Heroic Measures (Blackbridge Security 6)

Maybe he’s had a bad month or a bad life, I try to reason, but that still is no cause for him to take his shitty existence out on anyone else. I don’t say another word to him, hoping he’ll finish his drink and disappear. I’ll leave him alone so long as he doesn’t start getting belligerent with the other customers.

Ten minutes go by before I hear the snap of heavy glass on the bar top. I ignore the sound, not giving him the attention his angry ass is clearly wanting.

“Glass is empty, girl.”

Maybe it’s because I grew up without a father or any other type of male role model in my life. Maybe as a little girl, I put too much hope into the fantasy that my dad was an army soldier lost in war or he was on a deserted island, spending every day of his life trying to get back to his family. I had a picture in my head of what dads were willing to do for the ones they loved for many years before my mother confessed that my dad lived on the other side of the city with a wife and a family he was unwilling to leave when I was born. Those fantasies—not the truth—made me so hopeful that good men existed. Whatever the reason, I spent most of my childhood having the utmost respect for men, and I guess I’m still holding on a little too tight with those fantasy expectations, because hearing this piece of shit disrespectfully call me girl just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

“Are you wanting another?” I bite out, nearly to the point of being unable to control my emotions.

“Don’t look so hungry to service me,” he snips. “I’m not going to buy you another Mercedes like the last guy whose cock you stuffed in that filthy mouth of yours.”

I freeze wondering how in the hell this guy knows what I drive. My little silver car isn’t the top of the line, but he got the make correct. Has he been watching me? Suddenly, I don’t feel so safe.

“Dude,” the twenty-something guy now sitting beside him snaps.

The man growls at the guy willing to defend me, and all hope in humanity I might have conjured fades away when the guy cowers, grabbing his drink before going to one of the empty tables on the other side of the bar.

I watch in shock, only turning my gaze back to the scotch-drinking dickbag when he chuckles.

“I guess getting his dick sucked by you isn’t worth a busted lip and a black eye.”

“Maybe you’ve had enough,” I snap, my courage a front more than anything.

“Maybe you’ve already taken enough from me,” he growls, his voice raising with each word. “I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit here and get refused service from a whore like you!”

“You need to leave,” Tyson snaps, the warmth of his body now at my back feeling both mildly comforting and wrong at the same time.

“You gonna make me, pussy boy?” the man asks, standing up and clutching his heavy glass. His intent to throw it is clear in his eyes, but his arm is jerked down before he can take aim.

“No, but they will.” Two of our bouncers force the pissed-off man to drop the glass, and I flinch when it shatters on the concrete floor around their feet. “Don’t show your face around here again.”

He’s spouting curses, calling me a whore, and claiming I destroy families as they drag him out the front.

“Call the cops if you ever see him again,” Tyson says, his hands coming to rest on my shoulders.

I pull away, his comforting touch the last thing I need right now.

“Are you okay?”

I turn to face him, my cheeks hot with embarrassment and shame that confuses me.

“I’m fine.”

“Said every woman who was never fine,” he mutters. “Do you want to cut out early?”

Hayden is my first thought. Would it still be a lie if I left early after telling her I had to work instead of showing up at the last shooting class with her?

“I’ll be okay,” I assure him.

The last thing I want to do is leave and run into that asshole in the parking lot. Something tells me it wouldn’t end well. I pray the bouncers put him in a cab. He was way too inebriated to drive.

I do my best to focus on work, but I realize after an hour of no longer being able to even force a smile, that tonight is just not my night. I give up altogether when my hands are shaking so badly, I keep spilling drinks.

When the closing bartender arrives, I find Tyson in the back office and tell him I’m going to leave for the night.