Saskia slaps Heather back hard enough to make her stagger sideways.

Before I can so much as blink, Dale comes crashing across the room from the bar to barge Saskia backward. She stumbles over a chair and the two of them tumble into a booth with him on top of her.

Curtis jumps in to haul Dale off. The crowd scatters as he and Dale grapple. The music stops; the bar falls silent.

“You need to keep your sister under control,” Dale shouts.

“She’s not a dog,” Curtis retorts.

“I don’t know about that,” Dale says.

Curtis’s fist shoots out so fast I hardly see his arm move. Dale staggers, clutching his jaw, then rushes forward. He punches Curtis, who ducks, so Dale only manages to clip his ear.

Three burly bouncers pile in. Two of them grab Curtis’s arms and bend them behind his back at a savage angle. Curtis stifles a groan and his face goes white. Oh shit—his bad shoulder.

Dale tries to hit Curtis again and when the third security guy gets between them, Dale hits him instead. Other security guys appear from nowhere, a man in a suit barking something in French at their rear.

The bouncers bundle Dale and Curtis toward the back exit. Dale nurses his hand. He must have hurt it pretty badly because he doesn’t put up a fight.

Heather casts a worried look in Dale’s direction, but the man in the suit beckons her over.

“What the fuck just happened?” Brent says.

“I have no idea,” I say. “And I’m stone-cold sober.”

“Better go and see where they’re taking them.” Brent heads off.

Saskia’s the only one left at the table. Perfectly composed once again, she catches my eye and shrugs like it’s no skin off her nose.

I push my way through the crowd to the rear exit, following Brent, but a security guy blocks my path. I’ll have to go out the front.

The man in the suit is having a word with Heather. Telling her off, clearly, because she’s hanging her head.

Saskia grabs my arm as I pass her. “They’ll be fine. Stay.”

“Do you think?” I say.

“They’re big boys.”

The security team troops back in. Curtis, Brent, and Dale are probably halfway down the street already.

Saskia indicates the seat beside her. “Sit.”

I hesitate. What does she want now? Saskia’s the last person I want to hang out with, but maybe this is a golden opportunity. I still haven’t come up with a decent game plan for the Brits. If I can get a sense of how much risk she intends to take tomorrow, I can gauge how much I need to risk.

Reluctantly I sit down.

“Know why they didn’t throw me out?” Saskia says.

“Why?”