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He walked in and strolled straight to the bar in front of Elaina, who had a vodka on the rocks waiting for him as he sat.
“He’s in the back,” Elaina said quietly, pouring another drink for one of the other patrons down the bar.
Rogan nodded, bringing the cool tumbler to his lips and letting the liquid burn a cool path down his throat.
“This isn’t going to be pretty,” he warned her.
“I didn’t expect it would be, Rogue. I can’t protect him anymore. He’s a poison, ruining everything he touches. I can’t take it anymore,” she said, and he knew she was right.
They had both protected Dallas Evans for far too long, for the sake of their dead brother, Craigan.
“Elaina, you don’t understand. This goes deeper than just trying to sell me out to take over my company, and not for the first time.”
Yes, he knew Dallas had been involved in the last round of this shit, several years ago. Dallas wasn’t nearly as smooth as he thought he was, or maybe it was just that Rogan wasn’t as dumb as Dallas thought everyone around him was. Maybe both, but either way, it hadn’t taken him long to figure out how he had set up the last assistant to take the fall in the process of taking him down.
Rogan had been able to foil Dallas’s master plan the last time, and this time was no different. He had real ties to his stakeholders that Dallas had been trying to buy out to do him in, and that was one thing Dallas hadn’t counted on.
Had it not been for a decade old promise he had made to a dying man, a man who had saved him from the same fate those years ago, Dallas would have been gone a long time ago.
That was the thing with older brothers – they thought they had to protect their younger siblings at all costs, but sometimes, Rogan found, those costs come at too high a price. It was a price he was no longer willing to pay.
“He put his hands on a woman carrying my child today,” Rogan told her, and the weight of his words was not lost on Elaina.
Her eyes went wide. “Rogan, are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?” she asked.
He nodded, and he was sick that he couldn’t stop for a moment to let himself feel the happiness that welled in his chest at the realization.
Elaina nodded. “Take him in the back room. If I need to call the cops, you say the word.”
Rogan stood, nodded, and gave her a long, deep look that said he hated what he was about to do, but he hated even more that Dallas was forcing his hand to do it. So he shut off his feelings and prepared himself for the worst.
TWENTY THREE
Walking up to the pool table that Dallas was playing on with a couple of his shady, goon friends, Rogan approached him, removing his glasses and setting them on a nearby table.
“Let’s take a walk, Dallas,” he ordered.
Dallas looked around at his friends. “Guys, anybody up for a walk?” He looked from one guy to the other, each of them staring back at him. “No? All right then, Rayner. Looks like the guys have spoken. Nobody’s up for a walk at the moment.” He shrugged.
Rogan glared at the goons, and a reputation from younger years preceded him. The men stood and left without a word.
“You were saying?” Rogan said to Dallas once they were alone.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Dallas said, bowing his chest out in a show of dominance.
“Good, I don’t want to hear anything you have to say anyway, but you’re going to follow me to the back, and you’re going to listen.”
He slapped a hand on the back of Dallas’s neck and directed him back to the small, secluded room in the back of the club, sometimes reserved for high-stakes poker tournaments or other private parties of varying degrees. Once they got to the private room, Rogan pushed Dallas ahead of him, and Dallas turned around looking as though he were ready to throw down.
“Oh, see? Now, that’s fucking hilarious right there, since I was under the impression you liked putting your hands on people. Or is that just people weaker and defenseless against you? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?” Rogan accused, and the vitriol was evident on his face.
Dallas said nothing, but he seethed with hatred and resentment.
Rogan continued. “Let me tell you how this is going to go down. First…” He held up a finger, inches away from Dallas’s face. “You’re going to pack your shit up and have your belongings, and yourself, removed from my property before morning.”
Dallas scoffed, making light of the situation. “Rogan, don’t you think you’re overreacting?”
His comment was ignored.
