Page 24 of The Trust We Broke
I realize how true that might be when I see how many phones are pointed at me.
“Grab his feet,” I yell to Catfish.
He does as I ask, and together, we manage to haul Gulch through the bar. I take his weight and, with Catfish’s help, we manage to get him to the street.
Once I drop him on the ground, Pitbull is back on his feet and charges me, dropping his shoulder at the last minute to hit me in the ribs and knock me down.
“Worse than fucking whack-a-mole.” I grunt, getting my boots around Pitbull’s thighs so I can flip him.
“You don’t own this town,” he says, blood trickling from the side of his lips as I grab his cut.
“No?” I ask, raising my fist so high that when I hit him, the single punch knocks him out.
When his head hits the road, I stand and shake off my fist. Flex my fingers back and forth to ease the ache from my knuckles. I catch sight of the letters on them. It says LUCK, now, but once upon a time, it said LUCE. The treatment to remove the lines of the E before having it replaced with the K was worth every painful snap of the laser.
As if by some means of witchcraft she knew I was thinking about her, she emerges from the restaurant opposite Whiskey Fever. She takes in the scene playing out before her with an open mouth. I guess that fancy restaurant insulates itself from what’s going on out here.
When she finally finds me, I wink at her.
Fucking wink.
Like I always used to when I’d catch her eye across a crowded room.
Haven’t winked at Lucy De Bose in nearly a decade, and here I am, doing it like it was yesterday.
Gulch climbs to his feet and heads in her direction.
I got no clue what the reason might be, but I’m moving toward her before I even realize my foot has taken the first step.But he’s closer and gets there first. He reaches for Lucy’s hand and raises it to his lips.
“Didn’t know the lawyer had a pretty daughter,” he says to Lucy’s mom.
Everything in my vision turns red, drenched in blood.
He touched her, and there is no missing the threat in his tone.
One minute, he’s smirking at Lucy and her mother. The next, he’s on the ground. I’m not even sure how I ended up standing astraddle his hips, holding him up by the edges of his cut.
“You dare fucking touch her?”
“Zachary, stop.” I hear Lucy’s voice, hear the panic in it.
But when I turn to look at her, I can see the arousal in her eyes. One of the things I loved most about Lucy…she never hid it when she was hungry for me.
For the briefest moment, we’re the old Lucy and the old Grudge in the same old town.
Flashes of memories assault me. Of working on my bike, and her bringing me a coffee before getting utterly turned on by my sweat-stained gray T-shirt and dirty hands. Or the summer I decided I was going to try and impress her father by felling the trees he wanted removed for free.
The fucker had the nerve to tell me he should have paid someone to do a better job, but man, I enjoyed fucking his daughter in the backseat of my truck before I burned out of there.
She loved when I did the dirty work.
At least, I always thought she did.
The sound of motorcycles roaring to life distracts me for a second, and I see the Rebels beginning to peel out.
I look down at Gulch. “My brothers would never leave without me. Yours don’t even have the balls to wait and check you’re okay. Leaving you to whatever fate I decide.”
He spits blood to one side. “Too many witnesses. You’re gonna do fuck all to me.”
