Page 69 of BounBound By Scars

There was a skull etched there.

I’d made a game out of it—how fast could I down the drink and leave just enough poison behind to fill only the eye holes… sockets?

I failed every single time.

Apparently, I’d annoyed the bartender with my refill requests, because at some point, he just handed me the whole bottle.

Mercy.

Didn’t he know this was a brilliant fucking game?

The prize? Two perfect little holes.

Right in Sebastian’s skull.

No one wanted to kiss a dead, holey man. Well… necro—

“You need to leave, Mr. Gill.” Oh, sonowthe bartender cared.

“I don’t take threats to the man who pays me lightly,” he added, voice laced with warning.

I sighed sadly. “He pays you lightly? I thought he was a billionaire.”

Snapping my attention away from his unprovoked eye roll, I glanced down the bar. Zane was mid-conversation with Ronan when I slammed my palm against the marble counter.

“Zane!”

His head snapped up. Alarm flickered across his face—but then it turned to frustration. Then pure exasperation when he noticed the bottle in my hand.

He walked off without saying a word.

The fuck?

“He’s bringing reinforcements,” Ronan said, appearing beside me like a bouncer from hell.

I blinked at him, focusing on the ink crawling beneath his buzz cut. “I thought you were reinforcementssss.”

A chuckle escaped him.

The moment I reached for the bottle again—after yet another failed attempt at skull-eye-shot perfection—Ronan’s much larger hand clamped around my forearm.

Before I could register that, it was replaced—aggressively—by Zane’s.

“Logan,” Zane muttered. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back.”

“Zane, don’t leave—”

But he was already turning away. Ronan along with him.

“And he speaks his mind when drunk,” Zane added. “Don’t let him make any decisions.”

“I got him, brother,” Logan said with a chuckle, sliding into the seat beside me. “Relax.”

I scowled at my drink. The skull grinned back. Still fucking empty-eyed.

“You called him brother,” I mumbled, eyes fixed on my glass.

“Yeah,” Logan adjusted his massive frame on the tiny barstool. “You’re all my brothers.”

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