Chapter 11 #2
Eyes so green they almost glow — toxic under the club’s red haze, like absinthe poured over envy and temptation.
He leans on the bar next to me like he’s done it a hundred times.
Like I’ve been waiting here for him without realising it.
“Mind if I sit?” he asks, already halfway into the stool.
I give him a once-over that says don’t push your luck but also I’m too tired to move.
He’s tall. Athletic. Broad in a way that suggests he could throw a punch and look good doing it. Black jeans. Dark fitted shirt rolled up to the elbows. Tattoos winding down one arm like whispered warnings I don’t want to hear.
“You just did,” I say, raising a brow.
He laughs — deep, warm, a little wicked.
“I like you already.”
I don’t smile.
But I don’t move either.
He orders a whiskey, neat. Drinks half of it in one swallow without taking his eyes off me. He doesn’t ask my name — not yet — but he keeps glancing at me like he’s already drafting the first line of a story he wants to pull me into.
“I’m Miles,” he says eventually, tapping his glass lightly against mine even though I haven’t touched it. “You look like you could use someone to talk to.”
I sip my soda and study him sideways. “You always this friendly?”
“Only with women who look like heartbreak in a dress.”
I scoff. “Does that line actually work?”
He leans in slightly, voice dropping to a low hum that borders on dangerous.
“Only when it’s true.”
God help me — I almost smile.
Almost.
Because for one brief, selfish second, I want to pretend Dax fucking Kingston isn’t etched into every scar I’ve ever stitched shut, every bruise I’ve hidden, every heartbeat I’ve wasted.
For just a moment, I want to pretend I could be the kind of girl who lets a stranger help her forget.
Before I can answer him—before I can decide whether I’m flattered or nauseous or simply exhausted by the entire theatre of men who think they’ve discovered something rare—the air shifts.
No, it doesn’t just shift.
It splits.
Like the atmosphere in the club cracks open, like the oxygen thins, like the whole Crimson Room inhales at once and forgets how to exhale.
My stomach tightens.
Because I feel him before I see him.
Dax.
He isn’t just here.
He’s storming.
A presence, a shadow, a force that moves through the room like gravity tipping to one side. I don’t need to turn around to know his eyes are on me, locked, burning with that ice-cold heat that feels like frostbite across my spine.
Fury wrapped in frost. Violence wrapped in silence.
“Miles,” I say slowly, not turning, not daring to look away from the bar because I know exactly what’s behind me. “You might wanna—”
“—Hey, man. You good?” Miles interrupts, tipping his chin lazily towards the darkness that has formed at my back.
He doesn’t know.
He can’t know.
He hasn’t lived inside the orbit of Dax Kingston long enough to recognise the warning signs—the tension that rolls in like a storm surge, the shift in air pressure, the way the room’s pulse stutters when he steps into a space.
I don’t look.
I don’t have to.
Because Dax’s voice reaches me first—sharp, lethal, controlled in the way knives are controlled when someone is deciding where to cut.
“Get your fucking hand off her.”
And Jesus Christ—yeah. Somewhere between my last breath and the next, Miles has let his palm settle lightly on my thigh. Harmless. Human. Friendly.
But not to Dax.
Never to Dax.
Friendly.
Reassuring.
Suicidal.
I finally turn, and the world tightens.
Dax stands less than two feet away, a black shirt stretched over tense muscle, fists clenched, shoulders squared with the kind of stillness you only see in predators moments before they strike.
His jaw could cut glass. His eyes—those frost-bitten, too-blue eyes—are locked on Miles like he’s already imagining ripping something out of him.
He’s not breathing hard.
But he’s seething.
Control and violence in the same breath.
And Miles?
Still smiling, still leaning back like he doesn’t realise a grenade has been thrown at his feet and the pin is already gone.
“Oh,” Miles says lightly, dropping his hand from my thigh, still playing it casual. “Didn’t realise she was taken.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
Dax’s voice is so low it vibrates.
“I said get your hand off her.”
Miles raises his brows, unfazed. “Same difference, no?”
“No.”
Dax takes one slow, devastating step closer.
“If she were mine, you’d already be bleeding.”
Silence drops thick and sharp.
A few men nearby shift uncomfortably. A dancer on the side stage falters in her spin. The music seems to dull around the edges as if even the speakers are afraid they’ll trigger him.
Miles exhales, amused, turning back to me with a crooked smirk.
“You’ve got yourself a live wire, sweetheart.”
Before I can reply—before I can defuse it or inflame it or run or stay—Dax moves.
It’s so fast the air doesn’t catch up.
So fast the sound comes after the motion.
Before I speak.
Before I breathe.
Before I blink.
Dax strikes.
Not a shove.
Not a warning.
A fucking punch.
His fist connects with Miles’ jaw and sends the man flying backwards like he’s been hit by a truck moving at full speed. The bar stool skids across the floor. Glass shatters. A drink explodes in a spray of amber across the tiles.
For one suspended heartbeat, the entire club goes silent.
Then chaos detonates.
People shove chairs back. A bartender ducks behind the counter. Cherry shrieks mid-spin and clutches the pole. A man swears and pulls his girlfriend behind him. The whole Crimson Room seems to tilt on its axis.
But Dax doesn’t care.
He never cares.
He stalks toward Miles—who’s dazed, trying to push himself up, one hand to his bleeding lip, eyes blinking like he’s just seen God and is deeply unimpressed by the sight.
“You’re fucking insane,” Miles spits through the blood.
Dax grabs him by the collar and hauls him up with one brutal, fluid movement.
“You touched her.”
“It was nothing, man—I didn’t know she was—”
“Don’t. Lie.”
Dax slams him into the wall so hard the framed neon sign rattles and the crack of impact punches the breath out of the room.
My heart stutters.
Everything in me pulls forward.
But I freeze.
Because one look at Dax’s face tells me this isn’t a bar fight.
This is a man unraveling.
“You think you can smile at her?” Dax snarls, breath hot with rage. “Put your fucking hands on her? Look at her like she’s yours?”
He slams him again.
“You think you get to fucking breathe the same air as her?”
Miles tries to swing—reflex, desperation—but he misses, and Dax catches the motion with terrifying ease. He twists, turns, and drives him into the floor.
The sound of impact is sickening.
A chair topples. A table cracks. Someone screams.
Security shouts—but they hesitate.
No one wants to get near him when he looks like this.
When the only thing tethering him to the earth is the blood on his knuckles.
He straddles Miles, fist raised high, ready to end something.
“You don’t fucking touch her—”
“DAX!”
My voice slices through the din like a blade.
His fist freezes mid-air.
Fingers curled.
Chest heaving.
Jaw clenched like he’s holding back a scream.
He doesn’t look at me at first.
His eyes are still locked on Miles, wild, murderous, shaking with ghosts I’ve never seen this close.
But then—
Slowly—
He lifts his head.
And those eyes—those eyes that once looked at me like I was something soft, something safe, something worth wanting—are now feral. Lost. Haunted.
Our gazes collide.
And it’s over.
He drops his fist.
Lets Miles go like he’s suddenly realised what he’s done.
Stumbles back—one step, then another.
Blood streaks his knuckles.
His chest rises and falls like he’s trying to breathe through smoke.
Everyone is staring.
Every single pair of eyes in the Crimson Room.
But he only sees me.
I move toward him.
One step.
Another.
My heels click on the floor, a delicate sound swallowed by the ruin around us, but my heartbeat is louder—hammering, frantic, breathless.
I reach him, and I don’t speak.
I don’t need to.
His eyes flick to his fists, then back to me.
“I warned you,” he rasps, voice raw. “I told you I break things.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “But you didn’t have to prove it like this.”
His throat works. He blinks once, twice, like he’s fighting himself.
Then, so softly it’s almost a wound:
“He touched my butterfly.”
The words should feel like poison.
But they melt across my skin like heat and ruin.
A confession.
A claim.
A warning.
I should turn.
I should walk away.
I should tell him he can’t do this, can’t be this, can’t use violence as punctuation to sentences he’s too afraid to say.
But I don’t.
Because I’m already reaching for him.
My fingers wrap around his wrist gently, brushing the torn skin, the split knuckles, the blood still fresh and warm.
He flinches—not in pain.
In vulnerability.
Like my touch hurts more than any punch he threw.
“Come with me,” I whisper.
He doesn’t argue.
Doesn’t speak.
He just follows—silent, tense, wrecked—like he doesn’t trust himself near anyone else. Like I’m the only anchor he has left in a world that keeps tilting underneath him.
People part as we move through the crowd—like he’s still volatile, still sparking, still moments away from detonating again.
I drag him down the corridor and into the staff room, slam the door behind us, lock it.
The silence is thick.
Charged.
Buzzing with everything we didn’t say in that club.
My hands shake as I reach for the first aid kit on the shelf. His blood smears across my fingertips like a reminder of everything he is and everything he ruins.
He sinks into the worn leather couch like it’s the first soft thing he’s touched in weeks.
Eyes dark.
Shoulders rigid.
A man at war with himself.
Ashamed—but not sorry.
Never sorry.
“You’re lucky security didn’t throw you out,” I mutter, kneeling in front of him.
He doesn’t answer.
Just watches me.