Page 47 of Jaxon

Dad walked over. "What's going on?"

"Cru got in ascufflewith the security team on the beach. Scuffle was Jax's word, but I can tell he's trying to sugarcoat things."

"How bad did it get? Do we need to go down there and talk to this bullshit security team?" Dad asked. It was always amusing to hear him go straight to talking with adversaries first. Back in their twenties, the Stone brothers led with their fists when someone deserved it. Talk wasn't usually an option. It took a long time to come out from under the legendary status of the Stone brothers. We all held our own pretty damn well, and we'd definitely had some majorscuffles, but our dads held the badass titles, crowns that they'd never lost.

"I'll go home and find out what's going on," I said. "I'll let you know."

"You won't have to. I'll talk to Stella and get the real facts." Mom added a smirk.

"Fine, whatever. Nothing that Theo, Fin and I can't handle."

"Seems this all still leads back to one thing," Dad said. "Your dick."

"Fuck off. Walsh bought that piece of land long before I met Bridget." I headed to the office for my keys.

"Yeah, but Walsh has become a lot more venomous since you?—"

"I swear to god, Hunter, if you bring up his dick one more time—" I heard Mom say as I reached the office.

"You know I'm fucking right. You let me know as soon as you talk to LaLa," Dad said.

My phone rang as I pulled up toward the house. It was Griffin. "You should see Theo. Got the shit beat out of him by those creeps on Croft Beach. He said Cru and some of the other locals also got it bad. They even snapped boards in half."

"I'm just getting home to talk to Cru. I'll call you back. Seems like we might need to take a trip to Croft Beach."

"I was thinking the same thing. I'll get ahold of Mac. The more the merrier, and seems like we'll be two men down."

"Yep, talk soon." I hung up. Stella's car was in the driveway.

"Where are you guys?" I asked as I walked in.

"Here, in the kitchen," Stella called back.

I entered the kitchen and froze. Crusoe had two black eyes and a cut lip. Stella was dabbing at his lip with a wet cloth, but Crusoe was ducking away from it.

"Don't be such a baby. Just let me wipe it." Stella's voice sounded rough, wavering. She looked back at me with tears in her eyes. "I think I should take him to urgent care. They thumped him hard."

"Not going to the doctor," Crusoe said weakly.

"Stella's right. You need to go get checked out."

I crouched down in front of him. "Tell me what happened."

"A bunch of us decided to take our boards down to the beach." Crusoe stopped to catch his breath. An ice pack was pressed against his chest. "There were some awesome sets coming in. We paddled around the jetty, so we never stepped foot on the fucking beach." Crusoe struggled to sit up straighter, but every inch of movement was excruciating. "They waited for us. There's more now."

"How many?" I was already getting battle plans ready in my head.

"Fucking ten maybe. All with the same thick necks and giant foreheads. Like they made them in a mold." He chuckled at his comment and then bent forward in agony. "Fuck, why do broken ribs hurt so much?" he said between gritted teeth. Crusoe took a breath, a short painful one by the look on his battered face. "You going down there?" he asked.

"Waiting for a call from Fin."

Stella stood up. "Right. Then I guess I'll just wait and save myself an extra trip to urgent care."

"We're just gonna talk," I said wryly.

"Yes, you and your army of two? You and Fin? Theo's out of commission too," Stella said.

"It'll be three. Fin's calling Mac. You know Mac. It's like bringing a Tasmanian devil to a fight. Hey, look, I know Mom is waiting for you to call her, but don't let her know how bad it is. Otherwise, she's going to grab a power drill and drive down to that beach herself to start taking eyes and balls. Griffin and I are going to handle it."

---