Chapter 76

09:45

She was telling him that she would stake her life on every word she said, iming responsibility with

the utmost sincerity.

Could it be that he had misunderstood her all along?

But how could he exin away the usations of bullying a youngdy? Who else had he bullied, if

not her?

Tarquin’s expression darkened as he contemted. He hadn’t mistreated her. He had his reasons for

detaining her, and he conducted himself with integrity.

“What’s on your mind now?” Keaton nudged him.

Tarquin snapped out of his reverie, took a hard drag on his cigarette, and fell silent.

“Keaton, where did you and Tarquin run off to? Come on back, everyone’s here. We’re just waiting on

you two,” Booker called out to summon them.

“Okay,” Keaton replied, “we’ll be there in a sec.”

After hanging up, he turned to Tarquin and said, “Let’s go. Stop overthinking for now. The birthday boy

is calling us in.”

Tarquin let out a quiet sigh, stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, and followed Keaton to the private

room.

Keaton added, “There’s something I need to tell you in advance. My sister has taken quite a shine to

that girl. If you n on doing anything to her in the future, you’d better be discreet, or my sister will

make a scene. She won’t confront you directly, but she’ll take it out on me, and then I’ll be forced to

draw a line between us. That could mess up our brotherhood.”

Tarquin smirked. “That’s all the guts you have, huh?”

“Heh, easy for you to say. You don’t have a sister. You have no idea how devastating an older sister

can be to her little brother!”

Tarquin rolled his eyes and continued back to the room.

Booker greeted them cheerfully, “The prodigal sons return! Now that we’re all here, as today’s birthday

guy, let me just say thanks foring out to celebrate with me. Let’s

have a toast.”

Everyone raised their sses to honor Booker’s birthday.

Sitting at the head of the table, Tarquin didn’t stand up. He simply clinked his ss on the table and

knocked back his drink in one gulp.

The others, taken aback, followed suit. What was supposed to be a sip turned into a

downing of sses.

The table buzzed with lively conversation. As someone moved to toast with Tarquin, Keaton, knowing

his friend was not in the best of spirits, intercepted, “Why aim for Tarquin? Go toast with Booker. It’s his

birthday, and you guys should be getting him hammered and throwing him into the arms of a lovelydy

to celebrate his manhood. If you don’t, you’re not really men.”

The others, sensing Keaton’s intent to shield Tarquin from more drinks and noting his sour mood,

turned their attention to Booker instead.

The crowd got rowdy, insisting that they would see Booker’s bachelorhood ended that night,

apanied by raucousughter and risqué jokes.

Not wanting to dampen the mood, Tarquin yed along for a bit before falling silent. He lit another

cigarette, leaned back in his chair, and his gazended on Zane.

Earlier, he had seen Elysia chatting with Zane. They seemed quite familiar with each other, and the

way Zane looked at her was ambiguous.

Feeling Tarquin’s eyes on him, Zane quickly looked back, searching for a way to engage with Tarquin–

now he had his chance.

Zane smartly approached with a ss in hand and said cheerfully, “Mr. Bradford, a pleasure to meet

you. I’d like to toast to you. No need for you to drink, I’ll take care of it.”

Zane tipped the ss and emptied it in one go, but Tarquin just continued to smoke, unmoved.

Someone of Zane’s caliber wasn’t yet worthy of sharing a drink with him.

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