It wasn’t that he begrudged anyone their right to self-defense. He had spent a career carrying and using weapons. But these weren’t your garden-variety Florida rednecks down in Key West for a good time. The bearing of these men suggested something different—something dangerous.
Yet unless they were dumb enough to walk over and put a gun in his face, he didn’t care who they were or why they were here. In street parlance, he was all out of fucks to give.
That voice in the back of his head, though, kept asking questions. Why had the men removed their jewelry? Why were they keeping their arms covered? Why the new boots? What the hell were they up to?
Trying to ignore his gut, he took another sip of cheap bourbon, opened the newspaper, and attempted to mind his own business.
His instincts, though, weren’t done raising the alarm.
Throughout the animal kingdom, when Alphas crossed paths, there was always eye contact. Both of these guys were definitely Alphas and both had observed him, but neither had made eye contact. The omission was like a white-hot, phosphorous flare sailing across the animal portion of his brain.
They hadn’t made eye contact because they knew that doing so would trigger a response. It was the only possible explanation.
He had always been adept at reading people. It was like a sixth sense. The worse someone’s intent, the better he was at picking up on it. He could sum up a situation and get off the “X,” as it was known in his line of work, faster than just about anyone else.
Whatever the men were planning, it wasn’t good. He could feel it in every fiber of his being.
Seating themselves at the bar, the men each ordered a shot and a beer. Tossing back their whiskeys, they then clinked mugs, knocked back the beers, and ordered another round.
It didn’t take long for them to get loud. And as they did, they began to grate on Harvath’s nerves.
All he wanted was to drink in peace, but they were making it difficult. For some reason, when their second round arrived, they decided to start giving the bartender a hard time. He couldn’t believe this was happening all over again.
Adjusting his position in the booth, Harvath angled himself so he could keep a better eye on the situation.
As she set the drinks down, they tried to touch her. One of the men even attempted to push money into her jeans. From the other side of the bar, she swatted the guy’s hand away and gave him a warning.
Harvath wondered why the hell she didn’t just throw them out. This wasn’t a strip club. But it also—he reminded himself—wasn’t his bar and, therefore, wasn’t his problem. At least it wasn’t his problem until he got to the end of his drink and needed a refill.
Holding up his empty glass, he signaled that he was ready for another. To her credit, she noticed.
Grabbing the bottle of bourbon, she stepped out from behind the bar. But despite giving the two problem customers a wide berth, she couldn’t avoid a clash.
As she walked by, one of them leapt up, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him.
He had his thick arm around her so tightly that even if she had wanted to smash the bottle against his head, she wouldn’t have been able to.
“Get the fuck off of me,” she ordered, but it only seemed to delight the man and encourage him further. Burying his bearded face against her, he kissed her neck as his buddy howled his approval.
Harvath watched, still hesitant to get involved. But just like at Little Palm Island, he knew he was going to have to. It was the way he was wired. He couldn’t let crap like that go.
Taking the section of newspaper he was reading, he set it on the table, rolled his empty rocks glass in it, twisted the ends together, and took it in his fist. These guys had obviously come looking for trouble. Now, they had found it.
He slipped from his booth, a bit unsteady from all the alcohol he had consumed, but not so bad—he hoped—as to put him at a disadvantage.
Holding his makeshift weapon behind him, he headed toward the bar. He doubted either of these two were going to listen to reason and he had no intention of fighting fair. He was inebriated, it was two against one, and both men were much larger than he was. The element of surprise needed to be heavily in his favor if he hoped to come out on the winning end of this one.
It took about a microsecond to realize that any chance he’d had of surprising them was lost. They both not only saw him approaching, but also figured out he was holding something behind his back.
“Hold up, motherfucker,” the buddy said. “What do you think you’re doing? And what’s that you’re hiding?”
As was his fashion, Harvath ignored questions he had no intention of answering. You didn’t answer questions when you were taking charge of a situation, you gave orders. “Let go of her,” he demanded.
The man holding the bartender sneered at him. “Fuck you,” he replied. “Mind your own fucking business.”
Harvath nodded at the bottle she was holding and said, “That is my business.”
The men looked at each other for a moment, almost unsure of how to respond, and then burst into laughter. He wasn’t trying to save the bartender, he was trying to rescue the booze.
“Sit your ass down,” the buddy ordered. “And whatever you’ve got behind your back, this is the last time I’m going to tell you to drop it.”
“Let her go,” Harvath repeated. “Then we can all get back to drinking and nobody gets hurt.”
“You mean you don’t get hurt.”
Harvath smiled. “It’s up to you. Let her go, I’ll get my drink, and like I said, nobody’ll get hurt.”
“And if we don’t? What are you going to do about it? There’s two of us, dumbass.”
“I see that,” said Harvath. “Listen, why don’t—”
“Why don’t we what?” the man interrupted. “Let you buy us a drink? Is that what you were going to say, pussy?”
The rage that Harvath had been harboring; the rage that he had been trying to cap, with glass after glass of bourbon, began to bubble up again and was about to boil over.
If he was honest with himself, he had been spoiling for a real, knock-down, drag-out fight since Little Palm Island. He wanted to vent all of his anger in one great purge and it looked like he was about to get his chance.
Smiling, he replied, “I wouldn’t piss on you losers if you were on fire, so there’s no way I’m going to offer to buy you drinks. I will, though, offer for us to take this outside. Let her go and we’ll see if two against one makes a difference. Or not.”
With that, Harvath set the glass he had wrapped in newspaper on the bar and smiled at the men.
They looked at him and smiled back. The larger man took one more sip of his beer as the other let go of the bartender.
Stepping a safe distance away, she announced, “I’m calling the cops.”
“Better call an ambulance first,” the buddy said as he gestured toward the door.
“Good idea,” Harvath agreed, as he headed toward the exit. “In fact, call two.”
CHAPTER 3
Harvath knew better than to fight inside the bar. There were too many things that could go wrong. There were also too many witnesses—any number of whom could have whipped out a phone, filmed what was taking place, and posted it to the internet, or worse—shared it with the police, who would share it with a jury. No matter how justified Harvath might have been, his fighting style was brutal. For average people unaccustomed to violence, it was difficult to watch and would win him little, if any, sympathy in a courtroom. It wouldn’t matter who had started the fight, all a transfixed jury would be focused on was how he had ended it. Taking it outside was the smart move.