Page 35 of Kitten Kisses

“I was just doing my job,” Alex defended, feeling a sense of dread and unease in the pit of his stomach.

“And what did doing your job get me? Arrested for simply walking out with a case my friend tried to pay for.” Mike tapped his ID one last time before taking a menacing step closer.

“You kept the money and tried to walk out with it. That’s not paying for it,” he said, trembling with unease. “How was it my fault that those two deputies showed up before you could leave?”

“Look at my fucking ID, Alex,” Mike growled, his eyes burning into him with intense hatred.

Alex swallowed roughly as his throat filled with knots. He wished like hell the deputies would have perfect timing again, because he could really use his mate right now.

With only one lesson of self-defense—where he’d accidentally kneed Slater in the balls—he was no match for Mike’s athletic build.

Alex was getting blamed for this because Mike couldn’t possibly take responsibility for his own actions. That would be admitting fault, something he clearly couldn’t handle.

He was just another version of Alex’s father. Too bad the sheriff hadn’t kept the entitled douchebag locked up in jail.

As Mike charged forward, Alex frantically backpedaled until his back was against the wall. He shoved his ID right up to Alex’s face. “Tell me my goddamn age,” he seethed, his nostrils flaring.

Alex’s heart thundered violently as he tried to focus on the small print of the birthdate, but his mind went blank. The numbers scrambled in his head, making it impossible to do the math. “I-I don’t know.”

“A public education will fuck you every time,” Mike scoffed.

Alex ground his teeth. Once again, he was being treated like he was beneath this privileged son of a bitch.

“If you knew how to perform basic subtraction,” Mike sneered, “you would see I’m twenty-three years old.”

He shoved the ID hard into Alex’s face, causing his head to hit the wall behind him with a thud. “Your fucking stunt cost me a lot! You just had to drag my father into this.” He clenched his jaw.

Mike’s rage toward his father seemed to be transferred onto Alex at that moment.

“You’re nothing but a piece of shit!” Mike slammed his palm into the side of Alex’s head several times, causing Alex’s head to snap sideways. A metallic taste filled his mouth from Mike’s blows. “Some pissant who makes shit for a living, so you decided to take it out on an upper-class guy by trying to teach me a lesson!”

White-hot rage exploded in Alex. He shoved Mike back and then delivered a swift knee to his groin. Mike howled as he bent over, grabbing his crotch.

Terrified, Alex raced toward the counter and was able to hit the panic alarm before Mike grabbed a fistful of his hair, violently yanking him backward with a deep, menacing snarl.

Alex slammed into a metal rack of chips, the sharp edges digging into his body. Crying out in pain, he crashed to the floor, along with the rack, the taste of blood filling his mouth from a split lip.

Oh god! He wasn’t going to survive this. Mike was filled with too much rage and misplaced blame. From what he’d said, he’d lost a lot that night.

His father must have taken Sheriff Harper’s words to heart. Either Mike was enraged because he’d been held accountable for the first time in his life or his father had gone overboard in his punishment.

But none of it was Alex’s fault. He didn’t deserve to be attacked like this. If Mike wanted to release his rage, he needed to direct it at the person truly responsible.

Himself.

Adrenaline surged through Alex as he scrambled to his feet and ran down one of the aisles, desperately trying to get away from the lunatic.

But he took the corner too fast around the shelving and slammed into one of the cooler doors. Mike caught up to him and slammed his body into Alex’s.

The force of the impact caused a large crack in the glass door. Alex hit the floor once again, but this time, Mike jumped on him, raining down punches with all his might.

The guy was grunting and cursing, fury burning in his eyes. His veins were bulging in his neck, a dark sneer on his face.

There was no way to escape. Alex had to lie on the cold floor and deflect the blows with his arms as best he could, which left him powerless to try and get to his feet.

“Goddamn it!” Alex gasped for air as he frantically thrashed and twisted against the weight pinning him down. He finally managed to knock the psycho off balance and send him flying into the shelf in front of him. The forward momentum lifted Mike’s ass off of Alex enough to wriggle free. Wasting no time, he bolted down the automotive aisle toward the exit, but quickly remembered how Mike had bounced off of the sliding glass doors three nights ago when they didn’t open fast enough.

Alex didn’t want the same thing happening to him, so instead, he snatched the handle of a one-gallon bottle of windshield washer fluid when he shot past it.

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