A long, high-pitched whine sounded from her. A no-no if she’d done it in public around humans. She was standing behind the to-go stand, wringing her hands, looking down at the floor.
“Get over here,” Rhett said in a voice too gravelly and dangerous for Gentry’s liking.
Gentry didn’t have feelings for the woman, but he sure as shit didn’t like seeing her treated like dirt. He’d watched Rhett treat women like crap from the time the asshole had shown up to right before Gentry had left town.
Mila approached the muscled-up alpha slowly.
“Now!”
She jumped and pushed her legs faster, then came to stand under his outstretched arm.
Rhett smiled a predatory look at Gentry.
“Don’t,” Gentry warned him.
Eyes locked on him, Rhett leaned down and kissed Mila, trapping her with the crook of his arm. Mila struggled for a second, then remembered herself and stood stock still, lips pursed and stiff.
Gentry lost his mind. Just…lost it. He threw the shot glass before he even realized he’d done it. Right before it slammed into Rhett’s face, a hand blurred out and plucked it from the air, turned it right side up in one smooth motion and slammed it onto the countertop.
Rhett shoved Mila away from him, fury roiling in his eyes, and opened his mouth. Before he could get a word out, Dad’s best friend, Tim, the one who’d saved the alpha’s face from the glass, was on Gentry. For a split second, in the moment Tim’s fist connected with Gentry’s jaw, he felt a potent sting of betrayal. Tim had watched him grow up, and now he was protecting that asshole. But his punch was too soft. Make this believable, Tim’s eyes pleaded as they went to the floor.
Fuck, he was going to have to do this. He was going to have to fight Tim because he was right. If Gentry wasn’t put in his place by Tim, Rhett would have the entire pack wailing on him. So he did make it believable. Gentry went to blows with the old man until they were breathless and bleeding. Until Gentry couldn’t see out of his right eye, and crimson streamed down Tim’s face. Until two of the tables in the bar were broken and four chairs toppled. Until Tim kicked him in the ribs, and he heard the distinct snap of one breaking.
Gentry wasn’t down and out, but he could look weak. Rhett didn’t have to know he’d kept his body in fighting shape. He didn’t have to know he was a wild wolf hunter. Gentry curled in on himself, arm slung around his ribcage. He groaned a pained sound and spat red onto the floor. “Fuck.”
Tim backed off, but in the fluorescent lighting, he looked green, like he would retch. Well, welcome to the club. Gentry hated that fight, too.
“Get out,” Tim snarled.
Rhett was laughing, and so were some of the others.
“Damn, Striker,” Rhett crowed. “You never really had a shot at alpha, did you? You just got your ass kicked by an old man.” And then his voice lost its amusement as he growled out, “You look like your dad lying there.”
Those words caused something dark to churn inside of Gentry. That shouldn’t make sense. Alpha challenges were done as wolves. But this ugly, awful vision of Rhett fighting his dad human flashed across his mind, and once it was there, it wouldn’t let go. Something was off. Something was wrong.
Standing over him, Tim flashed a warning with his gray-sky eyes.
Gentry swallowed hard and struggled up, then limped out the door, daring to give the pack his back. Daring to give Rhett his exposed neck and spine.
“Leave town quickly before you become ashes in the wind like your old man,” Rhett called out.
His mind spun like a top as he made his way outside and let the door swing closed behind him. It was snowing harder now, big, white, fluffy flakes. His body was running too hot with the urge to Change and rip that motherfucker’s throat out. He sighed and held out his hands, lifted his face to the black sky and closed his eyes against the cold. It seeped into his bones and cooled the fury in his blood with each steadying breath he took. Is this what he was now? Fighting old friends to survive the man who’d killed his father? All he had in the world was pride, and Rhett had just ripped it from him in front of the people he used to care about.
“Psst.”
Gentry inhaled deeply and opened his eyes. Mila stood at the corner of the building with a bag of food. She set it down in the snow in front of her boots. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and dripping from her jaw line.
“That was supposed to be you,” she said, her voice shaking. “You could’ve saved us.” He’d never seen her angry enough to hold anyone’s gaze, much less a dominant’s like his. Before she turned around the corner, she uttered, “I loved your father, but I hate you, Gentry Striker.” She held his gaze a second longer before she disappeared.
He understood hate. He felt it all the time. For his brothers. For Rhett. For this town.
It hurt being the one who was hated, though.
He texted Asher and Roman. Where the fuck are you?
He made his way to the food, yanked it out of the snow, and strode for his truck. Someone had bashed in his headlights and broken his windshield into a spiderweb of glass. Fuckin’ pack.
He ground his teeth against the growl that snarled up from his aching chest. His whole body hurt from not defending himself like he wanted in that fight. Gentry tossed the bag of food onto the passenger’s seat, shut the door beside him, and glared at the Four Horsemen. And then he screamed for as long and as loud as his broken rib would allow.
He pulled out of the parking lot. Asher and Roman wouldn’t answer his text. They never had before. He was the responsible one, the one who got shit done, the one who took care of the hard stuff. It had always been like that, but it shouldn’t be this way now. They weren’t punk kids anymore. They were grown. All he needed was for them to show up so they could spread Dad’s ashes and go on with the rest of their lives.