Chapter 50
AUSTIN
I sneered in anger as I watched from the shadows of the diner as Ryder and Ellie joined their friends, all of them sitting around the table, enjoying breakfast.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way. If only that asshole had finished the job, I’d be looking at a group of grieving friends instead of them all trying to pretend that things would go back to normal. They never would. I’d never allow it.
“I want orange juice,” Clay sighed, sitting across from me.
“Yeah, I’ll get you orange juice, buddy.”
It pissed me off every time I looked at my brother, how mentally incapacitated he was. Everyone else moved on with life and pretended no one was injured that night. Clay wasn’t even supposed to be there. Yet, he was the one who was hurt.
It should have been Jeff.
Hell, it should have been any of the Parkers.
I flagged down the waitress and requested an orange juice, but my eyes never left that table. She was supposed to be dead, and if it weren’t for Liam holding that blackmail over my head against Clay, I would have done the job myself. It would have been more violent. Agonizing. Heartbreaking.
And every single one of them would be mourning the loss of their beloved Ellie.
My eyes drifted to Archer and JR, the bastards who took out my guy and butchered him. I had it all on video, not that I could use it to blackmail them. That would only put me at the scene of the crime.
It would direct all the attention onto me, and if I wasn’t here to protect Clay, he would have to fend for himself. But this wouldn’t end here. Ellie was on my radar because of Liam, but now JR and Archer put themselves, and anyone they cared about, right in the middle of it with her.
She may have escaped the demon in that basement, but none of them had found a way to escape me, and I’d make damn sure everyone one of them knew what it was like to be alone and helpless.
The clock was ticking, and the countdown had begun.
Thank you for reading Foolish Pride. For more of your favorite characters, continue with Rumor Has It!