Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

or terminating her employment, he had instead decided to exploit the situation for himself.

Pieter sat and listened, knowing very well where it was headed, but letting Lotte talk. A slow-burning fuse fizzed and flared inside him. The threats came first, making her work longer and longer shifts. Then the sly touches, Bart squeezing his bulky frame passed her at every opportunity, laughing jokingly if his hand just happened to linger on her waist or glide across her bottom. After a while becoming more blatant whenever the bar was quiet, or perhaps she would be working in the stock room and she would turn to find him behind her, blocking the doorway and leering at her. Bart becoming more intimidating and cocky, no longer pretending it was accidental, but just trapping her in the corner and terrifying the life out of her. Each time, things getting progressively worse, and all the while threatening to inform the authorities if she complained or pushed him away.

With Lotte too terrified or confused, and her mind filled with thoughts of court-action or ending up in an immigration centre somewhere, she had found herself trapped in this degrading and frightful situation. But after weeks of suffering this horrendous nightmare she had eventually turned for help from the one person who she could trust.

Pieter shushed her, and put his arm very gently around her shoulder once again, talking to her in a soothing voice – but all the while seething with anger inside. She had done the right thing, he told her. This ends now.

He dropped her off at her flat out near De Gooyer, briefly going inside with her to ensure she was going to be ok before heading off. Lotte wasn’t stupid and had a pretty good idea of what he was going to do next, so she implored with him to be careful, not get himself in serious trouble. To his surprise she reached up and put her arms around his neck, pressing her tear-stained cheek against his own cheek, squeezing her fingers into the hair at the back of his head. Promising her he would be back soon, Pieter left.

◆◆◆

The bar was quiet at that time of the afternoon – not that it would have made any difference had the place been packed with customers – and so Pieter went barrelling straight in and grabbed a hold of Bart by the back of his jacket, taking him utterly by surprise. Spinning him around in one fluid movement he ran the fat pervert straight through to the toilet, using his head as a battering ram to smash open the door. Kicking it shut behind him, Pieter pushed Bart’s face straight into the toilet bowl and flushed it.

After keeping his head under the water for about a minute, Pieter lifted him clear. Bart spluttered and coughed, his face beetroot-red, and he just had time to recognize Pieter before a fist hit him straight in the mouth and split his lip. Pieter hit him in the face again, five or six times, and then slammed his fist as hard as he could into the side of the man’s stomach just about where his kidneys would be. Bart slumped across the toilet bowl, badly winded and gasping for breath, his legs like jelly and unable to support his overweight body. Pieter let him slither down onto the dirty floor in between the toilet and the tiny sink, lifted up his foot, and brought his heavy work shoe down onto the back of the head, hearing the satisfying crunch as Bart’s nose was mashed into the floor.

Looking at the pile of human waste before him, Pieter gave himself a moment to get his own breath back, his lips drawn back in an ugly grimace. Then he reached down and hauled Bart up, dragging him into a sitting position and twisting the bloodied head about so that their faces were just inches apart.

“Leave her the fuck alone, you fat fuck,” he whispered coldly.

Then Pieter left, the few inquisitive customers making way for him.

He went straight back to Lotte’s through the evening rush hour, the snarled and congested roads allowing him time to calm down and think things over. As he drove his eyes would occasionally glance down at his hands on the steering wheel, seeing the scuffs and grazes on the knuckles. He realized there was a slim chance that Bart would make an official complaint of assault, and that would filter through to his bosses at HQ and likely result in temporary suspension while the incident was looked at, but he felt fairly sure that the last thing Bart wanted was to involve the police. So on that score Pieter wasn’t overly concerned. He could also expedite Lotte’s residency application with the Immigration Department, and make sure she scored enough points with the decision-making panel to be granted a Type II Permit – assuming she still wished to stay, which Pieter reckoned might no longer be the case.

He also thought about his dad, his heart sinking at the knowledge that he was once more hitting the booze. As with all alcoholics and people suffering with other addictions, the road to recovery seemed never ending, a pathway beset with problems and setbacks. Pieter just wasn’t sure he had the mental reserves to cope with everything that it entailed, as his dad’s sponsor and only relative, and all of the responsibilities that came with that.

With these concerns weighing him down – plus the increasingly complex case he was currently leading at work – Pieter parked the car and walked back up the stairs to Lotte’s second-floor apartment.

Knocking on the door he waited, hearing faint movement inside, and he looked straight at the tiny security peephole in the door to give Lotte a clear view of his face. A chain was pulled back and then the door opened, her relieved face peering out at him.

They hugged again, and she quickly locked the door. As he followed her though to the small