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Glass everywhere, a woman shrieking, the music still pumping while half the bar scrambles back from the corner booth. And then there is Rafe, a stranger bent backward over the bar, and a knife against his throat. Rafe is as calm as a man holding a door open.

Why does this always happen? I get one moment with my wife and the whole night goes to hell. I rush to his side with Manon right behind me.

"Rafe." The face of the man under the knife is bright purple. I don't know him. He's nobody. "What the hell happened here?"

"He touched the redhead."

I stare at him. In all the years I’ve known him, I've never seen him get close to doing anything like this. Basically, emotion is not what he does. Ever.

I once watched a model write her number on his hand at a wake, and he washed it off in front of her. I've long since concluded the man felt nothing for anyone and made my peace with it, and now he's holding a knife to a stranger's throat over a woman he just saw for the first time. Never talked to her, doesn't even know her name. I'm witnessing a miracle. Honestly, I'm a little emotional.

"Her hand," Tomek supplies, appearing at my shoulder. "He touched her hand. On the bar. It was like one second, Boss."

"He won't do it again," Rafe says to the room, to the man, to God.

"Excuse me, what is wrong with you?" Daphne shoves through the crowd, monkey glass still in hand, furious. "I was talking to him! He was cute! We were getting somewhere, and you… I don't even know you! Nobody asked you to do whatever this is!" She jabs a finger at Rafe, then points at the knife and Purple Man beneath it. "Stay out of my business!"

Rafe doesn't say a word, but doesn't let go of the man, either. He just stares at Daphne, and for the first time in twenty years I watch confusion settle on his face. He genuinely doesn't understand what he did wrong. In his head, this was a favor.

"Rafe." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "We do not kill people in bars with flamingos on them. Have some professional standards. Put him down."

CHAPTER 26

Manon

Rafe is short for Rafal, a Polish name the man hasn't answered to since he was a kid, according to Laszlo, who told me this over dinner once like it was classified information.

He didn't mention that Rafe is able to hold a knife the way I hold a scalpel in surgery. His hands are steady, and it's almost like he's stopped breathing.

The man under it knows exactly where the knife is. There's a vein jumping in his neck about an inch from the blade, and if this goes on much longer he's going to pass out, then I'll be on my knees doing first aid on a floor covered in grime and spilled alcohol—in a dress I can barely sit down in, no less.

"Rafe." Laszlo keeps his voice level, soothing. "Put him down."

Rafe lets go, lowering the knife to his side, and the man slides down the bar, both hands on his throat, gulping air like a fish. Laszlo crouches next to him. He pats him on the shoulder, twice, and says something I can't hear. The man keeps nodding. Then Laszlo takes some money out of his jacket, tucks it into the man's shirt pocket, and pats that, too.

I really was hoping to protect my friend from this world. Daphne is standing in the mess with her monkey glass still in her hand.

"Excuse me, what is wrong with you?" she says to Rafe. "Who even are you? Are you a police officer? Nope. Police don’t act like that."

Rafe glances at her, then away, then back. His jaw works like he's chewing something. He wipes his palm down the side of his pants with the knife hand, looking rough and nervous.

"I don't even know your name," Daphne keeps babbling, "and you put a knife on someone for me. Nobody asked you to." She’s right to be mad though.

Rafe's throat moves as he tries to form a coherent sentence in response. That man barely speaks in front of me. I'm not a therapist, but there must be reasons behind his bizarre behavior.

"He shouldn't have," he rasps. I almost feel sorry for him.

"Shouldn't have what?"

"Touched you."

Daphne stares at him with her mouth agape. Then she sticks her hand out to me without looking, the way she does at work when she wants me to pass her something and can't be bothered to say what.

"Manon. Get me away from this person."

I take her arm. There's a booth by the wall that four people have just left in a hurry. I steer her into it and slide in after her. She puts the monkey glass down very carefully, then picks it up again and finishes it in one go.

"Your husband's friends," she says, wiping her mouth, "are a lot."