The clock struck 10pm as Wu Suowei polished a whiskey glass with deliberate slowness behind the bar. The dim red lighting caressed his angular features, turning his eyes into smoldering embers that tracked every movement in his establishment. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned just enough to reveal the faint outline of a tattoo at the base of his throat—a tiny fish, a private joke for those who knew his past.

The low hum of conversation ceased when the door slammed open. A wealthy regular, Pierre, stumbled in with his usual entourage, but tonight he had a different target. Suowei's gaze sharpened as he watched Pierre corner a new patron near the back—a woman whose perfume Suowei recognized from earlier when she'd ordered her first drink.

The woman's back pressed against the wall as Pierre's hand trailed down her arm, his mouth hovering too close to her ear. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides, but she didn't push him away. That hesitation was all Suowei needed to see.

He set down the glass with a precision that cut through the silence. "That's enough." His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of someone who didn't need volume to command obedience. He moved through the crowd with the predator's grace his nickname suggested, stopping beside Pierre with his body positioned protectively between the man and the woman.

Pierre laughed, mistaking Suowei's calm for weakness. "Come now, Wu, share the fun. This one's new in town—" His sentence ended with a sharp intake of breath as Suowei's hand closed around his wrist, fingers pressing into pressure points until Pierre released the woman.

"My bar, my rules." Suowei's thumb brushed deliberately over Pierre's pulse point in a gesture that was part threat, part caress. "And my rule says she decides who touches her." His eyes flickered to the woman, a challenge in their depths. "And I don't see her deciding you."