“Beer?”I repeated, not biting.
Something mean snapped in his face.The agitation came quick, like it had been coiled and waiting.His knee bumped the table.“You think you’re cute, huh?”
Before I could figure whether this was about to go sideways or whether I could steer it back, a voice chimed in at my elbow, light and crisp.
“Hey,” Star said, and tipped the pool cue against her shoulder.“You guys up for a game of pool?”
The three not-creeps glanced between each other like she’d offered them a golden ticket.But the one across from me didn’t even bother to hide his disdain.He leaned forward, eyes slipping past me like oil.“Not right now, sweet tits,” he said to Star.
My mouth dropped open.Star didn’t miss a beat.She smiled like a shark.
I’d started to turn, half step back to the bar to put in the order, ready to leave the mess behind, and that’s when his hand came out fast.He grabbed a handful of my ass like he was plucking fruit.“Get back here, slut.”
I didn’t think.My body jolted, and a thousand nights in Chicago flashed hot in my muscles.But I didn’t move because Star moved first.
The next seconds blurred and sharpened at the same time, hyper-real: Star pivoted on the ball of her foot, the pool cue flashing down and around in a clean, practiced arc that smacked the guy’s wrist hard enough to make him yelp and release me.She slid her grip halfway down the cue and snapped it across the edge of the table.The wood cracked with a splintering sound and then she swept his ankles with a ruthless, precise strike that dumped him on his back like a sack of sand.
He hit the floor with a sick thud.Star planted one knee on his chest, and the broken half of the cue pinned across his collarbone, just under his throat.Her eyes were flat and cool.
His friends lurched, all elbows and panic.
“Don’t,” Star said without raising her voice.
They didn’t listen.
Three steps slammed toward us, and then there was motion in the corner of my eye.A tidal shove of denim and leather and certainty.
Mason’s hand grabbed my waist, yanked me behind him so fast my pen and notepad flew from my hand and pinged off the bench.Arlo came in low from the left, Oliver from the right, how Oliver materialized that fast I didn’t know, and Thorn, sweet, easy Thorn, vaulted the end of the bar like he’d been training for it.
“On your feet,” Arlo barked at the two who’d gotten brave enough to reach for Star who were now on their asses.
“You touch her, you touch me,” Cole added, and the sudden, sharp way he said it made both guys freeze.I’d never heard Nickel’s son sound like that.Cold as steel.
The room fell hushed and heavy and weird.People hadn’t quite registered what they’d seen, just the aftermath: a girl in a jean jacket kneeling on a guy’s sternum with half a pool cue pressed to his throat and four Fallen Lords closing a circle like the floor itself had shifted.
Mason’s body was a wall in front of me, one hand still on my hip, the other out like a barricade.“You okay?”he asked over his shoulder, and there was a growl coiled in it I hadn’t heard since he threw the last guy out.
“I’m okay,” I said and put a hand on his back to ground.“Thank God Star was there.”
The guy on the floor tried to twist and buck, but Star had leverage and the kind of training that turned movement into a mistake.“Stay.Down,” she said, pressing the cue a whisper harder.A promise without making a mess.
“Up,” Cole ordered, nodding at Arlo and Oliver.
Arlo reached down, grabbed the guy’s forearm, and hauled him upright like he weighed nothing.Oliver stepped in, palms forward, crowd-control calm that saidwe can do this easy or we can do it loud.Thorn was already directing traffic with two fingers, his bartender voice gone iron.
“Out,” Mason said to the whole table.“All four of you.You don’t come back.”
The three friends started sputtering excuses.They split between apologizing and defending the indefensible.The one Star had pinned didn’t even try.He just glared at her, as she got off of him, and Cole hauled him to his feet.
Arlo and Oliver herded them, bodies angled so there were no good choices but the door.Cole stepped at Star’s side, hand out.She rose in one smooth motion, and then wiped her hands on her jeans like she could shake off the contact of the last thirty seconds.Her face didn’t show it, but I caught the tiny tremor in her fingers before she tucked them into her pockets.
The whole bar was quiet.
“Shots on the house!”Eden yelled, both arms thrown up like she was starting a parade.
The room exploded in cheers.Mason turned with an incredulous look toward her.“Did the eighteen-year-old just offer free shots?”
I couldn’t help but laugh.“Um.Yeah.I mean, it kind of makes sense.Her mom is Alice.”
