Page 35 of Scotch: Unraveled

“Don’t you ever fucking go near Rory again.” I ground out and it’s now that I realize everyone in the place is staring at me, including a dumbfounded Rory. My eyes fill with tears and I take off running back out the front door. He doesn’t follow me, either.

Not when I go back in his place to grab my purse and keys. Not when I start my car and peel out of there.

I’m almost to my apartment when I remember that my bed is in his place. “Dammit!” I scream and cut a left to head to Brighton’s house instead. I’ve never punched a woman in my life and I think I might have knocked a tooth out.

This isn’t me.

Crying fat, ugly tears on Brighton’s doorstep, I ring the bell and wait. It takes two seconds for her to answer and like a best friend, she doesn’t ask one question, just pulls me inside and hugs until I’m ready to spill my guts.

I plop down on her sofa right next to where the girls are passed out in the pack-and-play while she walks into her kitchen. A few minutes later, she comes back with a tumbler full of what I know is a cherry 7 and 7.

“They were having sex right out in the open,” I cry to my best friend, then gulp my drink and hiccup. “And when I said it made me uncomfortable, he called me… me…judgementalandbratty.” The last word gets jumbled together as a fresh round of tears flow and a huge sob rips from my throat.

“Like real sex?” Brighton asks.

What does that even mean? “No. The fake kind, with robots. Of course, the real kind. Women bent over sofa arms or riding dudes right in front of us all.”

“And he never thought to give you a heads-up that this is what you might see?”

“No,” I answer. Brighton has known me long enough. If he’d just given me some warning, some time to mentally prepare, it wouldn’t have knocked me for such a loop.

“Asshole,” she mumbles through a loud pounding on her front door. “He’s gonna wake up his girls.” Brighton stands to storm over to lay into him when she throws the door open and it takes me a split second too long to realize that it’s not Rory come to hash things out with me.

It all happens so fast. All I see is a cut—but not a Lords cut, this one has blue lettering—and then an arm punches Brighton, knocking her on her butt and knocking her clean out.

Then he steps into the room. He fills the space in a very bad way. Shaved head, a bullet hole tattooed between his eyes, and a face that looks like he’d run it through a meatgrinder.

He glares at me, cracks his knuckles and his neck, and says, “Scotch fucked up. Yer gonna beg for death before I’m done.”

11.

Rory

I can’t fucking believe she’d embarrass me like that in front of my brothers. Every one of ’em looked at me like ‘Can’t ya control yar woman?’ I stomp over to the bar. “Scotch,” I order, sliding onto a stool. “Triple.” The prospect behind the bar doesn’t say a word, flipping over a glass and pulling a bottle from the shelf behind him before he pours the first of what I can already tell will be many.

After slamming the first, I choke at the same time coughing out, “Another.” The kid pours me a second even as I feel heat at my back.

“What the fuck?” Duke grumbles, then he says to the prospect, “I’ll take one too.”

The kid slides my drink to me and then one to Duke. He opens a beer and hands it off to Boss, who stepped up beside me, too. Duke shoots back his whiskey and turns to lean on his arm so he’s looking right at me.

“I’ll ask again. What. The. Fuck?”

“I didn’t know that’s how she’d react.” I only drink half my drink down this time. “Thought she was old lady material. Guess I was wrong.”

“You were wrong?” Duke asks. “That’s all ya got ta say?”

“She won’t be back at the club.”

Boss grips my shoulder. That’s one hell of an act of aggression.

“My brother and my boss or not,” I snarl, “Don’t wanna turn yar wife widow. Ya remove that motherfucking hand now.”

“Calm the fuck down and think for a second,” Duke butts in.

“I said she won’t be back. What more do ya want?”

“For you to get your head outta yer ass and go after her,” Boss, who still hadn’t removed his hand, says.

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