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Reed pointed over my head. “I warned you about fucking with what’smine,” he growled out, pushing against me like he was going to have another go. “Next time, nothing’s going to stop me.”
People hurried around us.
Shoes tapping on the concrete, people whispering as I felt a crowd begin to form, but it was when cameras started to flash in the darkness that I knew we needed to get the hell out of there. “Come on,” I said quietly. “We need to go.”
“She’s right.” Bronson appeared to my left, Karl on my right. “Come on, brother,” Bronson encouraged, physically moving Reed backward through the crowd and back into the building.
“Oh my God, what the hell is going on?”
Jade’s voice had me throwing my hands in the air, and I spun around just as she appeared out of the back seat of an Uber. “Your boyfriend shoved me, and Reed lost his shit,” I answered, my tone sharp. “You need to take his ass home.”
“Wait,” she said, swallowing hard, her eyes shifting from me to Chad, then back to me. “Valen. I didn’t—”
“All I was doing was trying to work things out with the woman I was meant to marry,” Chad exclaimed from behind me, pandering to the people who had crowded around. I spun on my heel, taking in the scene. “She left me at the altar for that monster.”
Karl tried to grab my hand, but I twisted from his grip.
Lucky, there were only a few people around.
Some had followed Reed back inside—uncaring for the drama—while a handful of others helped Chad to his feet. He was bloody, his nose possibly broken and bent a little to the left, and his lip split, blood flying from his mouth as he spoke.
I wanted so badly to correct him.
To tell those people the truth about what actually went down.
But honestly, it didn’t matter.
Chad wasn’t about to go to the cops. He was at least smart enough to know that it wouldn’t go in his favor, not against Reed Lawson. Well, I would have said he was smart enough before he showed up here, demanding all these insane things and then coming at me like a crazed man.
“Jade, you need to get him the hell out of here,” I pleaded, feeling all the adrenaline drain from my body, leaving me so fucking exhausted. Looking over at my friend—my old friend—I held her gaze. “Please, just get him out of here. I can’t do this right now.”
Jade didn’t reply, not out loud, at least. She simply nodded.
I didn’t know why he was here or why she’d shown up later, after him. But I just knew I didn’t have the energy to piece together this messed-up puzzle right now.
“Come on,” Karl insisted, stepping in front of me so I could no longer dwell on the carnage. “Reed will want to make sure you’re okay.”
I nodded, walking with him back into the building, things inside almost as I’d left them.
People mingling, drinking, laughing.
There was no trepidation twisting their stomach, but the weight of mine was becoming tighter and tighter by the minute.
And while I couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong.
I knew it wasn’t right.
Chapter Twenty
REED
“I’ll get this statement typed up, ready to send to anyone who requests it,” Tracy said as she closed her laptop and stuffed it back into her bag. “I don’t see there being any issues with assault charges, given there are witnesses who saw him attacking Valen and you protecting her. But I will make sure I liaise with our person in the department downtown so we cover all our bases.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed, knowing she was right.
Chad had lost it on Valen, and people were there.
They’d seen it.
