Club 22 (Hades Book 3)

by Tate James

  Over and over throughout his funeral service I saw myself pulling the trigger of Zed's gun. I saw the bullets hit their target. I saw the blood spray, the shattered wine bottles spilling cabernet sauvignon all over the stone floor as Cass's broad frame hit the racks behind where he'd sat.

  My fingernails cut bloody marks in my palms as I pretended to listen to the sermon from the Reaper-bonded priest who droned on about God's will, when all I could see in my mind was the bloody mess my bullets had torn through Cass's body. I swallowed deeply as I remembered the pain of accusation in Zed’s and Lucas's eyes when Chase had finally left the cellar. That had hurt almost as much as shooting Cass in the first place.

  I needed to blink a couple of times when people started standing around me, and refocused on the present. Six tattoo-covered Reapers approached the front of the chapel and lifted Cass's casket between them, their faces stricken with grief as they hoisted it to their shoulders.

  Most of the congregation filed out of the chapel after the pallbearers, women wailing and sobbing and more than a few tough gangster men sporting red-rimmed eyes. It'd been a good service, from what I'd paid attention to.

  "Hades, sir." The newly appointed leader of the Reapers approached awkwardly, dipping his head with a nod of respect. "Thank you for allowing this."

  I didn't trust my voice, so I just gave him a tight, cold smile, which only seemed to make him more uncomfortable. Poor guy had been thrown straight in the deep end, having been appointed Cass's second barely a few weeks ago. He could handle it, though. He was smart.

  "Uh, I will, of course, make an official meeting request with you this week, sir," he continued, running a hand over the back of his tattooed neck. "But I just wanted to assure you that the... that I'm taking care of things. The Reapers are loyal to you, sir."

  I knew what he was saying. He wanted me to know that he was ensuring Chase's access to the Shadow Grove drug distribution network was well and truly cut off. Whatever connections he'd made through Cass were dead, and Roach would do everything possible to ensure not a single crumb of PCP was being sold in Shadow Grove.

  "See that it stays that way, Roach," I told him in a voice like ice. "You've seen how I deal with betrayal, and I actually liked Cass." Understatement of the century.

  Roach nodded his understanding, though, and that's all that mattered. "I'm handling it," he assured me. "Thank you, again." He indicated to the almost empty chapel. "This meant a lot to the Reapers. Will you be joining us for the wake?"

  I shook my head, already desperate to get the fuck away from the morbid, depressing atmosphere that was doing nothing but make me feel like the God of Death I'd named myself for.

  "No," I replied. "I don't believe I would be a welcome guest. We can discuss business next week in my office; please call and schedule an appointment."

  "Understood, sir," Roach replied quickly, smart enough not to want to hang around chatting any longer. He gave polite nods to both Zed and Lucas, then made his way out of the chapel with the last of the mourners.

  I released a small breath, feeling the weight of responsibility resting heavier than ever across my shoulders. Some days, lots of days, I fucking hated who I was. I hated my position, my power, my carefully crafted reputation that was so firmly built on fear and violence. I hated me.

  Lucas took my hand in his, but I jerked away from his touch. My hands still felt sticky and wet with Cass's blood, no matter how many times I'd washed them since that night. I could still feel the heat of his bloody flesh under my bare hands as I’d desperately tried to stop the bleeding after Chase had gone... I could still feel the burning path of my own tears down my cheeks as I’d used my own shirt as a compress.

  "Let's go," Zed murmured softly. His touch to my lower back was featherlight, just enough to bring me back to the present and get me moving. He understood where my head was at without me needing to tell him.

  Silently, the three of us left the chapel and climbed into Zed's Audi. Roach gave us a small wave as we left the parking lot, but I could imagine he was glad to see us gone. The Reapers blamed me for their leader's death and rightly so. I'd been the one to fire the gun, even if he'd had it coming. They knew the consequences of crossing me, and Cass was far from the first gang leader I'd disposed of.

  My phone rang in my handbag, the sound startling me. Swallowing hard, I fished it out. I needed to pull my shit together, or I was likely to end up getting caught off guard by Chase.

  I gave a small frown at the caller ID and accepted the call.

  "Rodney, what's going on?" My bar manager had been in the bathroom when Chase gatecrashed our meeting below Club 22. Thanks to Rodney's sudden urge to shit, he'd avoided Chase’s bullet to the head. Fang hadn't been so lucky.

  "Sir, I apologize for the interruption. I know today isn't..." He trailed off with an awkward sound, like he was clearing his throat. "Anyway. Figured you'd wanna know there's a snake in the hen house."

  My spine stiffened, and my fingers tightened on my phone. "Right now?"

  "Yes, sir," Rodney replied. "Doesn't seem in any hurry to go anywhere either."

  I seethed with anger. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes." Ending the call, I took a hot second to scream internally, then turned to Zed. "We need to stop by Club 22. Chase is there."

  Zed jerked in surprise, his jaw tightening, but he increased his speed and turned us in the direction of Club 22 without arguing.

  "What the fuck is he doing there?" Lucas muttered from the back seat.

  I grimaced. "Hopefully not killing any more of our employees." It sounded flippant as hell, but it was the truth. I really hoped he wasn't killing any more of my employees, or I was about to find myself very short of staff. As it was, we'd lost three of our girls from Club 22 who’d quit after the incident with Jessie killing herself while high on PCP.

  "You armed, Gumdrop?" Zed glanced in the rearview mirror, raising his brows.

  "Of course I am," Lucas replied. "I'm not an idiot."

  That night at Club 22 I'd asked Lucas to start carrying a weapon on him at all times. Now that we knew he could handle a gun and shoot with decent accuracy, I didn't want him walking around unarmed. Not after the way Chase had declared he was gunning for my guys.

  One down, two to go.

  I shuddered, remembering the smug satisfaction on his face as he stood over Cass's blood-soaked body.

  Zed gave a small nod, then tightened his hands on the steering wheel like he was imagining wrapping them around Chase's neck. "We should just kill him and deal with the consequences later."

  I gave him a sharp look. "No."

  "I'm with Zed on this one," Lucas offered. "Chase can't have covered all his bases. You guys make people disappear all the fucking time; what's one more?"

  My teeth clenched as I tried to get a leash on my frustration. These arguments didn't help ease the brittle tension that had existed between the three of us since I'd shot Cass, but what the fuck was I supposed to do? I couldn't change the past, and I wasn't going to make a stupid, reckless move to try and make it up to them.

  "We've been over this, Lucas," I snapped, "too many times already. We're not making any direct moves against Chase yet. Not until I know it's safe for everyone."

  Because my ex was far from stupid and his moral compass was so far from north it was laughable. We had proof of that already. After the incident at Club 22, my aunt, Demi, had found a series of explosive devices planted around her home in Italy. If I'd shot Chase the second he’d shown his face in my meeting, Seph would be dead. Along with everyone else in that house.

  "I spoke with Steele this morning," Zed told me, clearly on the same train of thought. "They've moved Seph to a new safe house, and I've submitted a request to the Guild for assistance."

  My brows rose. He hadn't mentioned he was going to speak to the Guild. "What did they say?"

  "No reply yet." He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "You know what their waitlist is like."

  I stifled an irritated sigh at
the edge in his voice. He was still mad as hell at me, and it was bleeding into every word we exchanged. But he was still here. He was still on my side and hadn't turned his back on me yet. Neither had Lucas. They'd forgive me eventually. I hoped.

  In fairness, the mercenary guild did have an insane waitlist, but the fact that Zed had a prior relationship with them usually gave us some kind of priority.

  "Well, they need to come and collect all their guns, anyway," Lucas commented. "I don't want my mom going home until they're gone."

  Running a hand through my hair, I stared out the window. These problems just kept piling up, and it was becoming daunting to imagine how the hell we'd solve them all. Lucas's connection to the Guild, his mother's shady past, Chase waging war on my business and personal life, Zed... being Zed. And Cass. Fuck. Cass.

  My chest ached, and I rubbed the heel of my hand down my sternum. We were almost at Club 22, and I needed to get my Hades face on. My plan for dealing with Chase was paper thin, but it was better than no plan at all.

  "Maybe you two should wait in the car," I suggested as Zed pulled into the Club 22 parking lot. The glares I got in response said exactly what they thought of that idea, but I just shrugged.

  I climbed out of the car and smoothed my hands down the front of my dress. Poker face firmly in place, I strode into my club with Lucas and Zed at my back.

  Chase wasn't hard to find, considering the bar had only opened half an hour earlier and was all but empty. He sat dead center in front of the main stage, sipping on a tumbler of Scotch and eyeing up the terrified dancer who was unlucky enough to have the first set.

  His one-eyed gaze slid over to me, and he stood from his seat in a smooth, liquid movement. A wide smile split his face, and if I'd been any weaker, I would have vomited right there on the carpet. He made my skin crawl.

  "Darling!" he exclaimed, coming toward me with his arms outstretched. "What an unexpected surprise."

  Bullshit. Straight up bullshit.

  3

  My jaw tightened and my sweat turned to ice as Chase fucking Lockhart leaned in like an old friend and kissed my cheek. Shivers of revulsion crawled all over my flesh from where he’d touched me, but I didn't pull away.

  "Well, isn't this a welcome change," he murmured without retreating even an inch from my face. Instead, he reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear, then his fingers trailed down my neck in a longing touch. "If I'd known you'd be so easily broken, I'd have killed someone you loved so much sooner."

  I swallowed hard, choking back the angry, disgusted retort on my tongue. "What are you doing here, Chase?"

  He hummed an amused sound and shifted his gaze past me. "Zayden, old friend. We're so long overdue for a catch-up, don't you think? Why don't you come join me for a drink?" Chase stepped back and indicated to the bottle of Scotch on the small table beside where he'd been sitting and shot Zed a sly grin. "We can chat about all the things we have in common now."

  The leer he gave me as he said that and the way he ran his tongue over his lower lip left nothing to the imagination on what he thought they had in common.

  "How about I take you for a nice scenic drive out to Mortuary Forest and finish that last discussion we had?" Zed offered, his tone hard-edged. He stepped closer to me, his hand resting on the small of my back as his chest brushed my arm. It probably wasn't intended as a possessive gesture, but fuck if I didn't have to bite my cheek to keep from leaning back into him.

  Chase had us all kinds of messed up. Which was his intention, no doubt.

  "You look surprisingly healthy, pretty boy," Chase commented, ignoring Zed's thinly veiled threat—their last discussion had ended in Chase repeatedly stabbing Zed with his own blade. The same blade Chase had left buried in Lucas's chest.

  "Fuck you, psychopath," Lucas spat back at him.

  Chase grinned wider. "I take it you found the little care packages I left around dear Aunt Demi's winery, then? Good. At least you know not to test my patience."

  "Fuck your patience," I told him in a flat, cold voice. "Those precautions are keeping you alive, for now, but that won't last forever. I'll ask you one more time. What are you doing here?"

  Chase's one-eyed stare shifted back to me, and he cocked his head like I was amusing him. "I thought that would be obvious, Darling. I came to offer my deepest condolences on your loss. It's so hard when you lose a loved one, isn't it?" His smirk deepened. "Even harder when you kill them yourself. Then again, it's not the first time for you, is it, Darling? You barely even look like you're grieving."

  I didn't blink. I didn't flinch. I gave him nothing.

  "If you're wondering whether I attended your funeral, Chase, the answer is no. You were dead to me a long time before I put that bullet in your face." Reaching out, I hooked a finger under the elastic of his eye patch and snapped it back against his face.

  He flinched, his hand coming up to bat me away, but I was already moving, heading for the bar.

  "Get the fuck out of my club, Chase," I told him over my shoulder. "In case this wasn't clear enough, you're officially banned from all Copper Wolf properties. My legal counsel should be sending the paperwork over today."

  There was a long pause, but I didn't turn to look. That's what he wanted, to see any hesitation from me. Any cracks in my armor. Well, he was shit out of luck; I might as well be encased in adamantium for how hard he'd made me.

  No, fuck that. He hadn't hardened me like this; I'd done that all on my own. It was just coming in more useful now than I'd ever thought it would be.

  "Very well," he finally said in a slightly irritated voice. "But believe me, Darling, you'll still be seeing me around. Shadow Grove is such a nice city, don't you think?"

  On that weird remark, he strolled out of the club like he hadn't a care in the damn world. Maybe he didn't. Maybe this was all just... entertainment to him. Chase Lockhart hadn't been in his right mind even before I shot him in the face. Fuck knows what further damage had been done to his brain in the last five years.

  Rodney came over to me at the bar, poured three glasses of Red Head Whiskey for us, and exhaled heavily. "What can I do to help, boss?"

  I picked up one of the glasses and gave him a small salute with it. "This is perfect." One swallow and the liquor was gone. "Go chat with the girls; let them know he won't be back. Zed, get his image off the cameras and distribute it to the whole Copper Wolf security team so they know he's blacklisted. Lucas—"

  "Already on it," he cut me off, flashing me a smile with his phone at his ear. "Hey Gen, it's Lucas." With a reassuring nod to me, he wandered away to talk to my lawyer about getting those papers filed to ban Chase, or Wenton, from all our venues. Despite how strained our relationship had been since I shot Cass in cold blood, Lucas was quietly stepping up and showing me every damn day that he was more than just a pretty face.

  Zed disappeared to do what I’d asked, and Rodney refilled my drink before heading over to the backstage door. For a couple of minutes, I was relatively alone. Lucas was taking care of legal with Gen, Zed was sorting out the security teams, and Rodney was reassuring the dancers that my murderous ex would not be returning. Not that the girls knew he was really Chase Lockhart, but he oozed creepy. I didn't blame them for being anxious.

  I slid my butt onto a barstool and took another huge mouthful of whiskey. It wasn't even close to what I really wanted, though. No amount of liquor was going to erase my sins.

  "All sorted," Lucas said, sliding onto the stool beside me and grabbing one of the glasses. "Gen asked if you wanted to file a proper restraining order against him, but I figured that would be counterintuitive to what you're planning." He raised one brow at me in question, and guilt burned through me.

  "I don't know what I'm planning," I admitted in a quiet voice. "But thank you."

  Zed returned, his jaw tight with anger.

  "Done," he announced. "Shall we go?"

  I nodded, then downed his glass of whiskey, seeing as he was driving, before sliding off my sto
ol. "Let's go."

  The three of us strode back out of the club, and I wrinkled my nose when I saw it had started raining—almost like the weather could sense my crappy mood and wanted to set the scene.

  "Motherfucker," Zed snarled, ignoring the pouring rain as he strode over to his Audi. All the way along the side, from headlamp to taillight, someone had keyed his paint. "What the fuck? Is he twelve? Who keys someone's car?"

  Lucas grimaced. "I'm starting to get the idea that nothing is beneath Chase when it comes to getting under your skin."

  I sighed and slicked a hand over my rain-wet hair as I climbed into the passenger seat. "I have a feeling you're right. Chase isn't going to make this quick or easy, but I think that can work in our favor."

  "Care to share your ideas?" Zed demanded, slamming his own door shut and stabbing at the ignition button.

  His attitude, while understandable, was pissing me right the fuck off. So I just glared back at him. "Not right now, no."

  Lucas let out a small groan from the backseat. "Come on guys, give it a break. All this bickering is giving me a hell of a headache."

  Zed shot Lucas a scowl over his shoulder but said nothing more as he drove us out of the Club 22 parking lot. I knew full well that wasn't the end of it from him, though. We hadn't had a proper discussion in almost a week. There had been some bitter, hurtful words exchanged that night as I frantically tried to save Cass from the gunshot wounds I'd inflicted, but that was it. Now it was all just bitter swipes at each other.

  Lucas, despite his age, was handling it all a hell of a lot better than either Zed or me. While I admired that about him, I was also envious. I'd somehow totally lost my cold-hearted, level-headed nature in the past few months. Loving these men was making me soft. Weak. I hated it.

  I also didn't think I could live without it. If I didn't fix things with Zed and Lucas soon, I was likely to lose them. Fuck. I needed to sort my shit out.

  "Are you okay, Hayden?" Lucas asked after several minutes of silence in the car. I'd been staring out the window, looking out at the rain and dwelling over Chase's weird visit to Club 22, but his question dragged my attention back to him. It was a loaded question and not one I could even remotely start to unpack.