Chapter 3

Six hours later, upon arriving at her destination, Lily went inside her best friend's room with irritation thrumming through her veins. "Cassandra, guess what happened to me on the way here?"

"I don't care what happened to you, girl, but we need to get dressed now, s*x and the boys are waving and we are getting late."

"Are you not going to even ask why?" She asked her one and only friend and sat in the bed, watching her rampage through her closet and make-up. 

"Lily, I already knew about your gay ex-boyfriend. We talked for hours on the phone, remember? What is worse than that?"

"What's worse? The um-policeman, and he's got the nerve to give me a ticket," Lily took the ticket from her purse and waved it in Casandra's face. "See this?"

"OMG! Really?... Is he hot?" 

"Cassy, I'm serious here. I'm already planning my revenge scheme... and you are telling me…"

"Okay, who is this officer, you say?" Casandra sighed and took her hairbrush as she sat on her pink-colored vanity.

"The one and only... The guy who sucked Gabriel's d*ck!" Lily wailed with apparent anger that poured through her that made her temper spark.

"What?!" 

"Now, did I get your attention?"

"Oh yeah,... but you didn't tell me Gabriel's boyfriend was an officer."

"How would I know? The man ran away when I went berserk yesterday." Lily answered back, took the hairbrush, and started combing Cassandra's very long neon hair.

"Okay, I know that look, so what is your plan?! I'm all in... I am your friend for a reason."

After five minutes of telling her what happened earlier, they settled on a stupid idea. "I have a plan, believe me... this is what vengeance serves on a platter, and his name is Sgt. Leon Anderson." Lily took her phone, went to the police precinct's official website, and did something later she never thought would change her life.

Time flies, and they are now inside an expensive pub, 'The Wolves'

 "Lily, let's enjoy this night. Stop moping around. Jesus, girl, the boys are waiting," Casandra's almost tipsy harsher voice yelled in her ear. They were here in a luxurious pub owned by some elite billionaires in the city who owned hotels, her company's rivals, but who cares? Tonight, she isn't working. She will be drinking until she can no longer walk. She thought to herself.

"Cassy, I'm trying m-my best, d-don't worry about m-me." She yelled back. It was Friday night, and she watched the greatest minds of her generation get destroyed by red luxurious shots and green-yellow alcohol mixtures served from expensive shot glasses. Sweat-beaded bodies wriggling suit-expensive-drunk people, frenzied, hypnotised by foolish subliminal waves of electronic arousal. How she ended up here was still a shock. How could she say yes to Cassandra when she was not even a party girl anymore? And yet here she was, intoxicated and irritated by the many sex-ego-maniac males who thought they could have her tonight. Not that she wasn't dressed for tonight either, but her tight mini-red dress wasn't doing her any good.

The dark, cold, and sweat-alcohol-odour and the luminous place were filled with wall-to-wall adults acting out their job and office resentment on unsuspecting future rich politicians or even businessmen, planting the seeds of the blackmail cheques they’ll be writing in the future years. Yes, it was a night for fun, but Lily knew better. Deep inside, these fully dressed and coat-and-tie warriors were braindead, alone or poor, doing all their might to hook up tonight.

"Then start enjoying the night, Lily!"

"Cassy, I'm trying okay. See, I'm drinking again."

"Oh, very good. I despise Gabriel for denying you this sweet nectar of alcohol for, what, ten months? Jesus girl, you wasted your time... Anyway, have you ever noticed how dance music kind of sounds like listening to drunk people having sex?" Casandra remarked as she smiled and winked at the nearby waiter. She was standing beside her in the corner, where they had wedged themselves between the elite area and a standing electrical torch to best blend in with the furniture.

She gets it. It’s the last weekend of February, and that means the monthly end of the busy days of hotel industry bosses and office workaholics. Working as an IT in a five-star hotel made her wish she belonged to the group of people who never worked a day in their lives and could still afford to party all night.

And tonight was their night, one of the many nights her friend referred to as "mandatory fun." As one of the elite daughters, Cassy was required to attend, even if that meant bringing Lily with her, and just like the first time, her presence was more decorative than functional.

Cassy added, "Like it wouldn’t be so offensive if there was a melody, at least." She wrinkled her nose, and her head twitched to a siren's wail that blared through the surround sound system before another shattering bass line thundered in. "This is some shitbar that makes money by entertaining patrons, but the music is nonsense, or can you even call it music? People these days."

Lily coughs out a strangled laugh, almost choking on the glass of whatever punch mixture she has been nursing for the last hour. "I do really agree with you, tecno music is way way over the top," she, and Cassy, a music major back in college, have an almost religious contempt for anything not performed by live instruments. She liked her music alive and full of poetic lyrics, and yes she was that boring.

Besides, she would rather be in the front row of a tedious newbie performance in a beach bar than being caught dead in a dance club's flashing tecno kaleidoscope.

Don’t get her wrong, she certainly was not tasteless. She and Casandra hung out at the pubs every time, but since Gabriel, she stopped going with her friend, and though Cassy hated him so much, she understood her, and now thinking about the jerk again made Lily want to kill Gabriel and she reckoned that she missed this nightlife even more.

Hell, they once got lost at three in the morning while stone-cold sober. It was so dark that she and Cassy accidentally fell into the pond and almost got molested by a koi fish. However, the ritualistic practice of these boring rich people playing each other with mind-altering sub**ances until they mistake drunkenness for attraction and inhibition for the character wasn’t her fondest idea of a good time.

"Look out." Cassy nudges her with her elbow at the sound of shouts and whistles from the aisle. "Here comes trouble."

A wall of unabashed, still-in-office suit maleness crashes through the front door to chants of "Dick for Sale! Money! Money!" Like a team of Wall Street geniuses, they trampled through the bar, all thick shoulders and broad chests, middle age and even bald.

"All hail the conquering heroes!" Lily exclaimed sarcastically, while Cassy covers her snide grin with the side of her thumb and ordered more tequila. "So back to your so-called vengeance. Are you sure about those emails? I mean, you were careful, right?"

"Of course, I am an IT professional for a reason, and besides, the police precinct won't know my IP address."

"Oh yeah, so what exactly did you do?"

"Oh, trust me... That man, Sgt. Leon Anderson would be discharged. Payback is a bitch!"

*****

A few feet away from them.

"She’s totally checking me out."

"Whatever, mate."

"Come on, she keeps looking over here! She wants me."

"There’s no way a hot young red-dressed blonde thing like her is checking out an old man like you."

"I’m only thirty-nine!"

"Seriously? That’s even more ancient than I thought."

A chuckle escaped Rhye Gosling's lips. For the past ten minutes, he had been listening in on this trio of stockbrokers' executives. He had no idea if they were investment bankers, but they were dressed sharply and sipping expensive liquor in the city's financial area, so they were probably in the industry.

However, he only wears a casual shirt, dark navy pants, and an expensive leather jacket while sipping a bottle of beer at the pub's VIP area. He was lucky to find an empty seat inside his own pub. After all, he liked to come here as a patron and not the owner. The place was busy tonight. With the holiday season well underway, London pubs were packed with people taking time off work.

When Alpha Rhye slid into the adjacent stool, the three gents he was spying on hardly gave him a glance, making it easier to listen in on their obnoxious chat. He could clearly hear them thanks to his wolf's supernatural hearing. He sipped his beer while waiting for his friend, Beta, Leon, the birthday man, and realized he was again late.

"So what’s the final score for the young Asian lady?" one of the men asked. He and his bald friend are observing their pal—the old one. "Seventy-five percent," the first guy grumbled.

They might not be financial guys, though. Alpha Rhye had been attempting to decipher their computation method, but it appears to be utterly random and devoid of any genuine mathematics.

"You're both fucked..." The bald man added, "I have a far greater chance than that," as he tossed some cash on the counter, and the other one argued and grumbled angrily. The other two are in the same boat.

According to what Rhye had learned, their strategy was as follows:

Step A: In the pub, one of them selects a woman.

Step B: The other two work out the probabilities of the first guy gaining her number and use that term loosely.

Step C: They toss a large sum of money on the counter.

Step D: The man approached the girl and was almost always turned down. He lost the money he staked, only to reclaim it in the next round when the next player was likewise refused.

The whole thing was meaningless and ridiculous, yet they were all having the time of their lives. Not bad, Rhye thought to himself. Then he drank all of his beer and laughed as he saw the older gentleman stroll over to a stunning woman dressed in a skintight, short, fashionable yellow dress.

Her nose wrinkled as Mr. Old approached, indicating that he and his buddies were about to earn some money. Even if these gentlemen were dressed in fancy clothes, they were in no way comparable to the women at this pub. Classy ladies, on the other hand, have little patience for immature jerks because they know they can do better.

When Mr. Old One returned to the group, his jaw was clenched. Empty-handed, his colleagues wail and rake in the money.

Rhye laid his beer on the sleek counter and drawled, "Can I play, mates?" just as the blond one was ready to pick a new target.

Three heads swivelled in his direction. Mr. Old Man smirked as he examined his casual attire. "I'm sorry, mate. This is a game you can't afford."

With a roll of his eyes, Rhye slid his wallet from his pocket and riffled through it, revealing all of the cash and black card within. He whispered sweetly, "More than enough, ladies?"

"You've just been sitting there listening to us the whole time?" the blond man demanded.

Rhye replied with a smirk, "It's not like you kept your mouth shut about it. And, besides, I enjoy betting. It doesn't matter what we're betting on; I'll be there. As a result, how can I compete with... His gaze moved slowly throughout the crowded room.

Oh, screw it... what a coincidence, the scentless blonde-haired woman who thought he sucked her ex-boyfriend's d*ck was here in his pub and she appeared to be drunk. "Her," he finally let out.

Three pairs of eyes are hooked on him rather than following his gaze. They looked at him for a few beats, as if trying to figure out if he was f*cking with them. As a result, he stepped down from the stool and moved closer to the trio.

"Oh, bloody hell, you are... oh no! The legendary Rhye Gosling!" The blonde one cried out.

"Not tonight, boys. Anyway, look at her. She’s hot. Do you think an ordinary jean-and-shirt like me could get her number?"

Mr. Old was the first to relax his guard. "Her? That gorgeous maiden? She is... well, too drunk, mate," he mumbled, nodding not so confidentially at the red-dressed, beautiful woman who was ordering a drink with the bartender. 

"You mean, Little Miss Blonde-innocent?" Rhye smirked. He was not wrong. There was definitely an air of purity about her. But he knew better. The woman was a fighter, and from the desperate look she had shown him earlier, even with his pretend police uniform, he knew the woman was never the damsel in distress kind of girl. Her delicate profile, on the other hand, reveals a few freckles on her nose, and her hair was loose around her shoulders rather than up in an intricate style like some of the other ladies in this pub. Despite her tight red mini dress, she was more girl-next-door than s*x p*ssycat, but what bothered him most was that she was indeed scentless, very odd. How was that even possible?

Mr. Old Man snorted. "Yeah, good luck with that, Mr. Gosling. With your outfit, you won't have a chance."

Rhye flicked up his eyebrows. "What, you think I don’t have a shot? Come on."

"Mate, look at you... Whether you're the CEO or not, you look like a college student in that shirt, don't you? Not that it was an insult, but those sorts of girls wanted their man in a suit."

"Yeah right, either that or he is on ’roids," the blond guy cracked and laughed as they all did. 

"Well, I am not a CEO tonight, so... so what? Is this up? Tonight I’m a policeman, well, a pretend one." Alpha Rhye confirmed and smirked at them, but he didn't give more details. 

"Yeah, a sweet blonde thing like that would be too stern, Mr. Gosling," Mr. Bald One informed him. "The odds of you getting her number are thirty to one. Bet on that."

His colleagues agreed. "That’s a thirty-six percent likelihood," Mr. Old Man added. Because again, their math was ludicrous, as Rhye laughed again. He was certainly enjoying these pathetic humans.

"Well, let's see what this shirt and jeans could do. It's fun and money, right? But what if I want more than her number?" He challenged them.

The silent one snickered. "You want to know your probability of going home with her? ten to one."

Rhye gazed at the woman again, now drinking her margarita and watching her friend leave with a man on her shoulder. Probably to dance.

Rhye boasted with a confident smirk, "Five hundred bucks says I can get her to stick her tongue down my throat in less than seven minutes,"

His new pals burst out in incredulous laughter.

"Uh, sure, mate... It's five hundred..." Mr. Old Man chuckled. "In case you haven’t seen, the women in this joint are of an exemplary grade. Not a single one would hook up with a shirt and jeans in public."

Rhye nodded, and now he was already lowering five hundred on the counter. "Come on, mate, scared of my sexual prowess, huh?" he mocked. "Game on!" The others laughed wholeheartedly.

"Okay, mate... Fine then. I’ll bite," the blond guy mumbles, placing two bills on top of his. "Go ahead and get your ass rejected, Loverboy."

Alpha Rhye picked up his glass and drained the rest of his beer. "You bet, I will," he told the three, and Mr. Old Man rolled his eyes. "Now watch and learn, boys. Watch and learn." Winking, he strolled over to Miss Blonde-Innocent.

Instantly, Lily's attention fixed on him with wide eyes, as she grumbled, "Oh, Mr. Leon Anderson, sir, Mr. Gay... huh! I never knew a family man and an officer like you could even afford to have a drink in this place. Oh and... FYI, I do hate you for sucking my BF's small dick!" The blonde drunk beauty growled with a hint of a smile, albeit soft with amazement and shyness, yet a smug smile tugged at her mouth.

"Sweet lady, you are drunk!"

"Of course I am, but what the hell are you doing here? Trying to get some boys... G-Gabriel's not e-enough, huh? Sgt. L-Leon, s-sir?" She added as he raised her brows and sipped her margarita again.