Page 38 of Sinful Like Us
“Just bought this for you, Moretti!” Gio digs his hand in the shopping bag. “So you can tie up your rich bitch!” He chucks an object at us, but Farrow intercepts first and catches what looks like restraint cuffs, meant to tie a submissive to a bed.
I boil. “I donotlike BDSM!” I shout at the top of my lungs, as though the whole world will hear me.
“Prove it!” He points from me to Thatcher, as though we’llfuckin front of everyone.
My face twists in disgust and ire. I loathe this redundancy more than anything, how I always find myself here, shouting the same phrase and meeting the same unwelcome result.
It isinfuriating.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Maximoff almost charges at the guy.
Farrow puts Moffy in an arm-lock and whispers rapidly in his ear. Banks is pushing other men back from us.
And Thatcher—he could spark infernal damnation in a single glare. “She has nothing to prove to you.” He projects his voice without yelling.
I touch a slow-growing smile on my face.I can’t believe I’m smiling.I perch my hands on my wide hips, chin raised, and then—
Boom!
I flinch.
Thatcher clasps my hand and draws me behind his back. Every head whips to the noise behind the bar as an older gray-haired gentleman bangs a baseball bat to the counter.
“EVERYONE OUT!” he yells.
Complaints gather from whispers to shouts.
“I SAID OUT! I OWN THIS DAMN BAR. I SAY YOUSE GO, YOUSE GO!” He points the bat at the door. People begin to shift, and I snatch my wedding binder before another pair of hands do.
“You wanna lose business, Jerry?!”
“I’m losingnuthin’. I get ten grand just to get you shitheads outta here!” He suddenly aims his bat towards me and Maximoff. “Youse can stay. Everyone else, go!”
Ten thousand dollars?
I go cold. This makes little sense.
People shoot us nasty glares and huff on their way out. I hearrich bitch!yelled at me, as though this is my doing. Snowy gusts blow inside as bodies exit, the bar slowly clearing. Leaving behind a beer-spilt floor, crooked chairs, and littered tabletops.
Moffy and I exchange a tentative look, and I sense our bodyguards talking amongst themselves and hawk-eyeing all the passing, disgruntled people. I hug the binder and lean into my best friend. “Did you pay the owner to clear out the bar?”
“No.” His fingers weave through his thick, dark brown hair. “Did you?”
“No. I wouldn’t. It’d be easier to just leave.” We’re uneasy, and I say what we both know. “Our bodyguards wouldn’t spendten grandto evacuate a room full of assholes. There are only a handful of people who would.”
His shoulders square, ready to protect and defend even though he’s not a bodyguard.
“Charlie,” I declare. “He would.”
Maximoff licks his lips. “As cool as it’d be for telepathy to be real, Charlie isn’ttelepathic.Your brother couldn’t have knownthismayhem broke out at this moment.”
“What if it’s online?” I theorize. “Someone could’ve recorded and posted everything.” I take a seat at the bar, setting my binder back down, and we take out our phones and do a quick social media search.
My frown deepens.
No peep.Nothingabout the eldest Cobalt and eldest Hale in a South Philly bar fight.
Banks plops down on the stool beside mine. He just intercepted the path of a drunk middle-aged man, who probably would’ve sat next to me.
