I Married My Ex's Billionaire Father-Chapter 331: Cleaning Up Your Mess

The woman’s head snapped up, her composure finally cracking. "Igor?" she called out, her voice sharp.

Silence.

She rose from her chair in one fluid, predatory motion, pulling a small, silver pistol from a hidden holster at her back. The movement was so smooth, so practiced, it was clear this was not the first time she’d held a weapon. She moved toward the door, her steps silent on the concrete, the gun held steady in a two-handed grip.

Brandon was left alone, bound to the chair in the pool of single, naked light. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, desperate rhythm. Igor was a mountain of a man. Who could have...

The heavy personnel door creaked open. A figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, but it wasn’t Igor. It was a woman, her shape familiar even in the distorted shadows.

She stepped into the light.

Babydoll.

She wasn’t dressed in the provocative outfit he had seen her in. Tonight, she was practical, clad in dark, tactical gear. Her hair was pulled back in a severe knot, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, leaving only the sharp, intelligent lines of her features.

She rushed over to Brandon and started to loosen the rope around him.

"We don’t have a lot of time." Her voice was not the sultry purr he was used to. This was clipped, urgent, all business.

"You... you... What are you doing here?" Brandon managed, his mind still trying to reconcile her abrupt appearance.

"We don’t have time for those questions," Baby Doll said, finally untying the rope around Brandon’s wrists. "But you hired me to be a problem, and I am a very, *very* good problem. I’m also expensive, and when my clients get themselves kidnapped by psychotic stepmothers, it’s bad for business."

She worked on the knots at his ankles.

"So you’re just... cleaning up your mess?" Brandon asked, rubbing circulation back into his raw wrists.

"Something like that," she grunted, yanking the last rope free. "Get up. We need to go."

Before they could move, a single shot rang out, impossibly loud in the enclosed space. It wasn’t aimed at them. The bullet slammed into the concrete floor an inch from Brandon’s foot, sending a spray of chips into the air.

Brandon and Baby Doll froze.

Standing in the doorway, the gun held rock-steady, was the stepmother. Her face was a mask of cold fury. Igor’s unconscious, bulky form was visible just outside the door, a dark heap on the wet asphalt.

"An interesting development," the stepmother said, her voice dangerously calm. "Two little birds in my cage."

She took a step inside, her gun unwavering. Her eyes flicked between Brandon and Baby Doll, assessing, calculating. "Igor is quite fond of me. He’ll be very upset when he wakes up. And you," she said, her gaze landing on Baby Doll with withering contempt, "are a nobody. An irritation. Do you have any idea who I am?"

"I know you’re a woman who’s about to have a very bad day," Baby Doll shot back, subtly shifting her weight, her body tensing. She was a coiled spring.

The stepmother laughed, a dry, rasping sound. "Bold. I like that. It makes breaking you more satisfying." She gestured with the gun. "Both of you. Against that wall. Now."

Brandon’s mind was a frantic scramble of fear and a strange, twisted sense of clarity. This was it. The end of the line. All his plans, all his rage, had funneled him into this dusty, blood-scented dead end.

He thought about Levi.

If he did not escape this mad woman, Levi would just have a life with Lyse, uninterrupted and Brandon could not allow that. A primal surge, not of heroic self-sacrifice, but of pure, undiluted spite, flooded his veins. He would not die. Not while Levi still drew breath.

The stepmother’s attention was fixed on Baby Doll, the more immediate, professional threat. It was a fractional second of misjudgment. In that sliver of time, Brandon made his move.

He didn’t run. He didn’t charge. He did the one thing she wouldn’t expect. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

He dived to the side, sprawling behind a stack of decaying wooden crates. The gun roared again, and a shower of splinters rained down on him. He had bought a second. That was all he needed.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Baby Doll move. She was a blur of motion, not away from the threat but toward it, low and fast. The stepmother swung the pistol toward her, but Baby Doll was already inside her personal space. She slammed a forearm into the woman’s wrist, a sharp, precise crack echoing in the warehouse. The gun clattered to the concrete.

The fight that erupted was nothing like the clumsy brawls Brandon was used to seeing women perform.

This was a brutal, silent dance of efficiency. Baby Doll was a whirlwind of elbows and knees, her movements economical and devastating. The stepmother, for all her cold menace, was outmatched. She fought back with a feral desperation, clawing and snarling, but she was all fury and no form.

Brandon scrambled on the floor, his hands closing around a heavy, rusty iron bar that had fallen from a crate. He watched as Baby Doll drove the stepmother back against a support pillar. The woman gasped, the air driven from her lungs.

"Who are you?" the stepmother spat, her face contorted in pain and fury.

"I’m the person you called a nobody," Baby Doll said, her voice dangerously low as she pinned the woman’s arm behind her back.

Brandon pushed himself to his feet, the iron bar heavy in his hand. He saw the look of pure, unadulterated hatred in the stepmother’s eyes as they flickered toward him. It was a look that promised centuries of suffering. In that moment, all the fear, all the confusion, evaporated, replaced by a cold, singular purpose.

He didn’t hesitate. He took three swift steps and swung the iron bar.

It connected with a sickening, wet thud.

The stepmother crumpled to the ground, a silent, broken heap.

Baby Doll let go of her arm and stepped back, her chest heaving. She looked down at the unconscious woman, then at Brandon, who stood over the body, the bloody iron bar still clutched in his hand. Her expression was unreadable, a professional assessment of a job gone sideways.

"You and I are quits," Brandon said, his voice shaking with adrenaline. "Whatever I owed you, consider it paid in full."

Baby Doll wiped a smear of blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. "Our contract was to neutralize a target named Levi Van Doren," she corrected, her tone flat. "It did not cover getting ambushed by homicidal relatives. My fee still stands."

For a wild second, Brandon considered raising the bar again. But he was no match for her. He knew it. He could see it in the coiled stillness of her body.

"Where’s the file I know you have on me?" he demanded instead. "I want it."

She gave a short, humorless laugh. "What file, Brandon?"

At his expression she gave up pretending.

"Fine, I do have a file on you." She admitted. "That’s my retirement fund, Brandon. My insurance policy. You don’t get to just walk away."

He took a step closer, the blood from the bar dripping onto the floor.