Page 31 of The Last Time You Break Me

“Are you sure about that?” she questioned.

No. How can we be? We have no idea where that prick had stuck his little prick.

“He could have had a kid. It’s not entirely impossible. We can’t know who he fucked,” Dallas states as he pulled the thoughts from my unspoken mind.

“Why didn’t you tell me this on the scene?” I turned to Lara, the room melted away and all I was left with was her grief-ridden face.

“You are the reason he got away, let’s not forget that,” she hissed, refusing to even glance my way. Her jaw fluttered as she gritted her teeth in her rage.

“What was that?” Dom asked, attention peaked as he glowered at me with open hostility.

“I thought she was trying to kill him. I reminded her we needed him alive.”

“You questioned her capability? You questionedmycapability in determining whether or not she was ready!” He heaved an unstable breath as his voice turned hard, brutal.

He had slaughtered with that voice alone in the past. It was cold enough to turn an inferno into ice.

And now all that wrath was trained on me.

There was a reason this man was the boss and it had nothing to do with his birthright.

Other than Smithy, the filthy fucking snake, nobody had ever wavered in their loyalty toward him. Not just this family.

I told Lara I loved her and I meant it. I wouldn’t run from this anymore and I wouldn’t run from the fact that I’d die to protect her.

“Yes, yes I did. You weren’t listening and I didn’t think she was ready. I’d do anything to protect her!” I stated and she scoffed, shaking her head as she sneered at the table, top lip curled back as her eyes narrowed in disdain.

“She is not yours to protect!” Dom boomed. Heavy hands punched into the table as spittle flew from his lips. The vein in his forehead bulged and his cool demeanor withered in a second.

“The Hell she isn’t! She has always been mine!” I bellowed, the words fell unbidden from my lips but I didn’t regret them. Not a single one. “Mine! Mine to protect, mine to own and sure as fuck mine to love! That woman, Dom. The one you’re so insistent in throwing to the wolves is my fucking future and I’ll be dammed if I sit back and watch you get her killed.”

The room fell deathly quiet. Not even the humming of the world around us could be heard as those around the table stared back at me. Some in shock, some in anger and Lara? Damn right, stunned. She breathed heavily, then held the air hostage within her lungs until her face tinted blue. “Breathe, troublemaker,” I ordered and she gasped, eyes wide as they remained fixated on mine.

She held me captive, so lost under her spell I didn’t see the right hook, that took me clean off the seat, coming right for my stoically awaiting face. Dalton had me pinned to the ground, hand wrapped around my throat as he cut off my airways and pummeled my face into a bloody pulp with his free hand. Kid was seriously trying to finish me off and he was unrelenting. Dylan kicked me in the side, he had to get in his shot before he tried to pull his pitbull of a brother from my body but it proved difficult.

I knew Dalton. I had trained him so I knew his capability and his strength. I lifted my hand to block his next assault and twisted his limb around my arm before taking it hostage in a lock that put pressure on his entire arm and shoulder. He bentto my will as he arched his back and moved with me in order to stop me from snapping his arm altogether. “Dammit it, kid. Stop already!” I shouted. It caused a few of the cousins to step back and retreat into the corner of the room. Even they knew I was never to be tested and if Dalton was anyone else, I would have ripped of his arm and beat him with the fucking thing.

“You’re like her uncle! What the fuck is wrong with you!” he screamed in my face as he tried to advance once again as soon as I released my grip on him. Dallas and Dylan held him back as Dom sat there through the mayhem, as it spiraled around him. Yet he didn’t move a muscle or blink an eye as he steepled his fingers together and assessed me with a look as cold and as calculating as I had ever seen him wear before this very moment.

I fear nothing, but I couldn’t deny the chill that skated down my spine in the warning that brewed there, deep, thick and dark in those violent and wrath-riddled green eyes of his.

I looked for Lara and couldn’t see her in her seat beside him.

She was gone.

Every instinct inside of me told me to chase her, but I had to see this through first. I needed to prove to her and to myself that I meant every word I said. “Dom…” I tried, but he interrupted me with an explosion that echoed throughout the room.

“You’re my best friend. You’re double her age! You betrayed me and I’ll fucking destroy you for touching her!”

“I’ll kill him!” Dylan gritted as he tried to fly across the table, this time to be held back by Dalton when he was forced to face such a visual.

“Fuck’s sake!” I sighed, while I clenched my fists at my side and took a deep and chilled breath. “This is coming out all wrong. Look, nothing has happened between us. I haven’t let it. I haven’t touched her. I denied this,us. What I felt for her since she was eighteen. Now she hates me for it. She hates me for being a coward, for refusing to accept my feelings and punishingus both because she felt it too. Only difference is she had the balls to chase it.”

“Get out! Everyone, get out!” Dom ordered as he stood from his seat and stalked closer toward me. The sound of everyone leaving fell on deaf ears. It was the threat in the harsh and broken brothers of hers that was a warning to stay alert.

“You are done here. As my right hand, as my friendandas my brother. Leave, walk out of those doors on your own two legs or I promise I will break them both. You’re not worthy of my daughter, Reggie. You never fucking will be,” he spits, calm, cool and collected but I felt the fire in those words like a torch to my skin as he went nose to nose with me. “Leave.”

It fucking hurt. It bruised and scarred everything inside of me as I stood there trying to regain the calm through the anguish.

---