I stopped right away, not wanting to fuck with that when I put my hands up. “Bryce, calm down.”
“Calm fucking down?” He came around the bed, came at me while waving his gun. “Not so tough, huh?”
More like I wasn’t an idiot and didn’t particularly want to get shot. Honestly, I just needed a quick move and another punch to overpower him, but I wasn’t stupid enough to take the chance. I raised my hands. “Put the gun down. We’ll talk about this.”
That’s how I had wanted to start this, but this motherfucker was obviously crazy. I would say I hadn’t meant to actually hit him. My bad on that, but he gave me no choice. He threatened Greer. Physically threatened Greer, and though I felt I owed her nothing, it wouldn’t be on me that she got hurt. I’d done that to her before.
I just didn’t want to do it again.
I had a conscience, and that was what this all was, nothing more. Bryce Coventry was a new breed of asshole, even for me and all my sins in the past.
His hand gripped around that gun like a vise, his arm shaking. “What’s this about?”
I didn’t have much to talk him down with, this guy completely unhinged. I mean, he pulled a fucking gun on me after only getting hit, so I knew trying to talk to him rationally at all when it came to Greer might be ill done. If anything, he might get closer to her just because he knew that was what this was about.
“I found out about some things,” I said, reaching for something else, and his eyes narrowed.
“What kind of things?”
“Things about you.” I lowered my hands, but still let him see them. I tipped my chin. “I heard about that stripper, bro.”
“Stripper?”
I nodded. “I heard about her and what you did to her.” The act was merely amongst the list of dark deeds that went on in his house, but this fucker? He took the cake. He not only raped her from what I heard but bragged about it to more than one guy around here, guys he clearly trusted but who didn’t have his confidence. I raised my hands. “Now lower the gun or others are going to know about it. People you don’t want to know.”
“Well, maybe I should just blow your fucking head off.” He honed the gun in on my head, that fucking stupid. “Maybe I should just pull the trigger now.”
“You do that and someone will find the pictures.” A bluff, nothing more, but he didn’t know that. I lifted my chin. “Pictures of what you’ve done will be everywhere. I’ll make it happen, and you know I will. Pulling that trigger won’t stop it.”
He should fear me, fear who I was, because even in death, I had capabilities. That was something he and all the other guys around here knew. We all came from powerful families, this guy no exception. Even still, he didn’t have a lick on my life, new money from the south as far as I knew. He walked up on this campus like he owned the place, had with his big dick complex since freshman year. It was like he was trying to prove he was one of us, but what he was doing now showed me he wasn’t. Had it been me, I already would have shot the fucker to get him out of my face. Not lethal, but yeah, I would have shot his ass. If anything, to prove something, who I was.
“And they’ll find out about the other pictures,” I threatened, bluffing more. “All the other things you’ve done.” A God complex, this one, but even still, me lowering my hands and coming straight toward him had Bryce backing off, backing way. He moved with every stride I took. I smiled. “You know all the other things you’ve done.”
And he did, whatever he was coming up with in his head making him back away more. A fear in his eyes elicited by nothing but threats from me. I’d heard about a lot of the shit Bryce had gotten into, but outside of the stripper, there wasn’t enough to ruin. Clearly, he was finding something else, though, something in his eyes that brought a true terror within them.
He backed up against the door, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t. I…” Eyes wild, he shook the gun, his complete body fucking quivering. “I didn’t do nothing with that girl, and I don’t care what she says.”
Hesitating, I stayed back, honest to shit unaware of what he was referring to, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Bryce had the gun in a different place now, tapping the handle against his head like he was having a break down. He lowered to his knees. “I didn’t know she was in fucking junior high, bro. I swear I didn’t.”
What the fuck?
“She only told me after. I swear, but she was fucking willing!”
Disgusted, I approached, and he stood, that gun back on me. I lifted my hands again. “Bryce—”
“No. Fuck!” He brought the gun up to his temple, shaking again and my eyes grew wide.
“Bryce.”
“No, Knight. No!” A blubbering mess, tears shot down from his eyes. “You know the pressure. You know who we are to this place, and I can’t, I…” He stabilized the gun against his head. “I can’t go down for that.”
His finger moved around the trigger, and outside of everything else, even when I had that gun pointed toward my face, I hadn’t been experiencing the terror that froze me now. It was because I knew what he was about to do…
And what the would mean for me after.
Greer