Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Yo,” I called loudly enough for Tegan to hear. “Stop.”
Tegan turned, eyes narrowing on me, and then bared his teeth. “You.”
“Me,” I nodded. “What are you doing here?”
“The lady at the front desk said my fiancé was here,” he snarled. “And she’s not answering.”
Then his eyes went to the woman who I could feel at my back, and his eyes narrowed even more.
“You lying whore.”
You know that little lie I told a few seconds ago, promising Janie that I wouldn’t hurt him… much?
Yeah, that was a big fat lie.
Janie, realizing that what Tegan had just said set me off, hooked her hand into my pants and tugged.
I stayed where I was, barely, and growled. “You will not address her as anything other than her goddamn name. Do you understand me?”
Tegan laughed, and that was when I saw that he had a half-empty bottle of some sort of liquor in his back pocket.
He pulled it out and took a swig, his eyes staying on the woman behind me, and not on me.
Which was his mistake.
I curled my arm backward and wrapped my fingers around Janie’s wrist.
“Let go, honey,” I said softly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, that’s just rich,” Tegan said. “All this time while she’d been seeing me, she’s been fucking you? I guess I should’ve known that she was a slut. She dresses like one. My mother told me that, but I refused to listen.”
“Your mother told you that Janie was a slut,” I said softly. “And you didn’t listen to her?”
“Have you seen her?” Tegan gestured to me, and Janie in return, with his bottle, causing the liquid inside to slosh. “I hit the jackpot with her. And the icing on the cake was that it would piss her father off, too. Win-win.”
My mouth opened to contradict that statement when Janie pushed past me. I caught her around the hip with one arm and pulled her back into my chest.
“What are you talking about, it pissing my father off?” she asked. “My father wasn’t upset about us getting married.”
Her ‘much’ was said under her breath, but I was close enough to hear it. Which caused me to grin.
That grin quickly fell away moments later when Tegan started to laugh.
“Daddy didn’t tell you that I investigated him?” Tegan jeered. “I almost pinned it on him, too, but those friends of his helped.”
Janie looked confused, and I took pity on her before she could try to extract any more convoluted information from a scorned, drunk man.
“Your father was put under IA—internal affairs—investigation because of a shooting he was involved in last year. Tegan was the IA investigator put in charge of your father’s case. Your father did nothing wrong, but Tegan was determined to find something. He made your father’s life a living hell for almost four months while he tried to pin something—anything—on him,” I whispered into her ear so only she could hear.
That’s when Janie went deathly still.
“You tried to send my father to jail?” Janie asked Tegan carefully.
Tegan thought now was the time to smile.
He was so fucking stupid.
He knew nothing at all about women if he thought that was going to go over well.
It would be like lighting a cat’s tail on fire in the middle of a burn ban.
Everything was about to light up in flames, Tegan just didn’t know it yet.
No, he was too busy gloating about his inner victory to realize that he was in water up to his throat.
I let her go. “Can you rescind your request?”
She looked over at me, then nodded once.
“I’ll make it hurt, honey. Don’t you worry.”
Then I walked up to Tegan and took a swing.
Tegan fell to the ground like a log, his back, legs, head and feet all hitting at once.
He hit the floor with a sickening thud and then didn’t move.
His eyes were closed, and the bottle of whiskey in his hand steadily leaked out onto the carpet until the only thing left was the last little bit that couldn’t make its way over the lip.
I breathed out and glared. “Least you could’ve done was take more than one punch.”
The little shit didn’t answer.
“I guess you don’t need our company,” James’ voice came from behind me.
That’s when I looked over my shoulder to see not just Janie, but her father. As well as Max, Sam, Trace, Jack, Gabe, and Elliott.
All of them were staring at me—at least the men—with understanding dawning.
Janie looked like she wanted to throttle me.
I grinned at her expression, causing her eyes to narrow even more.
“This is so not funny,” she said stubbornly.
“Actually,” Elliott added. “It really is. Did you see what he did to him? I think I need to learn that move.”
I turned my eyes back to Tegan, who still hadn’t moved.
“Elliott,” Janie said tiredly. “He punched him. You already know how to do that.”