, great. Liz, we can wait for Brady.” He glared and gave me his suspicious look where his eyebrows knitted together. It was the same look our father used to have when he was trying to play detective to figure out which one of us colored on the walls. It was usually me, but I didn’t have a tell and John always took the blame so I wouldn’t get in trouble.
    “No, really it’s fine. I wanted a little extra time to talk with him in private anyway.” I looked away, so John couldn’t see in my eyes that I had ulterior motives.
    “Hmmm,” he rubbed his chin with his thumb seeming to ponder. “Okay, your call.” John gave me the older brother I’ve known you your whole life, and you don’t think I know you’re lying? look .
    Brady had already texted me about leaving work and going home quick to take a shower before heading over. This had been an hour ago, so I was sweating, hoping that he wouldn’t pull up as my mom and brother were leaving. I watched frantically as they got in the car and backed out of the driveway. No sign of Brady coming down the road. So far, so good. Now I needed to get into something sexy for Brady.

Chapter Seven
    All In
    Liz

    As soon as I was sure the coast was clear, I hightailed it up to my bedroom and began shuffling through my dresser drawers. I had some pretty sexy stuff from Victoria’s Secret, but rarely had any occasion to wear it. Since I just showered a little while ago, I had on the right panties and matching bra, but I needed something over it to take his breath