Page 24 of Crown of Ash

"I've stood at worse doors than this one," Andre said. "I'm not here on law business."

"That's what they all say."

"Flex." Tank's voice again, quieter this time, a correction more than a rebuke. He was still looking at Andre, arms crossed over a chest that strained the seams of his shirt. A tattoo started at his collarbone and disappeared under the fabric; Andre couldn't read it from here. "He vouching for you?" A jerk of the chin toward Dray.

"So he says."

"That gets you through this door. It doesn't get you a seat at the table." Tank uncrossed his arms, finally, and the movement felt less like permission than like a temporary hold on his impending death. His forearm had burn scars on it, old ones, shiny and puckered in the yellow light. "You're not carrying."

That wasn't a question either. Andre had left his service weapon locked in Dray's glovebox before they'd even reached the lot, Dray's one condition, stated flat in the car, no negotiation offered. The glovebox key was still in Andre's jacket pocket. He could feel its small cold weight against his ribs.

"No."

Tank studied him another beat, mouth flat, eyes moving from Andre's face to his empty hands and back, then stepped aside.

Inside, the noise hit first, then the smell of it: leather gone soft with wear, spilled whiskey soaked into old wood, the ghost of cigarette smoke that had never quite left the rafters. A bar along one wall, backlit bottles three deep, a room full of low light and the particular register of men familiar enough with each other to trust the room. Pool balls cracking off to the right, the sharp report of it cutting clean through the bass line under everything. A drum kit on a stage at the back, dark now, waiting for a set that wasn't tonight's.

The Edison bulbs that lit the space were set low, casting flickering shadows over a man’s brawny forearm where it flexed around a woman’s throat where he had her in his lap on one of the couches. His calloused fingers were knotted in her bleached-blonde hair, yanking her head back hard enough to make her gasp, not in pain, but in hunger. Her hips rolled in slow, obscene circles over his lap, riding his cock with the lazy confidence of a woman who knew exactly what she was doing. The leather couch creaked under their combined weight, the sound lost under her breathy, fuck-drunk moans. His free hand was shoved down the front of her corset, groping her tits with rough, possessive squeezes, her nipple hardened painfully between his fingers as she rode him faster, whimpering.

Her skirt was rucked up around her waist. His belt buckle clinked every time she ground down, taking him deeper, his cock had to be huge, the way she winced and gasped with every inch.

"F-Fuck-!" she slurred, back arching as he pistoned up into her, his grip on her hair tightening until she was panting, drooling, her smudged lipstick staining his knuckles.

At the bar, things were no less depraved. One of the men, fuck, he was built, had his hand wrapped around the back of his partner’s neck, shoving him down onto the table with enough force to make the glasses tremble. The other man groaned, legs splayed, his jeans already shoved past his thick thighs as the first crouched behind him, spitting into his palm before slicking it over his cock. "Gonna split you open," he growled, before shoving in with one brutal stroke.

The slap of skin-on-skin was downright nasty, each thrust making the booth shudder. The man underneath yelped, fingers clawing at the sticky wood as he got pounded, his ass reddening under the assault. His partner didn’t let up, just gripped his hips and hammered into him like he wanted to ruin him for anyone else.

God, you could smell the sweat, the sex, the fucking heat of it all.

Andre barely glanced their way, but the air was thick with it, the musk of sweat-slick skin, the wet squelch of cock sinking deep, the low, filthy groans of people lost in pure fucking need. Nobody gave a shit who was watching. Nobody was supposed to.

"Eyes forward," Dray said, low. "Don't linger on anyone. Don't nod at anyone you don't know. You're not here to make friends."

"I wasn't planning to. I probably should have expected the live porn, but I dind't."

Dray just chuckled low inj his throat. "We brough Jaz here once time and ran a train on him. Pretty thing couldn't walk for two days but loved every minute of it."

Andre blinked in surprise. "You… shared him with the Club?"

The laugh Dray let out was ringing. "Fuck no. Cass would have put a bullet into anyone's head who touched our sweet dancer. Nah, just me, Cass, and Ro. Fen and Mika haven't made their move yet, but they will. We're good as long as it stays in the house. Boy's insatiable and we love it."

Andre filed that little bit of information away for later. He'd suspected, but this was more conformation than he'd been expecting when he wasn't in Dray's circle. Or… maybe tonight meant he was.

They didn't get far into the main room before a third man peeled off from near the pool tables and fell into step with them. The room's noise dropped half a register around him without anyone announcing it, which told Andre this one outranked Tank and Flex combined. Broad through the shoulders, a patch on his cut that read SGT AT ARMS in block letters, and a quiet in his face that didn't read as calm so much as vacated. Nothing moved behind his pale eyes that a threat or a bribe could move. This was a man who was a true believer and had nothing but the brotherhood around him. It was as clear in his cold expression as the ink on his arms.

"Hollow," Dray said, a nod instead of a handshake. "He's expected," Dray added, before the man could ask.

"He's a cop." His voice was oddly quiet, especially given the room, but it fit his sharp features and predatory assessment.

"He's expected," Dray said again, exact same words, exact same weight, and Hollow held Dray's eyes for a second longer than Andre was comfortable with before he turned and started toward the iron staircase without another word. Following him, apparently, was the answer.

They went up.

The stairs led up to a landing with one door, a heavy match to the one at the entrence, no window, and Hollow didn't knock so much as announce himself with two knuckles against the wood before pushing it open and stepping aside, close enough that Andre understood without being told he wasn't going anywhere without this man's say-so, not tonight.

The room beyond it bore little resemblance to the floor below. Dark brick still, exposed pipe still overhead, but quieter, heavier: a desk with a brass PRESIDENT plate that should have read as a joke and didn't, a fire going in a massive black stone hearth with a boroque mantle, floor-to-ceiling windows behind the desk holding the whole lit skyline and the black water of the river beneath it. A flag stand in the corner, the American flag beside a black-and-white POW flag, and one for the Lords of Darkness in the same colors. A second chair sat near the desk, more ornate than function required, empty and unused tonight. Andre couldn't quite make out who it was for, since this was Sovriegn's office, but mentally moved on. The same skull-and-pistons emblem was worked into the round rug underfoot, and Andre found himself avoiding it without deciding to, stepping around the skull's face the way you'd step around a grave.

The man behind the desk didn't stand.