My stomach drops.My heartbeat stumbles.
“What about her?”
It is not a question.It is a warning.
Legend steps closer.“She didn’t come home last night.”
“That happen before,” I say.“You know Joey… Joey Donut likes starting fights in other counties.Wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she likes spending the night in jail.Cops are her thing.”
I tear my gaze away as I think about how the bunny actually gets off on the danger.The only reason, she has a thing for me.
“Always comes back.”I grit out the words, but they don’t sound true even to me.Something feels off.Too off.A cold trickle moves down my spine.
Whiskey drags a hand through his hair.“It ain’t like that this time.”
I turn toward him slowly.“Then tell me what it’s like.”
He swallows hard.“Her soft tail’s still parked outside The Fire Pit.”
My spine stiffens.“And?She can go home with who she wants.It ain’t serious.”
“And her phone was found in the parking lot behind the dumpsters.Screen smashed.”
Everything inside me goes still.Cold.Focused.I don’t blink.I don’t breathe.I just stare at him.
“Who found the phone?”
“Cornbread,” Whiskey says.“He was out doing his rounds before the morning shift.”
Oaks steps forward.“There’s more.”
My fists clench.“Say it.”
“We found blood,” he says.“Not a lot.But enough.”He hands me her purse, shiny and stained.I dig in it, pull out a piece of paper complete with a bloody thumb print.
“What is it,” Legend asks.
“An address in Louisville,” I say.
“Where the body of a missing girl was found,” Oaks blurts out.“But could be anything.Lots of folks around here has business in the Ville.Family.Jobs.”
Legend handing me her phone is the nail in the coffin.“Whip said it’s broken beyond repair.”
Silence falls like a hammer.My head feels like it is full of broken glass.
Joey may not be mine anymore.Not ever officially.Not since Becki got locked in my room and everything in my life shifted sideways.But Joey was almost mine once.She knew my bed.She kept my secrets when nobody else did.A club bunny, she’s still a woman under our protection.
And someone laid hands on her.
“Who the fuck was working the door last night,” I ask.
Whiskey stares at the floor.“Vandal and Kernel.”
“Get them here.”My voice sounds wrong.Too calm.Too controlled.Oaks hears it too.His eyes flick up.
“Royal,” he says quietly.
“Get.Them.Here.”
