“Are we allowed to watch?”Bridger.As I whirl around, he slips off his stool, brows raised.
That fuckhead.I jab a finger at him. “Keep your initiate ass up here. This is none of your business.”
I’m so pissed off by the time I get downstairs that I might burst free of my skin. I spot Alec on the couch, watching a goddamn movie like he didn’t fuck up his life the second he decided to act like an asshole to our girl.
“Uh-oh,” Joel quietly warns Alec of my approach. He glances over his shoulder, and I don’t know what he sees in my eyes, but at least he’s man enough to stand up and face me.
I round the couch, pick up whoever’s half-full beer bottle is on the coffee table, and without breaking stride, I smash it into the side of his head with a loud crack.
Beer flies everywhere, the malty smell invading my senses. Alec immediately drops to his knees with a pained gasp and clutches at the side of his head.
I sense movement in my peripheral vision and swing my arm toward Joel and Stuart, jagged bottle neck in hand, without actually looking at them. “Don’t fuckin’ move.” I grab a fistful of Alec’s hair with the other hand and yank his head back so he has no choice but to look me in the eye. I quickly bring the sharp glass to his throat. “Not so fucking tough now, are you, bitch?”
“F-fuck!” Alec blinks up at me with wild eyes, before he allows them to dart to his buddies, no doubt seeking out help from them.Too fuckin’ bad, asshole. You’ve got shitty taste in friends.
I tighten my grip on his hair, making sure his attention is solely on me. “Nope. Eyes on me, motherfucker.” I can’t fuckin’ resist. I prick his skin with the pointy bottle edge until blood seeps out. It’s a small bit of satisfaction I get, knowing he’s the one who set the entire ball rolling earlier this week that ended with Elliot being cut. “We are a brotherhood. We protect our own. We are loyal. We respect each other. You seem to have forgotten all that.”
His breathing is labored, and I can tell he’s trying hard not to shake as I dig the broken glass deeper into his neck. “Let me go,” he whimpers.
I smirk darkly. “Oh, you think we’re fucking done? I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to slice your throat open or not, so maybe fucking shut your goddamn mouth.” My chest heaves as I stare at him, disgust the likes of which I’ve never known fills every part of me. “Thesecondyou saw what was happening to Elliot, you should have—at the very fucking least—alerted us to the situation. And if any piece of you at all washuman,you’d have put a stop to it.” I huff out a disturbed laugh. “But you’re not, are you? You’re just an entitled douchebag.” I poke at his neck again and watch a trickle of blood flow steadily down his neck. I could so easily jerk my arm, and he’d be a fucking goner.
“Archer, man.” From behind me, Dane groans out, “You’ve got to let up. He’s not worth it.” He grips my shoulder firmly with one hand and squeezes. “From the way you’ve got him trembling, I think he’s learned his fucking lesson.”
Reluctantly, I pull the jagged bottle away from his neck, staring coldly into his eyes. With a vicious yank on his hair that’s still in my grasp, I hiss, “Don’t you speak to her, go near her, even look at her.Nothing.Got it?” I let go of him, and he tumbles to his ass.
His jaw tightens, and his eyes narrow on me. “Yes.”
“What’s that?” I straighten, then cock my head to the side, my gaze boring into his.
He huffs out a loud breath, covering the bloody tear on his neck with his hand. “Yes, sir.”
I chuckle. “That’s what I fucking thought.” I rear back and kick him in the side, making him grunt.
Dane’s hand grasps firmly on my shoulder. My head swivels to take him in, and his eyes flick upward. Got it. He doesn’t take his hand off my shoulder the entire way across the basement until we get to the stairs, then he releases me so I can precede him up to the next floor.
I stop in the kitchen, going for another swig of the whiskey that’s been abandoned on the island. Glancing out toward the patio, I can plainly see Taggart, Zeke, and Bridger out there, all watching me with curious eyes.
“You going to hog that to yourself, or can I have some?” Dane eyes me cautiously, and I know he’s confused as fuck about what he’s witnessed. I slide the bottle over to him, and he takes a quick sip, then blows out a breath through pursed lips as the booze slides into his stomach. “What the fuck was that about?”
“You’ll keep your mouth shut about anything I tell you.” Not a question. A command, and one that Dane seems to understand.
“Of course.”
“I don’t know where you’ve been the last couple days, but it’s not like anyone knows about this anyway.” My brow raises. “So if it gets out, you’re the only leak.”
Dane reaches for the whiskey bottle and takes another swig. “Got it.”
“We haven’t said a fucking word, but Elliot was taken by her ex-boyfriend from the house on Monday. She came home early between her classes for some reason, and that asshole showed up here and took her.”
Blood drains from Dane’s face. “Are you shitting me?” He stares at me, an odd, nervous look washing over his features.
I shake my head, squinting at him a bit. “No. Do you know something about that?”Why am I sensing an overwhelming feeling of guilt coming from him?
“No.”
“Dane, what aren’t you saying? Do you have a clue why Elliot left campus?”
Slowly he shakes his head, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “No. As far as I knew, she went to calculus from our chem class.”
