Chapter 326: The Cost of Touching Her

Richelle’s voice rose first.

"What is wrong with you?" she said, stepping closer to the nearest guard. "Why are you stopping him? Do you even know who you are holding here?"

The guard tried to keep his face neutral, but her tone cut through the polite noise near the entrance. A few guests already slowed. One conversation died mid-sentence. Another head turned. Richelle did not care. Her anger was clean and immediate.

"I asked a question," she continued, louder now. "Why is he not allowed to leave?"

More security began drifting in.

Not all at once. One from the side hall. Two from deeper inside. Then another near the door. They had already received Durnik’s instructions, and that was enough. The entrance that had looked open a minute earlier started to feel narrower.

Lucas stayed calm.

He already knew whose hand was under this. Durnik had been too quiet after the investor circle and too angry after everything else. This was the response. A soft cage at the door.

Lucas had not planned to make a scene.

Richelle, however, was already making one.

"Ma’am," one of the newer guards said, trying to sound official, "we need Mr. Gray to come with us to the security office for interrogation and checking."

Lucas’s brows lifted slightly.

Interrogation.

They had not even taken ten full seconds to invent it. Checking. Questioning. The kind of vague language that made a man sound guilty before anything had been proven.

Around them, people were gathering faster. Someone muttered that something must have happened. Someone else said security would not stop a guest for nothing. The story was writing itself, and it was writing itself badly for Lucas.

He smiled at the thinness of the lie.

Richelle spun on them at once. "Checking for what? What did he steal? Say it clearly."

No one answered cleanly.

That silence did more damage than a direct accusation. Guests began filling in the blank themselves. If security wanted him searched, maybe he had taken something. If he was being held at the door, maybe there was a reason.

One of the guards gestured toward the side corridor. "Sir, if you didn’t do anything, there’s no problem. It’s just procedure."

Just procedure.

Lucas still did not move.

He was not struggling. He was not shouting. He was simply standing in place while they tried to force the shape of guilt around him. And that, somehow, made the watching guests more suspicious, not less.

Richelle saw the shift in the faces around them and got angrier.

"Are all of you hearing yourselves?" she said. "You block a guest at the door, invent an interrogation on the spot, and then act like his refusal is the problem?"

A low murmur moved through the people nearest the entrance.

Lucas glanced once toward the deeper hall. Durnik had not shown himself yet, but his work was already visible.

One of the guards lost patience.

He grabbed Lucas by the arm and pulled hard, trying to force him toward the side corridor before the scene grew any louder. At the same time, his other hand came across and yanked Richelle’s wrist away from Lucas like she was nothing more than an obstacle in the way.

The pull was sudden and ugly.

Richelle’s balance broke at once. The high heels under her gave her no chance to recover cleanly. She stumbled backward ~ one step, then two, then three ~ her hand still half-reaching for air as the fourth step finally took her down to the floor in full view of the people near the entrance.

That was the moment Lucas stopped being patient.

The second he saw her fall, the calm he had been holding loosened. He twisted hard, tore his arms free from the men gripping him, and shoved outward with enough force that two of them lost their footing and went down hard against the polished floor. Someone shouted. A woman near the door gasped. The neat little security formation around him broke apart in an instant.

Lucas did not look at the ones on the ground.

His eyes locked on the guard who had put hands on Richelle.

He closed the distance fast, caught the man by the front of his uniform, and dragged him forward until they were face to face. The guard barely had time to raise his arms.

Lucas’s left fist smashed into the side of his mouth.

The impact was ugly and wet. The man’s head snapped sideways. Blood burst from his lips as several front teeth tore loose and hit the floor with small, sharp sounds that somehow carried through the sudden silence. He staggered, eyes wide, hands flying to his ruined mouth as red spilled between his fingers.

Lucas let him go and turned.

The remaining guards were still standing there in open confusion. A moment ago they had been escorting a problem guest. Now one of their own was choking on blood and broken teeth.

Lucas’s expression had changed completely.

Whatever patience he had brought to the entrance was gone.

The nearest guard made the mistake of reaching for him again.

Lucas stepped in, caught the wrist, and twisted it down hard enough that the man dropped with a sharp cry, knees hitting the floor before his shoulder could follow the same bad angle. Another came from the left, more bravely than wisely, and threw a wide punch that Lucas slipped under without much effort. His elbow drove up into the man’s ribs, then his fist followed into the stomach. The guard folded, air leaving him in a broken sound, and crumpled against the wall like someone who had just remembered he was underpaid.

A third tried to grab Lucas from behind.

Bad idea.

Lucas drove his head back into the man’s face, heard the wet crunch of a nose giving way, then turned and shoved him hard into the nearest decorative pillar. The impact rattled a vase off its stand. It shattered. A guest screamed like the vase had been a relative.

By now the entrance was a mess.

One guard was on the floor holding his mouth together with both hands, blood running between his fingers and collecting near the teeth he no longer owned. Another was curled on his side trying to breathe. A third sat against the wall with both hands over his nose, eyes watering so hard he looked like he had been broken up with in public. The rest hesitated, caught between the order still sitting in their heads and the very clear evidence that following it was becoming expensive.

Richelle pushed herself up from the floor, one heel slightly twisted under her, fury bright on her face.

"You put your hands on me," she snapped at the bleeding man, even though he was in no condition to answer anything more complicated than a moan.

Lucas stepped over a dropped radio and looked at the ones still standing.

"Anyone else need an interrogation?" he asked mildly.

No one volunteered.