Unwanted (bxb)

Chapter 24

Cole's POV

I couldn't stop thinking about that fool the entire time. The whole dinner, I'd been fantasizing about her getting arrested for something that'll make Justin lose interest. Xana couldn't be with Justin — that was that. I didn't want anyone to be with him, actually, and I didn't care to think about why. I couldn't take my eyes off him the whole meal. The way he laughed — so different from me — how easy he was to talk to, that way he unconsciously rubbed that part of his neck where he was tattooed, all of that drove me crazy the whole night.

After seeing him leave with Xana, I had gotten up and taken Katie home, and I now found myself on the way to a bar. I couldn't stick around Katie's place; it was unbearable. I'd been spending too much time with her these past few weeks. If I didn't want things getting serious, I'd need to find another girl to hang out with. I headed for a club I'd been to a lot in the recent years, in a rough part of town where many less than respectable people hung out. The door guys knew me, so I didn't have to wait in line. Inside, the music was deafening, and the blinking lights gave a strange, even eerie glow to the sweaty bodies dancing there. Who knew what they were all high on.

I walked over to the bar and ordered a whiskey while glancing around at the crowd. Since the year I'd lived with Logan in that neighborhood far from my father, his money, and everything the Williams name represented, I'd found my place among these people. They respected me, they accepted me, and they were the perfect escape route from everything I hated about the life I was now being forced to live. I'd run away as soon as I'd turned eighteen.
Since Mom had left, my relationship with Dad had dwindled away to nothing, and I didn't think anyone would care if I just up and disappeared and tried to go at it alone. But Dad had wound up sending his security chief, Steve, to find me. It had been ironic, seeing a tall guy in a suit showing up at the house I'd been living in then, and even more so when he'd realized that if he wanted to make me go back, he'd needed an army.

Steve had worked for my father since I was a kid, and he knew me well enough to recognize there was no way he could force me to go home against my will. But then the thing with my brother had happened, and I'd needed my father's help.

The day after Steve showed up, all my credit cards had been canceled, and my checking account had been blocked. I'd had to get a job at Logan's dad's garage to make a living. But I had never felt freer or more myself.

Life in that neighborhood had been tough. I'd gotten the shit kicked out of me as soon as I'd shown up there, and I'd realized that I would never make it, being a millionaire's son, unless I turned into one of them. I had started training every day without fail: no one was going to put their hands on me again without knowing I'd hit back. Logan had shown me how to defend myself, how to throw a punch, and how to take one. My first real fight had come two months after I'd started training. I'd left Aggie laid out on the ground covered in blood, and that had gotten me the respect of all present. The races and the gambling had come a while later, and Aggie and I had made a truce, but that meant people started choosing sides. There were Logan and our guys and I and then Aggie and his dealers and delinquents. He knew it worked out better for him to be cordial with us, especially after my father got us out of jail when we'd been charged with disturbing the peace.

Everything had changed when I'd come to need my father's help. I couldn't have ignored the fact that I had a brother and that I wanted to meet him. Dad had said he'd help with the trial and get me visitation rights if I'd move home, go to college, and stay with him for at least three years. I'd had to agree and go back to Williams mansion, and once there, I had realized my father wasn't indifferent to me.
Our relationship had improved, but my life had basically stayed the same. I lived with him now, but I spent most of my time with Logan, getting drunk, high, and into lots trouble. As long as I slept at home and went to school, Dad didn't get mixed up in my life, and I stayed out of his business, too. and things had continued that way until now.