"That's it," I say, keeping my voice flat. The last thing she needs is another man making her feel hunted.
She nods, turns to go, and I should let her. I should let her walk away and forget the way her eyes looked when they met mine — like she was drowning and I was the only thing she could grab onto. But my mouth opens before my brain catches up.
"You got a name?"
She freezes mid-step, then turns around slowly.
"Riley," she says finally. "Riley Monroe."
"Riley." I let the name roll off my tongue, tasting it. It fits her — soft at the edges, but with something solid underneath. "I'm Breaker."
"Breaker," she repeats, and there's a flicker of something in her expression. Curiosity, maybe. Or recognition of the kind of man who earns a name like that. "Is that because you break things?"
"Sometimes." I hold her gaze. "Only when they need breaking."
She swallows. Her throat moves, pale and delicate, and I track the motion and notice faint finger marks, a sight that makes anger surge inside my chest. Everything inside me tellsme I should keep my distance, but I want to protect her, shield her from whatever put that haunted look in her eyes and those fading bruises on her skin.
"I'll, um, get your whiskey," she says, backing away. She bumps into a chair, catches herself, and flushes crimson. "Sorry. I'm not usually this — " She gestures vaguely at herself.
"You're fine," I say, and mean it in more ways than one.
She disappears toward the bar, and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. My fingers ache from gripping the beer bottle so tightly. I force myself to relax, to scan the room like I should have been doing this whole time instead of losing myself in dark hair, pale skin, and trembling hands.
The minutes crawl by like hours. I watch her move through the bar, taking orders, dodging wandering hands with practiced ease, smiling at customers even when her eyes stay wary. She's good at this. Too good. The good that comes from years of learning how to make yourself small, how to please people before they have a reason to get angry.
I hate that she knows how to do that.
I hate even more that I'm still watching her.
When she finally returns with my whiskey, the glass catches the dim light like amber fire. She sets it down carefully, and our fingers brush.
The contact lasts maybe half a second. Maybe less.
But it's enough.
Electricity shoots up my arm, sparks through my chest, settles low in my gut like a live wire looking for ground. Riley's lips part. There's no sound — nothing I can hear over the bar noise — but I see her chest hitch, see the way her pupils dilate, see the flush that creeps up her neck and stains her cheeks pink.
She takes a step back. Then another. Her free hand comes up to press against her sternum, like she's trying to hold something in.
I know the feeling.
I want things I have no right to want.
And that's exactly the problem, because bad things happen to people who get close to me. It's not superstition, and it’s not paranoia; it's a fucking fact, written in blood and carved into headstones. Sergeant Marcus Webb. Corporal Danny Chen. Private First Class Angela Reyes. They got close to me. They trusted me.
And now they're dead.
Riley smiles — a real one this time, small and tentative, like a flower trying to bloom in a minefield. "Can I get you anything else?" she says, and there's warmth in her voice now, a thread of something that might be interest, might be attraction, might be the beginning of something that could destroy us both.
"You can get back to work."
Her smile falters. "I — what?"
"You heard me."
“Did I… did I do something wrong?”
“Not yet.”
