Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Drew
The yard fell quiet as my eyes narrowed in on Ayda and Kenny. The moment my feet hit the ground, my shoulders rolled in my cut and my face tensed.
I wasn’t prepared to play by today’s rules anymore.
Every part of my body was charging with a new kind of energy, the flames of anger growing and growing until they were curling around every piece of muscle, skin and fabric that was on me. Slater’s quiet groan was the only thing I registered as I began to walk forward.
I couldn’t fucking see anyone but the two of them, her and him rolling around on the ground, his hands touching places that didn’t belong to him—touching someone he had no right to touch.
There was no urgency to me reaching him.
I knew that once this beast inside me was unleashed, things would get fucked up, so I took my time, trying to collect my thoughts as my chest heaved in and out and the muscles in my jaw flexed back and forth.
Everyone remained silent, their eyes wide as I gave each one of them a quick glance of fury from beneath hooded eyes. When they landed on Ayda, I saw her full smile fall slowly and the small scowl form on her face as she pushed the hair and mud away from her cheeks.
Her hands, which only moments earlier had been playfully punching Kenny’s kidneys, reached up to tap his arm and gain his attention, but her eyes never left mine. They were still narrowed in confusion.
I groaned quietly, and as soon as Kenny saw me, he guided her down and avoided looking my way. His body tensed immediately, one foot shuffling on the ground as he tried to turn away, bringing the back of his hand to run under his nose.
The fucker knew.
He knew.
“Having fun?” I growled.
Ayda looked at me in confusion, her hands pushing her muddy hair from her face before planting her hands on her hips. “We were playing football.”
“I was talking to him,” I said through gritted teeth.
Seeming unsure, whether of Kenny’s silence or my dismissal, she twisted her head to look at Kenny in question. “Okay.”
He twisted back around, his head rolling as he closed his eyes as if to try and figure a way out of the shit he was obviously drowning in. When he opened them again, he gave me a resigned shake of the head and shrugged. “Not what it looks like, Drew.”
“That so?”
He didn’t answer.
“I asked you a question.”
He still didn’t answer.
“Tell me what it fucking looks like, Kenny.”
Throwing his hand out to the side, he swallowed when his palm landed back down against his thigh. “Defiance, I guess.”
“You guess?” I hit back, low and threatening as my eyebrows rose and I took a step closer. “Oh, I see it now. This is the part where you make me look like the possessive dick. This is the fucking part where you act innocent so I look like the bad guy, right?”
“Drew,” Harry called out from somewhere around us, but I wasn’t moving an inch. The blood was still dripping down one side of my face and all the adrenaline I’d been storing up for days seemed to have found a nice target in the form of Kenny’s face.
“It was just football,” Kenny finally spat out, turning around fully as he straightened up his shoulders.
“From where I was standing, it looked a lot like you were playing football with my girl’s ass.”
Ayda’s eyes went wild as she stepped forward in an attempt to get my attention. “Wait just a goddamn minute. What the fuck is going on right now?”
She looked between Kenny and me, her confusion boiling over into anger.
My head snapped to her and I gave her the one look I didn’t really feel inside. Disgust. My eyes raked down over her mud covered body as my sneer grew, only for me to turn back to Kenny and huff out a laugh.
“You tell her, K-Dog.”
“Nothing,” he said through an arrogant but shaky voice. “Nothing at all. Drew’s obviously got the wrong idea.”
There were many things that made me spitting fucking angry in life, but people talking about me like I wasn’t even there was one of the main ones.
If that’s how he wanted to play it, that’s how it was going to go down.
My right hand curled even tighter, all my veins pumping in my arms as I tried to figure out a way to break his fucking jaw without losing Ayda in the process.
Pulling back slowly, I glared at him and lifted my hands to the edges of my cut.
I had no idea of anyone else’s position, but as I slid it off my arms, I tossed it to Slater behind me before nodding to the side of us.
My shoulders were rolling, my neck stretching from side to side before I lifted my finger in the air and pointed it right at Kenny.
“I’ve had enough of this bullshit. You and me… training room. Now.”
“Tucker, stop,” Harry shouted roughly, a loud cough filling the air as the rest of the crew around us began to whisper and mutter.
“Drew…” Ayda said, her eyes on Harry as he approached. “Don’t do this. You’re bleeding and pissed off. Let me just take care of your ear. Then talk to Kenny.”
My eyes raked over her face before I shook my head and whispered sarcastically. “Go. Away. Ayda. Your Oprah bullshit can’t save this situation.”
“What the fu—” Her words seemed to get stuck in her throat as she looked beyond me. Whatever caught her attention had her closing her eyes and breathing in deep breaths. When they finally flickered open, she looked between Kenny and me. “Don’t do this. Please.”
The fact that she was so concerned over the skull fucking I was about to serve Kenny only made my anger flare to life even more. I’d had enough of people telling me what to do and what not to do, and as I looked back up at my brother and stared into his eyes, I knew he wanted this as much as I did.
“No gloves,” I breathed out, ignoring her completely before turning around and marching off towards the unit of the warehouse.
“I’m not going to watch you do this, Drew,” she shouted after me. “This is ridiculous. When you feel mature enough to have a conversation, you know where to find me. This macho bullshit is…”Ayda trailed off, releasing a growled sigh of frustration at being silenced by whoever was closest to her.
I wanted to shout back that this macho bullshit was life in the club, but I knew ‘if you don’t like it, you know where the fucking gate is’ would probably come back to haunt me later. Right then, all I could think about was Kenny’s smug face as he realized my girl was pissed at me, not him.
Pushing through the door, I made my way into the middle of the room, the sound of my pack’s heavy boots against the hard floor the only noise to fill the air. Not one person spoke until Harry came charging in, pushing through the men as he wheezed to a stop in front of me.
“Son, this won’t solve anything.”
I peered up at him through my heavy brows, my nostrils flaring as I shook out my arms and bounced from side to side on the balls of my feet.
“I know all you’re seeing is red,” he rambled on. “But Kenny can’t beat you.”
My eyes closed slowly as a small smirk played on my lips. I still didn’t talk.
“You’ll kill him.”
“I know.”
“This ain’t right.”
“I want to kill him. What y’all can’t get your heads around is that he wants to kill me even more.”
“Kenny?”
“You’ll see,” I said calmly, nodding to the side for him to get the fuck out of the way as I watched Kenny walk in.
None of my brothers said or did anything to either one of us, and it was only when Kenny shrugged out of his cut and ran his hands over the top of his hair that I saw the fight there in his eyes.
The natural laws of a good fight meant that the men in the room had formed a circle around us before we could even see it happening. My feet were planted firmly on the floor, my shoulders back as I stared down at my opponent and watched him work out and warm up the muscles in his arms.
Slater moved into the circle, one hand sweeping across his forehead as he held out both hands for us to head over to him.
I glared at him like he was fucking stupid.
This wasn’t a boxing match. There was to be no referee.
This was a street fight. Kenny wanted at me and I was gonna give him exactly what he wished for. Then I was going to break him.
“No need. This won’t take long,” I said flatly, shaking my head at Slater.
“That’s what worries me.” He sighed, shrugging his shoulders and moving back into the line.
The air was thick with tension, but all I was focused on was the man in front of me. Whether this was for me or for Ayda, I wasn’t sure, but as I stood there completely still and watched him bounce to life in front of me, it was clear he’d been waiting longer for this than I ever realized.
Time seemed to stand still. I was unmoving and unblinking as I glared at him, both hands down by my sides, waiting for him to make his move. It didn’t take much longer, and when Kenny launched himself forward, pushing up on the balls of his feet as he swung his right fist across my jaw, it was on.
The pain erupted in my face, and before I could even think about what he was doing next, Kenny’s left arm swung until his knuckles connected on the other side, sending my neck snapping back in the direction it had just come from.
The kid was a real firecracker off the bat, smashing his jabs into my chest as he waited for me to attack.
But I stood firm, tensing the abs in my stomach and accepting his blows one after the other, after the other.
Every finger curled back and forth into the palms of my hands as I took his aggression, twitching, grunting, ready to take more and more.
After a good combination of hits to the center of my stomach, I stumbled back three steps, coughing out the aftershocks of the hits he’d driven into my flesh. Under different circumstances, I’d have been impressed.
My smirk took over one side of my face as I looked up at him and raised a brow. “Nicely done.”
“Screw you.”
“You finished?”