I clocked the bruise blooming on her ashen cheek, and all my restraint vanished. Before the pathetic woman-abusing motherfucker could react, my fist hit him squarely in the face. He squealed as his perfectly straight nose exploded.Oops.
"You can't—" The moron made a half-assed attempt at defending himself, but my second punch broke his jaw.Double oops. No more selfies for a while.
His whimpering and whining hurt my ears. Pathetic loser.
Conal pulled Verity out of the way as I laid into the disgusting piece of shit, breaking a few ribs for funsies
"Cameras." Verity’s warning cut through my white-hot rage. After booting the bag of bones one last time, possibly (definitely) breaking his arm, I stepped back and wiped my bloody fist on a bar towel.
"Is it a closed system or uploaded to the cloud?" Conal asked.
"Closed. Emilio is too cheap to pay for anything other than a basic system. It might not even be recording."
"Show me." Conal gently steered Verity away from the groaning remains of her ex-boyfriend. Her small body trembled as we walked into a back office, but as badly as I wanted to take her in my arms and hug the shit out of her, I held back. We needed to wipe any footage and leave before someone stumbled across this mess.
Verity pointed to an old dinosaur desktop PC. The damn thing wasn't even password protected. Conal quickly located the security footage backup folder.
Her assumption was indeed correct - it had been a week since the last backup. No new footage. Nothing to incriminate any of us.
"What are we doing about that?" I pointed to the asshole still lying on the bar floor.
"He's the mayor's son." Verity’s pretty, dark eyes widened in terror. "You'll be arrested. You should go…I'll…I'll figure something out."
"Not happening, Pixie." I shook my head before Conal could open his mouth. "After what he did to you, he's lucky to be alive, so if he tries to report this, we'll finish the job." I stalked over to the asshole, bent down, and forcibly turned his head so he could read my lips. "I strongly suggest you tell whoever gives a fuck about your pathetic little ass that a drugged-up vagrant mugged you. Got it?"
The meat suit nodded before sniffling through his ruined nose. I dragged him to his feet, emptied his pockets of phone, wallet, and car keys, and hauled him out of the fire door at the back of the room like the trash he was.
When I wandered back in, Conal had Verity tucked under his arm. The bruise on her face made me wish I'd gift-wrapped the asshole outside and delivered him to my elder brother. I knew damned well Declan would have relished picking him apart like a Lobster Thermidor.
There were some people in life who fully deserved the dish karma dealt them. Sure, some people called Declan a violent sociopath, but I called bullshit on that. Like me, Declan had a warm, cuddly side.
Unlike me, Declan spent most of his time behind a desk these days, which sucked for him. I figured he'd appreciate a torture break. A few hours in his happy place, with a table of power tools at his disposal.
I hummed thoughtfully.
"Maybe I should retrieve the trash and post it back to Dec?"
Conal looked up from his phone and frowned. "Post what?"
"Pack the asshole in a crate and send him back for processing. He doesn't look like the type anyone would miss."
My brother huffed with annoyance, not appreciating my outside-the-box musing. Or was it blue-sky thinking? I never could remember the bullshit phrases Declan liked to throw around when he had meetings with the lawyers and accountants.
"Nah. We don't have time. The pilot's waiting."
"Pilot?" Verity's eyes narrowed. "What pilot?"
"The pilot who's waiting to fly us back to Ireland," Con explained while I bagged up the bloody towel and wiped down all the surfaces I'd touched.
"What? I can't go to Ireland right this minute! I have a job here! My stuff's in my studio!"
"Don't worry, pixie girl, I'll make sure we get your things." I reached for her, but she shrank back. The mutinous expression on her face promised untold pain and suffering if I tried to steal her away.
Good job I gave no fucks whatsoever.
5
Verity
