Brendan (The Doherty Mafia Book 4) by Kasey Krane (summer reads TXT) 📗

As they walked out, the tall hot guy who came to my rescue threw me one last look. Then he winked.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Rocky shouted after me as I made my way through the crowd towards the door.

I was tempted to just quit. Right there and then. I was so close to pulling off my name tag and throwing it to the floor. I had just been physically and sexually assaulted by his customers, and he wanted me to continue going about my job like nothing happened?

“Fuck you, fucking Rocky,” I hissed under my breath as I walked out of the bar. I still had to think of Davey. I couldn’t afford to lose my job over this. Davey’s dental appointment was coming up. How was I going to pay for it if I lost my job that night?

I came out of the bar, hoping that the two guys hadn’t disappeared already.

Even though I was a little afraid of them, I wanted to thank them for what they had done. Besides, one of them had his nose bleeding and may have needed medical attention. And all this was because of me. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done anything like that for me.

I looked down the sidewalk and finally saw them, walking away. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and they seemed to be laughing. This was a joke to them? They could have gotten seriously injured.

“Hey!” I shouted in their direction.

The one who threw the first punch looked over his shoulder at me and stopped in his tracks. His friend stopped too.

“Hey yourself,” he called back.

I made my way towards them.

“Thank you…for what you guys did back there,” I said. I still had to shout because they were some distance away from me.

They broke away from each other’s shoulders.

“Someone should have stepped in sooner,” he replied. “You okay?”

Those two simple words—you okay—seemed like a soothing balm over my burning skin. Nobody ever asked me that. I didn’t have anybody in my life who would bother with those words. Not even my mom who had her own life to deal with.

My eyes filled with tears and I desperately didn’t want to cry.

“Yeah…yeah, I think so. I’m fine,” I replied, fumbling with my words.

I drew closer to them. I wanted to see his face clearly. The way he stood there now, he reminded me of someone from my past. Someone I had met just once, for one night, and then never seen again. So it was highly possible I was just seeing things. Just making it up in my head because I wanted it to be true.

“Your nose is…bleeding,” I said, as I went closer to him.

He stood there with his legs planted firmly apart, his big wide shoulders heaving, studying me closely because he must have noticed it too—that we knew each other from somewhere.

He shrugged, like he didn’t care. Like he got his nose broken a couple of times every week. My words choked my throat because now I was sure it was him.

He was just older.

Bigger.

More muscular.

And definitely more sexy.

Four

Brendan

The girl looked concerned as she came towards us. I knew Tristian was with me, but I forgot about him. The only thing I could focus on was this girl with the blue eyes and the long golden hair.

I asked her if she was doing okay and she said she was fine, but she looked shaken up. I still couldn’t get it out of my head—that I’d seen her somewhere.

The closer she got, the more convinced I was that I knew her. Those eyes looked like eyes I’d seen before. Maybe if she smiled, I would recognize her.

But she stopped in her tracks abruptly. We stared at each other. Maybe she recognized me too.

“Your nose…” she said.

I hadn’t noticed. When I lifted my fingers up to my nose I noticed I was bleeding. I wiped my nose with my arm and got most of the blood off my face.

“What’s your name?” I asked, stepping up towards her. I didn’t know where Tristian was anymore. Nobody else existed in the world.

Her face was almost angelic—like there was light shining off her.

“Rosalie,” she murmured. The way she stared at me was different. She had to have felt what I felt too. Like deja-vu.

The name didn’t ring a bell. I’d never met a Rosalie before. At least not that I remembered. But this time around, I wasn’t going to forget her name.

“I’m Brendan,” I said, holding out my hand to her. She didn’t shake it, almost like she was too afraid to touch me.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look okay. Maybe you shouldn’t go back in there. You need to have extra security to work in a place like that,” I said. My eyes never left her body. I saw the way her perfect tits rose and fell. The blouse she wore clung to her body. She had the most delicious curves and wide hips. Her jeans were just as tight. She was in all-black, probably the uniform at the bar, but it suited her. Her makeup was dark and smokey to match too.

“I don’t really have a choice,” she answered. Her nostrils flared. She stuck her chin high up in the air and then whipped around. Before I could say anything more, Rosalie ran back towards the bar, making a smooth exit.

I looked over my shoulder at Tristian. My brother was still there and he gave me a shrug. He was just as confused by all this as me.

The only difference was I wanted to find out what was going on with her, while he didn’t give a shit.

I went back into the bar even though I knew I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t like the guys in there would be excited to see me. I was bad news. I had just started a brawl in their establishment and knocked a guy out cold.

When