Page 144 of Unwritten Rules

“You know I fucking hate Valentine’s, Nate. And if Peaches catches wind, she’ll chop off my nuts and wear them for earrings.”

“She’s already done that, man.”

Caden guffaws loudly when Henry sends him flying with a kick in the ass as we enter Valentine’s later that week.

When I’d video called the boys, telling them of Wetherby’s passing, I’d claimed I needed a good unwinding – and what better way to do that than to visit our old stomping grounds?

Unbeknownst to them, tonight will be vastly different from what they’ve experienced here previously.

I take the lead, bypassing the grand staircase and heading straight for the stairs leading underground, only for a voice behind us to force us to a halt.

“Liv is going to fucking murder you, Ri!”

Glancing back, I spot a smirking Alex DeMarco, the latest DeMarco playboy – the only difference being Henry was at least discreet. Alex is maskless with a blonde on each arm.

“It’s not what it looks like, Al. I’m here because Nate—”

Too impatient to get this done, I cut Henry off. “Dump the women and come on. Otherwise, piss off.”

I continue on my way, uncaring who follows me once Henry does.

“Christ al-fucking-mighty, Hawthorne. What on Earth is this shit?”

He is close at my heels, Caden further back with an inquisitive Alex drawing up the rear as I push open the door, displaying a bare-knuckle fight in full flow.

“Holy shit! Do you think you’re Brad Pitt now or what?”

I smirk darkly. “Come on.”

Harold, having known to expect me, quickly wraps up the ongoing fight as we draw closer, and when I begin to unbutton my simple white shirt, Henry puts his hand on mine.

“What the fuck are you doing, man?”

Firmly but gently, I remove his hand and continue. “I have a wrong that I must right, brother.”

The crowd goes berserk when the skinny bald fellow unexpectedly TKOs his much larger opponent.

“You’re most definitely not getting in that ring. I won’t have it, and that’s the end of it.”

I exhale heavily, ready to risk everything because, without her, it’s all worthless. “Henry, you’re not going to like the tale I’m about to weave for you, but I can’t live like this any longer.”

His eyes narrow and his brow puckers in confusion while I shuck my shirt and hand it to a waiting Cade, whose eyes widen in a way that, at any other moment, would make me laugh.

“Last year, I fell in love with a girl that makes my heart beat. She makes the days brighter, even whilst being an utter pain in my ass. She makes me happy, she makes me sad, she makes me angry – the bottom line is that she makes me feel.”

My shoes get tossed close by.

“I thought I was broken by how Xavier never cared for me. By Zara throwing my feelings in my face. By my inability to write – the one thing I was halfway decent at.”

A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth as images of my Hellcat flash across my mind.

“And when I least expected it, the universe brought her to me. In the most unexpected of places, in the most inappropriate of people.”

Harold’s voice cuts through the racket, silencing the crowd with his booming tone as Taylor Jameson enters the room, his face falling when he sees my companions.

When I reached out to him earlier this week, he’d been only too delighted to accept my challenge. After all, it was public knowledge that his fiancée had dumped him unceremoniously, no doubt at least partly owed to my actions on the library steps.

To his way of thinking, I owed him the chance to knock me on my ass.