A Walking Redflag

KLAUS

Three weeks.

That’s how long I’ve been watching Olivia.

That’s how long I’ve been stuck in Chicago playing babysitter to Ben’s pathetic little double life.

Three weeks of trailing her through dusty bookstores and pretentious pastel coffee shops, watching her play house with a golden-boy fiancé-to-be I know for a fact is up to his neck in filth.

The guy is a textbook sociopath with a gold-plated commute.

Honestly, it’s a masterclass in compartmentalization.

Whenever Ben flies out here from New York to check on his indie publishing office, he spends all day playing the patient, cardigan-wearing gentleman for Olivia, right before keeping his standing ten o'clock Friday reservation in a private booth at my Chicago branch of Velvet Tears.

All I had to do tonight was park my courier outside her building at nine with a dress and a pre-written note, and wait for Ben to walk out her front door with a lie.

Olivia, on the other hand, is a walking contradiction.

She writes the kind of unhinged, blood-soaked erotic horror that makes the degenerates in my club look tame. Yet she walks around wrapped in sensible wool coats and flat boots, living like a fucking nun.

Earlier today at the café, her friend in the black mesh top was practically begging for my attention.

I didn't even blink twice at her. Women like that bore the shit out of me. They’re loud, predictable, and far too easy to break.

Olivia, though?

She’s repressed.

And repressed people always snap the hardest.

I stand behind her now in the dark of the observation suite, waiting for the snap.

She’s staring down through the two-way mirror at her perfect boyfriend, watching her safe little two-year fairytale burn to the ground.

The exact second her brain connects the dots, her knees give out.

She drops.

I’m already moving. My arm clamps like iron around her waist, catching her dead weight before she can hit the floorboards.

Under the thick wool of that ridiculous winter coat, she is startlingly petite.

She is barely five-foot-four, her waist small enough that my forearm wraps nearly all the way around her ribs.

I haul her backward until her trembling spine is anchored flush against my chest.

There you go.

I lean down, letting my mouth brush the shell of her ear as I deliver the kill shot.

"Tell you what, Olivia," I whisper. "That's not even Roxy."

I brace myself for the usual sequence of events to follow. The denial. The hyperventilating. The messy, hysterical collapse all over my expensive leather sofa.

Instead, every muscle in her body goes rigid inside my grip.

Then she twists.

Violently.

She wrenches herself out of my hold, spins on her heel, and her hand flies through the air before I even think to block her.

Her open palm connects dead-center with my jaw. A sharp, ringing crack that echoes off the soundproof walls.

My head snaps to the side.

I blink.

Once.

Twice.

Did she just fucking slap me?

I run my tongue over my teeth, tasting the sharp, metallic tang of blood where my molar caught the inside of my lip.

When I turn my head back, she’s already drawing her arm back to swing again.

Right. That's enough of that.

My reflexes are faster than her outrage.

I lunge forward, snatching her wrist right out of midair.

I twist her arm behind her just enough to lock the joint and drive her backward until her spine hits the glass door with a dull thud.

I crowd my body flush against hers, pinning her in place with my weight, my fingers locked around her delicate wrist like a steel cuff.

"Do that again," I murmur, dipping my head until my mouth is an inch from hers, "and I’ll have my bouncers throw you out into the alley with nothing but the coat on your back."

She doesn't flinch. She doesn't cower.

Up close, I’m forced to look straight down into wide, blazing dark-brown eyes.

Her skin is pale, nearly porcelain, making the furious heat flushing her cheeks impossible to miss.

I’ve had grown men built like brick shithouses piss themselves when I pin them against a wall.

Olivia just glares back at me like she’s plotting how to dispose of my corpse in one of her books.

Her chest heaves against mine, her eyes spitting fire.

"Get your fucking hands off me," she hisses.

For a second, I don't want to. The violent pulse fluttering under her skin is the most interesting thing I’ve felt in months.

Slowly, I release her wrist and take a single step back.

She spins toward the door and yanks the handle down.

"What’s your plan, sweetheart?" I ask, my voice dead flat. "March down those stairs? Tap Ben on the shoulder while he's balls-deep in a blonde?"

Her hand freezes on the lever.

"I wouldn't recommend it," I add, sliding my hands into my pockets. "It’s an open floor out there tonight, and you’re already a walking curiosity. The wolves downstairs will tear you to pieces before you get within ten feet of his booth."

She doesn't move. She stands facing the dark glass, her shoulders rising and falling in intervals.

Slowly, she turns her head back to look at me.

Her dark eyes are wide and swimming with unshed tears.

Fuck.

My jaw locks hard. An immediate wave of irritation rolls through my chest.

I fucking despise crying women.

My mother used tears like counterfeit currency, turning on the waterworks the second she needed to manipulate a man or dodge the consequences of her own cruelty.

It’s a pathetic, spineless tactic.

A cheap trick. And it disgusts me.

I stand there bracing for the sobs. Waiting for her to crumble and beg me to explain why this is happening to her.

She doesn't.

Instead, she clamps her teeth down on her naturally full bottom lip, biting hard enough to drain the color completely out of the flesh.

She is literally weaponizing her own mouth against the breakdown.

I watch her throat work as she swallows the sob whole, refusing to let a single tear spill over her lashes.

Right in front of my eyes, the devastation in her gaze calcifies into spite.

Well.

I’ll be damned.

"And what would you advise?" she asks, her voice raw and cracking at the edges.

She sweeps a trembling hand around the room, gesturing at the leather restraints, the silver chains, the glowing two-way mirror where her boyfriend is still tangling himself in pink lace.

"Because from where I'm standing, Klaus, you don't exactly look like a man to be trusted."

She takes a step toward me, tilting her chin up in defiance.

"You stalked me. You tracked down my private address. You sent a prostitute's dress to my apartment. And then you dragged me into a BDSM sex club or strip club or whatever the fuck you call it. You locked me in a room to watch my life blow up."

I don't say a word. I just watch her.

"So if there’s one person in this city I should be avoiding tonight," she finishes, her voice dropping into an icy whisper, "it’s you. You are a walking red flag."

I actually close my mouth.

Factually speaking, she isn't wrong.

Hell, I’d avoid me too if I were her.

Before I can offer a rebuttal, she yanks the glass door open and storms straight out onto the mezzanine into the wall of pounding bass.

I drag a thumb across my stinging jaw, a dark surge of adrenaline spiking in my chest.

Goddamn stubborn woman.

I stride out after her.

She’s an agitated civilian in a wool coat stomping blindly through my club, and I’m not having her cause a scene or get grabbed by some drunk bastard.

The second we hit the main floor, heads snap toward us.

Hungry, predatory eyes lock onto her winter coat like sharks smelling blood in the water.

Ten feet ahead, a hedge-fund prick in a bespoke suit slides off a pink velvet banquette, stepping deliberately into her path with a slow leer.

I close the gap until I'm half a step behind Olivia’s shoulder.

I don't say a word. I don't touch a weapon.

I just lock eyes with the man in the suit over the top of her head.

His gaze flicks from Olivia up to my face and he scrambles backward, nearly tripping over an ice bucket to get out of our way.

From there to the foyer, the sea of pink bodies parts like the Red Sea.

I shadow her all the way through the main floor, past my armed bouncers, and out the steel doors.

The freezing night air hits us like a slap.

Olivia immediately puts six feet of concrete between us, yanking her phone out of her pocket with trembling fingers.

She swipes furiously at the screen, trying to pull up a ride-share app.

"You're just leaving?" I ask, my irritation flaring all over again.

She doesn't look up from the glow of her screen. "Yes."

"You're walking away from the only person in this city who can give you the whole picture."

"I don't want your picture."

"I haven't even told you who Roxy is."

That makes her stop.

Slowly, she lifts her head and looks dead at me.

Human nature dictates that curiosity always overrides pride. Every single time.

Except with her, it doesn't.

"I don't care," she says quietly. "Go fuck yourself, Klaus."

Down at the end of the industrial block, the yellow headlights of an empty taxi swing around the corner.

Before I can open my mouth, Olivia steps off the curb, throws her arm high in the air, and flags it down.

The cab screeches to a halt beside the puddle at her feet.

She wrenches the back door open, dives inside, and slams it shut, leaving me standing there as the taillights streak away into the dark.

For a long moment, I just stand motionless on the freezing sidewalk, staring down the empty street.

My jaw still throbs where she slapped me.

I reach into my trouser pocket for my cigarettes and lighter, a restless, maddening agitation crawling beneath my skin.

This was supposed to be a simple, clean favor. Track down the naive girlfriend, show her what Ben is doing behind her back, let her dump the bastard, and wash my hands of this boring city.

Except she didn't ask a single question.

She didn't cry. She didn't beg for my help.

She just slapped me across the face and walked out of my club.

She flipped the fucking table.

In my other pocket, my phone starts to vibrate.

I pull it out, staring down at the bright screen illuminating the dark pavement.

The agitation in my chest hardens into something much colder.

I swipe the green button and press the phone to my ear.

"What do you want, Roxy?"