I shook my head. My father had to have known Brock would be here, and he hadn’t warned me. Then again, my dad didn’t know what really had gone down between Brock and me. All he knew, all my family believed, was that Brock and I had simply grown apart from one another.

But I could never tell my parents, and I demanded of Brock that he didn’t, because if my father had known why I’d been where I had been and how I . . . how I got hurt, he would’ve straight up murdered Brock. It wouldn’t have mattered that my father treated him like a son or that he’d invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of time in Brock.

Brock would be a dead man.

“You have no idea whose hand you just shook, do you?” Cam laughed again with a shake of his head, sitting back in his chair. “That was Brock ‘The Beast’ Mitchell. God, he’s like, what, Jillian? Heavyweight Champion twice? Then once at Light Heavyweight. Damn.” Cam looked like he was about to pass out. “I can’t believe he’s not fighting anymore. Watching him in the ring was like seeing a damn Titan throwing a punch . . .”

I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable for a thousand different reasons as Cam updated Grady on the awesomeness that was Brock. Someone must’ve said something to me, but I didn’t hear them until I looked up at Avery.

Suddenly, I couldn’t do this.

I didn’t want to do this.

Not with Brock sitting in the same place as me, not after all these years, and all I could think about was that night.

“I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well.” Catching Grady’s startled stare and Avery’s concerned one, I hurriedly picked up my purse. “I have an upset stomach—a sensitive one.”

Oh my God, did I seriously just say that out loud?

I did.

There was no taking that back, like, in forever.

Cheeks blood red, I put some cash on the table, more than enough to cover what I had ordered, and rose, mumbling my goodbyes before I speed-walked my way out of the restaurant. It wasn’t until I was sitting in my car, the engine running and my hands gripping the steering wheel, did I realize what Brock had said to me before he sauntered off.

He’d be seeing me again.

Soon.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Rhage, named after my most favorite brother in all the Black Dagger Brotherhood, stared up at me with the cringe-inducing judgment only a cat could master from where the brown and white-striped little devil was perched.

Which was on my calves.

Sighing, I turned my head and glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It was almost eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning . . . and I was still in bed.