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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EASTON

Gary was asleep by the time we got upstairs.

It spared me from having to answer a dozen questions about my place, so I did my best not to wake him.

I laid him on the bed and carefully stripped him out of his clothes.

They had blood and dirt on them, and I saw him grimace a few times like he was uncomfortable in them.

I tossed them in the hamper and put him in a pair of my boxers instead.

I wasn’t going to leave him naked. He was too much of a temptation like that, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to push sex on someone who was almost assaulted. I wasn’t that much of a douche.

Before crawling into bed next to him, I took a quick shower to rinse off from the fight.

While I was in there, I went over the reasons not to go on the hunt again and again to keep myself steady.

The cops could have the guy who attacked Gary.

I wanted to go after the source. And it’d be a lot easier to find her.

Like he knew my mind was swaying towards the dark side, Jayden called as I was drying off. I answered the phone, keeping my voice low so Gary wouldn’t hear me from the attached bath.

“What?”

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing right now, don’t.”

With a heavy sigh, I leaned back against the sink. “I’m guessing the old man called you?”

“He did, and I love how you ignore how much he hates that nickname, no matter how many times he tells you to stop.”

“Mm.” I didn’t care, and he stopped telling me to knock it off years ago.

“Is your boyfriend okay?”

“Minor concussion, some cuts and bruises. He’ll live.

” I sounded crass, but I had never been as terrified as I was tonight when Gary appeared in the crowd with blood all over his face and tears in his eyes.

He was pale as a ghost and so damn scared.

My free hand clenched at my side. He wouldn’t be going through this if his sister would back the hell off.

“Don’t, Easton,” Jayden warned.

“Are you a fucking mind reader or something?”

He huffed out a laugh. “No. I just know you. You’re protective of whoever you consider your people. This guy made the list, though we’ll talk later about the whole boyfriend thing. I thought you didn’t like romantic stuff.”

I made a face. I didn’t. It wasn’t about that. He was mine. I protect what’s mine. Simple as that.

“Sergeant Cruz is a good cop. An excellent detective. He’ll find your guy.”

“It’s not just him.” I gave Jayden a quick overview of Gary’s family situation, gritting my teeth when I remembered the resigned look on his face.

“All this because he didn’t send money when she demanded it.

Nevermind the fact that his bank account was empty at the time.

He sent the money two days later, but she wants him to get raped to teach him a lesson. What the fuck is up with that?”

“Seriously, that’s messed up. But you can’t go around attacking women. There’s gotta be a better option. Has she met you yet?”

“Not yet.” That was going to change soon.

Gary’s old man called about the party recently, demanding Gary show up to help.

Which meant we had the location and the time for the prank.

Showing up was supposed to be plenty, according to Gary, but now I needed to consider Chuckles’s plan.

Just intimidating her wasn’t going to be enough.

I wanted to show her I had money behind me.

Enough money to bury her and her family and make it look like an accident.

“Hey, I need to borrow a suit.”

I woke up when Gary started wriggling. One of the many reasons I couldn’t stand this apartment was the lack of curtains. The sun was streaming straight into my face, and it irritated the hell out of me.

“Uh, Easton? Where are we?”

Sitting up, I rubbed my hands over my face.

When I opened my eyes, Gary was sitting up next to me, looking around with wide eyes.

He looked like hell with the bruising over half his face and the cuts on his forehead and his chin, but still so goddamn innocent.

He wasn’t, I spent hours defiling him, but he still looked like it.

“My place. You don’t remember?”

His brows furrowed slightly. “I remember you saying we were staying at your place but not going inside. This is your apartment?”

Condo, technically, but yeah. I waited for it to click, for him to finally realize who I was, or at least who I was related to, but when he looked at me, I wasn’t expecting what came out of his mouth.

“You must be an amazing fighter if you make enough to afford a place like this.”

A grin stretched across my face. He really was good for my ego.

“That’s part of it, yeah. But this place actually belonged to my old man.

He compromised a lot about letting me pay my own way for most things, but this place was where he put his foot down.

He wanted me to have a roof over my head, no matter what. ”

“Is he a fighter, too?” Gary asked innocently, looking around in wonder.

It wasn’t that big a deal. One bed, one bath.

It was my old man’s place before he married his wife.

It didn’t have much in it because I was never here unless I was sleeping.

Even the fridge was empty, since I always ate with my friends.

But compared to Gary’s little dorm room, it was probably a shock to the system.

I snorted at the idea of my old man fighting. “No. He owns a conglomerate. Have you ever heard of the Warner Group?”

“Like Warner Brothers?”

That made me laugh. I pointed that out to my old man once. He was sour about it for days. He did not appreciate being compared to an entertainment company.

“No. He’s more about international trade.”

From the look on Gary’s face, he had no idea what I was talking about. It made me relax and was actually kind of refreshing.

“Anyway. He gave me this place when I moved out. I don’t like taking money from him, I like to earn things myself, but he didn’t know about me until I was thirteen and was trying to make up for lost time.

Since it was already paid off, I figured it was easier to give in to him instead of keeping up the argument for who knows how long. He also paid for The Hideout.”

“Wow. You’ve got a nice dad.” He frowned. “Why don’t you want to have his name? He seems really kind.”

“It’s not about him,” I admitted gruffly.

“I got lucky when my mom landed in jail that I ended up on his doorstep, but I wasn’t raised like my siblings were.

I don’t like being handed things. It feels tainted, like I’m obligated to give something back.

It bugs me. And I can’t tell you how many people tried to cozy up to me, either to date me or to be friends with me, just so they could get the benefit of a rich friend. ”

Gary’s face twisted in disgust, and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning to kiss him. I pulled back pretty quick, knowing if I let myself get into it, I’d end up hurting him, but he still looked dazed when I pulled away. It took him a few minutes to regroup.

“Okay. I understand your premise. I still think Bronte is a better name than Lector.”

With a chuckle, I pulled him off the bed and nudged him towards the bathroom. “We’ll keep thinking. For now, I need to order breakfast while you take a shower. There’s no food in here.”

“I don’t have anything to change into,” he protested.

“Take what you need from my closet. I’m hungry, Gary! Hurry up!”

That got him moving, though I heard him snickering.

He liked to say I had hollow legs because I was constantly hungry.

If he worked out as much as I did, he’d be hungry, too.

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand after he walked away, pulling up a delivery app, but before I could pick something, my phone rang and Coach’s name popped up.

“Hungry!” I growled as I answered.

“Figured when you didn’t show up for breakfast. I’m heading over with food. And the rest are coming because they’re nosy.”

“No, it’s because we care, asshole!” Angel snapped in the background.

“Yeah, what he said,” Chuckles shouted after him. “Or maybe I just want an excuse to use your bathtub.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Just hurry up. I’m starving.”

They couldn’t get into the building without permission, so I called downstairs to let the doorman know they were coming and offered the man a hundred if he made Chuckles sweat a little. Coulter was old as dirt, but he still loved a good prank and promised he’d send me a video.

Gary got out of the shower right after I got the call that they were on their way up, so I left the door unlocked and wandered into the bathroom to check on him.

The concussion was minor and would resolve in a day or two, but I was still worried about it.

Years of fighting meant I was familiar with concussions, though it’d been a while since someone got me good enough to cause one. They weren’t pleasant.

He was standing in my closet, wrapped in a towel, frowning at the wall of clothes. When I smacked his ass, because who could resist touching that ass, he yelped and spun around, glaring at me.

“Rude.”

“Pick something. The guys are on their way up.”

“Pick what?” he whined. “You’re way bigger than me. Nothing will fit.”

I wasn’t that much bigger than him. I wasn’t Coach big.

But I did have a few inches and a lot of muscle on him.

I did a quick look around before grabbing a pair of sweats that still had the string so he could cinch them, and an old band t-shirt from when I was a teen and still growing.

I kept it because I liked the band, not because it fit well.

Gary was still shy about being naked when we weren’t screwing around, so he yanked a new pair of my boxers up underneath the towel and pulled on the t-shirt before he divested himself of it.

So, of course, I pantsed him just for the fun of it.

He yelped and tripped, but he was laughing when he pulled his clothes back up.

“Jerk! I’ll get you back for that!”

“I’d like to see you try,” I countered with a smirk.

This was way better than last night. He was smiling again, carefree now that he was safely ensconced in my condo, away from the world.

We’d need to return to it eventually, I wasn’t letting that asshole screw with Gary’s future, but for now, I was going to let him enjoy feeling safe.

And I didn’t comment when he clung to my side.

I liked that he felt safe with me and didn’t hate the cuddling as much as I thought I would.