by Lexi Archer
“Whitney!”
Claude and Whitney opened their eyes at the same time, both of their eyes widened as they presumably saw whoever was behind me trying to hold me back as I struggled against them. And then the other men surrounding in the crowd moved in.
8: Bar Brawl
Damn it. I knew something like this was going to happen when I agreed to take Whitney out to this club. Sure, I’d figured Claude was the one who’d be pulling this crap so it was a surprise to see that it was complete strangers.
Assuming that these were complete strangers and he hadn’t just planned this whole thing in between all of them.
I stopped struggling against the guy behind me. I loosened myself up and let him think I was done. That I was defeated. That I was giving up. That would make it easier to try and surprise whoever it was when I tried to get away later.
I thought back to every lesson I’d had at the dojo. Thought back to all the times we’d gone over exactly this situation. Ran everything through my head over and over. Of course the main piece of advice in a situation like this was to try and avoid getting in the situation in the first place, and I’d completely and utterly failed at doing that. Still, there was a chance we might be able to get free of this.
So I waited and watched. An opportunity had to come at some point, and I needed to be ready for it.
One guy moved forward. He had an easy-going smile on his face as though he was confident that he was the one in control of the situation. Which, at the moment, I suppose he was. Whitney looked up at him but there was no fear in her eyes. Only mild interest. And something else. Was that excitement? I’m not talking the sort of excitement she had with Claude, more like the excitement of someone about to hop on a roller coaster or something like that.
The guy’s eyes ran up and down her body as he stepped forward. That was a hungry lust-fueled stare if I ever saw one, though this look didn’t turn me on at all. No, this look was different. Unpleasant. It promised unpleasant things.
He looked up to Claude.
“That’s a pretty lady you’re dancing with,” he said.
Claude looked the guy up and down dismissively. As though he didn’t even consider the guy to be a threat. I wouldn’t have a considered the guy much of a threat if I met him on the street, but the three or four guys he had with him were a different story.
“She’s very pretty,” Claude said. “What of it?”
The leader reached out and ran a hand through Whitney’s hair. She finally shied away that, though that spark was still in her eyes. She pulled away and the guy frowned. Her eyes went wide as she registered the look on his face. Maybe some of the gravity of this situation was finally starting to sink in. I could only hope.
“Why don’t you let us have a dance with the pretty lady?” the guy asked.
“No.”
That was delivered in a flat tone. It was delivered in a confident tone. A tone that said there wasn’t a chance in hell these men were going to get near my wife. It took all of my concentration, all of my control, all of my training, not to tense up. Not to give the person who was holding me an indication that I was about to try and break free. That was the last thing I needed. I needed the element of surprise. I needed them to think I was neutralized, that they were only dealing with Claude.
“Let me rephrase that. Let us have the girl or it’s going to go very badly for you and her friend,” the guy said.
Whitney’s eyes finally did go wide at that. Her lips opened into an oval shape. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Here we were in the middle of the club with a group of men surrounding her wanting to do who knows what, though I had a few good ideas as to exactly what they wanted, and now she was finally realizing what was going on. Now she was finally starting to realize how much trouble we were in. At least I hoped she was.
Claude threw his head back and laughed. “You seriously think the three of you worry me?”
“Give us the girl or we break your friend’s arm,” the guy said, nodding towards me. I felt the person behind me tightening their grip.
Oh hell no. That was as far as I was going to let this go. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan anything out. I just let years of training take over. It also helped that there was a fair bit of anger and frustration building up over the past couple of days. I took all of that and poured it into my move. The guy was tightening his grip on me, but he was lazy with the way he was holding me. He was leaving himself wide open. All I had to do was reach my foot down behind his foot, trip the guy up, and then use that moment’s confusion to pull and use the momentum from him being thrown off balance. A moment later a skinny guy went flying.
He screamed as he went over my shoulder and landed with a thud. I glanced down to make sure he wasn’t going to be rejoining the fight. One of the things that had been drilled into me over and over again is if you aren’t in a fair fight then there’s no point in fighting fair. Another lesson that had been drilled into me over and over was that there was no such thing as a fair fight. And so I wasn’t going to fight fair. I took a moment to kick the guy in the ribs as I ran past him towards the leader, but he didn’t move. He was incapacitated for now.
I had a brief moment of satisfaction as the leader turned to face me, his own eyes wide and his mouth open in surprise as I came towards him. Then my outstretched palm made contact with his nose at high speed and he was screaming and going down to the ground on his knees.
I glanced to the side and Whitney was being pushed, wide eyed, away from Claude. I wanted to curse. I figured he was throwing her to one of the other guys. I was sure he was in on it when I saw his fist flying straight for my head. This was it. His fist was going to connect with my face, I was going to go down, and then they’d be free to do whatever the hell they wanted with my wife. And what they wanted to do with my wife was nothing good.
This was my fault. My fault for going along with her when she said she wanted to come out here. My fault for letting that ridiculous fantasy get the better of my good judgment. All my fault.
Claude’s massive fist connected with lightning speed and there was a sickening crunch. I turned and saw a third guy who had a baseball bat raised over his head go to the ground. The bat never made contact with my own head where it was aimed. A good thing because it looked like he’d been about to take me out.
I turned to Claude and blinked. He grinned at me and gave me a thumbs up. “You okay?”
“I am, thanks.”
Okay, so maybe I was wrong about Claude. Maybe I’d been very wrong about Claude. Hey, a guy can make a mistake from time to time, and at least I could be sure I wasn’t wrong about this guy putting the moves on my wife.
Claude and I moved to either side of Whitney. The other two guys still standing, apparently there’d been five of them, were standing warily at the edge of a wide circle that had appeared around us. Both of them were looking down at their buddies in terror. The guy I’d thrown over my shoulder was stirring, it looked like he’d be up eventually but he was out of the fight. The leader was on the ground screaming with blood streaming from his nose where I’d probably broken it. Other than that he seemed fine, but he was also out of the fight. The third guy with the baseball bat was scrambling away. Apparently Claude’s punch hadn’t been enough to knock him out, but it had been enough to make him realize this fight wasn’t one he wanted to be in.
Then were more guys appeared out of the crowd. Big burly guys who were about the same size as Claude. They moved forward and quickly snapped up the other two guys as they were turning to make a getaway. One of the new guys turned to Claude.
“These the guys bro?”
“Yup,” Claude replied.
And just like that the muscular guys, the island equivalent of bouncers was my guess, had gathered up all of the troublemakers. The guy standing next to Claude, who bore a striking resemblance to Claude now that I looked at him, was grinning.
“Don’t worry bro, we’ll clean this one up for you,” he said.
/> “Hey!” Claude said. “This one wasn’t my mess. Ninja boy here is the one who deserves most of the credit!”
The big guy with the resemblance to Claude gave me an appraising up and down as though he was seeing me for the first time. “Really? How many?”
“Two of them,” Claude said.
The big guy clapped me on the shoulder with a huge grin that was very reminiscent of Claude. I was pretty sure the two were related somehow. Maybe even brothers. “Good job man! If you ever need a job in security let me know!”
Claude laughed and then he was putting an arm around me. I noticed that his other arm went around Whitney, with him between the two of us. Of course at the moment I was too keyed up, had too much adrenaline coursing through my system, to indulge that fantasy. It was the first time since this vacation started that it went away, however briefly.
All I cared about was that he was guiding us towards the door. Towards the relative safety of the exit, and eventually the resort. We reached the door and he pushed us both towards it but I stopped.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Claude grinned. “I’ll be fine, but you two should get back to the resort.”
“We shouldn’t be here if the cops show up or something?” Whitney asked.
The grin went away for a moment. “No. These men are known for causing trouble. My brother’s club, he’ll take care of this and the authorities, but easier to take care of if there are no foreigners if they do show up.”
Whitney hesitated but he didn’t have to tell me twice. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out, turning to mouth a final “thanks” to Claude before we disappeared into the night.
9: Escape
The loud music muted to a dull thump that still caused the door to vibrate as I slammed it shut behind us. I was so keyed up that I figured at any moment the people were going to close in around us and that would be that, but it never happened.
And now that we were out of the club and mostly out of danger it seemed my treacherous body was taking the time to indulge in that ridiculous fantasy once more. Suddenly thoughts of getting kidnapped or beat up were replaced with thoughts of Claude with his arms around Whitney as he led us out of the club.
I couldn’t forget the grin on his face. That was a grin that said he knew we’d be back. Maybe not to that club, but we’d be back. He’d seen the way my wife danced with him. I’d seen the way my wife danced with him. I still owed him a debt of gratitude for stepping in and backing me up in that fight, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was only doing it because he wanted Whitney. Not because of any sense of loyalty or honor where I was concerned.
I looked around the street but it was completely deserted. Still, I couldn’t help but think back to some of those State Department advisories I’d read before we came to the island. All of them made it absolutely clear that it was a terrible idea to leave the confines of the resort after dark. It was the sort of terrible idea that tourists who ended up disappearing decided to do. And after that altercation in the bar I was seeing potential kidnappers lurking around every corner.
“That was…”
Whitney trailed off and I turned to look at her. She had a shell shocked look on her face which I suppose was to be expected considering what just happened. It wasn’t every day that you saw a bunch of guys get in a fight over you at a bar, though I still wasn’t sure she realized exactly how serious the stakes were in that fight. I could understand why she’d be a little upset right now.
“… Amazing!”
I blinked. That definitely wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I was expecting her to be upset. I was expecting her to realize just what a bad situation we’d gotten into. I was expecting her to maybe even be a little apologetic that she’d insisted on dragging us into that situation in the first place. Only no, she wasn’t any of those things. She looked excited more than anything else, which explained some of the excitement I saw in the club. She was actually excited about everything that had just happened. I couldn’t believe it, and yet at the same time I could believe it perfectly.
“Are you serious?”
I tried to keep some of the heat out of my voice, that was one of the less asskicky things I learned from my chosen brand of workout, but it was hard. She looked up at me and blinked as though she was seeing me for the first time. I was starting to think she’d gotten a little more sloshed than I’d initially thought. She’d been downing drinks constantly on the beach and then drank at the club too. I sighed. Getting drunk was the last thing she should’ve done before we went to that place. It was just more of the inconsiderate crap I’d had to put up with since we got married. It was entirely out of character for her, and I was tired of it. Which probably explained why a little more heat came into my voice.
I stopped in the middle of the road and stared at her. “Do you really think what happened in there is okay?”
“You’re overreacting honey!” she said.
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t be a relationship ending sentence. So I turned and stalked towards the resort. I didn’t even wait to see if she was following. I was so pissed off right now that as far as I was concerned somebody could kidnap her and I wouldn’t give a shit. That’s how angry I was.
I heard her following me, running to catch up because I was moving at a brisk pace. She appeared beside me and came to a stop, obviously expecting me to come to a stop as well, but I just kept going. I just kept up my same fast pace.
“Honey?” she asked.
Once again I heard her running to catch up to me. “Honey? Why are you acting like this?”
I kept going. I didn’t want to talk to her. I was afraid of what I might say if I did talk to her. I tried to be an easy-going guy, I tried to make her happy, but if making her happy was going to involve more bullshit like what I’d put up with tonight then I was done with it.
I wondered if this meant our marriage was over right as it began. I wondered if this was setting some sort of record for a marriage’s shelf life, though I’m sure that was impossible. I’m sure there were people who were only married for a couple of hours or maybe a couple of days. I wondered if I could get an annulment if it came to that.
Whatever it was, I’d come to the realization that I definitely didn’t want to stay in this marriage if this kind of inconsiderate crap was what I could look forward to. That wasn’t the kind of thing I could deal with over the course of a lifetime. I was having a hard enough time dealing with this crap over the course of a couple of days.
“Honey, we need to talk about this,” she said.
“Oh, you want to talk now?” I asked, heat once again rising in my voice. The anger was obvious as I growled my response. That made her stop again. It would’ve been funny the way she was stopping and starting if it wasn’t so ridiculous. If the stakes weren’t so damn high. It was one of those situations where I didn’t know whether I should be laughing or crying.
Running again. Catching up with me. Stopping. “We really need to talk about this!”
“We sure as hell aren’t talking about anything until we get back to the resort,” I said. “Do you have any idea how fucking dangerous it is out here? No, of course you don’t have any idea how fucking dangerous it is out here. Otherwise you wouldn’t have put us through that bullshit in the first place!”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child!”
“If you’re going to act like a spoiled child then that’s how I’ll talk to you,” I bellowed.
I almost stopped walking. She’d finally done it. She’d finally pushed me over the edge. Mr. easy-going roared, and I didn’t like it. I always tried to keep my temper in check because I knew I could be a first-rate asshole when I got mad. When I really got going. Only right now I felt like I was more than justified in getting a little mad.
And it must have worked. Because Whitney didn’t say anything else on the walk back. She just fell in step beside me. I had no doubt she was
mad. No doubt she was steaming as we walked. I was sure I was going to hear all about this when we got back to the resort, but I didn’t care. This was ridiculous. There was nothing to talk about. This was a situation where she was clearly in the wrong, and no amount of her getting upset, no amount of silent treatment, was going to change that.
We continued on in silence until we reached the safety of the resort gates. A very sleepy and very surprised guard looked at us wide-eyed almost as though he couldn’t believe we were resort guests when we knocked on his door. I’m sure he probably didn’t get many people venturing out after dark. Hell, I’m sure they probably didn’t get many people venturing out of the resort at all.
But he let us in. That was the important part. And then instead of uneven pavement we were walking across white stand that had been glittering white this morning when we started the first full day of our honeymoon. As we made our back way back to the cabana I started to wonder if the first full day of our honeymoon was also going to be the last full day of our honeymoon.
10: Arguments
The explosion came as soon as we were through the door to our cabana. I wish I could say that the tension drained from me as soon as we were in there, as soon as I realized we were finally safe, but it just ratcheted up as Whitney wheeled around and poked a finger at my chest.
“Why are you being such an asshole?”
That was it. I was already so pissed off, my anger at what had happened tonight was already on a razor’s edge. Having her poke me like that, having her acting like I was the bad guy, sent me over the edge. I reached out, took a firm grip on her wrist, and gently pulled her finger away from where it was pressing against me.
“Don’t touch me again,” I said. “And definitely don’t say I’m the asshole.”