“He’s been teaching Ayda to shoot behind my back.”
“Shoot?”
“Guns, Jedd. Fucking guns.”
His eyes widened, understanding shining from him all at once. Holding his hands up in surrender, he took two steps back and let me pass by, back out into the bar again. I’d only taken a few steps into the bar area when I saw Sutton walking through the front door with a huge smile on his face and his eldest daughter, Sloane, on his arm.
Bingo.
His eyes shot up the second he sensed my stare, and all the color the chief had ever possessed drained from his face, dripping down onto the floor beneath his feet.
“You,” I hissed, raising my hand and pointing a finger at him as I began to stalk forward.
“Drew?” Sutton’s brows pulled together and he tried to back up, but unfortunately for him, his daughter was blocking his escape, and all he did was push her back, causing her to yelp in surprise and confusion. “Sloane, get out of here,” Sutton muttered under his breath.
“Dad?”
“Now. Go and wait in the car.”
Sloane took one look at me before she did exactly as her father had instructed and scurried out of there as quickly as she could.
“There’s only one reason you could be that pissed with me,” Sutton started.
“Yeah?”
“She’s told you.”
I’d closed in on him in three big strides, my forearm slamming him back into the wall before I pushed it up under his chin, cutting his air supply off and applying all the pressure I could to his neck.
“Fucking guns, Sutton.Fucking guns!That’s my girl you’re messing with.Mine.”
His mouth parted and his cheeks quickly turned red as he kicked his feet out and tried to bat me off, but he was no match. I was gone. In another headspace. Just like old times.
“She… begged… me,” he spat out, his words strangled and broken.
“I don’t care if she fucking blackmailed you or threatened to murder your babies in their sleep. When it comes to Ayda, you don’t keep shit from me.Nothing!Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.” His hands gripped my arm as he struggled to take enough oxygen in.
I released him for three seconds before I slammed him back into place and applied more pressure.
“I brought you into my home, into my family, and into this life because I owed you. You saved my life. I’ll never forget that. But that does not give you a free pass to keep secrets from me, to betray me. To make me look a… a… a fool.”
The embarrassment at being kept in the dark was too much, and all my judgment was clouded by the need to blame someone instead of facing the fact that Ayda hadn’t trusted me enough to come to me instead of the chief of goddamn Babylon police.
“Drew…” Sutton gasped. “Please.”
“How dare you? How fucking dare you?” I ground out. “Both of you.”
“Enough, Tucker,” Harry said, just as he reached up for my arm. He tried to pull it away, but I was rigid. Like stone. “Enough,” Harry repeated, his tone softer.
I snapped my head to look at him, eyes creasing shut as I stared at my friend and willed him to tell me what to do.
Harry gave me one small nod, closing his eyes briefly before he opened them again and pulled on my arm. “Let Sutton go. This isn’t him. This is Ayda. If you’ve got a problem with her, find a way to deal with that, not Sutton.”
“But…”
“This isher. Not him. It ain’t even about the guns. Everyone shoots in Texas. Your issue is with Ayda. Everything else is irrelevant.”
