Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 73

Adrian’s POV

When I open my front door and find Cassian Harrison on my doorstep for the second time in as many days, my first instinct is to slam it shut and pretend he doesn't exist.

After yesterday's public disaster and my brief stint in a holding cell, the last thing I need is another confrontation with Sophie's knight in shining armor.

But something stops me. There's no anger in his stance this time, no challenge or barely restrained violence. Instead, his brown eyes hold something that makes my stomach clench with unease—raw, desperate panic.

"If you're going to hit me again," I warn, keeping my hand on the doorframe like a barrier between us, "I swear I'll break your fucking jaw when I hit you back. I'm not in the mood for whatever alpha male bullshit you've come here to discuss."

Cassian completely ignores the threat, which should probably concern me more than it does. "Is Sophie here?"

The question hits me like ice water. "No. Why the hell would she be here?"

Sophie made her position crystal clear yesterday when she used our safe word like a weapon. She doesn't want to see me, doesn't want me anywhere near her or the baby. The memory of that single word, peaches, still cuts like glass every time I think about it.

"Fuck."

Cassian runs both hands through his hair, the careful composure he usually maintains completely shattered.

"She's not answering her phone. Cleo’s also out of reach. She was supposed to meet Lisette at the library two hours ago, but…"

"Wait." I step forward, every instinct in my body screaming danger. "She met with Lisette?"

The name sends adrenaline shooting through my system like poison. Lisette Vaughn—brilliant, obsessive, unstable Lisette who's been spiraling for weeks.

The woman who once held a knife to her throat, who's been having public breakdowns, who sees Sophie as the obstacle between us returning to what we used to have.

"That's just it," Cassian continues, his voice tight with fear. "Lisette isn't answering her phone either. No one's seen either of them since this afternoon. Something's wrong, Adrian. Something's really fucking wrong. I can feel it."

Twenty minutes later, we're tearing through campus like men possessed, checking every building, every classroom, every corner where Sophie might be.

Students and faculty scatter from our path, probably sensing the violence radiating from both of us despite our temporary alliance.

I call Lolita, who arrives with the kind of deadly efficiency that comes from years of solving other people's problems. She takes one look at our faces and immediately starts organizing a systematic search without asking unnecessary questions.

"The library was the last known location," she says as we reconvene in the parking lot, breathing hard from our frantic search. "But if they're not here..."

"Her phone," Lolita suggests, her voice cutting through my panic with clinical precision. "If we can access it remotely, we might be able to track her location or at least see her last communications."

"I might know her passwords," I say grimly, pulling out my laptop with hands that are steadier than I feel. The screen illuminates my face as I navigate to the phone tracking service, typing with mechanical precision.

When the security prompt appears, I don't hesitate: peaches.

The phone unlocks immediately, all of Sophie's private information spreading across my screen like an open book. Her messages, her photos, her location data—everything.

My girl, I think, chest tight with a combination of fear and possessive pride that she chose our safe word as her passwords, that some part of her still trusts me with access to her digital life even after everything we've destroyed between us.

The message thread with Lisette is right there at the top of her recent conversations—meeting at 2 PM, library entrance, urgent discussion needed. But when I check the timestamps against her location data, the truth becomes sickeningly clear.

Sophie never made it inside the library.

Her phone shows her arriving at the parking lot at exactly 2:03 PM, then nothing. No movement, no additional messages, no activity of any kind for the past four hours.

"She took her," I say, my voice deadly calm in the way that usually precedes violence. "Your fucking cousin took her."

Cassian goes pale, all the blood draining from his face as the implications hit him. "Adrian, you don't know that. Maybe they went somewhere else to talk, maybe—"

"Look at the data." I turn the laptop screen toward him, forcing him to see what I'm seeing. "Sophie's phone went dead at 2:15 PM in this parking lot. No goodbye message to Cleo, no text saying plans changed, nothing. That's not Sophie's behavior."

Cassian stares at the evidence, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides like he's fighting the urge to hit something.

"Let me call Lisette first," he says finally. "Let me try to reach her before we involve the authorities. She's unstable, and if she feels cornered or threatened—"

"Don't call the police yet?" I interrupt, my voice rising with barely controlled fury. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"She's my cousin," Cassian says desperately. "I know how her mind works. If we approach this wrong, if she feels like she has nothing to lose…"

I cut him off, standing to my full height and stepping close enough that he has to look up to meet my eyes.

"If even a single hair falls from Sophie's head because of your psychotic relative, you can forget you ever had a cousin. Start picking out a prettier headstone for her, because I will end her."

The threat hangs in the air between us like a blade, sharp and absolute. I mean every word, and Cassian knows it. Whatever complicated family loyalty he feels toward Lisette means nothing compared to Sophie's safety.

"I'll kill her with my bare hands if she's hurt Sophie," I continue, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "And then I'll come for you for not warning me how dangerous she was."

"Adrian." Lolita's voice cuts through our standoff with the authority of someone used to managing crisis situations. "We're wasting time. Every minute we spend arguing is another minute Sophie is in danger."

She's right. Whatever issues Cassian and I have with each other pale in comparison to finding Sophie before Lisette does something irreversible.

"Call your cousin," I tell Cassian, pulling out my own phone. "But I'm calling the police too. Sophie is pregnant and missing, and I'm not taking any chances with her life or our baby's life because you're worried about family drama."

As I dial 911, one thought keeps running through my mind on repeat: Sophie used our safe word yesterday to tell me to stay away from her. But safe words work both ways, and right now, she might need me more than she's ever needed anyone in her life.

Whether she wants me there or not.