Horror and hate and hunger.
Hits. Blows. Kicks. Scrapes. Screams.
And I couldn’t stop.
Couldn’t stop beating him bloody.
Knew he deserved every blow.
“You piece of shit . . . you think you own her? Is that what you think? Did you force her into this? Is that what this is?”
Motherfucking pimp prick.
Pain splintered across the side of my head and spread across my face.
Out of nowhere.
Knocking me back an inch.
I blinked in shock, trying to process what was happening around me. To see through the haze of fury that clouded my eyes.
Took me a second to realize the punch wasn’t delivered by the pussy who I had pinned on the floor, but by the bastard who’d appeared at the fringes of the hall.
Two on one.
Bring it on.
I didn’t care.
In half a beat, I was on my feet and had him rammed against the wall. His face slammed into the black-wallpapered plaster.
A scream pierced the space. The girl who’d started this whole thing stumbled around the pile of bodies I was making in the hall, wearing nothing but a thong and heels.
People scrambled from the main room, some to get out the front door before the cops showed and others vying for a front-row seat.
Before I could make sense of it, another asshole was on my back. Hauling me away from the bastard and tossing me against the wall. I hit it with an oomph, all that aggression spiking high. My muscles pulsed, my eyes darting between all three of the guys who’d ganged up on me.
Calculating my next move.
The first pussy pulled his beaten ass off the floor, wiping at his bloodied face. With my body pinned to the wall, he stepped up and delivered a sucker-punch to my gut.
I fucking growled, welcoming the pain, and the adrenaline only grew.
Ready to tear through them all.
Didn’t take a whole lot to throw off the piece of shit who held me against the wall. Nothing but a kick to his knee to send him fumbling back, howling in agony, and I went for the little bastard who was about to bear the brunt of the hostility roiling inside me.
Alcohol soaking my brain and repulsion saturating my spirit.
A hand landed on my arm, whipping me around. It was the same guy who’d served me up as a present for the little fucker I wanted to break in two.
“Get out of my club and don’t come back. You got it. We don’t do trouble around here.”
Don’t do trouble.
Fucking priceless.
I would have laughed if I wasn’t irate.
They just pimped out girls in the back room like a bad rumor.
It didn’t happen in the VIP room, my ass.
“That’s too bad because I’m in the mood to cause a little trouble.”
Just as fast as the crowd had gathered, they were being pushed back.
Shit.
There was Mack, tossing people aside as he stalked through the mass like a battering ram.
Talk about burly assholes.
He flashed his badge at the prick who had his meaty palm on my arm.
Everyone scattered.
Motherfucking rats with a light shined in their sewer.
The guy released me and backed away, his hands held up in surrender. But he clearly wasn’t what Mack was interested in. My best friend grabbed me by the collar and started to drag me down the opposite side of the hall toward the emergency exit at the end.
He shoved it open and tossed me out into the cool night.
I stumbled across the pavement.
The aggression burning all the way to my bones surged, emotions thick, too much, so dark I couldn’t see.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I managed to press out, my knuckle coming up to my mouth and finding I had a busted lip.
He laughed a hard sound. “I’m a detective in Charleston, Ian. It’s my job to know whatever shit is going down. Have a connection who works here. She recognized you, gave me a text when you got in that prick’s face and said things were about to get heavy. Was having a drink with Jace two blocks over since he’s in town for business, and I booked it over.”
“You have a contact? Inside? Here?” Incredulous, I spat the words at him, angry that he might have someone following me.
Paranoid and delusional, I knew. But when it came to Mack and me, we kept our jobs to ourselves. Our secrets tucked away because the two didn’t mesh.
No doubt, he knew I’d done some questionable shit in my life. Last thing I wanted to do was put him in a bad position, to have to make a judgment call when it came to right and wrong when the guy was always in the right.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answers to.” There was something in his expression, something that set me off kilter, a warzone in his eyes.
Like he was holding something back. Instantly, I was taken back to our conversation from two nights before that somehow felt like a century ago, when he’d warned me to cut ties with Lawrence.
God.
Maybe I really had gotten myself in too deep.
A loud truck engine rumbled at the head of the alley. It came to a stop, and Jace ducked out.
Great.
Just what I fucking needed.
My brother and best friend thinking they needed to wipe my ass.
Hold my goddamned hand.
I turned on Mack. “I was completely fine. Don’t need you showing up here like the calvary. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
He quirked a brow. “Says the guy who just about started a brawl. Those fuckers aren’t to be toyed with.”
“Seemed like good enough fun to me.”
He scrubbed a frustrated hand over his face. “Fine, man, laugh it off. But there’s shit going down in there that you don’t need to get involved in. I’m serious.” His voice went low.
“I was only there to have a drink or two to unwind after a long day’s work. Prick tried to swindle cash out of me. You should know me well enough to know that wasn’t going to end well.”
Jace edged closer to me like he was corralling a caged animal. Like I just might attack.
Wasn’t so far from the truth.
Adrenaline still pumped and burned, and I was itching to throw back open that door and hunt those pricks down. Easy prey.
Expendable.
Just like Lawrence Bennet was trying to make me.
“Are you okay, man?” Jace asked, caution in his tone, eyes searching me, forever the protector. He zeroed in on the cut on my lip, like I was a two-year-old who’d fallen and scraped his knee.
“I’m fine. You didn’t need to come over here.”
“You sure about that?”
“One hundred percent.”
Jace turned his attention to the back of the seedy club and shook his head.
Not like it was some big-ass deal that a lowlife like me would show up at a place like this to see some tit at the end of the night.
But Jace knew . . . he fucking knew, and it grated on me.
He knew my predilection.
The compulsion.
Right then, it felt like he was reaching in and searching through all the shit I didn’t want him to see, the scars and the agony and the bottled pain.
Too much like that girl who was driving me crazy.
Grace.
Sweet, sweet Grace.
Grace who had immediately filled my mind when the girl inside had been climbing all over me.
The one I couldn’t have, and I was aching to take.
“You don’t have to hang on to it any more, Ian. I know you blame yourself. By now, you have to have realized, it wasn’t your fault. She chose that life, not you, and there was nothing either of us could do to stop her.”
The second the words left Jace’s mouth, a fiery bolt of fury shot through my body.
Flames at my insides.
I’d felt it coming. What he’d been wanting to bring up. Revisit what was buried.
Not a fucking chance in hell was it getting uncovered.
I pointed at him. “Don’t fucking go there. You don’t know. You weren’t there.”
He laughed a bitter sound. “Are you kidding me? You think I didn’t go through it for all those years, too? You think I didn’t do everything to take care of you?”
Of course, I knew. Of course, I did.
My chest ached, and he pushed on, not stopping as he angled his face toward mine. “You think it didn’t kill me that I had to leave you, Ian? With her? You think that when I found out what happened, I wouldn’t have given anything to be there with you?”