The Trouble With Brent Woods
Copyright© 2026 by Art Samms
Chapter 2
Saturday nights in the Big Apple live on their own frequency—louder, brighter, more reckless than any other night of the week. Brent used to love that. Used to feel like he was plugging himself into the city’s electric heartbeat every time he stepped out. But tonight, as he walked toward the velvet-roped entrance of District Eleven, one of Midtown’s most hyped nightclubs, he felt the faint tug of something he didn’t want to call dread.
“Brent Woods!”
A voice sliced through the line of patrons waiting to get in. Jace Ramirez—old friend, long-time wingman, professional nightlife parasite—threw an arm over Brent’s shoulder before Brent could brace for impact.
“Thought you bailed on me again,” Jace said, flashing the grin that had gotten both of them into, and out of, trouble more times than Brent could count.
“I said I’d be here,” Brent replied with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Just ... long week. Needed to ease into it.”
“Ease in? No, man, we’re not easing into anything.” Jace clapped him on the back. “We’re diving headfirst. Bottle service, the whole nine yards. You’re overdue.”
Brent didn’t argue. He didn’t have the energy. So he let Jace pull him past the bouncer with a familiarity that never failed to impress—or annoy—Brent. Inside, District Eleven hit them with a wave of sound and light. Neon beams sliced through a haze of artificial fog. The bass thumped at a frequency Brent felt in his ribs.
For a moment, the old thrill flickered. The colors, the bodies in motion, the sheer intensity of it all. And the women. Yes, the women. But then came the next moment—where he felt his mind drift, wondering how many times he’d stood in almost this exact spot, hearing almost the same music, shouting almost the same conversations.
“I ordered your favorite,” Jace shouted over the music, sliding a glass into Brent’s hand. “The bartender says hi, by the way.”
Brent lifted the drink automatically, then paused. He couldn’t remember if he’d eaten dinner. He couldn’t remember why this was supposed to be fun.
“Cheers,” he said anyway, tapping Jace’s glass.
They navigated the dance floor, Jace in full social-butterfly mode—slapping backs, leaning into conversations, pulling people into their orbit. Brent followed, smiling when expected, laughing when it made things easier.
But the dissonance grew. He felt it in the way the music grated instead of excited. In the way each drink tasted like something he didn’t need but kept taking anyway. In the way he caught himself checking the time more than once.
He’d outgrown this, hadn’t he?
Or maybe the nightlife had outgrown him.
“You good?” Jace asked when Brent drifted toward the edge of the floor. “Man, you look like you’re at a PTA meeting.”
“I’m fine,” Brent said. “Just ... taking it in.”
“Yeah, well, take it in from over there.” Jace pointed toward a small raised platform where a couple of guys were already red-faced, shouting over the music. “Looks like something’s going down.”
Brent frowned. “Jace—let’s not get involved.”
“Relax,” Jace said, but he was already weaving through the crowd.
Brent followed reluctantly. As they approached, the shouting escalated. One man shoved another hard enough to send him stumbling into a nearby table, glasses shattering on the floor. A circle quickly formed—spectators hungry for drama.
Brent saw the club’s security pushing through the crowd on the far side, but they were still too far. The shouting turned to shoves. Someone swung.
Jace muttered, “Aw, hell,” but stayed back. Watching.
Brent didn’t. He stepped forward.
Come on. Stop. Just stop, he thought, even as adrenaline sharpened his focus. He reached for the nearest belligerent—a guy in a designer jacket whose expression had twisted into something wild—and grabbed his arm.
“Hey!” Brent shouted over the noise. “Cut it out!”
But the man jerked away, swinging again. The movement sent the whole mess careening sideways—directly into a section of the club Brent hadn’t noticed before. A section where plainclothes patrons were far too alert, too coordinated, eyes locked onto the scuffle with something colder than curiosity.
Undercover officers. He realized it a second too late.
The fight crashed into their stakeout, drinks spilling, tables tipping, shouts erupting behind and in front of him. For one suspended heartbeat, everything balanced on the edge of chaos.
Brent grabbed the man’s other arm, yanking him back, trying to break the momentum before someone got seriously hurt, before the officers reacted, before this turned into something far uglier.
He didn’t know that action—instinctual, reflexive, desperate to help—was the exact moment someone in the dark lifted a phone, pressed record, and aimed it directly at him.
It was at that point when the entire scene unraveled in a burst of motion.
The belligerent swung blindly in Brent’s direction, fist connecting with the shoulder of one of the undercover officers instead. That single impact snapped the operation from quiet vigilance to immediate action. Chairs scraped back. Hands reached for concealed badges. Someone shouted, “NYPD—don’t move!”
But the music was still pounding, lights still strobing, and half the crowd didn’t hear a thing. Or maybe they heard and chose not to believe it. Nightclubs had a way of blurring reality until even commands from law enforcement felt surreal.
Brent felt it in an instant—the shift from stupid bar fight to something dangerous. The man he held thrashed harder, panic mixing with alcohol and adrenaline. As he tried to pull free, Brent tightened his grip, trying to keep him from lunging into the officers again.
“Hey!” Brent shouted. “Stop! You’re making this worse—”
The man jerked violently, sending both of them crashing against a table. Brent stumbled, caught himself, but the sudden movement brought him face-to-face with an officer whose hand was already on his holster.
“Back up!” the officer barked. “Let him go!”
“I’m trying—he won’t—” Brent started, but before he could finish, someone behind him grabbed his collar, yanking him backward.
Another officer. Different angle. Different interpretation.
In the chaos—the lights, the bodies, the swinging arms—Brent realized how this looked. To anyone watching, he wasn’t pulling someone away from the fight. He was in the middle of it. Holding a guy who looked like he belonged to the group they were trying to detain.
Shouts overlapped.
“Hands where I can see them!”
“Get down!”
“Let go of him!”
The man Brent held finally tore free, shoving Brent hard enough that his back hit the edge of the platform. A flash of pain shot up his spine. He staggered and reached out instinctively to steady himself.
To anyone watching, that looked like another aggressive lunge.
The undercover team swarmed. Arms grabbed Brent—one at his wrist, another at his shoulder—as they forced him against the railing.
“Hey! I’m not—”
But his words dissolved into the noise. A dozen phones lifted, recording.
Brent’s chest tightened. The panic wasn’t from the officers; it was from the realization that none of these strangers knew who he was, what he was doing, or why he had stepped in. He was just another body, another suspect, another moving shape in a room full of potential threats.
“NYPD!” someone yelled again, louder. “Everyone back!”
Security finally cut the music, plunging the room into a sudden, ringing silence. It made everything sharper—the gasps, the scuffling shoes, the commands.
Brent felt his arms being pulled behind his back, not in cuffs, but in restraint. “I was helping!” he said, voice tight. “He hit someone—I was just trying to get him out of the way!”
One of the officers hesitated at the tone—calm, pleading rather than combative—but uncertainty didn’t clear Brent’s name. Not here. Not now.
“Then you should’ve stayed out of it,” the officer snapped.
“I was trying to keep someone from getting hurt!” Brent’s voice cracked with disbelief. “Look, just—just ask someone who saw—”
But the officers weren’t listening. They were focused on the guy who had started the fight, who was now shouting slurred threats as two officers dragged him toward the exit.
And Brent—caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time, touching the wrong person—was dragged along behind them.
Jace stood several feet back, frozen in a cocktail of shock and selfish relief that he wasn’t the one being hauled away. A crowd whispered around him, phones still raised. Brent saw the lenses pointed at him—the digital judgment already forming, the narrative already twisting.
Someone shouted, “Hey, I got it on video—this guy grabbed him first!”
Brent’s stomach dropped. No. No, no, no. That’s not what happened.
But the story didn’t care about the truth. Not tonight.
An officer tightened his grip on Brent’s arm. “You’re coming with us until we sort this out.”
And with that, Brent Woods—creative director, careful planner, master of image—felt his world tilt sharply off-axis as he was pulled through the stunned nightclub crowd, the neon lights washing over him like stage lighting for a role he never agreed to play.
Outside, the cold air hit Brent like a slap. The flashing red-blue lights from the patrol cars painted the sidewalk in frantic color as officers guided him toward the curb. The fight’s instigator was already being loaded into one of the vehicles, still cursing, still thrashing. Brent tried to keep his breathing steady, though his heart felt like it was trapped in a vise.
“Sit,” one of the officers ordered, pointing to the low stone ledge bordering the sidewalk.