Page 79 of X's and O's

Fuck this guy and his stupid expensive suit and his dumb half-grins. I clenched my teeth and glared at him. He’d had his fucking hands all over her. And if I hadn’tstepped in, it would have escalated far beyond a near kiss. She was going to lose her virginity to him? What the fuck? If this was what she wanted in a man, then there was no hope for us. Because Whip and I were about as opposite as you could get. Him clearly on the Providence side of the border. Me way over in the Saint View slums.

Sure, he was attractive. But he was clearly a smug asshole who thought he was better than the rest of us. And I was sick of looking at his face. “Why the fuck am I even still here?” I pushed to my feet.

Only to have Hayden shove me back down. “Sit.”

There was a cold chill in his voice that had any argument drying on my tongue.

Grayson turned to me. “You lose control like that a lot?”

“No.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So the idea of Whip taking Violet’s virginity—”

“Finish that sentence and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

X stared Gray down as well. “I’m with the new guy on this one.”

Whip rolled his eyes and leaned his stool back on two legs so he could rest against the wall. “You do both realize she was literally paying me to take her virginity. I wasn’t forcing her.”

X peered over at me. “Do you hear someone speaking? I thought it sounded like my best friend. But then I remembered he’s dead to me.”

Irritation formed a hot prickle across my skin at the very idea of Violet paying this Whip prick to fuck her.

Grayson sighed. “Listen. You can deny it all you want, Levi, but your actions speak louder than words. Fang toldme about your role in the club before you went to jail. So I know what you’re capable of.”

“I’m not that man anymore.”

Except I clearly was. I was right back where I’d started, only worse because now I knew what it felt like to lose the one thing you wanted.

Grayson handed me a folded sheet of paper.

I stared down at it. “What’s this?”

“A list of preapproved targets. Men and women we’ve identified as threats to the community. People you can…take out your frustrations on.”

I looked up at him, dropping any pretenses that this wasn’t exactly what I wanted. “And the catch is…”

He pulled a phone from his pocket and held it out to me. “If that phone rings, you turn up for the rest of the group, like they’ve all showed up for you here tonight.”

I took in the circle of men who’d all arrived at Grayson’s beck and call. “That what this is? Some sort of fucking intervention?”

He raised a shoulder. “If that’s what you want to think of it as. Or you could think of it as friends coming in to support you.”

“He punched me in the fucking mouth. We ain’t friends,” Whip muttered from behind the napkin that was stopping his blood from dripping down his chin.

X tapped his fingers against the countertop. “You’re one to talk about doing a friend dirty. At least you and Levi didn’t know each other before he punched you. You punched me right in the heart.”

Whip threw his hands up. “Oh my God, X! For the fiftieth time, I didn’t know she was your girl!”

Grayson sighed. “Okay. We need a group bonding activity.”

All the guys around me groaned.

“No more fucking meditating,” Whip complained.

“Or knitting,” X threw in, shaking out his hand. “I swear I only just got feeling back in my fingers after I got all tangled up in that wool.”

What the hell kind of support group was this?