“God forbid we should interfere with your business. Isn’t that right, Don?” I opened my legs to stand firmer in my place and crossed my arms over my chest.
“I take it from your tone that you have something on your mind. So, spit it out, boy. I don’t have all night.”
My back went up as soon as he called me boy. I knew he’d said it to belittle me. But it also made me want to settle this the only way I knew how. With my fists.
“Call me boy again, and I’ll show you exactly how wrong you are.”
He huffed out a laugh and moved forward to lean on his desk, his fingers steepled in front of his face.
“You’ve got fire in you. I like that.” He turned to glance at Chase. “Do you have any idea what they want? Seems like we need to play twenty questions to get it out of them.”
Chase rubbed over his chin and chuckled.
“I’m guessing it’s to do with Jensen. He had a fight tonight and-”
“It’s got fuck all to do with Jensen,” I cut in angrily. “I wanna know why you’re sending threatening texts to my friends, trying to get me to throw the fight tonight and involving my girl in this. If you want a war, you come after me, not them, and certainly not her.”
Don Lockwood’s head whipped back around to me so fast he almost gave himself whiplash.
That’s right, I’m calling you out. You come for my friends, you come for me. I would take anyone on who disrespected us.
“What the hell are you on about?” He screwed his face up in disgust. “I haven’t sent you any messages. What is all this?” In his defence, not that he deserved one, but he did look totally clueless.
“We traced the phone records. The number was registered in your name,” Zak added.
We had proof. We weren’t going to let him worm his way out of this so easily.
“Show me. I want to see these messages I’m supposed to have sent.”
Don Lockwood stood up from his chair and walked around to the front of his desk. Then he leant up against it and held his hand out for one of us to hand our phones over. Zak did the honours, and when Don started scrolling, his brow furrowed so deeply he looked like a fucking pug. We all stood firm, ready to jump into action.
“I didn’t send these.” He scowled at us and handed the phone back to Zak. Then he glared right at me. “What number did they come from?”
Chase shuffled backwards as Zak read out the numbers and Don’s face got redder by the second. Dude was a prime target for a heart attack at any minute.
“That’s your new number, Chase,” he barked. “Care to explain to me why you’ve been sending those?”
I threw my head back and let out a growl as I glanced at the ceiling then back at Don fucking Lockwood. All this time we thought we were dealing with some dangerous gangsters or criminals linked to him, and all the time it was his punk ass son doing his attention-seeking bullshit. I needed to kick more Lockwood ass tonight. This was getting out of hand. No way was Chase going to get away with playing us like that. He needed to pay.
“I didn’t,” Chase replied, doing a really shitty job of sounding sincere. The guy needed to own up to his mistakes. He was playing with fire and now he’d gotten burnt.
“Well, they came from your phone. Why did you send them?”
The room went quiet as Chase just stood there, ignoring his dad as he burned a hole into him with his glare.
Suddenly, we jumped out of our skin as Don picked up his tumbler of whiskey and threw it against the wall. “Fucking answer me! I haven’t got time for this! What the fuck did you do, you no good sonovabitch?”
Chase started spluttering over his response and Don marched over to where he stood and slapped him hard across the face, sending Chase crashing to the floor. Harper gasped and I reached out to take her hand in mine. Obviously, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Using their fists on people weaker than them seemed to be a family trait. They were all bullies.
“Get up.” Don leant down and shouted in Chase’s face, spit flying from his mouth as he hissed, “Stop lying there like a pussy and get the fuck up.”
Chase did as his father told him; struggling to stand as he clutched his cheek, wincing.
“Now, explain to me like the fucking man I brought you up to be.” He leant right into Chase’s face as he spoke through his clenched jaw. “Why did you send those messages?”
Chase took a few deep breaths and looked at us with vengeance in his eyes. “They needed teaching a lesson. They get away with everything. The parties, the fights, the bullshit they pulled on Uncle Alec…”
Don held his hand up to stop him.
“He isn’t your Uncle Alec. For fuck’s sake, boy, stop acting like the world owes you something. Alec Winters fucked up. And so will you if you keep up this spoilt little brat charade every time things don’t go your way. Your eighteen years old. Start fucking acting like it.”
We stood watching as Don Lockwood tore his son a new one. For a family that liked to keep their shit hidden, they weren’t doing a very good job of maintaining that.
“They should be locked away for what they did.” Chase argued back weakly, trying to justify himself after he’d made such a shitty move. “They scam people, Dad. They’re the scum of Sandland. Didn’t you say you wanted to clean up this town? I was helping you. I wanted to get rid of the filth as much as you did,” Chase begged like the loser he was. He could see he was failing in his dad’s eyes and he was desperately clawing onto anything to make what he’d done sound right.
“If you want to say something to us, say it to our faces. Don’t hide behind your daddy like a little bitch,” Ryan spat.
Hearing Ryan’s voice gave Chase an injection of bravado and he sprang to attention.
“I’ll happily tell you to your face what I think of you.” He went to charge towards Ryan, but Don held his hand over his chest and pushed him back, making Chase stumble. His bravado fizzled away fast beneath the shadow of daddy’s disappointment.
“Grow the fuck up. There are ways and means, son. Ways we do things. We don’t hide behind messages and play games. I’m running a legitimate business here.” I couldn’t stop myself from scoffing at his attempt to sound like a middle of the road businessman. He tore his gaze from his son to glare at me, but I just grinned back. “I don’t want the police knocking on my door because you can’t control your jealousy over some cheap pussy you lost out on because of these jokers.” He shoved Chase one last time, then smoothed his hands down the front of his expensive suit jacket like it’d been nothing.
Ryan darted forward, the fury rolling off him was palpable. The reference to Emily wasn’t lost on him, and the fact he’d called her cheap pussy was like a slap in the face. Even I wanted to knock the shit out of him for that one. Who did these people think they were?
“That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about. Your ex-best friend’s daughter.” Ryan could barely hold back as he glared at them both, baring his teeth like a wild animal.
“Ex being the operative word,” Don snapped, pacing forward to try to intimidate Ryan into backing down. “We don’t speak to the Winters family anymore and we certainly don’t condone what they did.” He held his nose up in the air as if his shit didn’t stink. The thing was, we could all smell it, and he was the biggest liar of them all. I was getting tired of their phony bullshit.