That gets the crowd going. A couple people scream.
“What the fuck?” Harper yells, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I had it handled.”
I’m too pissed to find the words for her, so I grab her and throw her over my shoulder. She struggles, but I ignore her futile attempts. They’re just a show. Even she knows she can’t get away. She’s doll-sized compared to me.
I turn to the little crowd, wanting to hurl them all over the edge, too. Some of them have the balls to look pissed or upset.
“I’m calling the cops,” a girl says, her face all twisted up and covered with tears. Apparently she liked that douchebag who was hitting a girl. Good fucking luck to her.
“Do you know who this is?” I ask, moving forward a few paces toward the dozen people standing there gaping. “Do you dumb fucks even know who I am?”
A few shake their heads, but the others just stare. They know.
“I am Royal Dolce, and this is mine,” I say slowly, my voice trembling with rage. “If you have something to say about that, I suggest you say it before you join those carcasses in the pit. If you don’t, then get the fuck out of my way. But don’t ever disrespect me and what’s mine again.”
They all scuttle back like cockroaches when I approach, so I shove past. Gloria hovers, her phone in her hand. “I tried to find your brothers, but I don’t know where they went, and they didn’t answer,” she says, sounding panicky and close to tears.
I want to tell her to go fuck herself for not helping, and I’m too pissed to thank her even though some part of me knows I should. Ignoring her, I go straight to the Range Rover and yank open the passenger door. Harper is making herself as heavy as humanly possible on my shoulder, which only makes me want to laugh. I could bench press her ass.
I set her in the seat, battling the rage that’s simmering up inside me like black clouds, trying to churn over my mind.
“I had it handled,” she growls again, shoving my chest. “I didn’t need your help.”
I barely feel her little hands pushing at me. I grab the seatbelt and yank it around her, snapping it into place. She reaches for it, like she’s going to jump out and make a run for it while I head for the driver’s side. I grab her hand, my grip crushing until I see her chest swell as she sucks in a breath. Though her bra is completely exposed, I barely notice her tits. I loosen my hold, but I don’t release her hand. I want her to remember what I can do to her.
“You want to try something?” I ask, low and menacing. I hear my own voice through the rushing in my ears, but it sounds like a stranger. I don’t know when I started to sound like a dangerous man.
Harper swallows and relaxes her hand, and I drop it and slam the door. We peel out in another spray of gravel, but this time, I control my speed and the vehicle on the gravel road. My fingers ache with the force of my grip around the wheel. I don’t speak. I can’t. Everything in my body is charged with rage so deep it pulsates in my veins, sinks into the marrow of my bones. I know this place of darkness well. I have a fucking timeshare here.
We turn off the dirt and onto a paved road, and Harper speaks at last. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Like hell,” I growl.
“I only had two left,” she says. “I can take care of myself.”
“You’re fucking welcome.”
“What, I’m supposed to get on my knees and suck your dick with gratitude that you swept in to rescue me like some gallant knight? Fuck you, Royal. I wouldn’t have been in that situation if it weren’t for you.”
“Every time I turn around, you’re surrounded by guys. I leave for five fucking minutes to deal with family shit, and they’re on you like flies. If you’d stop putting it out there that you’re a whore, maybe I wouldn’t have to keep rescuing your ass.”
“You put it out there that I’m a whore,” she says quietly. “You put the video out there. They saw it, and they wanted what he got. That’s on you, Royal. Not me.”
“They said that?”
She gives a little snort of breath. “Yes, they said that. You didn’t have to kill them for it.”
I want to rip the steering wheel off, tear the car to pieces, go back and drive over every single one of those assholes. I should have killed them. They won’t die, though. The edges of that mining pit aren’t ninety-degree angles. They’re more like seventy-five. They’ll roll down the hundred-foot gravel slope, and even if they weren’t knocked the fuck out, there’s nothing for them to grab onto to stop the slide. By the time they reach the bottom, they might wish they were dead.
“And what was I supposed to do?” I ask.
“Let me deal with my own problems,” she says, throwing up her hands. “I was doing fine. I would have gotten the last two.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” I say quietly. I’m the one who fucked up. But saying that part aloud is impossible.
She just shakes her head. “You don’t get it. You have brothers who always have your back. No matter what you say, they respect it. They’ve got you. Not everyone has that luxury just built into their lives, automatically, without question. Some people learn early to look out for themselves, because they know damn well that’s the only person who will.”
I’d feel like a whiny little bitch if I said anything about my brothers now, if I said they’re a responsibility and not just backup. But she’s right. At the end of the day, I’m fucking lucky.