“Yeah? You volunteering?” he asked. Anger swirled inside him. Bubbling and boiling. Vicious. Soul-destroying.
“To be your punching bag?” Gray shifted his hold on the bag as Tiny continued to smack it. “I’m not that stupid.”
Gray wasn’t stupid at all. Not like him. Stupid fucking idiot. Wasn’t that his father’s favorite insult? Oh, and clumsy fucking dickhead. Couldn’t forget that gem.
His father hadn’t been too clever with his insults. Didn’t mean they hadn’t had a damaging impact. Wasn’t until Tiny had grown bigger than his asshole old man that he’d gotten the upper hand.
“I was supposed to protect them.” And he hadn’t. He’d failed. And now Harley was fighting for her life after being beaten half to death. And Alice… God, Alice had lived through what a child should never have to live through.
“We were hired to protect them—”
“And I didn’t.”
Gray sighed and walked over to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. Black-Gray Investigations had a well-stocked gym. No expense spared. People practically begged to work here. The benefits were great. They paid better than most. Hunter and Gray only hired the best of the best.
But they’d made a mistake with him.
When Gray held out the bottle of water, Tiny knew it was a silent demand to stop. Fuck. He didn’t want to stop, but Gray was his boss. He took one last jab at the punching bag then took the water, gulping it down. He grabbed a towel, wiping his face.
“When the police arrested the bastard, we all thought it was over. Harley ended our contract. She told us to go. No one expected him to get out on a technicality.”
But Ashford St. James had money and connections. Tiny should have foreseen this. He should have known.
“Should have known.”
“Yes, we should have,” Gray said grimly. “That was my fault. You want to blame anyone, blame me.”
Tiny raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“I should never have listened to her when she told me they were leaving town. I knew she was struggling for money—”
“I’d have fucking done it for free,” Tiny bit out.
“Yeah, I know. But Harley had her pride.”
“She was nearly killed.”
Gray wiped his hand down his face, and Tiny saw he was taking this just as hard as Tiny was. And he hardly knew Harley or Alice. Tiny was the one who’d been there throughout the whole fucking mess. He’d
guarded Harley and Alice. Watched over them. They’d been his responsibility.
And he’d failed them.
“You didn’t fail them. I did. She told me she was leaving.”
She should have been safe.
“Maybe you should take a break,” Gray suggested. “Go sit on a beach somewhere.”
Tiny let out a bark of laughter. “What would I do on a fucking beach?”
“That’s the point. You don’t do anything. You just lie around and sun bathe, watch pretty girls, drink those fruity drinks with the little umbrella.”
Gray’s lips were twitching. Bastard. Tiny rolled his eyes.
“You want him to get sunburned, drunk, and perv at chicks?” Hunter strode across the room. “That’s your great suggestion to get him to unwind?”
Gray shrugged.