“Yes and no,” he answered. “If they’re not from here, yes. If they are? No, not generally. But on violent days, even the most experienced want pilots like me to take over.”
“Why do you know so much about this?” she asked curiously.
Our dinner came out after that, and Bowie, Cassius, and Dutch spoke quietly about his job, while I spoke with Aodhan about getting my bike back the next morning.
Bain, who’d been awfully quiet until then, said, “You pissed her off.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye before saying, “Oh, yeah. I know.”
His lips quirked up. “You obviously knew that was going to happen.”
“I knew,” I confirmed.
“She’ll get over it,” he predicted.
I had no doubt she’d get over it.
I liked the attitude, and I liked even more that she was pissed as hell right then. That’d make her all the more entertaining to take to bed later.
What I hadn’t expected was to have to deal with an abuser trying to raise his hand to my daughter, and me having to beat the living shit out of someone.
But, there was a first time for everything.
Get married. Get in a fight. Go to jail.
For an actual good reason this time.
CHAPTER 22
I love hard. But I don’t give a shit even harder.
-Dutch to Wake
DUTCH
I was pissed.
I didn’t know why I was pissed, I just knew that I was.
Was it because I’d learned that he’d somehow instigated the sale of his property for me to buy? A place that would be perfect to not only kill a man, but hide his dead body on?
Or was I upset that I’d married a man that I knew absolutely nothing about?
Honestly, at this point, I didn’t really know why I was mad. I just knew that I was.
Which was why, when I came back from the bathroom, I nearly missed the man that was practically leaning over his table whispering vehemently in his date’s ear.
Nearly.
When he reached forward, causing a flash of white in my peripheral vision, and caught his date’s face in his hand, I didn’t stop myself from purposefully running into his chair.
“Sorry,” I called as I continued past, heading back to my seat.
Wake, who’d seen me come and go, placed his hand on my bare thigh as I regained my seat.
“You ready to go?” he rasped.
There was no underlying message in his words.
He was truly asking if I was okay, and if I wanted to leave, obviously sensing my anger at him.
“No,” I answered. “Since my husband is rich and all, I think I’ll have another one of those expensive margaritas.”
He snorted, causing me to kind of sort of smile at him in response.
But there was a loud crash, followed by a “You did that on purpose.”
All of us turned at the same time to see the man that I’d purposefully bumped earlier on my way past leaning over Lolo’s chair and all but yelling at her where she was now lying on the ground.
I never even saw Wake move.
One second, he was looking at me, and the next he was charging the man that had upended his daughter out of her chair.
He took two large strides across the floor, then his fist was raised and he did this karate thing and launched his fist at the man’s face.
The man went down hard but popped back up as if he hadn’t been hit at all.
He picked up the chair, swung it at Wake, and Wake blocked it just in time, narrowly saving his face.
Wake tried to take the chair from him but only ended up breaking off one of the wooden legs.
Which he then used to shove hard into the man’s sternum as he took another swing at Wake’s head.
It was at this point that I launched myself out of the seat, covered Lolo’s and now Dayden’s body with my own, just in time for the chair to come down hard across my back.
I cried out in pain, feeling the sting of the force rattle through my entire body before a low, throbbing thrum took root in my soul that emanated from my back.
I swallowed hard as nausea swelled in my throat.
A loud grunt, followed by a body hitting the floor, was proceeded with utter and complete silence.
Not a single sound could be heard in the entire restaurant.
Not from the other diners. Not from the girlfriend of the dude I now realized had fallen against the tiles by my head. And not from the man that I could now feel smoothing his hand up my back.
I hissed as he touched a particularly tender spot, then lifted up.
Dayden followed suit, and together we all stared down at Lolo who was looking on with the widest eyes I’d ever seen.
“You okay?” I breathed.
She licked her lips nervously before saying, “Yes. Perfectly. He just dumped me out of my seat. I landed on the floor, he started yelling, Dad got up, and then Dayden was covering me.”