My overprotective, grumpy, deeply irritating, secretly sweet, pain-in-my-ass brother.
Swift thought Tyson might have had something to do with the attack, or at least that he couldn’t rule it out.
And I got it.I really did.The timing was bad.Real bad.
Tyson showed up and suggested Swift take off for a while.Swift left.Then someone tried to kill him.
On paper?
Yeah.It looked awful.
But Tyson didn’t have anything to do with it.
I knew that and knew him.
He was a jerk sometimes.Pushy.Opinionated.Too nosy for his own good, but he wasn’t dangerous like that.He wasn’t the kind of man who’d hand over information that got somebody hurt.
Even if he didn’t like Swift and he thought the club should pack up and leave.
Tyson loved me too much to play games with my life.And if Swift got killed while protecting me, Tyson would carry that forever, whether he wanted to admit it or not.
I squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush one more time, not because I needed more brushing, but because the repetitive motion gave me something to do while my thoughts spiraled.
Why did my life have to get this messy all at once?
A month ago, my biggest concerns were whether Tempi would ever stop impulse-ordering flavored vodka for drink specials and whether the walk-in cooler was making that weird humming noise again.
Now?
I’d been shot.
A hot biker had moved into my apartment as my full-time protector.
My brother was making everything weird by acting like he needed to glare at every man within a ten-mile radius of me.
And on top of that, Tyson looked, at least to Swift and the club, like he might’ve staged it for Swift to get shot.
That was a lot.Too much, honestly.
I finished brushing for the second time, opened the little bottle of mouthwash, poured some into the plastic cap, and tipped it into my mouth.The mint burned sharp and cold, making my eyes water just enough to annoy me.
I swished it around while staring at myself again.
My hair was up in a messy knot.There were little shadows under my eyes, and from the front, I looked… normal.
Like a woman getting ready for bed.Not like someone who’d had her whole life knocked sideways.
I spit into the sink one last time, then rinsed my toothbrush under the faucet and stuck it back into the holder beside my face wash and a tube of lotion I kept forgetting to use.
For a second, I just stood there with both hands braced on the edge of the sink.“What the hell are you going to do, Britta?”I muttered to the mirror.
“You talking to me, sugar?”Swift called from the living room.
I snorted.
Of course he heard me.
The man heard everything when it counted and almost nothing when I wanted him to.
