“Holy shit!” Meg gasps. “Someone did what? You and a knife?”
“Quiet,” I grit through a smile. “It was a crazy night.”
But I think Darice is right. I think that is the guy from knife-gate. I don’t know how Meg hasn’t heard this story yet. I swear at least one of our coworkers is asking me about it every night I work.
“He’s not supposed to be here.” Darcie points out the painfully obvious.
“He shouldn’t be,” I reply, now looking around the room hoping to spot Corrin. “I wonder how he got past security at the door? This party is supposed to be for employees only.”
I keep looking for Corrin, but don’t see him, Fergus, Tadhg, Cian, Padraig, or Declan anywhere. Where the hell did they allgo? This is supposed to be a party for all their employees, both of the club and all the other various companies they run. They should all be out mingling.
“I’m going to see if Corrin is in the office and let him know,” I say before grabbing my phone and scooting out of the booth. My purse is locked in the safe in Fergus’s office, because everything here tonight is free so I wouldn’t need my wallet, and I didn’t want to carry it around.
Taking the long way around the room, past the DJ booth and buffet tables, I try to keep an eye on the creep but somehow manage to lose him about halfway. One second he was there, and in the blink of an eye it took me to get around Zach, one of the barbacks, the table he was standing at is empty.
I double back and duck behind the bar to see if I can maybe find Corrin in one of the offices instead. As soon as I tell him that an uninvited guest has crashed the party, I know he won’t leave a table unturned until the guy is found. Unfortunately for me, my luck runs out sooner than I was anticipating.
No more than five steps down the hall and the door to a storage room opens to my left and I am yanked into the dark space and crash to my knees.
“You think you can hide from me, bitch?” A very pissed off, neanderthal slams the door and traps me in a room full of garbage bags, mops, paper towels, and various other cleaning supplies. “I don’t fucking think so.”
I do the only thing I can think of in a split second . . . I scream for help at the top of my lungs.
He blonde behemoth flings himself at me, while I’m still half laid out on the floor. I try to fight him off, hitting and scratching and slapping him as many times as I can, but he’s too big and bulky and his anger must be fueling his strength.
What did this dude eat for breakfast? Cream of concrete? Fuck.
I don’t have the same leverage on like I did the first time I took him down from his chair, so I am at a serious height and balance disadvantage, especially in these heels.
He wrestles me to get me face down, then somehow gets a tight grip on both of my hands at once and wraps some kind of tape around my wrists.
I try to kick him with one of my heels, hoping I have some luck and a super pointy end hits him somewhere it hurts, but I have no such luck—again. He uses the same tape to bind my ankles together and I am instantly immobilized.
He lifts me by my shoulders and turns me around so I’m sitting on my butt, with my back against one of the shelving units which is the only thing keeping my top half vertical. We both are out of breath, pissed off, and a little sweaty.
I keep my eyes glued to the muttering, grumbling asswipe as he paces the length of the room in front of me. There really isn’tthat far to go from wall to wall, but he keeps going back and forth, over and over and over again.
“You’re never going to get me out of here without someone seeing.” I can’t help but egg him on a bit. Maybe he will get so angry at me that he’ll make some kind of mistake, we will be found, and I will be safe in Corrin’s arms again.
“Shut up, bitch!” he pivots in place and snaps at me.
His fucking attitude doesn’t scare me. I’ve seen angrier men fight. I may not have been privy to everything that went down in the Kings while I was growing up, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t see the occasional bare knuckle, drag down fight between a couple of pissed off bikers. Hell, they would sometimes fight each other out on the front lawn just for shits and giggles. I wouldn’t doubt it if some of them went too long without dealing with some kind of violence that they’d take their extra frustrations out on each other, then dust it off and go back inside for a beer.
“Do you realize who you’re messing with by grabbing me?” I snark at him, eyes squinted and face pinched in my own anger. “This club is owned by the fucking Irish Mafia, you fucking twit. Not the kind of people you should be pissing off.”
He rolls his eyes, then starts pacing again. “Oh, like they fucking care about some stupid, random bartender.”
“That’s what you think,” I mumble out before I can bite back the words. Shit.
He turns my way and stops. “What was that?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“No.” He lunges forward and grabs a handful of my hair to force me to look up at him. “What did you say?”
“That’s. What. You. Think.” I grit the words through clenched teeth.
“Fuck this.” He bends down even more, lifts me over his shoulder like a damn sack of potatoes, and slowly opens the door to peek out into the hallway. The coast must be clear because he steps out and hustles down the hall toward the door that leads to the back alley.
