Page 74

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

carter

“Ah, the convict himself. Back at the scene of the crime.”

I glance beside me, leaning on my elbows at the bar to be on the same level as Sweets while we speak. Penny’s eyes immediately hone in on him, not knowing who he is, but probably sensing the way my spine goes rigid at the sight of him and taking that as a bad sign.

I stare at Noah, forcing my expression into neutrality. “In what world did our prior conversation lead you to believe I’d ever want to spend my free time speaking to you?”

He chuckles and sways a bit on his feet. Great. The idiot is drunk. He’s already a nuisance when he’s sober and wearing a badge, I have a feeling a guy like him is a nightmare when intoxicated. Thankfully I am only on my second drink and still have some sense in my brain.

“Where’s Dolly?” he asks, his eyebrows shooting up. He sloppily leans his elbow against the bar. I try to fight the way my temper skyrockets at the mention of that nickname slipping off his lips. “Or is it Irina’s night with you tonight?”

You see, typically, that would have been the sentence that made me snap and bash my fist into his skull, but I have a five-foot-ten distraction at my side.

Penny slides in front of me. She’s practically trying to wedge herself between my body and the bar, but I don’t let her. Sweets offers Officer Peck the most hostile smile I have ever seen in my life, her eyes colder than the weather.

“I suggest you fuck off right back to wherever you came from, sir,” she says in a fake, chipper tone. Noah’s eyes dart to her. “Or I will jam the heel of my shoe so far up your ass that Elliot and Cole can use you to mop up the floor later.”

My brows skyrocket, a shocked laugh leaving me. Wow. Sweets has got some claws on her.

“Who are you?” Noah asks.

“Not your concern,” I say, putting my arm between them and forcefully shoving my body in front of Sweets. Lowesy isn’t around. She’s mine to protect right now. I take that gig seriously.

“The devil.” Penny smiles wickedly, jumping half-onto the bar so that she can pop her head around my body and meet his eyes again. She’s pushing against me to get closer to Peck. I find this amusing as all hell, but I’m not letting this altercation happen. “Allow me to introduce myself.”

“Sweets,” I warn.

Noah looks her up and down in a way that makes a chill run through me. That’s the shit I don’t like about him. That fucking eerie way he observes women. Stares at them like they're less than him, but like he’s entitled to something from them all the same.

“Better watch those eyes, Prick ,” I snarl, physically reaching forward to haul Penny behind me. She lets out a groan of disappointment. “What the fuck do you want?”

“That’s not Irina. Is there a third? Which one is this?” he asks, bringing his beer to his mouth .

I’m going to fucking kill him. I don’t have patience on a good day.

I don’t have the ability to think rationally once a nerve has been struck.

He’s struck twelve since he walked over here in those stupid, shiny ass shoes, and my palms are itching, begging me to remind him I can still be the guy he keeps telling me I am.

My jaw ticks. Keep it under lock, Fork. You got this.

“Didn’t she just introduce herself?” a smooth, taunting voice enters the conversation.

I glance beside me.

Caulfield.

He stands between Noah and me, hands in his pockets. He offers a crooked smile that is typically cute as hell, but looks awfully intimidating in this light. He never once looks at me or at Penny. He keeps his attention solely on Peck.

“She’s the devil,” he clarifies, and reaches over like an absolute beauty and sticks his full finger in Noah’s ear. “Do you need your ears cleaned out?”

Noah smacks him away, looking horrified, but the laughter that explodes out of me relieves the rage a bit. Wyatt leans back, pretends to examine his finger, and cringes. He brushes it on the front of Peck’s shirt.

His eyes skirt to mine. “Gross.”

Noah is red-faced and fuming now. “So, I assume Dolly’s at work and you’re out here entertaining yet another woman behind her back. Classic.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I feel a whoosh of air, and I just know Penny is trying to get at him from behind me now. I throw out my arm and she crashes into it. It takes more effort than I’d like to admit to hold her back.

My eyes meet Wyatt’s. We have a conversation that doesn’t need any words. Get her the hell out of here before she swings. He slides his arm around her shoulders, makes a little joke about an exorcism, and hauls her back toward our booth.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you, Officer Prick,” I announce, once they’re gone. I lean forward on the bar again, glancing at him. “Unless I’m under arrest, and if that’s the case, I’d like to call my lawyer.”

“She’s been working a lot lately, hasn’t she?” he asks, cocking his head. He nods at the bartender and orders another beer. “Not your lawyer. Though I’m sure that they are, too. But Dolly. Late nights. More than usual.”

I stare at him, not rising to his bait. He has a point to make, and I’d rather him just get to it.

“Long, long shifts.”

I bring my Jager to my mouth, refusing to lower my stare.

“Have you heard of on-call rooms, Forkerro?” he asks, nodding at the bartender when the beer is dropped in front of him. “Where doctors catch a few hours of sleep if needed?”

“Can you leave?” I ask, giving him my best bored expression. “I truly do not care to sit here and recap the entire series of Grey’s Anatomy with you.”

“Ask her what we did in that on-call room two nights ago,” he says with a smirk, and my blood goes cold. That menacing look only grows more wicked when he sees the way I go rigid at that comment. “She was probably a bit distant that night. Guilty, maybe. Ask her about it. I fucking dare you.”

That’s it. My restraint snaps like a twig.

I smack the beer out of his hand with such violence that it goes flying across the bar, shattering into pieces on the ground.

There’s warped satisfaction on his face when I lunge forward and bury my fists in his shirt.

I haul him off the ground with ease, lifting him right up to my face.

I’m seeing red.

This is what he wants .

I can’t hear anything.

This is what he wants.

All I see is his face and all I feel is pure, burning rage that needs an outlet.

Hit him.

The Beast is awake.

Hit. Him.

“I fucking dare you,” I snarl, hating how pleased he looks about this. “Keep talking, Prick. Keep running your fucking mouth. I think you underestimate how little I care about a murder charge if it’s on her behalf.”

He laughs, and it sends a fresh jolt of my life right into my temper. “All that for a woman who was all over another man just days ago?”

He’s going to die tonight. It’s settled. That’s all there is to it. Someone better call Lemmy, because she’s about to sign onto the case of her career.

“How do you want your mommy to bury you?” I ask, eyes burning into his face. I’m fully gone now. There is nothing but silence in my head. Nothingness. A void. He must see the change because his face falls. “Open or closed casket?”

“Let’s not have a funeral at all. I’ve heard they’re quite expensive,” my captain drawls.

Hands are wrapped around mine and torn from Noah’s shirt.

I’m being pushed backward by one set of hands, while another grabs Peck by the shirt like I had done.

I stare at his rat-like face, unblinking, until someone physically forces themselves in front of me to block my view. I have nowhere to look but Saltzy.

That wouldn’t have been my face of choice.

“Cool it,” he grumbles, scanning my face. “We’ve got this.”

I crane my neck, peering over his shoulder. Boston yanks Noah toward him roughly. I hear some choice words, but I can’t hear enough. I can’t see enough.

“Let me go.”

“Not happening,” Saltzy says, maintaining his position as my guard dog. “She wouldn’t forgive you.”

Can I forgive her ? Is there anything to forgive? I think of Irina. Of what she did to me. I wouldn’t put it past Noah, but fuck, he’s right. She came to my place completely different the other night.

What did you do, Red?

No. She wouldn’t have done that to me. Ever. I know her. That piece of paper meant something.

My temper needs to cool off. I’m not thinking straight.

“I don’t give a fuck who you are!” I hear Boston’s deep voice bellow.

Hell no. My boys aren’t getting into a scrap because of me. Especially not with a cop.

I take one look at Saltzy, feigning a calmness that must look as phony as it feels, because when I quickly attempt to side-step him, he expects it. He blocks me with ease, shooting me a bored look.

“You think you’re going to meet my dad while you’re locked in a cell?” he asks.

I freeze and glare at him. Fucking asshole. That was absolutely the right string to pull.

“Nah, you think he’s crazy? Wait until you see insane.” Boston laughs, humourlessly. “Trust me. You’d rather have him to deal with than me. I’m giving you one more chance to walk away.”

I sigh, leaning to look over Saltzy’s shoulder, ignoring the way he reaches up to grip my arm in case I move. I am in solitary confinement. I got it. It’s understood.

Boston is in Noah’s face and Noah looks petrified now.

Good.

Lowesy showed up at some point and he is standing between them, his eyes burning holes into Noah’s face. Observing. Uncharacteristically, he says nothing.

I want to get there. To Peck. I want to beat my boys to the punch and end this because I know the second Boston swings, Lowesy is jumping right in. It will only be seconds before Caulfield joins, and then we’ll have a war. Between us and the cops.

Instead, I focus on Callum Saltzman.

Neatly trimmed red beard on fair skin. Nasty, but stylish mullet that’s covered by a ball cap pulled low on his head.

His light green eyes are calculating, watching every inch of my face to interpret my next move.

The crew neck he’s got on would be very easy to bury my fists in and toss him aside, but I can’t.

Because his dad is Gene Saltzman.

And because Arden wouldn’t forgive me.

“ Out! ”

I glance at the bar just as Elliot climbs onto it. He waves to security by the door, pointing a steel bat at Noah’s head below him.

“Get him out of here!” he bellows. Boston slowly lowers Noah to the ground, taking a step back as security stalks through the crowd. Elliot points the bat at the table near the door. “His friends, too! Out !”

“Fuck that!” Noah barks. “I didn’t?—”

“ Banned !” Elliot cuts him off, pointing the bat at his face. “Permanently. You do not entice a fight at my bar, especially with someone you know will give it to you. Get the fuck out.”

I stare up at this little man and his thick-rimmed glasses. Balls of steel on him.

Pride swells in my chest. I didn’t swing. Sure, it took three of my friends to effectively keep me from doing it, but I didn’t give that prick the fight he wanted. I saved Elliot and Cole another headache with my name attached to it. I saved myself the worst charge of my life.

Security hauls Noah out, and despite him barking that he’s a cop, they don’t relent.

Elliot glances down at me, pointing the bat in my direction now. I open my mouth to start apologizing, but he doesn’t scold me. No, he nods. His face is still hard and angry, but he’s just as proud of me as I am of myself.

That feels a little good, to be honest. Sometimes, it’s nice not to be the problem.

I wink at him, like I did it for him. That gets me the eyeroll that I was expecting.

Elliot hops off the bar and storms toward security without another word, bat still in hand.

I run a hand over my face, relief washing over me with my next inhale. Boston and Lowesy slide in next to Cap the second security vanishes into the crowd.

“What the fuck was that?” Declan hisses.

“A problem,” Saltzy grumbles. “Good for you, Fork. You didn’t hit a cop.”

“Give me a medal,” I bite out, sarcastically.

“He knows how to push all the right buttons, doesn’t he?” Boston says, letting out a breath. He blows a pink bubble and drags his hand through his long, dark hair. “Take what he said with a grain of salt, Fork. He was hammered and he clearly fucking hates you.”

Had he been close enough to hear? I didn’t notice him anywhere near me while Prick was running his mouth.

“Right.”

That should be easy, except that Noah implied that he fucked her.

He said he slept with my girlfriend .

I know it’s not true, and that she’s technically not my girlfriend, but the notion of it swarms my head like a bunch of hungry flies.

“You’re about to lose it, aren’t you?” Declan asks carefully.

My hands are shaking. I manage a nod and another Jager is pushed into my hands. I down it, trying my best to shove the adrenaline away. I’m fuming. More mad than I’ve ever been, I think.

“He’s gone,” Saltzy reminds me, patting my shoulder. “You did good, Fork. Take a breath and relish in the fact that he’ll never step foot in this bar again. Our bar.”

But he can still step foot in the hospital.

I watch Boston and Declan exchange a worried look.

They know me too well. They know what it looks like before I lose my goddamn mind.

I need to get out of this environment. I need to go home.

I don’t trust myself right now. Noah might be gone but there are way too many people in here who can bump into me or spill my drink and set me off.

I’m a ticking time bomb.

“Anyone sober enough to drive?” I ask quickly, shaking out my hands.

“Me,” Declan nods, immediately fishing in his pocket for his keys. “Saltzy, grab Lucky and Wyatt. Let’s go.”