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Jared stepped forward, now walking dangerously close to both Brandon and Eric. Pride makes people do stupid things. This guy was either incredibly naive about his power, or he had a death wish.
"Maybe I just wanted to offer my friend congratulations on her engagement," he said nastily. Purposefully, he turned to Brandon and smirked. "You okay, there, Sterling? You look like you've having trouble breathing. You need someone to rock you to sleep? Sing you a little song?"
The pulse under my fingers ticked up again. So, the scene at our engagement party hadn't been kept totally under wraps. Shit.
"He's just allergic to your bullshit, Jared," Jane put in. "Why don't you go wank off somewhere else, since we all know that's the only way you get any."
"Well, it's better than whoring around all of Boston every night of the week, Jane," Jared snapped. "Why anyone would touch a fucked-up freak like you, I'll never guess. I'm surprised you weren't the one knocked up, considering how much you get around. Tell me, what's the going rate?"
The words barely got out of his mouth before Eric's fist met Jared's razor-straight nose. Well, what used to be his straight nose, since when he was finally able to stand back up after a few minutes of squealing like a pig, there was blood flowing down his face. It was definitely broken.
"Fuck!" Jared cried out in a voice that was clogged with blood and tears. "You bwoke by dose!"
"Talk about Jane like that again, and I'll break more than that," Eric replied with supernatural poise. The only signs that he was remotely upset were the way the tip of his nose had turned red and the way he was shaking out his palm.
"We should get you some ice for that," Brandon said as he moved past me to tower down over Jared, forcing the younger man to look up at him with blood pouring down his face, staining the snow white of his shirt.
"What?" Jared asked snottily as he clutched the bridge of his nose. "You want a cheap shot too, Sterling?"
For a minute, I thought he really might punch him, just like he had done to Trout. But very slowly, despite the fact that his shoulders were vibrating with anger, Brandon bent down so that he was eye-to-eye with Jared. When he spoke, his words, tangled in his thick South-Boston cadence, were low enough that I almost couldn't hear him. Almost.
"If I wanted to hurt you, motherfucker, you'd already be dead."
Brandon's voice balanced on a knife-edge, and the menace in it was unmistakable. Jared blinked, having gone stock still while the hairs on the back of his arms clearly stood up.
Brandon stood up and dusted his hands off, like just being in Jared's proximity had gotten him dirty.
"But you're not worth it, you piece of shit," he said, a little more loudly. "You think I don't know your grandfather's part in the whole thing? You think I don't know about how he convinced Miranda to hire an investigator to watch me? You think I don't know about the oppo research he's done on me so your brother has a nice, easy mayoral run? He hasn't announced, but you think I didn't know about that?"
I gaped, and I didn't have to look back at Jane or Eric to know they wore the same incredulous expressions. This was completely new information––both the insidious actions of Jared's family as well as the fact that Brandon had secretly been researching them.
Jared didn't answer, just glanced back and forth between me and Brandon with angry, frightened eyes. But it was truly Brandon's face that I found more alarming. A different kind of grin, one I'd never seen before, something almost sinister, spread across his features. He was no less handsome than before, but you couldn't look at that face and not be scared. I was terrified.
Then he reached down and grabbed Jared by the shirt front, yanking him up with one clean movement and slamming him against the brick wall.
"Do you have any fuckin' clue who you're dealing with?" Brandon said into Jared's tight face. He shook his collar, slamming him against the wall again. "Do you?"
Jared gritted his teeth. "I'm not scared of you. You're pussy-whipped. Everyone knows it. You're a joke."
Another slam, and this time, Jared's head hit the bricks with an audible crack. Jane, Eric, and I all winced.
"This is my town. I know everything that happens here. And when I'm done with you and your family, you won't have a political foot left to stand on," Brandon said in a voice that was practically a growl. "Who do you think has been quietly buying up stake in your father's tax firm? I fucking own you. And you don't even know it."
Jared had carefully trained his bleeding features still, but I could see the whites of his eyes showing. Then Brandon slammed him against the wall one last time and let him slump to the ground.
"Get the fuck out of here," he said as he stepped over Jared's splayed legs as if he were nothing but street trash.
We all watched in silence as Jared scrambled to the door and disappeared with one last terrified look at Brandon. The door closed with a bang, and a cloud of silence settled over the alley as we stared at the place where Jared used to be.
Brandon turned, and when he met my face, his fury melted.
"Baby," he said as he took several steps toward me.
I shook my head, holding a hand out as I stepped back. "I–I need a minute."
"Skylar, he's not going to do anything again. That's why I have the research on his family. That's why I bought stake in his father's firm."
"It's not about that!" I shouted, the sound of my voice echoing down the brick alley.
