Bad Impressions (Revive Me #1) (22 page)

Like hell, it was. The pounding on the door was too persistent for that.

I had a pretty good idea of exactly what the hell it was. But I wouldn’t know for sure until I opened the door.

I headed down the stairs and that was when I heard the cursing and shouting. I heard Soph’s name several times as well, before I made it to the lobby.

I unlocked the door and hauled it open quickly to find a guy on my doorstep being flanked by two others.

All of them looked like a bunch of trumped up frat boys. Khakis and overpriced sports jackets filled my vision. The one up front had a black eye and several blood-red scratches etched into his face.
She really did a number on him. Wow. Good girl.

It was
him
.

“Jake,” I growled.

He glowered up at me. “Bartender,” he said, with as much disgust as he could possibly cram into that one word.

His gaze swept over me erratically and I saw a brief flash of fear as he took in my size. But he quickly bolstered himself by eyeing his two preppy backups behind him for reassurance.
Fucking pussy.

I glanced past him briefly. Most of the lights of the houses across the street were on and several people were gathered on their porches watching the little performance.
Great. More fuel to add to the fire of my already stellar reputation.
It was around two in the morning and Jake and his buddies had been making a fuck load of noise by yelling and pounding on my door. No wonder half the street was awake.

I glared at Jake.

The strain of keeping my cool was already wearing on me and I’d barely been in his presence for a couple of minutes.

I had a fierce fucking hatred for men who beat on women.

I’d spent my entire childhood around my dad who’d been exactly the kind of asshole that Jake was—until
I’d
stopped him with
my
fucking fists and scared him off for good.

And the fact that the pussy in front of me had touched
my
girl, was ripping right through me and calling to the beast inside. I wanted nothing more than to pound him into the fucking ground. It was actually causing me physical pain to hold back and keep my shit in check.

But I knew if I didn’t, then I might not be able to pull it back.

Ever since that day with my dad I’d avoided all fights at all costs. With Crazy Claire’s husband, I’d let him beat the crap out of me just to avoid it. And when Ollie had attacked me at the fair a few weeks back, I’d barely responded. After losing my shit once with my dad and almost killing the prick, I was more than a little gun-shy. I didn’t trust myself. Despite my mom’s insistence that I wasn’t actually my dad—a man who reveled in violence and got off on it—I was still afraid that maybe I was.

And that was why, as I glared at Jake and his buddies, I said, “You have ten seconds to get off my property, before I call the cops.”

Expecting that to be enough to scare off a bunch of preppy rich kids, I was surprised when he laughed and said, “Cops? You think I’m gonna piss my pants over
that
threat? Do you have any idea who I am? Who my family is? No one can touch me,
bartender
.”

So that was why Soph had never reported what he’d done to her then? The asshole was protected.

“We’re not in your city now, boy,” I warned him.

He stood his ground. “I know she’s in here. Hand her over and there won’t be any trouble.”

“Judging by the state of your face, she’s already made it damn clear that she doesn’t want anything to do with you. Walk away.”

“She’s my fiancé!” he yelled, in an explosion of temper.

Wow, this guy really is a crazy-ass piece of work.
I took a step towards him and growled, “She is mine.”

“She’s just slumming it with you. I guess she was craving a bit of white trash cock.”

I stepped further onto the porch, shutting the front door behind me, so Soph couldn’t hear his disgusting, crass comments.

The idiot wasn’t done though. He went on, “You can take the girl away from the trash, but you can’t take the trash out of the girl, right?” he said, smirking at me.

My fists clenched. I was losing control. “Go,” I snarled.
Last chance.

“She’s mine, not yours. She’s my property.” He stepped closer and pulled the trigger, “And she’s got my marks on her to prove it. She’ll have more when I get her home and remind her of exactly who she belongs to and what’s expected of her in my world.”

And that was it.

I snapped.

Control shattered.

I smashed my fist into his face, a brutal right hook that sent him staggering back down my porch steps.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

The beast was out.

I strode down the steps and fisted my left hand in his expensive shirt. “You laid your hands on my girl! Hurt her! You piece of shit!” My right fist slammed into his gut. He tried to double over but I held him up by his shirt. “You think you can come after her now, you fucker? You think that makes you a man? You’re a fucking pussy, just like all men who beat on their women! You wanna know how it feels?” I plunged my fist into his gut again. I released him roughly and he collapsed onto my snow-covered yard.

Having finally recovered from their shock at my sudden attack, his two friends lunged at me, trying to drive me down. I threw my elbow back, clocking one of them right in the fucking eye.

I turned into the other one and gripped his shoulders. With an incensed roar, I hauled him across the yard. He cried out as he crashed into the fence, tearing part of it down at his impact.

I was vaguely aware of the one I’d elbowed, coming at me again. I was too caught up in the throes of rage to give much of a crap about taking a couple of pussy-assed hits from him as I turned my attention back to Jake.

“Get up!” I bellowed. I didn’t hit guys on the ground. That wasn’t how real men fought their battles.

As he struggled to his feet, I took a hit to my ribs from his buddy. I barely felt it. I was on a fucking mission and his attack was more irritating than painful.

I was about to take the asshole out for good, when his weight was suddenly lifted off me.

What the fuck?

I turned to see Ollie hauling him across the yard. He gave me a chin lift.
I’ve got your back.

The shock of Ollie actually backing me up, instead of telling me to stand down and giving me shit for beating on some guys, distracted me from the fight for a few seconds.

A white-hot pain burned my right bicep.

Instinctively, I threw my hands out.

My gaze snapped to Jake who was staggering back, clutching a blade in his hand. Some sort of flip knife.
The psycho carried a blade on him?
He was like a fucking gangbanger.
Insane. He just fucking stabbed me!

His eyes were wild as he screamed, “She’s a slut! A slut who likes it rough! My boys and I are gonna beat you and her brother into the ground and then I’ll really mark her.” He waved the blade erratically. “You won’t be able to touch her again without seeing my permanent marks on her!”

I didn’t think it was possible to reach another level of rage until I heard his crazed rant. His despicable threats to my girl.

But before I could act on it, the ground reverberated beneath my feet.

I looked to see about a dozen of the neighbors filing into my yard. They formed a wall around me, Ollie, and the pussies we were dealing with.

The shock on Jake’s face would’ve been comical if the situation weren’t so serious.

“You threaten one of our own, you threaten the whole damn town,” Gregory, my next door neighbor; an older man in his seventies told Jake, his fisted hand waving about angrily.

“And we’ve got the whole thing on tape,” Ted said, his arm around his young wife, Cassandra, who held up her phone that was still recording everything. They lived directly opposite me.

But Jake wasn’t smart enough to know what was good for him.

He lunged at me with the knife.

It happened so quickly that no one had the chance to do anything.

Except me.

I hadn’t made the mistake of taking my eye off him, or dropping my guard. The guy was holding a fucking knife for Christ’s sake.

When he was close enough, I grabbed his offending wrist and twisted it brutally hard until I heard a satisfying crack. He screamed and his hand opened. I wrenched the blade from him and thrust my steel-toed boot into his stomach, driving him to his knees.

And then I hesitated.

The blade was in my hand.

Fingers brushed mine.

“Baby,” a small voice spoke.

She stood in front of me a second later, between me and Jake.

“Soph.”

She didn’t say anything. She just eyed the knife in my hand and shook her head at me.

It was all she had to do.

I closed the distance between us and handed her the blade.

I eased her out of the way and approached Jake.

I knelt down beside him and fisted my hand in his hair, tugging hard and forcing him to look up at me.

“You come back here again, you contact her in anyway and I’ll show you how skilled
I
am with a fucking blade. I’ll do more than break your damn wrist and bloody your face a little. You hear me, asshole?”

He nodded emphatically.

“That girl is
mine
. And no one touches what’s mine. You try again and I don’t give a crap how many preppy frat boys you have with you. You can have a whole fucking army and I will still end you.”

All he could do was nod and clutch his limp wrist.

I released him roughly and stepped back.

A second later, flashing lights filled my vision as a couple of cop cars pulled up. They hurried into the yard.

I tensed immediately, prepared to be read my rights for fucking up Jake.

But the crowd stepped in and started defending me. Cassandra showed one of them her video. The cop nodded at me.
You’re fine.

Soph smiled at me and pulled me away from the scene as the cops got to work cuffing the three assholes and reading them their rights.

“You see now?” she asked.

I looked at her, confused. “See what, Soph?”

“You
can
trust yourself. You were the angriest I’ve ever seen you. He was threatening me—someone you love. I heard what he said. But you stopped, Brad. Even before I called out to you, I saw you hesitate.”

“Soph—”

“You’re not the man you’ve always been worried you were. You’re the man
I
know you are, baby.”

She flung her arms around me and squeezed me tightly.

“It’s over,” I whispered in her ear as I pulled her close, wrapping her protectively in my arms.

I caught sight of Ollie approaching us.

He stopped when he saw us standing there holding one another.

To my utter shock, his gaze softened and he actually smiled at me. He nodded and mouthed
thank you
before turning around and walking over to the cops. I figured he was about to give them his statement. I knew I’d have to as well soon enough.

But right now I stood with my arms around my girl. The only place I ever wanted to be.

Chapter 28

~Brad~

Soph ran her hand lightly over the bandage wrapped around my right bicep. Her gaze was pained and I watched her bite her lip in an effort to try to contain her emotion.

“Darlin’, it’s okay. Just a scratch.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what the doctor said. She said it was pretty deep.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” I held out my hand to her. “Come here, my little princess.”

She left her chair beside me and climbed onto my lap. I wrapped my good left arm around her waist and pulled her against me.

She twisted her body to face me and she grimaced at the sight of the marks on my face. Bruises and scratches and a goddamn black eye.

“Are you sure I’m not hurting you?”

We were waiting for some X-rays to come back on my ribs. The doctor was frustratingly thorough and despite my attempts to convince her there was no need, she’d insisted on double-checking they weren’t broken. One of Jake’s guys had got in a couple of good hits there. At the time, I’d barely registered it, because I’d been in the throes of the fight with a heady cocktail of rage and adrenaline coursing through my system. But it’d been over for a few hours now, the adrenaline had ebbed and I was starting to feel everything.

“Soph, they’re just bruised,” I told her, tightening my hold around her.

“Brad—”

“Trust me; if it was more than that, I’d barely be moving at all right now.”