For a second, I just cock my head and look at him while the air in the bar tilts; conversations don’t stop, but they shift — attention rolling like a wave toward the seashore.
“I’m the bartender,” I agree, calm as a trigger. “Which means I decide who gets served and who gets tossed. Pay your tab and move along, Prince Charming.”
He doesn’t.
His fingers close around my wrist.
Heat flashes through me — pure, instant anger. My first instinct is to rip free and make a scene with the butt of my shotgun against the recessed chin he keeps hidden with his patchy goatee. My second instinct, the one I’ve earned in this place, is to keep the situation controlled; a brawl in a biker bar is never just a brawl — it ends with broken bones, police attention, and usually a hearse in the parking lot.
I stare at his hand on me. Then I lift my eyes.
“Let go,” I say, voice low.
He squeezes. “Or what? You’ll realize just how bad you want it?”
I don’t pull. I don’t flinch. I just hold his gaze and let him see the part of me that doesn’t scare even when bullets are flying.
“Or you’ll be seeing the inside of a body bag.”
He snorts. “You think you scare me?”
Movement catches at the edge of my vision — from the back hall, the side entrance closest to the garage.
Evan steps inside.
He’s sweaty from work, dark T-shirt clinging, forearms scratched, hair a little wild, eyes even wilder. He should look like any other guy who’s been wrestling a roof all day. Instead, he looks… focused. Like something in him calibrates when he clocks a threat. Like this isn’t the first time he’s entered a biker bar with murder on his mind.
His eyes clock the man holding my wrist. Then they meet mine.
He goes still.
Not angry. Not loud. Just dead-calm in a way that makes my skin prickle.
It’s a practiced, elegant calm of a man who’s seen all of this before.
The local doesn’t notice him at first. He’s too busy enjoying himself. Too busy thinking he’s got me pinned. Too busy thinking that the way to claim my heart is to keep hold of me until I relent to his incredibly masculine power, or whatever it is he had drilled into him by someone on a podcast.
I see Tank in my periphery — silent, looming, attention sharpened, just as lethal as the look on Evan’s face. Mayhem’s grin goes feral. Bishop’s face turns flat and cold. And I’m sure, even though he’s in a back room with a ledger open in front of him and a pen in his hand as he plots the fate and future of the club and the town, Rabid’s frown has turned just a few degrees further down.
The room is ready.
“What are you looking at, darlin’?” The man says, and his grip tightens on my wrist just enough to make me flinch.
Evan crosses the bar area without hurrying, with a relaxed posture that still makes people shift aside. Not because he’s a Devil — they don’t know him like that, he’s just the hot guy whowas on the roof a minute or two ago — but because something about him saysdon’t test me.
He stops beside the local, close enough to be heard without raising his voice.
“Let her go,” Evan says quietly.
The local turns, squints at him like Evan is an inconvenience. Of course he’d do that; with all the liquor in his system and the few inches of height he has on Evan — not to mention the extra thirty-pounds he’s carrying in his gut — of course he’d be confident. “Who the hell are you?”
Evan’s expression doesn’t change. “Someone telling you to let go.”
The local laughs, trying to swing the room back to his favor. “This your girl?”
Evan’s gaze flicks to me — quick, asking; I meet his eyes, and I give one small nod — permission. This has gone on long enough. I have drinks to pour, and I’m tired of having this douchenozzle’s tiny, clammy hand on my wrist.
Evan looks back at the local. His voice drops even lower, to this black, burning octave. “She doesn’t belong to anyone. I’m telling you, if you know what’s good for yourself, you’ll let go of her, leave your cash on the counter, and walk the fuck away.”
