Waiting.
Nobody talked.Nobody checked their phones.Every set of eyes in the room was fixed on the same spot—the metal door at the back.
Boink rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles like he was warming up for a boxing match.Dad leaned back on his stool, arms crossed, expression relaxed in that dangerous way that meant he was enjoying himself.Pipe sat two seats down from him, silent and unreadable.Arlo rested his forearms on the bar, head slightly bowed.Jude stood instead of sitting, weight shifting subtly from foot to foot.
Wrecker stood behind the bar, hands flat on the counter, watching the door like it owed him money.
I stood too.
I hadn’t been able to sit since we cut the power.
The silence shattered when the door banged open.
Mason and Fox came through first, moving fast but controlled.Then Ender and Thorn followed, dragging a man between them.
He was already screaming.
“Fuck you!”he shouted, thrashing as much as the grip on him would allow.“You fucking pussies!Let me go!”
Ender didn’t say a word.Thorn didn’t either.They hauled him forward like he weighed nothing, boots scraping across the concrete as the guy fought uselessly.
“Showtime,” Boink said and grinned as he pushed off the bar.
They dragged him to the chair we’d set up dead center under the lights.
Ender slammed him down into it.
The guy bucked, tried to stand, but Thorn shoved him back hard enough to rattle his teeth.They tied his hands.
“There you go, Timmy,” Thorn sneered as he cinched the last knot.“I think it’s time you have a little chat.”
Mason, Ender, Fox, and Thorn stepped back, forming a loose line behind Timmy.
“Timmy?”Wrecker asked mildly.
Timmy lifted his head and spat toward him.
Dad chuckled.“This is going to be so much fun.”
Mason stepped forward, his voice casual like he was giving a report.“Asshole’s name is Timmy.We grabbed him after he had his waffles.”He clicked his tongue.“Which he unfortunately lost when I punched him a little too hard in the stomach.”
“Such a shame,” Pipe said dryly.
“Fuck you, assholes,” Timmy spat.“You don’t know who you’re fucking with.”
Wrecker laughed, but there was nothing amused about it.“No,” he said calmly.“I thinkyoudon’t know who you fucked with.”He stepped closer.“You and your friends came into my club, assaulted one of my waitresses twice, and then when you got your hand slapped because you’re a bunch of bitches, you decided four against one woman seemed right.”
“That bitch deserved—”
I moved before I thought.“Don’t call her a bitch again,” I said, my voice low and deadly.
Timmy twisted in the chair and spat at me.“Bitch!”
I looked at Wrecker.
He shrugged.
That was all the permission I needed.
