Page 36 of Rebel

He nodded, “It’s human nature to avoid pain.”

“Not in my world. If I fuck up, I stand up and face the consequences like a man. You’ve got a scared little boy mentality, and it shows.”

“Just tell me what you want from me and let’s get this over with.”

I reached out, grabbed his shirt, and hauled him to his feet. “What in the fuck were you thinking by taking nude pictures of Lacey and sharing them with your shitty friends?”

“She told me it was okay, and her body was nothing to be ashamed of. Lacey was open that way.”

This fucker was not a good liar. Most of the photos looked like they’d been taken without her knowledge. I pulled my arm back and hit him in the face. I heard a sickening crunch as his hands flew to his nose. Storm picked up a pillow off his sofa and threw it at him. Glancing at me, he stated grimly, “Why do they always lie?”

“Because men who do shit like this have no integrity.”

I motioned for Rudy to get up. “Stand the fuck up. I’m not gonna keep picking you up all afternoon.”

He got to his feet wiping his bleeding nose on his arm.

“Try again, asshole. What made you think doing that was okay?”

“I was just proud of being with such a beautiful woman and I wanted to show her off. She never knew, so I didn’t see the harm.”

I punched him again and he staggered back several paces and fell against the wall.

“That’s for lying, yet again. You shared it in your stupid little group and said some pretty damn insulting things about her. She was nice enough to have sex with you because, for some reason, she cared about you, and you called her a whore who was unfit to be marriage material.”

His expression grew weary. “I kind of remember saying something like that. I was young and dumb.”

I reached out and smacked him again, not putting as much effort into it.

Celt commented, “It’s smart to pace yourself, brother, ‘cause I don’t think this asshole is gonna stop trying to lie his way out of trouble with you.”

I glanced back at him. “That’s how it seems.”

Turning back to Rudy, I told him, “The reason I know that last statement you made was bullshit is because our IT guy found evidence that you’ve been doing shit like this with just about every woman you have dated. That tells me you’re a misogynistic asshole who likes to humiliate women for kicks. You think it makes you look cool to your asshole friends.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m flawed that way. The shit I said and the images I shared never left the group. Now that you’ve explained it so thoroughly, I see it was a shitty thing to do. What do you want me to do, apologize?”

“I don’t want you anywhere near my woman. I’m gonna get justice for Lacey by tuning you up today and you’re going to write her a letter admitting what you did and making the sincerest apology of your fucking lifetime.”

He held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Alright, man. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

Storm spoke up, “We also want to know where you were four days ago.”

My head snapped around to look at my club president. I was grateful that he brought up something that I had forgotten—the very reason for my visit.

He shoved the fingers of one hand through his messy hair. “I don’t know. Let me think for a minute.” A short silence spun out and then the looked up, clearly excited. “That was the twenty- second, right? I drove to Arizona the day before and spent the night gambling at an Indian casino. They had a real nice setup.”

Grit spoke up for the first time, “I’m sure they have security videos as well.”

Rudy’s trembling hand reached into the pocket of his shorts and came back out wrapped around his cell phone. “Fuck their security footage. I have lots of pictures of myself at the casino. My friends were all jealous that the place was so nice.”

Sure enough his images were dated for the night of the twenty-second. Rudy waited patiently for us to review his camera roll. Storm was smart, he went to his saved files and found a load of inappropriate images of women. Frowning, he handed me the phone. I saw the images he had saved of Lacey, tossed the phone back to Storm and let Rudy have it.

Celt pulled me off him. “If ye want him to be able to write a nice apology note to your lassie, stop beating on the stupid fecker before ye break his arms.”

He muscled me back and I watched Storm wipe all the images off Rudy’s phone, though not before sending them to Hacker, while Grit scrambled around to find for something for Rudy to write with. I hated that his nose was still bleeding, and he got blood on the note he wrote. I snatched it away the moment he signed the bottom of the note and tucked it inside my cut.

Rudy stammered, “What happens now? Is this the point where you knife me and leave me to bleed out on my own carpet?”

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