Chapter 4: Bar Incident  

Felix POV

I don't know when the needle hit reserve. The red warning light just showed up out of nowhere, and looking around, I doubted I'd find a gas station anywhere close. Great. Just great.

But it looked like I had some luck left in me, because right there was a fancy looking place called “Freni e Frizioni”, the sign said. I pulled in, handed my keys to the valet without really looking at him, and walked in like I belonged there.

I made my way to the bar and sat down.

Each glass I ordered reminded me of my father's words, the way he said them like there was no room to argue. And somewhere in between the drinks, my mind kept drifting to that motherfucker too, the same one who left my ass throbbing every time I moved.

I kept drinking.

A fresh glass appeared without me asking.

I looked up. Two men. One already too close, smile practiced, eyes dragging over the open collar of my shirt where a dark mark showed.

"Looks like you could use some company."

"I'm fine."

He sat anyway. His friend flanked the other side. A hand brushed my shoulder, lingered longer than it should have.

Irritation simmered low and cold. I set the glass down carefully.

"Move."

They didn't.

The hand on my shoulder tightened. Something crude was said about the bruises, about how cooperative I must have been last night, and I felt something in my chest go still and quiet.

I stood.

The first one reached for my arm. I broke the grip, stepped inside his space, elbow to the throat, knee folding him clean to the floor. The second swung wide and slow. I caught his wrist, turned it, drove him facefirst into the bar. Glass shattered. Someone screamed.

"Get him," one of them barked, and that was when I realized it wasn't just the three of us anymore.

Two more came at me from behind, fast, and sober enough to actually be trouble. I turned into the closer one, took a hit to the cheek instead of the jaw, and hit him hard in the gut. He folded, gasping.

The last one hesitated half a second too long. I didn't. A hook to the jaw sent him crashing into a barstool, both of them going down together in a mess of arms and broken glass.

Five men. Under a minute. My knuckles split open somewhere in the middle of it, a fresh cut stinging under my eye.

 I stood there in the sudden quiet, breathing hard, blood on my hands, the whiskey making everything sharp and far away at the same time. The whole place had gone dead silent, guess that counted as a commotion. My heart pounded louder than any of it.

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Renato's POV

From the mezzanine, the floor looked smaller than it was.

The woman on my right had been leaning into me for the better part of ten minutes, chest pressed deliberately against my arm, perfume so thick it sat at the back of my throat. She talked about a charity gala, a mutual acquaintance, the usual soft bid for attention. I nodded when it was required and let the rest of the room move around me the way it always did. People performed. I watched. That was the arrangement.

The manager appeared at my shoulder, voice low.

"Sir. There's a situation downstairs." The manager's voice stayed low, careful. “A fight broke out”

I slowly set my glass down.

Which idiot's fighting in my club?I thought, already standing. 

I ignored the soft protest beside me and started down the stairs without hurry. The room parted the way it always did.

At the bottom of the steps I saw the aftermath first, the broken glass, five bodies on the floor in various states of consciousness, and one man still standing in the middle of it, breathing hard, dark marks visible at his throat under an open collar.

I stopped and he slowly turned. His whiskey dark eyes found mine across the wreckage, unfocused at the edges but locking onto me with a kind of certainty that had nothing to do with sobriety.

Recognition hadn't fully landed yet.

But something in my chest had already gone still and sharp.

He walked towards me at an unhurried pace, stepping over one of the men groaning on the floor like it was a curb in his way. Every eye in the room followed him, waiting for whatever came next, the way people always waited when they thought they were about to watch something violent.

He swayed a little as he walked. Just enough to notice. Just enough to make something low in my chest tighten in a way I didn't have a name for yet.

Blood traced along his knuckles, dried dark at the edges, and I found myself watching it more than I probably should have. He looked wrecked. He looked reckless. He looked like he'd walked straight out of a fight and hadn't decided yet whether he'd won.

He was charming like that. Infuriatingly so.

Something about him kept pulling my attention no matter how many times I told myself to look away from the tilt of his mouth, the loose, unbothered way he carried himself even now, even bleeding. My blood was doing something it had no business doing, running hot in a way I usually reserved for things I actually intended to keep.

Oh what an Interesting kitten, I thought to myself while watching him close the last  distance between us.

He stopped in front of me, swaying slightly, grinning up at me like the whole room hadn't just watched him put five men on the floor.

I felt my own mouth curve, slow and pleased, before I could stop it.

"There you are," he said, warm and delighted, like he'd been looking for me all night instead of stumbling in here by accident.

"You have blood on you," I said, low.

"You should see the other guys." He tried to be clever. It came out slurred, the words dragging at the edges, the floor clearly tilting under him more than he wanted to admit.

He took one step closer. Then another.

His legs gave out on the third.