The bouncer grabbed a toppled chair with his good hand and hurled it. Nathan ducked. Behind him, the glass door shattered.

Roaring like a maniac, the bouncer charged a third time.

He never made it.

His foot caught on the corner of the coffee table. Had the fall not landed him squarely on an overturned chair, it would’ve been comical, but his left eye socket made solid contact with the bottom of the chair’s leg. Three hundred pounds of momentum… With a little luck the eye could be saved, provided it wasn’t dangling out of the socket.

The man rolled into the fetal position and cupped his eye with his good hand.

Nathan felt it, a tangible presence evaporating from the room.

This fight was over.

An absurd memory flashed through his mind, something his mother used to say: It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case here. Spending the next fifty years with a glass eye and no depth perception wouldn’t be a fair trade for slapping Cindy. A broken arm and pulverized nose should be punishment enough.

“Come on,” Nathan said. “Let’s have a look. It’s over, okay?”

The big guy staggered to his knees, still holding his left hand over his eye.

“I’m gonna look at that eye. If you try anything, we’ll start over.”

No response.

Nathan flipped a wall switch and squinted at the sudden brightness. Clutching his eye, the bouncer looked broken and bloody, like a bully who’d finally met his match.

“Let me see your eye. Easy now. What’s your name?”

He slowly removed his hand. “Toby.”

Blood was streaming out of Toby’s nose and running down his lips and chin. Nathan examined the eye from a safe distance. Fortunately, the impact hadn’t been directly on the orbit itself. It had missed by half an inch, but the skin was laid open on the upper brow.

“Well, Toby, I’ve got good news. You aren’t going to lose your eye, but you’ll have one hell of a shiner. You had a close call here.” He paused to make sure he had Toby’s full attention. “You can blow this experience off, or you can use it to turn your life around, to walk a different path.” Nathan watched him ponder the comment for a few seconds. Toby was a big man—huge, really—and people often associated his kind of size with stupidity. Nathan was also big, not like this guy, but he often felt people treated him as though he was all muscle and no brains.

“I lose my temper,” Toby said.

“I noticed. Did you notice things I said were designed to make you lose your temper?”

“I can’t help it.”

“Yes, you can.”

Toby said nothing.