Chapter 3
THREE
FENRIR
PRESENT
The music in the club sounds louder and faster, the rhythm pumping into my veins as I watch the scrawny fucker leering at Hayami, who is oblivious to his slimy tongue and clawlike hands.
She only sees the beast in me.
It’s been twenty minutes since I punched him. My hand still throbs, and I hope his lip does. But it doesn’t seem to have served its purpose, as he’s still pawing at her. Right now, I’d love nothing more than to look away, turn a blind eye, but that’s not why I’m here. Not what I’m paid to do.
Hayami leans in and whispers something in his ear, which seems to expand his sneer and widen his eyes. He nods at her, then slides off the stool and heads to the bathrooms before throwing me a sickening, taunting grin that needs wiping off his fucking face.
I want to follow him. Teach him a lesson. Break every finger that’s touched her skin. But he’s not my priority.
She is.
After a few minutes, Hayami slips from her stool and heads to the bathroom.
I glance at Willa, who’s already following Hayami, signalling with her eyes that she’s got this, though I doubt she does—not by my standards, anyway.
“Make sure you go in with her,” I say into my cuff mic.
“I’m not going into the cubicle with her. She doesn’t need me to wipe her ass,” Willa replies.
“But he’s in there waiting for her.” This isn’t the first time she’s pulled this stunt—asked some guy to go into the bathroom to wait for her in a cubicle.
As we arrive outside the women’s bathroom, anger rumbles through me like the tremors of an impending earthquake at the thought of what that scumbag could be doing to her right now.
“You’ve gotta cut her some slack,” Willa says, placing her hand on the door before turning to me.
“Like fuck I do. Do you not remember the time she asked a guy to meet her in the cubicle, and he tried to slip her those pills? If anyone is going to kill her, that would be the easiest way.”
She rolls her eyes. She knows I’m right.
“Okay, I’ll check on her.”
She pushes open the bathroom door just as a horde of women flood out, lips thick with freshly applied gloss, hair tousled and smoothed, ready to flock back into the thick of the club.
They clock Willa, pay her no attention, then lock eyes with me.
Their reaction is like it always is in dark places.
They see my size, take in the muscles, notice the dark hair, the perfect side of my face that showcases my good looks, and they giggle, elbowing one another, getting ready to say something flirtatious—until I turn my head and they gasp, lean into one another, and scurry off.
I hold the door open and watch Willa disappear through another internal door, which swings shut behind her, leaving me blind to the situation.
Fuck.
“What’s going on? I have no visual,” I ask.
“It’s fine. She’s fine.”
“Is he in there with her?” My skin starts to prickle as my mind begins to create images, and they’re always of the worst-possible scenario. Hayami being strangled. Hayami being beaten. Hayami being molested.
There’s no answer. It means that fucker is in there with her.
Fuck.
Willa is too soft. She doesn’t see the danger.
She tries to give Hayami her space, tries to let her live as normal a life as possible, where women get touched up by strange men in clubs, but I can’t picture anything other than his fucking hands on her.
All I want to do is charge into the bathroom and rip his fucking head off, but that’d be extremely unprofessional.
Adrenaline floods my veins.
What is he doing to her? Why is she letting a slimeball like him touch her? When will she realise that she’s worth more than him? She’s worth more than all of us.
My feet are over the threshold, and I imagine Willa already berating me for overstepping the mark, which stops me. I’ve no just cause to barge in there and kill that guy with my bare hands. I have to let Hayami live her life.
Sweat coats my back. Rage boils beneath my skin. Then, just when I think all is lost, my earpiece crackles as Markus’s voice travels through the airwaves. I hear two words that normally strike the fear of God in me, but right now, they’re music to my ears.
“Code red. I repeat, we have a code red.”