Are you serious right now?
Oh God… It can’t be. She didn’t distract me, and appease me, and spin me around until I was dizzy and trusting, only to go and do what I’d hoped she wouldn’t do, right?
I hop off my stool and go after her.
Only one way to find out.
Chapter Twelve
Jarett
Seb is wasted. Booze and weed and fuck knows what else. He’s listing where he’s leaning against the wall of the club.
At least I won’t be chasing him around tonight, prying him off unwilling girls and breaking up fights he’d start for no reason with other guys.
Mav is talking with Angel by the Gents door, and catches my eye. He gestures, and I leave Seb to go see what he wants with me. I’m rarely involved in gang business, at least directly. Look-out, bodyguard, and muscle—that’s what I am. That’s what I do so they’ll keep my brother safe.
“Go take a look,” Mav says, nodding at the bathrooms. “Shem was supposed to be a minute, and we’re going. Go get him.”
“He got in Mooney’s face earlier,” Angel says, and nods at the bathrooms. “Just FYI.”
Great. They think the other gang jumped Shem in the bathrooms. That idiot. What was he thinking? He always struts about, thinking he’s the shit.
“Okay, going in. You gonna be here?”
Angel glances at Mav. “We’ll be waiting outside. Just get him out.”
I don’t ask why Mav and Angel didn’t go in there to look for Shem. Maybe afraid a cop is lurking somewhere, waiting to catch them if they get into a fistfight. The gang may still be relatively new, but Mav and Angel have already made a name for themselves. Ruthless. Cunning. Getting deeper into drug trafficking.
If I was smart, I’d have never come near them. I’d have run away. That’s what Connor taught me. That’s what my rational mind tells me to do. Leave, skip town and disappear, cut loose all ties and make a new life somewhere else.
But what life is there when you leave the only family you have? When the only people who care about you, the people you promised to take care of, are right here?
Even Sebastian, that dickhead.
Mrs. Lowe.
Gigi.
Cutting that last thought short, fucking pissed at myself for thinking it in the first place, I push the bathroom door open and step inside.
The thump of the music goes muted as the door closes behind me.
A guy is washing his hands, glancing at me in the mirror over the sinks. He’s dressed in hipster pants and a tank top with silver letters, his hair sprayed silver. His face isn’t familiar.
“Shem?” I call out, and when I get no reply, I open the first stall. “You in here? Dude, answer me.”
The guy at the sink harrumphs, and leaves, the door banging behind him, letting inside a sliver of music.
As the sound dies again, I try the other stalls. One is locked, and a guy snarls a curse from inside when I rattle the door.
I kick the last stall open, and I find Shem sitting on the closed lid, his head in his hands. Blood is trickling down his face from a cut on his cheek, both eyes are black, and his jaw is swollen.
Christ. “Come on. Didn’t you hear me looking for you, man? Mav and Angel are outside, waiting.”
He lets me pull him to his feet, his knees bending, and I haul him back up, hissing a curse as my own knee protests.
“Your big mouth get you into trouble, huh?” I mutter, not expecting a response. “They didn’t break any bones, did they?”