answer. Her chest constricted as she mustered all her courage and said, “Sometimes people aren’t who they seem. They change over time.”
“Not that much.”
She held his gaze, willing herself to be strong, and said, “Exactly that much. You know how I said I had some bumps and bruises and had made a few bad decisions?”
He sat up a little straighter, nodding. “Yeah.”
“Did I tell you that I had been to the Salty Hog once before meeting Mads there?” She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the thundering in her chest.
“No. I don’t like the look in your eyes, Chloe. What are you getting at?”
Of course he saw her pain. He noticed everything about her.
“When I was in my last semester of community college, I went out with this guy, a mechanic. He was big, confident, and rough around the edges. We went out for about three weeks. He was a gentleman. Not like Mr. Perfect or anything, but as far as twenty-two-year-old guys go, I guess he was above average. He knew how to treat me right, or so I thought. Until we went to meet his friends at the Salty Hog for dinner one night. I wasn’t old enough to drink, but he and his friends were. I thought he’d had a good time, but when we left he started accusing me of flirting with his friends. At first I thought he was kidding. His buddies had their girlfriends with them. But by the time we got to his car, he was fuming. I tried to calm him down and said something about him not seeing clearly because he’d had so much to drink.” Her hands were shaking, remembering how he’d changed in the blink of an eye. “I had barely gotten the sentence out when he hit me.”
Justin sat up, breathing hard, the ire in his eyes as tangible as the floor they were sitting on. “I’ll kill the motherfucker. Who is he?”
Chloe didn’t answer. She needed to finish the story before she chickened out. “I stumbled back, and he hit me again. That sent me to the ground. There was broken glass on the pavement. A beer bottle I guess.”
Justin pushed to his feet, hands fisting, but she didn’t slow down. She had to get it out.
“I got glass in my chest and hands. My face hurt so bad, but he was coming at me, and I was using my heels to push myself backward. A car pulled into the parking lot and the headlights hit us at the same time his friends came out of the bar and saw what was happening. One guy yelled his name and ran over. When the guy who hit me turned to look at him, I got to my feet. The other guy grabbed him and held him back, hollering ‘What the fuck, man? You don’t hit a woman!’ and that kind of stuff. The other guys came to help me, but I was shaking and hurt, off-balance. I was terrified, and I remember being pissed that I hadn’t been able to defend myself. One of the girls gave me a ride home. She tried to get me to go to the cops, but I just wanted that guy out of my life. She helped me take out the slivers of glass and lent me makeup to cover the redness and bruising that had started to show on my face in case Serena was home. I didn’t want my sister to see me like that. That was the last time I went out with anyone who was tough.” She swallowed hard. “Until you.”
“Who the hell was he, Chloe? I’m not fucking around.”
She finally looked up at him. His nostrils were flaring, his muscles flexed, veins swollen. She’d wanted to help Justin understand that people could change on a dime, and instead she’d taken him over the edge. She pushed to her feet and touched his hand. “Don’t do this to yourself, Justin. It was forever ago, and I never saw him or his friends again.”
“The asshole needs to pay for what he did to you,” he seethed, pacing the floor. “If Con had seen it, or any of the other Dark Knights, that fucker would have been dealt with and put behind bars where he belongs.”
“I’m pretty sure his friends took care of roughing him up. But it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Serena doesn’t know about it, and I’m not going to let you dredge up something from