Leon's Way

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Every child deserves love. Respect. Patience. Peace and room to grow. Space to pursue their full potential. When their initial cards stray from such rights, then the strength to carry on, the will to work through their past and strive for happiness is what makes them into extraordinary adults.

While writing this book, my thoughts kept wandering to you, Bethanie. You and everyone out there who are survivors of horrific childhood experiences. With your permission, I have afforded Katsu a past that holds incidents you were thrown into. Even so, Katsu could never be you; in your young life, you’ve already been through so much more than Kat.

XOXO

This is
my
bar.
My
party.

And she’s mine.

My girlfriend’s eyes shine with happiness and relief. Only she isn’t beaming at me. She brushes my hand off her thigh and stands up on her barstool, waving. Smiling a beautiful smile she has never graced me with.

I look past the partiers on my club’s terrace, following her focus. I ignore the colors of the sky, the explosions from the New-Year’s fireworks, and detect him as easily as she did.

Dominic stands at the top of the stairs like some chick-flick hero.

He wrestles to get past Jason, one of my bouncers. Dominic’s eyes are trained on my—my—Pandora with so much fucking emotion I want to jab them out.

“Oh no, you don’t,” I grind to Pandora when she hops down to meet him. I’ve fought too hard to let this happen. In a few minutes, a new year starts, and she’s in it, goddammit, with me; she’s not taking off with another man.

How the hell did he get into Smother in the first place? My bouncers are useless! One simple task I laid on them tonight: don’t let Dominic in.

Pandora started out as a challenge to me. I knew I’d snagged her late, that she had a history with the pretty-boy. But he’s labeled “Perfect Dominic” on her cell, which is the very reason why she’s with me and not him.

Yeah, Pandora and I, we are the same. We’re each other’s brand of screwed-up, and guess fucking what? I’m not about to let her forget. I never lose, and I control my world with the precision of a puppeteer, but—

The strings are fraying.

My dolls aren’t obeying.

Behind me, my second-in-charge, Christian, calls my name. He doesn’t recognize me, not now that I shove my girlfriend past the counter and use her body to crash through the door to the storage room.

I barely register Pandora’s eyes going huge with terror. Her fear… it’s beyond the kind I get off on. She’s panicking—but so am I.

Because she can’t. Fucking. Choose.
Him
.

My mind blurs. Then, it checks out. The glittering rainbow of colors in the sky means squat when a sole shade of red tinges my vision.

“Leon! What are you doing?” Pandora shrieks.

I am primal. A warrior. A caveman. I thrust her hard against the shelves. I am a wolf biting down on her neck, silencing her.

“I’ll fix this, Pandora—I’ll be right back,” I growl. Then, I close the door behind me. Lock, lock her in and pocket the key. She’s going crazy in there, wailing for me to open—pleading—

Soon, I can’t hear her because I have charged past Jason, and I’m at Dominic’s throat. “You!” I shout. “You little shit. I will destroy you!”

The man I’ve loved for years is going ballistic. Books, glasses, and candles ricochet off the walls and crash to the floor. The low growl contained in his throat unleashes as he hurls his stereo at the window, making the glass panes shatter on impact.

“She fucking left me for him!”

He spins and locks on me. When Leon stares at you, he consumes you. He traps you in a small, flustered vacuum where he’s all that matters. “Leon… you’ll be okay,” I begin, but my voice trembles.

I can’t wrap my mind around this meltdown. Nothing ruffles him, nothing surprises him; in all my years at the club, I’ve never seen fissures in the marble of my boss’ beautiful façade. With the exception of his girlfriends, everything he touches remains orderly, and yet he’s losing it so completely right now.

This state he’s in… It doesn’t rock my need to be there for him. I—

Am always close.

He’s my love. My unreciprocated love, because I am just Arriane, his left hand, the favorite bartender. Not one of the dolls he breaks.

Leon’s chest lifts and sinks with his turmoil. “I’ve never worked to keep someone the way I did with her. Fuck, I did everything I could while all he needed to do was barge into Smother. He fucking stole her from under my nose!” Angry tears glitter, drifting over surreally blue irises.

“Stole?” He’s delusional.

I’ve never seen a girl as distant with him as his ex. She wasn’t here for Leon. She was here for the party, for the escape. Yeah, this situation is bizarre. In my time at the club, Pandora is the first who has left him of her own, free will.

Once Leon knows what he wants, he’s all the way. He’s ambitious, he succeeds, and with women, his efforts begin when he’s over them. Because by then, they’ll do anything to retain his affection.

For the seven off-and-on weeks it lasted, I was here to witness their so-called “relationship.” In the end, since she couldn’t escape Leon’s territory—the club and his upstairs apartment—Pandora took refuge inside herself.

“Why…” I hesitate, unsure of how he’ll react if I ask. Still, I need to vocalize my thoughts. His gaze snaps to my mouth, watching me continue.

“Why did you insist when she always talked about Dominic?”

“Arriane! Didn’t you catch how perfect she is for me? Hell—
I’m
perfect for
her
.”

Leon’s parade of girlfriends is long. One after the other, they arrive and get booted. Like crack, he gets women addicted to him before he breaks their hearts with his rapidly cooling interest. Pandora, though? She turned the tables on him.

Leon is not boyfriend material. Leon is a heartbreak waiting to happen, in one stunning package. And yet I can’t stand that he’s hurting. I wish he handled this better.

I—

Ache to erase his pain.

“How long did she live with you, Leon? A week? She wasn’t perfect for you if she’s in love with someone else.” I keep talking. Knowing I should stop. “Don’t worry. The right girl will come around.”

Anger flashes over those flawless features I’ve memorized. “What do
you
know? Do you even date?” he spits out.

This outburst is not him. “Yeah, just… not lately,” I mumble, stunned.

“As in since you started working for me three years ago,” he prods.

With no deliberation, I nod. Because when I fall, I fall hard. I don’t recover my heart easily. A few months into my job at Smother, I already knew. Sure, I’ve had a date or two. Occasionally been sucked into an advanced make-out session, but—

“Ooh, that makes you quite the relationship expert,” he mocks in a tone he never uses, especially not with his employees. Eyes darkening, he stalks toward me on my post in front of the exit. I’m not sure of his intentions. To be on the safe side, I push at the door, double-checking.

Thank God. Still barricaded.

“What are you doing, Arriane?” His tone lowers into a silky drawl, promising a danger I haven’t been on the receiving end of before. His words sound intimate, the way he speaks to his girlfriends at times, and I swallow, wanting to subdue both the fear and the heat rising in me.

I press my back against the front door, fanning my palms protectively over the wood at my sides. He could be strong enough to barge through for all I know, and I can’t—can’t let that happen.

I’m no match for him. My tiny body is all that keeps him from trying.

“Move,” he clips, but I shake my head, trying not to meet his beautiful glare.

I shiver.

“Arriane,” Christian, the second-in-charge at the club, calls from outside. “You sure about this?”

“Yeah, keep it blocked. I can do this,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound right, though. It quivers with uncertainty, and I wrap my arms around myself for comfort.

“Open the damn door!” Leon roars.

“Leon, man—sorry,” Christian replies from outside. “Arriane, this is bad. I don’t think you can talk him down. We’re coming in.”

No. What good would come of opening right now? If he makes it past them, he’ll take off on his motorcycle, and who knows where he’d end up?

I pull air into my lungs, inflating them. “Don’t do it, Christian,” I call out as loud as I can. The palms of Leon’s hands slam into the door by my temples, and a shocked yelp slips from me. He leans in, closer to my face than he has ever been, his nose almost touching mine.

“Hmm,” he murmurs, changing his tone so swiftly I freeze with uncertainty. “You were going to talk me down? From what, a ledge?” He pulls back enough to meet my eyes, and the ice in his shifts. “From a noose, perhaps?” He chuckles darkly. “No, Arriane, don’t you worry. No chick can make me jump.”

I don’t answer. My breathing speeds up as my heart pumps adrenaline through my veins. Leon is standing so close his hips brush against my stomach, and he is—

No way. With the mood he’s in, how can he be…?

But then, it’s true: he is hard. I’m certain now, because he aligns his body with mine and presses into me. The sensation of him rock-solid against my frame for the very first time is a rush!

In my sensory overload, my irrational mind hitches on how fit he is. Slender and made of granite.

It’s his martial arts, my brain analyzes unnecessarily. He exhales, a puff of air meeting my skin.

“I didn’t mean—no, never,” I stumble, trying to focus on his question. Only I’m out of breath, and the rest of the words don’t come. A mild waft of cologne pulses from his neck, drawing my attention.

“No?” he prompts. “So what’s your plan?” Sapphire-bright, his eyes narrow as he dissects me, and I squirm under his scrutiny. He’s holding me, though, so I unintentionally apply friction between us. Leon sucks air through his teeth in a hiss that shoots fire to my stomach.

At work, he moves among us like some pagan god, always present and with an all-knowing, cool air of mastery. Taking charge, responsibility. Reducing the stress of frantic work nights with short, precise orders. Now, he’s regaining his control, only of a more intimate type. He exudes a seductive sort of power I’ve so often watched him wield over his girls.

“I turn you on, don’t I?” Mild surprise tinges his voice, like he wasn’t expecting this. There’s no point in voicing the deception my brain concocts because my body won’t lie. I don’t reply.

“Are you okay, Arriane?” Christian interrupts from outside. “Shit, whose idea was this anyway?” he mumbles to Jason, our main bouncer. “Sure, it’s Arriane, but still—we locked him away with another girl.”

Leon’s pupils dilate and suck me in. “She’s fine, Christian,” he answers for me. “We both are. I won’t hurt her.”

A short silence follows. “Arriane?”

My breath is a whisper I don’t control. The perfect arc of my boss’ brow lifts.

“Um, yeah,” I manage. Christian’s respect for our boss equals mine; I’m not the only one who’s new to this side of him. “Leon’s back. He’s himself again,” I say even though I don’t know what comes next.

Leon’s hand reaches out. Locks the door from inside and slinks up to my neck. I let him when he guides me away, into his apartment with a palm curving below my ponytail. Neither of us reacts when Christian’s voice repeats my name from the hallway. When they remove the barricade in loud shuffles against the floor.

“You want to stay?” Leon whispers. “Keep me company?”

His eyes have that special gleam, a look that’s not of love or adoration.

I know better than to accept his offer.

It would be madness.

And yet—

I nod.