“With Riptide?” she sneers. “Riptide doesn’t do relationships, sister. Women fling themselves at him everywhere he goes. He goes through them like his opponents, and f**ks them all and barely asks for their names. I saw him before you got here. Don’t forget I’ve been in this scene longer. One day he’s going to look at someone else, and you will even be his has-been girlfriend too!”
“And your precious Scorpion will want you for all eternity too? Nora, the man you’re with doesn’t look right,” I hiss, stealing a look at him past my shoulder. He smiles a satanic smile as if he’s hearing every word, and suddenly I am consumed with the urge for my man to get up on the ring with this ass**le and kill him. And I have no doubt that Remy will. Knock him within an inch of his life. Maybe then will Nora want to leave this sucker.
“Benny’s good to me,” Nora explains with a little shrug. “He takes care of me. He gives me what I need.”
“You mean coke?” I lash out in pure fury.
Her eyebrows furrow, and I instantly regret that I made her go on defense-mode again.
A tense silence lengthens between us, and I clench my hands on my lap until my nails bite my palms as I try to calm down and reason with her gently.
“Please, Nora. You deserve so much more.”
“Time’s up!” A hard clap from the bar alerts us, and Nora flinches, which just confirms what I’ve suspected. She doesn’t want to be home, but she doesn’t want to be here, either. She feels like she has nowhere to go, and she can’t leave because she’s got more coke up her nose than I even want to think of. Shit.
“Unless you want to kiss the scorpion again, say goodbye to her now.” Scorpion stands threateningly at my side, his eyes glimmering in that snaky yellow-green color that tells me how much he would love to humiliate me again.
Nora stands, and a sliver of panic runs through me at the possibility of not seeing her again. I push to my feet, experiencing a gamut of perplexing emotions. I want to hug my sister in my arms and tell her it’s going to be all right, and at the same time I want to freaking punch her for being so stubborn and stupid.
Instead, I go around the table to hug her, ignoring the way she stiffens as I turn my lips to her ear and speak soft as cotton to her. “Please let me take you to Seattle. At the end of the New York fight, meet me at the ladies’ restroom and I will have two tickets home. You don’t have to stay there, but you need a time out to think this through. Please.” Pulling away, I look down meaningfully at her face.
A shadow of alarm touches her expression, then she nods, sniffles, and swings to leave, the sight of her retreating back heading into the back exit making me feel like I’ve just lost something very dear to me already.
With a sinking in my gut, I feel Scorpion’s beady green eyes on me as I head to Riley and Melanie and leave, and I can’t shake off a feeling of complete and utter dirtiness in myself.
“Does anyone have any mouthwash with them? I feel like I’m getting a rash,” I ask as Riley drives us back in the Escalade.
Mel frowns thoughtfully. “I can’t determine why what you just did felt so sickeningly wrong, when it wasn’t a big deal. I mean, I’ve kissed grosser men in grosser parts of their anatomies, you know? What you did was no big deal.”
“It’s a f**king big deal!” Riley rants from behind the wheel. “Brooke, I hate to break it to you, but Remington is going to find out about it and he’s going to get majorly, MAJORLY BLACK!”
My stomach clenches, and I shake my head as I struggle for calm. Me kissing that filthy tattoo is something I sincerely never again want to remember. Never. Again. “He’s not going to know if you don’t tell him, Riley. Let’s all relax, why don’t we?”
“What’s he talking about?” Mel asks, genuinely perplexed. “Black what?”
“These men will make sure he knows, B. And they’ll make it painful,” Riley insists.
A frown pinches into my face as I wonder if that’s what they’d intended to do when I arrived. Was this all planned out to make Remy find out? Shaking my head, I look at Riley’s accusing light eyes through the rearview mirror from where I’m riding with Mel.
“What did you expect me to do, Riley? I don’t have fists like that bastard does, and I have to use other means to get what I want, and what I want is for my poor sister out of that living turd’s grip!”
“Jesus, I hope to god she’s worth it.”
“She is, Riley. She is. She’s going to show up after the New York final match. She’s my sister. I’d kiss the sidewalk and lick a toilet to make sure she’s all right, you have to understand!”
“That’s so gross, Brooke,” Mel squeals, laughing.
“Rem is like a brother to me, B. This is going to…” Riley shakes his head and seems to get out all of his anger on his hair, raking it with his fingers. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out that you…” He shakes his head again, fisting another handful of hair. “He’s done tons of shit for me. For my family, when my parents got ill. Remy is a good. Fucking. Man. He doesn’t deserve…”
“Riley, I love him.” The words just tear out of me out of my pain and frustration of having kissed his enemy. “Do you believe I’d ever deliberately hurt him? I don’t want him to get involved in this because I love him. Can’t you see? I don’t want him to go black because of me. God!”