“I told you, I need to find someone.”
Mack chuckled and slapped Brant on his shoulder. “I think I understand,” he said, looking around at the patrons at the bar. “You’re here for backup,” Mack explained to Brant.
Brant shrugged. “I always have his back. And yours. But…”
“And I’m here to make sure he doesn’t break the law.” At Brant’s confusion, Mack shrugged. “Or if he does break the law, I’m here to get him out of jail.”
Brant looked from Mack to Reid, sure that his oldest brother would deny the statement. But when Reid just continued searching, Brant nodded his head. “Got it.” If Reid was ready to do physical harm to someone, this was serious and he turned serious. Not that he was ever not serious, although, he would argue that he relaxed sometimes. Even if one annoyingly bouncy Italian woman seemed to think he never relaxed. He relaxed. Just not when one of his brothers needed backup. Or when he was working. The woman didn’t understand that business was a serious time. Besides, he enjoyed his work. Brant found the challenge of figuring out numbers to be invigorating. And he was damn good at it, so she could just stop telling him to relax! Damn it! She was fifteen hundred miles away and Gianna was still driving him nuts!
“You Jeremey Kingsley?” Reid yelled.
“Here we go,” Mack muttered under his breath.
“Yep,” Brant agreed, then turned, ready for whatever might happen. He shifted into a fighting stance, quickly assessing the others nearest to the man who turned around, belligerently nodding his head in confirmation that he was the man Reid was looking for.
“Yeah. Who wants to know?”
Reid glared at the shorter man with sandy brown hair and perfectly ironed khaki slacks. Brant glanced at the man’s slacks, thinking that at least he didn’t iron clothes he was going to wear to a bar.
“You’re not going home with this asshole, are you?” Reid asked of the lady. “Trust me, he’s definitely not worth your time. He’ll use and disrespect you.”
The woman didn’t seem to be overly impressed with Kingsley, so she shrugged and turned to the man on her other side. The second man glanced behind the pretty blond, realized what was about to happen and whispered in the woman’s ear. Immediately, the man put a hand to the small of her back and they moved out of the way.
Kingsley noticed the whole scene and his temper flared. “What the hell! Who do you think you are?”
Reid was ready. He appeared relaxed. But that was all an illusion.
“I’m a friend of someone who endured your pathetic pickup lines. Women don’t deserve to be disrespected, Jeremy,” Reid announced loudly enough that people started turning to watch the scene. “Women are lovely and strong, too strong for pathetic weakling like you.”
The man scoffed and leaned back against the bar. “Right. Women are…”
“Watch it,” a woman to his left warned.
Jeremy glanced at the woman disdainfully. “Right. Like I’d hit on someone like you anyway.”
The woman’s boyfriend stood up. The bearded goliath towered over Jeremy by at least a foot. “What did you just say?” the man growled, meaty hands curling into fists. The guy was about six feet, seven inches and had about a hundred pounds on Jeremy.
“Ah hell!” Mack muttered.
Jeremy was too drunk to realize he should just back down. The moron scoffed and shook his head. “Relax, Quasimodo. Your bitch can take the truth.”
And that was the end of Jeremy Kingsley. The big guy growled and lashed out. The idiot man went down on the first punch, his head bouncing against the side of the bar and then to the brick floor.
A round of applause erupted a split second later and even the bartender clapped as he reached for the phone to call the paramedics.
Reid looked around, furious that he hadn’t gotten to hit the guy himself. “Damn it! That didn’t go the way I wanted it to go.”
Mack patted his brother’s back, shaking his head as he laughed. “Relax, brother mine. As I’ve had to explain to my town repeatedly over the years, there are better ways to get back at someone than violence.” He pulled his badge out of his wallet and hung it on his belt as he lifted his cell phone to contact the local authorities. In a swift conversation, he explained what had happened while searching the guy’s pockets for identification.