My father grabs my upper arm, squeezing so hard he’s going to leave a bruise, and starts dragging me up the front walkway without answering.
More proof that I’ve made him angry.
Good.
He might think I’m going to play nice, but he’s got another thing coming.I’m cooperating for now, because I don’t know where Lucien is, and Dom has information I need.But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy on him.
And he’s an idiot if he thought I would.
* * *
The moment we walk through the front doors of the club, I become even more certain about someone else running the ring.Because this place looked wrong from the outside, with its bright, shiny golden fixtures, but it looks even stranger in here.
The layout is standard for a night club: bar along one wall, big and spacious, and sitting area along enough, with booths and tables where people can rest in between dances–or when they’re doing deals.A stage sits along the front wall, complete with a walkway and poles for dancing, and in the middle of it all is the dance floor itself.I’ve seen all of that before.Been in enough nightclubs to know their layout by heart.Hell, even in New York, where real estate is at a premium and the clubs are half the size of this one, the basic construction stays the same.
No, the thing that’s different is the decor.
In New York, most clubs are shiny and modern–unless they’ve bot a specific vibe they’re going for.Retro.Speak Easy.Western.European.In New Orleans, though, every place tends to have the same flavor.The culture down here has soaked into everything so deeply that even when a club ownerwantstheir club to look different, it ends up looking like the rest of the city.Shabby chic.Gothic, dark, nearly vampiric glamour.Deep reds, greens, and purples highlighted by aged bronze and cloudy nickel.Ancient stone that sports angels, demons, and everything in between.Magnolias and ivy, beads and lace.
New Orleans speaks its own language, and imposes its own imprint on everything within city limits.And I would know it anywhere.I could got to sleep in Los Angeles and wake up in a club in New Orleans, take one look around, and know immediately where I was.
I wouldn’t even question the fact that I’d just been transported across the nation.Because that would feel like New Orleans, too.
But this club?All this gold and marble, the strange lavender touches and those disgusting streaks of too-bright purple?
This isn’t New Orleans.
The furniture in here is too new, the paint too fresh.The marble too shiny, everything too well-lit.
And don’t even get me started on the fucking golden fixtures.
This...
No one who actually lives in this city would ever design anything like this.Hell, I don’t even know manyAmericanswho would design something like this.The place reeks of new money and bad taste, the kind that comes with the scene of cheap European cologne and men who wear too much of it.I saw a lot of different cultures when I was in New York, and each of them brought a different feel with them.Italians like old leather and deep red upholstery.The Irish like anything loud and chaotic, and always smell of whiskey and bad decisions.The Armenians, the Mexican cartels, the Chinese...Each has a different feel, a different look.
As does the Russian mob.The Bratva.
The Russians really, really like their gold fixtures.
This takes that to a whole new level, though, which makes me think that if these are Russians–and they must be–they’re not the Bratva.Because they have even less class.They have money, and no taste.
And if I’m right, and these are Russians, it’s going to make everything a whole lot more complicated.
I’m jerked to the side moments after I have that thought, and stumble on the ridiculous heels I pulled out of my closet.I look down, trying to get my feet back under me, and then scowl at whoever just grabbed me.Andre is striding along in front of me, one hand reached back and attached to my arm, and I lengthen my strides, then jerk my arm out of his grip.
“Touch me again and you’re going to lose your fingers,” I snarl.
He tosses one dark look back over his shoulder.“Keep your mouth shut, bitch, or you’re going to lose that tongue.”
I stick the tongue in question out at him, just to piss him off, and then give him a cold, hard grin.“Try it, Andre, and you’ll be missing far more important pieces of your anatomy.You seem to be forgetting who I am.”
His eyes flick from my gaze down to my grin and back up, and suddenly turn opaque, like he’s trying to hide something.Or like he’s just remembered that I’m my father’s daughter, and that he hasn’t seen me in some time.
The butterfly knife I’m now twirling in my hand might also have something to do with it.
“Where are we going?”I ask, changing the subject.
He looks like he wants to kill me, but is smart enough not to say so, and instead looks out over the dance floor.I turn my eyes that way, too, and see that people are starting to filter in now.At least ten men have arrived, all of them in tight black jeans and t-shirts, along with boots, and the dance floor, so open when we arrived, is growing crowded.
