My friends littered pills and lined up powder on the sparkly black table as a server approached with a drink.
“We didn’t order anything,” I said, waving him away. There was always some guy who thought buyingtheGemma Crowne a twelve-dollar drink meant I’d want to hop in his pants.
When I reached to grab a xanny, the tray was placed in my path.
The tray was exactly like the rest, except that glittering rubies cut like pomegranates were sprinkled along the circumference. My phone vibrated again, two words bright on the screen.
You’re late.
“Oh my God!” Kennedy exclaimed. “He’s looking down.”
“Who?” Blaire asked.
“The Reaper.”
My gaze shifted again to the four shadows looming over the club. One had put his elbows on the railing, leaning just a little bit forward. He took a puff of something, probably weed—he hated cigarettes—eyes narrowing on me.
A bang louder than a gunshot sounded and more glitter fell from the ceiling.
I shot out of the leather couch. “I…gotta pee.”
Glitter fell like sparkling rain while a slow, upbeat rhythm thrummed. I wove through faceless grinding bodies.
I didn’t really have a plan.
Just had to move.
Postpone the inevitable, I guess.
I settled into a shadowy corner, my back to the club, but knew I was being watched. Because even the people who frequented the upper deck didn’t know this club’s true nature. Like the cameras placed strategically, recording their every move, to later be used as blackmail if necessary.
I eyed one in the black chandelier?—
“The Reaper’s girl down here without the Reaper?”
You don’t grow up in Crowne Point without hearing the smoky rumors of what happened when the Horsemen claimed their girl.
But that wasn’t me, and it never would be.
Something was different about this guy. Different from all the other guys holding whatever brand of whiskey was in vogue now, chatting up every girl who would listen, playing the numbers game.
He was older, maybe late forties, early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair. He was smoking weed openly, and he didn’t even glance up from his phone. Like calling me out as belonging to the Underworld’s most notorious was just like sayinghey.
I was also pretty sure the two men in charcoal-gray suits just off to the side were not here to party, but packing heat.
I stepped to him. “You afraid?”
He took a puff of his joint, still not looking up from his phone.
The man kept ignoring me, so I plucked the joint from his hand. He raised a hand as one of his guards took a step toward me. The guard stilled.
“I’m not here for you.”
Who are you here for?
“Oh, but you could be.” I took a deep draw of smoke into my lungs, relishing the hazy peace that soon followed.
There’s something wrong with me.
