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Tom whips around, the surprise and guilt on his face flipping to aggression when he sees who’s asking. “What areyoudoing here?”
“Not breaking into cars.”
“I’m not breaking in, I’m looking for Remi.”
“I don’t think she’s in there,” I say blandly. The car is obviously empty—whatever he was looking for, it wasn’t her.
Tom knows he’s caught red-handed, and he responds with exactly the dynamism I would expect from someone who carries a cooler of beer with him everywhere he goes—he scowls and jabs a finger at my chest.
“What are youpoking around for? Don’t you know you’re not wanted here?”
“By you? I hope I can contain my disappointment.”
“And what’s up with you making Remi work on your property?” Tom snarls, stepping even closer, so I can smell that he’s definitely sampled that beer already this morning. “Can’t you see she’s got enough to deal with without putting in slave hours for some rich boy?”
“Your concern is touching. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you want her at Blackleaf with you.”
Tom flushes. “She’d be a hell of a lot safer.”
Now it’s me who steps closer, the shadow of the umbrella enveloping us both. Tom’s right eye ticks, but he doesn’t back down, both fists clenched, his face as red as his hair.
“What do you mean by that, exactly?” I say, low and soft.
Tom’s throat jerks as he swallows. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m wondering if you have the balls to say it.”
His glance darts left and right. There’s no one around, not even on the steps of the Monarch.
“I’m saying you’re a fucking murderer,” he hisses. “And if you come near Remi again—“
“I’ve come a hell of a lot closer thannear, and I’ll do it any time I please.” I take one last step so I’m well inside Tom’s space, practically nose to nose, reminding him that I’m the one person in town taller than him. “Remi would beg on her knees for me to touch her before she’d let your disgusting mitts—“
I don’t even get to finish insulting Tom before he launches himself at me with a roar. I’m anticipating the blows of his fists, looking forward to it with sick recklessness, because it means I’ll get to beat the ever-loving shit out of him.
Sadly, the punch never lands. A beefy arm loops around Tom’s neck and drags him backward as my brother puts the drunken electrician in a headlock.
And not a gentle one—Tom’s face swiftly changes from scarlet to eggplant as Atlas applies the full force of a bicep the size of a ham hock. Atlas may be my little brother, but that’s the one and only way you could call him “little.”
I’m fucking pissed that he’s the one who gets to throttle this idiot.
“I had it covered.”
“You’re not getting in a fight in the middle of the street,” my brother growls. “Especially not in front of my hotel.”
“Stop it!” a girl shrieks. “You’re going to kill him!”
Emma Turner leaps on my brother, pummeling with both fists. Since Emma is about a foot and a half shorter, she can only pound the middle of his back. Atlas hardly seems to notice as he continues asphyxiating her cousin.
“You probably should let him go,” I remark as Tom’s eyes roll back and his legs go limp.
“Glad to,” Atlas says. “He’s getting dust on my suit.”
He drops Tom on the cement. Only Remi’s sneaker prevents Tom’s skull from hitting the curb—she catches his head on the top of her shoe like a soccer ball, helping to slow his fall.
“What the fuck?” Emma shrieks.
“He attacked me,” I say, holding the umbrella overhead like that proves it. “And he tried to break into Remi’s car.”
