The bar three blocks from the office has become my Friday sanctuary. Dim lighting. Anonymous crowds. Wine that doesn't judge my life choices.
I'm nursing my second glass when Alex slides into my booth uninvited. His smile is wrong—too tight, too practiced. The smile of a man who's been rehearsing this moment in bathroom mirrors.
"Lottie." He says my name like he owns it. "I've been thinking about you."
My stomach drops through the floor. "How did you find me here?"
"About us.” He ignores my question completely. Charming. “About everything we had together."
"We had nothing, Alex. You threw my phone at a wall and called me a frigid bitch." I set down my glass with deliberate calm. "There's nothing to discuss. Please leave."
His expression shifts. The rehearsed charm dissolves into something uglier. Something that makes my skin crawl with recognition.
"I've seen you, Lottie."
The words land like stones in still water. My wine suddenly tastes like battery acid and dread.
"At the wedding. Your mother's big day." He leans closer, invading space I didn't offer. "Watching you walk down that aisle with him. Your new stepbrother. Very touching ceremony."
Ice crystallizes in my veins. The figure at the reception I couldn't place. The man on the train platform at Reading. The cafe with Gemma. The dark car outside my office building.
"At the cafe with your friend. At work, coming and going." His voice drops to something intimate and wrong. "The way you look at him doesn't seem very sisterly."
He's been following me. For weeks. Every prickle on my neck. Every shadow in my peripheral vision. It was him. It was always him.
"You need to leave. Now."
"I'm not finished talking."
"I am." I reach for my bag, preparing to flee. "This conversation is over, Alex."
His hand shoots out. Fingers close around my wrist with bruising force. The grip is tight enough to leave marks.
"You don't get to walk away from me. Not again. Not after everything I invested in you."
"Let go of me." I try to pull free. His grip only tightens painfully.
"You owe me, Lottie. Two years trying to fix whatever's broken inside you. And now you're spreading your legs for your own stepbrother?" His voice carries, drawing glances. "Does your mother know what her perfect daughter's been doing?"
Pain radiates from my wrist. Panic claws at my chest.
"Remove your hand."
Oliver's voice cuts through the noise. Not loud. Almost conversational. But something in the tone makes the couple at the next table freeze completely.
He stands beside our booth, having materialized from nowhere. His expression is pleasant. Deceptively so. His eyes are something else entirely—flat, focused, already decided.
"This is none of your business, mate." Alex's grip tightens reflexively.
"I'm making it my business." Oliver doesn't raise his voice. Doesn't need to. "You have three seconds to let go before this becomes extremely unpleasant for you."
"Or what?" Alex sneers, but uncertainty flickers beneath the bravado. "You'll call the manager?"
Oliver smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes.
"No. I'll break your wrist. Same grip you're using on her—I'll snap it sideways at the joint. You'll hear the sound before you feel it."
The pleasant tone makes it terrifying. Like discussing wine selections while describing violence.
Alex releases me. His hand jerks back like my skin burned him.
"You're insane."
"Possibly." Oliver hasn't moved. Hasn't raised his voice. "But here's what happens now, Alex. You stand up. Walk out of this bar. And you forget Lottie Webb exists."
"You can't—"
"I spent five years in a world you can't imagine." Oliver's voice drops lower. "I know people who solve problems permanently. People who make people disappear from databases. From addresses. From existence entirely."
He leans closer. Alex actually flinches backward.
"I've never used those connections. Never had sufficient motivation." A deliberate pause. "Lottie is sufficient motivation. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
The threat hangs in the air. Specific enough to terrify. Vague enough to be deniable. I don't know if any of it is true.
Alex doesn't know either. That's the point.
"If I see you near her again—her flat, her office, her street—I won't warn you. I won't threaten. I'll simply act." Oliver straightens his cuffs with casual precision. "Are we clear?"
Alex is pale now. The blood drained from his face entirely.
"Yeah." The word comes out strangled. "We're clear."
"Good. Now leave. And Alex? Delete every photo. Every text. Every piece of information you've collected during your surveillance." Oliver's smile returns. "If I find out you've kept anything, our next conversation will be much less civilized."
Alex stands on unsteady legs. Doesn't look at me. Doesn't look at Oliver. Just moves toward the door with jerky, desperate movements.
The door swings shut behind him. The bar's noise rushes back in, filling the space his presence contaminated.
Oliver slides into the booth across from me. The cold predator dissolves into something more human. More concerned.
"Are you alright?"
My wrist throbs. My hands are shaking. My entire body feels electrified.
"Was any of that true?" My voice comes out hoarse. "The connections. The people who make problems disappear."
Oliver is quiet for a moment. "Does it matter?"
"I don't know. He believed every single word of it."
"That's what matters." His hand reaches across the table, palm up—an offer. "He won't bother you again, Lottie. I promise you that."
"How can you be sure?"
"Men like Alex are fundamentally cowards. They stalk because they feel powerless. They grab and threaten because they need control." His voice is gentle now. "He just discovered pursuing you comes with costs he can't calculate. The uncertainty will eat at him."
I look at his outstretched hand. At the man who just threatened to destroy someone on my behalf.
"That was terrifying. Watching you become that person."
"I know." No apology. Just acknowledgment. "I'm sorry you had to see it."
"Are you? Actually sorry?"
His eyes meet mine. Green and complicated.
"Not even slightly. He hurt you. He scared you. He's been following you for weeks." His jaw tightens. "I would have done considerably worse if you weren't watching."
The honesty should frighten me. Mostly I feel something else. Something warm and fierce. Protected. For the first time in my life.
"I don't want to go home tonight. Alex knows where I live."
"Then you're coming to my flat." It's not a question. "You take the bedroom. I'll sleep on the couch."
I take his hand. His fingers close around mine—warm, steady, nothing like Alex's bruising grip.
"Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me for basic human decency, Lottie."
"That wasn't basic." I almost laugh, the sound slightly unhinged. "That was... I don't have a word for what that was."
"Effective." His thumb traces circles on my knuckles. "The word you're looking for is effective."
We leave together. The night air hits my face—cool, clarifying.
His flat is warm and quiet. He shows me the bedroom, finds towels, maintains careful distance. The perfect gentleman.
He turns toward the living room. Toward the couch. Toward appropriate boundaries.
"Oliver." My voice stops him. "I don't want to be alone tonight."
He faces me slowly. Hope warring with caution.
"Lottie, you've had a traumatic evening. I don't want to be something you regret."
"I won't regret this."
I cross the distance between us. My fingers find his collar. His shirt. The warmth of him.
I kiss him first.