Page 51

Dante

I sat on the barstool, watching the party.

Bee was sitting with Vienna, turning his long hair and beard into braids as he told her a story about a fairy princess defeating a dragon.

Mama and Crash were slow dancing in the corner, and Rachel and Jenna were in the process of getting more and more drunk, making it their mission to annoy everyone here.

They had called the rest of the old ladies over, and proceeded to pile them with drinks, too. They were currently messing with the snooker table, deliberately shaking the table whenever someone made their move, or shouting “miss!” down their ears as loudly as they could.

“Carry on, you’ll be bent over this table and spanked with this cue until you’re black and blue,” Hacksaw warned them all.

“Why, Hacksaw, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were flirting with me,” Rachel said, her voice breathy.

I wanted to kill him. And her.

It didn’t matter that Hacksaw was into men. It didn’t matter that Rachel flirted with almost everyone, knowing it wound me up and she would be punished for it. It didn’t matter that I knew the logic and facts.

The fact was, I wanted to kill them both.

“Violence your thing, is it, murderer?”

“Oh, keep talking to me like that. It gives me the most amazing feeling.”

I would definitely kill her.

He winked at her, and I heard myself growling.

How long would it take me to jump over there, grab the snooker cue from his hands and gauge his eyes out with it?

I knew she was mine. She had publicly declared that.

And yet I still wanted to drag her back to our room, where no one else could look at her.

I wanted to brand her with my name; to mar her with my mark so no one could ever be in any doubt as to who she belonged to.

I wanted her to never look at another man besides me for as long as she lived.

The sane thoughts of a rational, logical man, no?

She bent over the table to take her shot, and Ant kicked the table legs, sending her crashing into Hacksaw, who had to hold her arms to keep her steady.

“Oops,” Ant said innocently, and Hacksaw immediately released Rachel once she was steady on her feet, but that didn’t help the murderous thoughts running through me.

I could cause a distraction, grab hold of him, and make it look like an accident, right?

Why the fuck was I so jealous? She was mine, for fuck’s sake. But I wanted to smash the brains out of his skull and paint my name on Rachel’s skin with the remains.

“Asshole,” Rachel spat, hitting Ant with the snooker cue.

He grabbed one off the table and hit her around the back of her thighs.

She squealed and hit his arms again, before Jenna grabbed another cue and smacked Ant on his back.

He took up a jousting position, and the three of them made their way around the bar, wrestling with their sticks.

Bee grabbed hold of Vienna’s beard and shook it up and down as she cheered Rachel and Jenna to victory. I burst out laughing at Vienna’s “oh shit,” as his head shook wildly at the way Bee threw him around.

Ant snuck around a table, almost hitting Crash in the face as he jabbed the snooker cue at Rachel. Jenna threw her cue at Gemma, who grabbed it and smacked the back of Ant’s knees, almost knocking them out from under him.

“Bitches,” Ant laughed. “Where the fuck are my reinforcements?”

“You’ve been abandoned, soldier.” Rachel said, climbing on top of a table and aiming the snooker cue at his head. “Surrender or prepare to die.”

I got up and snuck around the side of the room, out of her line of sight.

Jenna got up on another table opposite Rachel and aimed her cue in a similar manner. “We have you surrounded, comrade. What do you say?”

“Do you surrender, or are you prepared to take a beating?” Rachel giggled, wobbling on the table slightly .

“I’m not surrendering,” Ant laughed, whooshing his stick back and forth, knocking both of theirs.

“Then you leave us no choice. Atta—ahh!” Her command ended in a screech as I grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up onto my shoulder, her head and shoulders falling over my back.

“Threatening my army, are we?” I said, slapping her ass.

“Ambush! Ambush!” She screamed at Jenna, her words barely coming out due to the laughs taking over her.

“Help is on the way!” Jenna giggled, jumping from one table to the next as she made her way over to us. She lost her balance at the last minute, landing in a heap on top of the prospects who had been watching the whole thing in fascination.

“The floor is lava!” Bee screamed, jumping up and down. Vienna grabbed her and hauled her onto his shoulders and jumped on top of a chair.

I jumped on one of the sofas, Rachel still in my arms. Rooster and Chicken jumped up next to us.

Crash and Mama joined in, climbing on top of the kitchen counters.

Every member of the club, and their old ladies, climbed on top of the table until it was just poor Shark left, who had just come out of the downstairs bathroom to see a bunch of grown adults stood on the furniture.

“What the fuck is going on?”