The Harrington is supposed to be one of the highest-class establishments in the city, but I’m hardly impressed. It looks like every other strip club Ferr has dragged me to for the last six months. Thumping music, strobing stage lights, and women who look dead behind the eyes. They smile and fawn over us, but the light doesn’t make it to their eyes.
It breaks my heart; I want to round them all up and take them away from here. Ferrier calls it my ‘white knight complex,’ and that’s how he gave me my name. I am no longer who I was before he came into my life; I am Knight, and I am his.
Every Friday, Ferr finds a new club. From tiny dives with dancers eating pizza on stage to women with heels that cost more than my first apartment, we’ve seen it all in our quest to find our missing piece. I am his; I belong to Ferr, but no one belongs to me. I want someone of my own, someone I can protect. I tell Ferrier we won’t find her in a strip club, but then he proves me wrong.
It’s Halloween. Men in Scream masks and cheesy costumes jockey for her attention as she moves through the crowd of big spenders, businessmen, and the type of men who look like they belong in a 70s mafia movie.
Ferr and I wear masks with neon Xs for eyes and crooked, almost menacing smiles. It was his idea. “They’re practical,” he said. If we wanted to blend in on Halloween, we had to look the part. By the time we take our seat in the dark booth, the festivities are in full swing.
Dancers are dancing, servers are serving. The guests grow more and more obsessive by the moment, groping the waitresses as they pour expensive liquor into cheap glasses. A man in a Ghostface mask gets rough with one of the women, and my blood pressure soars while he manhandles her into his lap.
The first time I see her, I can’t look away. I watch helplessly as the tall, dark-haired beauty is pulled into the large, greasy man’s embrace. He strokes her like a miniature Pomeranian, running his fingers across her chest and neck. She looks like a caged bird, wings clipped, desperate for escape.
The slimeball’s hands are all over the beautiful woman, and from the look on her face, she doesn’t want it. When she tries to push away, he pulls her back in, wrapping his arms tighter around her dainty frame. I fear he’ll crush her to death against his broad chest if she tries to wriggle free again..
I can’t watch another second of this scene. I slide across the seat, stepping out of the booth, and Ferr grabs my arm.
“She’s not our type, Knight.”
“She’s in trouble.”
“We don’t go for the damsel in distress.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m going.”
I storm across the slick, glittering floor, dodging John Wick wannabes left and right. I lose sight of the woman in the crowd, scanning every table for her. Did she get away?
Out of the corner of my eye, a man grabs the woman by the arm and pulls her into the shadow beneath one of the private balconies. His grip is tight around her arm, and pain registers on her delicate features.
“Who is that?” I ask the waitress nearest to me. “Who’s that woman?”
She turns her head to follow my gaze and then sighs knowingly.
“That’s Poppy. I’d stay away from her if I were you. She’s Claudio’s girl, and God help the man who gets between them.”
“Got it.”
I climb the small set of stairs to the landing beneath the balcony and watch as Claudio grabs her arm and shoves her into the wall. I can’t make out the words over the sound of the club music, but he spits vitriol with every syllable. He gives her a command and then storms off, fixing his collar like a mobster in an old movie, leaving Poppy behind.
