Chapter Two
Bray
AFTER SITTING in the police station for two fucking hours, the last thing I want to do is ride along while my brother plays fucking Uber for his girlfriend. But, as always, whenever my ass has needed bailing out of anything, Zac has always been there, always willing to fight for me.
Ever since our parents died five years ago, Zac has been there; he stepped up, taking guardianship of Ella and me.
Let’s just say, in no way did I make it easy for him.
I was seventeen when my parents were mugged at a train station, my mother falling onto the tracks as the mugger snatched her bag from her shoulder.
My father jumped down to help her, but they couldn’t get back onto the platform in time.
Zac can’t talk about the incident; Ella still cries when she thinks no one is watching or noticing.
Me, I just got angry, really fucking angry.
I would pick fights with anyone. I was eventually kicked out of school because of it.
Fighting helped me though. I needed the pain, the adrenaline, somewhere to focus all of my fucking rage on so it wouldn’t consume me.
I joined up in an underground street fighting club—I was good.
But it didn’t take long for Zac to pull me out.
He signed me up for a state-of-the-art MMA gym.
Got me in with a great coach and the rest is history.
I still fight underground, still have that same great fucking coach.
The only difference is now I fight for our own underground club.
Once Zac realised fighting was part of me and what I needed to do, he once again took control and built an underground cage in the basement of his nightclub, The Merge.
The Merge Cage is now known as the best in town, our fights get packed audiences, and hundreds of thousands of dollars are bet at our fights.
Even more when it’s my cage name, Braydon Johnson, on the card.
I’m fucking good at what I do, undefeated, and I will take on any motherfucker who wants to try to beat my ass. The advantage I have? I still have the pool of rage I’ve carried around with me since I was seventeen; the one place I let myself release that rage is in the cage.
My thoughts are halted as Zac’s girlfriend, Alyssa, opens her door in a fucking towel.
Damn, I know she’s my brother’s girl, but fuck, she is hot as hell.
Although I can appreciate her hotness, that’s where it ends; there is no spark, no chemistry.
But there is some kind of weird pull to this girl I can’t seem to wrap my mind around.
It’s like I want to protect her; from what, I don’t know.
Maybe it’s just that this is the first girl who Zac has actually given two fucks about, and she’s good for him.
It’s early days, but I can see that she’s not going anywhere; this one is sticking.
That doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun and piss my brother off a little in the process though.
After all, what are little brother’s for, if not for being annoying little shits.
Peering around Zac’s side, I tease, “Damn, I can see why my brother has given up his balls to you, Lyssa.” I raise my eyebrows up and down suggestively.
It doesn’t take long for Zac to step inside, blocking my view of Alyssa and slamming the door in my face.
“I’ll just wait in the car, kids!” I yell out to the door. Heading back to the car, I lean against it and pull out my phone.
Ever since Reilly stormed out of my fucking house, I haven’t been able to get her off my mind. I need to know where the hell she is. Did she get home safely? Fuck’s sake, I sound like my fucking brother now.
Rubbing a hand across my chin, I think about whether or not I should text, call or, fuck, just track her down and rock up on her doorstep.
Maybe with a bow wrapped around junior, one that she can unwrap with her mouth.
Straight away junior stands to attention, on board with the idea as much as I am.
Looking down, I say, “Settle down, mate. It’s not gonna happen for us right this second.” I’m out here standing in a carpark talking to my fucking cock. Yep, fuck my life.
Deciding that texting is probably the safest bet for both junior and me, considering the state of anger Reilly left in, I pull up her number; the one I had to steal from her phone while she was sleeping, mind you.
When I asked her for her number last night in the club, she laughed right in my fucking face and replied with, “Yeah, that’s never going to happen, stud muffin, but what could happen is you getting me a refill.
” She then proceeded to shove her glass into my chest before reaching up onto her tippy-toes and whispering in my ear, “And, at the end of the night, you can take me home to bed for one hell of a night you won’t be forgetting anytime soon. ”
Needless to say, I did get her that refill.
My eyes never strayed far from her for the rest of the night.
Which is also the reason that the fucker who hit Alyssa across the face was able to get so close to her.
The rage that overtook my body, mind and soul at seeing some fucker hit Alyssa was off the charts.
I barely know the girl, yet I have this weird need to protect her.
The same way I want to protect Ella from the whole damn world.
I jumped straight into action without any thought other than killing the guy there and then.
My vision went red, zoned in on my target and when I got him, a right hook had him on the ground.
But did I stop there? No, I jumped on him, landing punch after punch to his face, then his ribs.
The cocksucker didn’t stand a chance, and if it wasn’t for Dean pulling me back, I would have fucking ended him.
Who the fuck hits a bloody woman? A lowlife, that’s who.
One that should be wiped off the face of the earth and I’m more than happy to be the one to do it.
It’s the same fucking cocksucker who thought he could press charges against me, not that those charges stuck.
As soon as Zac showed up at the cop shop—with Dean in tow and video footage of the guy hitting Alyssa, which, mind you, up until that point Zac had not seen—I was released.
When Zac did see that footage, he lost it and picked up a chair, throwing it across the room and smashing the mirrored window.
Needless to say, the cops dropped the charges.
But even without that footage, Zac would have just pulled some strings higher up in the department.
Shaking off the thoughts of last night and this morning, I fire off a text to Reilly, asking her where she is.
Waiting for her to reply, I think I check my phone a dozen times before Alyssa comes bouncing out by herself, wearing fucking nurses’ scrubs.
Man, maybe I need to visit the hospital more often if this is how nurses are looking these days.
Thinking she’s just going to make her way over to the car and wait for Zac, I’m taken by surprise when she comes up to me, wrapping her arms around my neck and hugging the shit out of me.
Damn, this girl can hug. It’s a bloody good thing junior took my advice and settled down, or she’d be getting more out of this hug than she bargained for. I wrap my arms around her, returning the hug.
“Thank you for helping me last night, Bray. It really means a lot to me that you would stick up for me like that,” she whispers in my ear.
“Anytime, sister,” I say back to her while smirking over her shoulder at Zac, who is now glaring and storming toward us.
“What the fuck?” Zac yells out, while pulling Alyssa behind him and attempting to land a right hook to my face.
One that I easily duck and avoid. I know if he really wanted to land that hook, he would have been able to.
I just laugh at him as Alyssa wraps her arms around him and calms his ass down.
She has an uncanny way of being able to do that to him.
I might have to hit her up for some pointers.
Although, I suspect it may have something to do with the anatomy between her legs.
Which, obviously, junior does not share any similarities with.
“You know it was bound to happen, right? It didn’t take her long at all to come to her senses already and decide I’m the hotter brother after all,” I tell him.
“Fuck off, idiot,” he says while slapping me across the back of my head.
No matter how big I get, that’s always the move he goes for to reprimand me for my antics.
I’d never tell him this, but when he does that, he reminds me a lot of our dad.
Sometimes I say stupid shit on purpose just to get that glimpse of my dad, even if for just a second.
Sitting in the back of the car listening to Zac and Alyssa swoon over each other is bloody sickening. I’m half listening as I type out increasingly frustrated texts to Reilly. Why the hell is she not answering me? Where the fuck is she? What if something happened to her when she left my place?
I live in a good neighbourhood, but still, you don’t know who is living next door to you, no matter how nice or expensive the house might be. And, damn it, all she was wearing was my fucking t-shirt.
I’m momentarily distracted remembering the sight of her in nothing but my shirt, those long lean legs of hers on display, her fiery red hair a mess down her back. She was definitely sporting the just fucked hair look. The just thoroughly fucked look, if I must say, and yes, I must.
When Alyssa mentions how much she appreciates Zac giving her a ride, I can’t help but laugh a little. She turns around in her seat and glares at me. “Care to share why you got arrested this morning and had to drag Zac out of bed to bail you out?”
What the fuck? How the hell does she know about that? Reaching out, I slap Zac across the back of his head.
Yeah, how do you like it, motherfucker? “You told her? What happened to the bro code, man, bros before—”