Chapter 11
Jase
Tonight's another routinebuy and walk, picking up a bottle of a hundred Oxycontin for a supplier. It was supposed to take place on the corner as always, but the perp called my job phone to change plans. Doc, as we called him, the dealer, wanted me to hang out and meet a bunch of his friends at Club Underground. He explained that his girl was there and he had to watch her. He thought she was messing with some other dude. Wanted to know if I had the sort of friends that would see to it that she and the guy she's giving it to could permanently disappear.
"Of course I got those kinds of friends, if the price is right,"I told him.
So it was Carter and I going as the undercovers, and Brooke was ghosting us. I was getting closer to Doc; real close to finding out who he got his pharmaceuticals from. Now he was asking to put a hit out on someone? I couldn’t wait to put this asshole away for good.
The team parked the van by the side entrance of the club and the three of us jumped out, dressed to the nines for clubbing. And if Doc was being a little weasel tonight, Carter and I both had a few placebo Oxycontin decoys in our front pockets, to prove we weren't narcs.
I hated clubs with half naked girls walking around drunk out of their heads, trying to find guys to buy them their next rounds, and the pumped-up testosterone of the juiced-up players ready for a fight.
We were in without a hitch. I thought it was thanks to Brooke since she was practically wearing an outfit right out of a Fredricks of Whoreywood catalog. She looked hot, though. I'd give her that. But that was all I was giving her.
"Beer?" Carter asked.
"Yeah, whatever. Let's get this shit done. I have a ton of paperwork to get to," I said, leaning myself against the bar and scanning the dance floor.
Carter ordered two bottles and slid one to me. Brooke was on the dance floor dead center, trying to dance provocatively and giving the head of a beer bottle a blowjob for my entertainment.
It wasn't very entertaining.
I brought my bottle to my lips to take a sip, when I spot a mass of copper-colored hair in the mix of sweaty bodies. As always, my gut wrenched. To me, every girl could be her. Iwantedevery girl to be her. She wouldn't be in New York though—in a club like this—surrounded by drugs and crime. She was probably lying safely next to the lucky guy who married her, somewhere in sunny California, with her two kids tucked into their beds.
I watched that mass of copper-colored hair though, captivated. Her body was moving enticingly to the rhythm of the song. The way her hips rocked and swayed was so hypnotizing. I took another sip of beer and warmth mushroomed like a strange poison across my stomach. This girl in front of me stood out like a rescue ship in a dark sea of waste. She wasn't dressed like the rest of the girls; she wore a simple, low hung pair of jeans and a plain T-shirt that revealed her toned back when her hands swayed in the air above her head. Her profile, the curve of her breasts, the round swell of her hips as they moved, and the contour of her ass just mesmerized me. Every move was like magic, causing my body to lean forward, craving something.
"Doc's at ten o'clock. Flanked by two. Dude, what are you staring at?" Carter hissed in my ear.
"Hmmm? What happened?" I snapped my face in his direction.
"Bro. Let's just do this buy and go. I gotta take a piss." Carter's eyes slid across the dance floor. "He's waiting on us, let's go."
"Yeah, sure," I said, my eyes drifting back to the girl dancing. She twirled around laughing, and suddenly my pulse was racing, the sound of it like crashing waves against my ears. No damned way.
It couldn't be her.
No way.
My steps faltered as Carter went forward clapping and shaking hands with the perp. I stood frozen, my eyes watching that familiar neck, the shape of her lips, the move of those hips.
When she turned completely around, it was like I'd been shot in the chest. Full force, point blank, dead. I couldn't fucking breathe.
The perp stepped in front of me, blocking my view. "Hey, JD, you okay, son?"
"Hey, Bren," I croaked. "What's up? Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. This place is just packed with some real beauties."
He nodded his head to me and offered me a pair of drunk-ass duck lips. Asshole.
We made the exchange, hand-to-hand. He pulled me in for a hug and dropped the pill bottle in my palm, which I stuffed into the pocket that held the placebo pills. Carter shook his hand next, went in for a hug, and paid him. I blinked my eyes a few times. I couldn't concentrate. If he pulled out a gun right now, I'd be dead. Forget that. I looked behind Bren's shoulder. A person who looked a lot like Charlie was still dancing. Was it her? My heart stopped instantly, and I was seriously freaking out that I might be having a heart attack in the middle of an undercover buy.
Panic set in.
Charlie was here? Am I seeing things?
"Try the merchandise, bro. You'll feel better," Bren yelled over the music.
Hold it together Delaney. Put the right pill in your mouth. You don't want to have a forced ingestion and get taken to the hospital for observation after this buy. My hands were steady, which surprised the Hell out of me.
