The club was pulsing with bass and bodies. Strobe lights cut through the dark like jagged lightning, turning sequins and sweat into one chaotic blur. Bridget was laughing somewhere near the VIP booth, crown birthday sash slung crooked across her chest, a half-empty glass in one hand and glitter on her cheek.

Rhys stood a few feet away, arms crossed, dressed down in dark denim and a fitted black jacket. He blended in — sort of. Or at least tried. But his posture gave him away. Too upright. Too still. Like he was scanning a battlefield, not a birthday bash.

He didn’t want to be here. Had told her so, twice.

But she’d pouted, insisted it would “look weird” if he didn’t come. That it was just one night, that she deserved this. Normalcy.

So now he was three hours into a migraine, wedged between velvet rope and thumping speakers, sipping soda water while twenty-something girls giggled past him in heels they couldn’t walk in.

Jules — one of Bridget’s louder friends — was at his elbow again.

“Do you work out?” she asked, for the third time.

Rhys didn’t even turn his head. “Ex-military.”

She laughed like he was joking. He wasn’t.

But then he caught movement from the corner of his eye — across the booth, where Bridget had her back to him, swaying slightly as some floppy-haired rich boy leaned in, hand hovering over her drink.

Rhys saw it. Clear as day.

A small white tab — subtle — dropped into the pink cocktail while her head was turned, laughing at something Jules had just shouted.

It took Rhys three seconds to cross the floor.

One to grab the prick by the collar. Another to slam him into the edge of the booth. And the third — well, that was a right hook.

The music didn’t stop, but the crowd did. Gasps, stumbles, chaos. Glass shattered. The guy was on the floor, blood on his lip, shouting slurred nonsense as Rhys stood over him, breathing hard, eyes wild and steady.

He turned, grabbed the drink from Bridget’s hand — smashed it to the ground.

“You’re done,” he barked over the music. “Party’s over.”

Her friends started to protest — whined, complained — but Rhys was already hauling her gently but firmly toward the back exit.

“You want to act like a civilian?” he muttered, low, furious. “Then don’t forget there are people out there who don’t care you’re royalty. They just see a drunk girl with a bodyguard too far away.”

She didn’t speak. Didn’t argue. Not this time. And behind them, the music kept playing — but Rhys wasn’t listening anymore.