That was the absolute wrong thing to say. I knew it was. If I had said something like that to Andrea, I’d be lying on the floor with a bullet visiting my brain. But it seemed the only way I got any kind of useful information from this woman was when she was riled up. It was an easy weakness to exploit, which led me to believe there was no way she could be in a position of power to back up anything she threatened. Someone this volatile had no capability of making logical, reasonable decisions.
“Who am I?” The question was very obviously rhetorical.
Those three words made my skin crawl. With predatory grace, she stalked across the room, freezing me to the spot with the oppressive dominance oozing from her. The sharp, bitter smell of shifter aggression slammed into my senses, startling me for the single breath it took for her to close the distance between us and grab my throat with one hand. I could feel claws grow from her fingertips and dig into the sides of my neck, dangerously close to the carotid artery pounding away in her grasp.
“I’m someone who could completely dismantle your entire life, Grant Black. Or should I say ‘Bloodhound’?” Her hand tightened to the point I could barely breathe. Still, I held myself perfectly still, hands clenched tightly at my sides in a desperate attempt to remain still. It wasn’t just self-preservation that froze me. That intoxicating scent from before, the one that almost drove me to insanity in my apartment, nearly overwhelmed my sensitive nose. I swallowed once, hard, and stared straight into the X-shaped eyes of her mask. This close, I realized there were three small cameras embedded across the forehead that likely fed intoa screen on the inside. The mask was more than just a cover; it offered a greater range of vision than unaided sight, along with a slew of possible advancements.
She continued. “I don’t have to be a mafioso or a man to deserve respect. I’ve built my empire brick by feckin’ brick, and I’ll be damned if a yes-man likeyougets in my way! The only reason you’re here is because the almighty Andrea Caruso is too much of a little bitch to come take his raps for screwin’ over the Red Riot, and he doesn’t want to go to the other bosses at the Assembly with his tail between his legs. If you get killed, he cuts his losses and has a reason to declare war. If I don’t agree to his bullshit peace offer, Andrea gets to whine to the others and bring them to our door!
“So, forgive me if I don’t particularlylikeyou hunting me down to harass me over this half-assed attempt at smoothing over the fact he tried to traffic women that the Riot has sworn to protect. We have other shit to deal with at the moment, like other women who are missing and some assholes who think it’s a good idea to shoot up our club!”
She shoved me back, hard, and my lungs took an involuntary gasp of air, her scent pouring a gallon of fuel onto the fire blazing in my chest and burning my restraint to ashes. Hesitantly, so I wouldn’t prompt her to rip out my throat, I unclenched one hand and reached up to wrap it around her thin wrist. But before I could even get halfway, Lorelai shoved me aside and reached for the door I’d been blocking.
“Go home, puppy. You’re out of your league here.” Maybe it was the voice modulator, but she sounded… weary. Like that outburst took a lot out of her, if it could even be called that. I thought she showed an impressive amount of restraint despite my nagging.
I couldn’t let her leave the room like this. Maybe I had a death wish, or the instinct that kept me alive this long had finallycrapped out, but there was a sickening twist low in my stomach at letting her leave with this bad opinion of me. Sure, some of it was true. Why I cared so much about what this bold woman thought would probably nag me for the rest of the night.
Without thinking, I moved back between her and the door, bracing my back against it to keep her from pulling it open. “Let’s not leave the conversation like this. I didn’t… I don’t want to be your enemy.”
What the fuck was I even saying?
Her head tilted back, and with the move I caught another enticing whiff of her unique spice-and-vanilla scent. It had my mouth watering, and I could feel my fangs elongate just a little.Thatwasn’t supposed to happen.
What was going on with me?
I kept perfectly still, waiting for her verdict while trying to get my errant body under control. When she finally spoke, I almost jumped from surprise. “Keep your phone on and your schedule open. You’ll get instructions within the next two days about when and where to meet. For sure this time. Bring your feckin’ A-game.”
With that last terse command, the mysterious woman shoved past me and banged four times with the side of her fist on the door, waiting a moment until the door cracked open for her to leave. It wasn’t until this very moment that I realized I would not have made it out of that room alive before she did with guards at the door. How did I just walk myself in here with no sense of self-preservation?
“Fucking hell.” All the strength left me, and I leaned against the back of the closest chair and bent low enough to press my forehead to my crossed arms. A muffled clatter came through the door, followed by a low voice barking orders and heavy footfalls running past the office.
I wasn’t thinking. My hand was already on the door and ripping it open to run out into the hall. More yelling came from the front lounge area, and a high-pitched wail pierced through the noise. I raced over the red carpet—almost tripping on it in my rush—and busted into the hall to witness a bloody scene unfolding.
One of the servers—dressed in a simple short black dress and towering red patent platform heels—was sprawled across the floor with makeup streaking down her pretty face. She was holding her left wrist with the opposite hand, cradling it close to her chest like she was trying to keep it from moving too much. Two lumbering guards came from the entrance with pistols, aiming at another burly man lying flat on his back.
And Lorelai was perched on his chest, legs pinning his arms together, with that same knife she pulled on me in my condo—the one with the ridiculous pink beaded charms dangling from its handle—pressed to his jugular.
“What part of ‘don’t touch the girls’ did you not understand when you walked through my door?” Her modulated voice sounded colder than when we spoke. The man beneath her shifted his jaw left to right like he was grinding up the answer before spitting it out.
“It was an accident,” he finally spat out.
Without taking her eye off him, she spoke over her shoulder to the crying woman. “Is that true? Did he grab you by accident?”
The question sounded ridiculous. It was plain to see the server was shaken and hurt. Why Lorelai was going through the motions was beyond me. No one’s going to believe that girl over a paying customer in a place like this. I’d seen it a hundred times before in Andrea’s clubs. “N-no, he grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back,” she explained. Sniffles interspersed in her words made it a little difficult to understand her shaking voice. “I l-left his table to help someone else, and h-he didn’t want meto leave. I told him ‘no’.” Drinks were left abandoned on the tables, chairs pushed out haphazardly as if whoever sat in them had been rushed out. The whole place had been cleared out by the time I left the office.
“The whore islying!” He thrashed wildly, trying to free himself with little luck. “Get the fuck off me, you cunt! My boss is gonna–” The threat was cut off on a sharp inhale when her blade cut deep enough to send rivulets of blood running down the straining tendons of her prey’s neck.
Lorelai seemed excited. She bent lower over the man, close enough that his angry expression had a light wash of pink from the mask’s backlighting. “Oh, do tell! Who’s your boss, so I can send him some pieces of you!” With the other hand, she grabbed his face roughly and yanked it to the side. From where I stood at the mouth of the hall, I could just barely make out a set of three playing cards fanned along the side of his neck. “You’re with the Twisted Sixes, right? J.J.’s gonna be pissed to hear one of his guys fucked with a Red Riot worker. I doubt he'd burn bridges over a feckin' lowlife like you."
The man stilled, eyes growing impossibly wide as he stared up in horror. From that reaction alone, I could assume J.J. was a scary son of a bitch, for a hardened guy like him to show fear at his name. “P-please,” the man sputtered. “I’ll leave! I won’t come back! Please just let me go!”
Her head tilted like she was considering his pleas. “I thought that ‘whore’ was lying. How about we check the cameras, and whatever we find I’ll send along with a little gift of goodwill.”
Her knife flashed. Something squelched. Then an animalistic howl filled the small area as the man flopped around on the polished concrete floor with both hands pressed to his left eye. Or rather, where his left eyesocketwas. Because his eye, or whatever was left of it as a deflated sack, was hanging off the tip of Lorelai’s knife. She rose off the man before he could knock herover with his thrashing and gestured to the two guards to lift him up.
Her hand snapped to the back of his head, and she twisted her fingers into the short black strands. He was sobbing and whimpering as bright red coated his cheek. “Let’s get one thing straight,” Lorelai’s monotone voice sounded even more menacing with how low it was. “Whores are neverjustwhores. They’re humans. And no one deserves your nasty-ass hands on them without their explicit permission.”
She flicked the glob that was once his eyeball straight at his sniveling, gory face. Nodding to the men who held him up, he was hustled toward where I stood at the entry to the hallway. I moved aside to let them pass through toward where I assumed the back entrance to an alley was. Neither the guards nor the man paid me any attention.
