“In the corner. White button-down, ripping the labels off.” Ingo keeps putting bottles into the cooler, the bottles clinking. “See him?”
I stand up, spot him, squat again. “Yeah, why?”
“Stay close,” Ingo says. “He’s gonna pop any minute.”
I stand and move to the section of the bar against the wall that flips up; I lift it and lean against the wall, acting nonchalant, watching. Within seconds, I see what Ingo means.
The guy is antsy, agitated. Medium height and scary thin, well-dressed in suit slacks and a button-down. He’s peeling the label off his bottle, tossing the shreds to the floor, his eyes not leaving a specific woman. Amy. Short, curvy as fuck, black hair, pale skin. Dressed in fishnets, a thong, wedge heels, pasties, not a stitch else, dancing with the golf/tech bros. Letting them get handsy, batting their hands away if they get too close to the honeypot, but never quite making them think they can’t have her. They can’t, but it’s her job to make them think they can, so they stay and keep drinking. The perv in the corner has a hard-on for her, it seems. Literal and metaphorical. Every once in a while, his hand goes to his pocket, fiddles with himself, but never quite crosses the line to anything actionably gross. It’s Sin, after all, and just about anything goes. But whacking off in a corner? It’s one of the few things that doesn’t go.
He’s just not horny, though, he’s angry. Taking occasional slugs of his beer, eyes narrowed and not leaving Amy. There’s a creepy, possessive look on his face.
And like Ingo said, it’s obvious he’s gonna do something any second.
Yeah, there he goes. He slugs back the last of his beer, sets it carefully on the floor at his feet, and moves into the crowd toward Amy and the three tech bros she’s grinding with. That hand, doing something in his pocket.
Not good.
His eyes are not right.
I touch the mic button on my earpiece. “Chance—possible trouble up at 2-C-Blue.”
“Copy,” Chance responds. “En route.”
I move through the crowd, using my bulk to move people out of the way. The perv doesn’t see me—he has eyes only for Amy. I reach her first, lips to her ears. “Trouble. Scatter,now.”
She’s gone in a puff of smoke, vanished into the crowd without a word or a backward glance. The bros she was dancing with mutter and curse in confusion, pissed off and clocking me as the one who ruined their fun.
Then he’s here. Pushing after her. He never lost her.
I snag his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?” I snarl. Not sure he can hear me over the music, but he can’t miss the hold I’ve got. He swings around, fist raised—a small ceramic bear-claw knife glints in his fist, darting for my face, his eyes boiling with mad rage.
I catch his wrist and waste no time smashing my fist into his elbow, turning it inside out. The knife drops to the ground, and I step on it, pivoting behind the puny little nutjob, clamping my fingers into his jugular.
The dancing continues around me, the music never stops, no one even notices—except the golf bros around me.
“What the fuck, Kevin?” one of them shouts; then to me: “You broke his arm, dude.”
I glare at him. “Fuck off.”
He fucks off, instantly.
Chance is beside me. “What happened?”
I take my foot off the knife and toe it. “He swung at me with this. Going after Amy with it.”
He’s hunched over, sobbing, cradling his fucked elbow.
Chance wraps a huge paw around the back of his neck, squeezing—I’ve seen Chance crack open a coconut with his bare hands, seen him very literally bend horseshoes as a party trick. He can break bones with those hands, so a squeeze from him is all it takes to get the nutty little fuck moving. Chance is muttering into his earpiece. Shit like this goes down, we handle it. Cops come, discreetly, and cart the offender off without anyone being the wiser.
I snag the knife, and Chance pockets it to give to the boys in blue.
I swing past the bar, lean over to Ingo. “Good eye.”
“Fuckwad has been perving on Amy all night,” he shouts at me. “Knew he wasn’t right.”
“Well, good call.”
Ingo just juts his chin and goes back to slinging Coors.
