The bar has gone completely silent now, the music still playing but nobody dancing, nobody talking. All eyes on this showdown that’s been years in the making.
Micah’s face darkens. “Rape?” He laughs. “Fuck me, you always were one for the dramatics, but let’s get one thing straight, sweetheart. You asked for it every single fucking time and you know it.” He steps closer to her, and I have to physically restrain myself from intervening. “I made you. Everything you are is because of me.”
“You’re right,” Sutton says, and for a second my heart stops. But then she continues, “Everything I am is because I survived you. Because I learned what love isn’t supposed to be. So, thank you for showing me everything a real man isn’t.” She sneers refusing to back down. “I spent years terrified of seeing your face again. Years thinking you still had power over me.” She steps toward him, and I swear the whole bar holdsits breath. “But look at me now. I’m not afraid of you anymore. You’re nothing but a coward, Micah. A pathetic, small man who hasn’t amounted to anything but a fucking loser.”
Micah’s face contorts with rage. “You ungrateful bitch,” he snarls, lurching forward.
That’s it. I’m moving before I even realize it, but I’m not the only one. The entire team rises as one, chairs scraping across the floor. But we don’t need to intervene because Cal is already there, blocking Micah’s path.
“That’s enough,” Cal says, his normally jovial voice deadly serious. “You’re done here.”
“Do you know who I am?” Micah demands, puffing up his chest like a threatened animal.
“Yeah, I do,” Cal says. “You’re the guy who’s about to get thrown out of my bar.”
“You think I’m the loser here, Price?” Micah growls, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s a game day and your team won, yet here you are working in this bar instead of celebrating with your man.” He laughs. “He must be sticking his dick in someone else tonight, huh? Tell me, where’s your pretty boy now?”
“Right here, asshole,” I say, standing right behind him, my voice steady and calm even as rage boils inside me.
Micah whips around, his bloodshot eyes widening when he sees me. For a split second, I see fear flash across his face before he masks it with a sneer.
“Well, if it isn’t the hero quarterback,” he slurs, swaying on his feet. “Come to rescue your damsel?”
“She doesn’t need rescuing,” I reply evenly, feeling my teammates fan out behind me. “But you will if you don’t walk out of this bar right now and never return.”
Micah laughs, the sound hollow and bitter. “Or what? You’ll tackle me? Get your goon squad to rough me up?” He gestureswildly at my teammates. “That’s assault, Haynes. I know my rights.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Killian calls out from behind me. “Free drinks and food for the rest of the night if you all put your phones away right now and forget the next sixty seconds ever happened.”
The crowd scrambles to put away their phones, and a collective nod passes through the bar. Everyone knows what’s about to happen. Everyone understands.
“You know what?” I step closer to Micah. “I made a promise to Sutton that I wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
Micah’s mouth twists into a smirk. “Smart girl. At least she knows how to keep her dog on a leash.”
“But I never promised I wouldn’t do something necessary.”
My fist connects with his jaw before he can say another word. The impact reverberates up my arm, a satisfying crack that silences whatever vile thing was about to come out of his mouth. He stumbles backward, eyes wide with shock.
“That’s for Sutton,” I say, my voice eerily calm despite the rage coursing through me.
Micah touches his jaw, stunned disbelief turning to fury. “You fucking?—”
Jake steps forward, his right hook catching Micah in the stomach, doubling him over. “That’s for what you did to her.”
Micah gasps for breath, but there’s no reprieve. Boone moves in next, landing a perfect uppercut. “That’s for breaking her ribs.”
One by one, my teammates step up, each delivering a single, calculated blow. Not enough to kill him—we’re not monsters— but enough to make sure he understands exactly what happens when you hurt someone we care about. My brothers take the final few hits and then I land the last blow, a precise strike that sends Micah sprawling onto the sticky bar floor. He lies theregroaning, blood trickling from his split lip, his eye already swelling shut.
I lean over his limp body and tell him, “You will never set foot in this bar again and you will never even think of getting close to Sutton or so help me God, I will fucking end you, and I don’t give a shit what it costs me.”
“This isn’t over,” Micah spits, blood spraying from his mouth. “I’ll have all your careers for this.”
“Actually, it is over,” Sutton says, stepping forward. Her voice doesn’t waver, and her eyes are clear and steady as she looks at the broken man before her. “And no one will believe you got jumped by a bunch of fine, upstanding football players after you got yourself fired from your job. Just like no one believed me when you drugged me, raped me, beat me, and put me in the hospital.” She stands tall and then kicks Micah in his gut, the force of her boot doubling him over on the ground. “That’s for all the women who undoubtedly came after me and may never get their moment.”
The bar remains perfectly silent as Cal, Kyler, and Boone haul Micah to his feet. His face is a mess—swollen, bleeding, barely recognizable—but the hatred in his eyes remains undimmed as they drag him toward the exit.
“You’re all witnesses!” he gurgles, his voice breaking. “Assault! Battery!”
