Though…
Harlan tilted his head, his gaze sweeping over the bar again. He picked out three men immediately, but the rest were obviously not part of Julius’s retinue.
Counting the guards he saw across the room, he was unsettled to realize there were only five men.
Harlan touched the corner of his jaw, activating the implant there. Speaking quietly, he said, “Atticus, do we have eyes on Julius’s men outside?”
Deep in his ear, he answered, “We’ve got the building surrounded. Only four men are on guard, as far as we can tell.”
“What the fuck is going on here?”
“What? What’s wrong?”
Harlan stepped lightly around a drunk fey, whose wings were buzzing loudly as he leaned against a dark-eyed vampire.
“Nothing,” he grunted. “There’s five men inside.”
“...Only five?”
“Five.”
“What the fuck?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, jaw clenched. “But I want you to move in as soon as I clear the doorway.”
“Got it, boss.”
Harlan did another quick sweep as he touched his jaw again, deactivating the mic. Unless there were more men hidden in the booths and in the back of the bar, then Julius had come woefully under-guarded.
Back when he was still living under his thumb, Julius used to travel with no less than twenty-five men. And that was when he wascomfortable.
So either he had an ambush planned, or something had gone seriously wrong for his old master in the four years since his defection. People in the New Zone flocked to those with power and money. The unsettling suggestion that Julius might no longer have the following that he once did spoke of a dire loss of both.
He thought Julius had been laying low to bide his time, but if he had almost no soldiers to fight for him, it would explain why he was so very desperate for Harlan’s skills.
What the fuck is going on here? Is this Felix’s doing?
If he was right, then he had the upper hand, but that didn’t mean he relished the unease he felt. It didn’t sit well with him that he didn’t know exactly what was going on. Neither his years of being an assassin, nor his dizzying whirl of instincts cared to step into a situation full of unknowns, let alone allow his anchor to sit in the middle of it all.
Harlan tasted iron on the back of his tongue as he pushed his way to the back of the bar, where a stainless steel door emblazoned with a much more obvious Grim’s Circle gleamed. It was the entrance to the VIP floor, and it was guarded by two hulking vampires in cheap suits.
Stopping a few feet away from them, he nodded at the door and then lifted his arms.
The guards shared a wary look before the one on the right slowly approached him. They knew exactly who he was and what he was capable of, apparently.
Heavy hands patted down his sides, his back, and his legs in quick, nervous bursts. That done, he pulled a small, portable scanner from his pocket and did a quick pass from head to foot. Of course, it revealed nothing. His implants were extremely advanced biotech, stolen from the EVP’s very own research division. The scanner wasn’t built to pick up anything organic, so it would simply pass over it like any lump of flesh or lock of hair.
As for weapons he might have hidden: Harlan didn’t have any. For all that he had risked Zia’s displeasure over bringing so many weapons for their visit with her family, he didn’t bother taking anything with him now.
His guns had gone to his already armed men.Bringing them wasn’t worth risking Zia’s safety.Especiallywhen he had every intention of ripping off Julius’s head with his bare hands.
“You’re clear.” The guard stepped back, nearly plastering himself against the wall. Beads of sweat broke out across his lined forehead. His voice cracked when he said, “You can go up, sir.”
Harlan dropped his arms. Taking a calculated risk, he stepped toward the door but stood there for a moment longer than necessary. He could feel the tension of the two men ratchet up with every second that ticked by.
Who the fuck are you recruiting, Julius?
These boys looked like they were about to wet their pants and he hadn’t even said a word. He didn’t recognize them, either, which meant that they were new and probably, knowing his former master, not being paid enough to truly risk their lives for him.
