Page 108 of Unguarded

I look down at where his hand is touching my shoulder. He starts to pull back and remove it, but I grab his hand, crushing his fingers back until I hear a crunch.

“Dammit! What the fuck, man?!”

He tries to yank his hand back, but I don’t let go.

“What did Ziggler have on you?”

He’s wincing, bending over and pulling back, but to no avail. “Fuck you. I’m not telling you that. I meant what I said. I’ll hire you to take care of problems. I’ll recommend you to my friends. We can always use muscle like you! You’ll make bank in Hollywood.”

“What did he have on you? Tell me, or I’ll break your other hand.” I lean closer to him, spitting the words into the side of his face.

His skin is turning red, the color bleeding across his cheekbones as sweat begins to drip down his temple. “I gotinto pimping, okay? He was a client, a regular, but one of the girls … didn’t make it. I was just doing it for the thrill, but he recognized me and threatened to go public with my involvement.”

My mind is scrambling to make sense of it. “So, you sold him information about your girlfriend to save your ass?”

He nods. “All he wanted was access. Just information about where she was staying on the tour. I thought it was just a crazy fan thing. I didn’t know he wanted to hurt her!”

“How the fuck did he find you? Quite a coincidence.” I break his thumb for the confession about exploiting Monroe to a man like that.

He roars in pain, scrambling to get away from me. “Please! Please let me go! It was a celebrity look-alike thing. I found girls who looked like popular stars and charged out the ass for them. We’d style them, do their makeup and everything to look like the real girl. It brought in wealthy, fucked-up people.”

He peers up at me, desperation coating his forehead in beads of sweat. “I can get you in, man. I can get you an in with some business that will make you so much richer than that ranch ever could. You’ll meet powerful people, celebrities, politicians?—”

I shove his hand back, cracking his wrist and dropping him to the floor. His screams echo through the men’s restroom. My boot connects with his throat, crushing his worthless body to the cold tiled floor.

“One thing I need to make crystal fucking clear to you is that if I catch you anywhere near her—even if you’re just passing through the same fucking zip code—you will pay forthat mistake with your life. Am I making myself clear?” I emphasize each word with increasing pressure from my boot.

His head bobs. His lips are trembling, blood dripping from the bottom one, where he bit down so hard that it broke the skin. His wrist is lying limp beside him. He hasn’t even tried to fight me off, proving he is a little bitch at heart and was always unworthy of her.

“When I bury a man, nobody ever fucking finds him. They don’t even get a funeral. You read me, motherfucker?”

He’s crying now, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks as he nods, desperate to end this conversation. “She’s irrelevant to me, I swear. I’ve moved on. I was glad to get rid of Ziggler! I swear, man, it was never about her. I would’ve had someone else take care of him, but we couldn’t find him.”

“And it goes without saying that you’re not presenting her fucking award tonight. Leave the event—now.”

I release him, removing my boot from his throat and stepping back. He pants, rolling over to his side and gasping for oxygen now that his windpipe is open.

I grab my jacket from the sink, pulling it on over my shoulders and straightening the lapels in the mirror. Zade is still groaning on the floor.

“I think you broke my fucking wrist, man! You’re a fucking lunatic!”

I bend down, staring into his bloodshot eyes. “You’re right. I am a lunatic. It’ll benefit you to remember that whenever you think about coming after me or my three equally deranged brothers.”

I would kill him now, but getting a body out of an event like this would be impossible. He’s a coward. He won’t go after her again, not after what I just did to him and knowing what I did to Ziggler.

I stand up straight and adjust my cowboy hat before removing the chair from under the doorknob and strutting out into the hall. The attendant is standing there, headphones covering his ears. A piece of paper is posted on the door that saysOut of Order. He nods at me. I fish out two more hundred-dollar bills, just to ensure we’re on the same page about what he saw and heard. He accepts them without a word and removes the sign.

I stride through the hall toward where the auditorium is, following the sound of the music playing.

39

MONROE

Itwist my hands over in my lap before grabbing my glass of champagne. I tip it back over my lips. The pale pink silk fabric of my dress will show any drop of liquid, so I drink carefully to avoid spills. The full-length designer gown is backless with a string of pearls trailing down to the top of my butt. My hair is twisted up in a mass of blonde curls on my head, and more than one person has told me I look like a reincarnated Marilyn Monroe.

All I can think about is Ember and Zade sleeping together behind my back. My shock has turned to a rage similar to molten, bubbling lava flowing through my veins. I fake smiles for the cameras when needed, but the urge to scream that my ex-boyfriend is a lying bastard and my ex-best friend is a backstabbing bitch is making it difficult to enjoy the evening.

So much for being friends as close as sisters.

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