by J. R. Ward
As he walked over, they both looked up and stopped all movement, like someone had just freeze-framed their DVDs.
“Hey,” Qhuinn said.
John sat down next to his buddy and signed, Hey.
“How you doing?” Qhuinn asked as the waitress came over with perfect timing. “Another three Coronas—”
John cut the guy off. I want something different. Tell her…I want a lowboy of Jack Daniel’s on ice.
Qhuinn’s eyebrows popped, but he put in the order and watched as the woman trotted over to the bar. “High-test, huh.”
John shrugged and eyed a blonde two booths down. The second she caught him staring she went into full preen mode, sweeping her thick, shiny hair over onto her back and shoving her breasts out until they strained against her barely there LBD.
Bet she didn’t smell like ribs.
“Um…John, what the fuck is doing with you?”
What do you mean, he signed to Qhuinn without taking his eyes off the woman.
“You’re looking at that chick like you want to roll her up in a taco and put your hot sauce all over her.”
Blay coughed a little. “You really don’t have a way with words, you know that?”
“Just calling it like I see it.”
The waitress came over and tabled the Jack and the beers, and John went for his booze hard-core, tossing the shit back and opening his throat so that it was nothing but a chute down into his belly.
“Is this going to be one of those nights?” Qhuinn murmured. “Where you end up in the bathroom?”
It sure as fuck is, John signed. But not because I’m throwing up.
“Then why would you…Oh.” Qhuinn looked like someone had just goosed him in the ass with a two-by-four.
Yeah, oh, John thought as he scanned the VIP area in the event a better candidate presented herself.
Next door, there was a trio of businessmen, each of whom had a woman with him, all of whom looked like they were ready for their Vanity Fair close-up. Across the way, you had your basic six-pack of Eurotrash who kept blowing their noses a lot and going back to the bathrooms in pairs. Up at the bar were a pair of high-flyers with their jacked-up second wives, and another set of cokers who were eyeing the working girls.
He was still on scan mode when Rehvenge himself stalked into the VIP room. As everyone saw him, a ripple of thrill went through the place, because even if folks didn’t know he owned the club, there were not a lot of six-foot-six guys who sported a red cane and a black sable coat and a brush-cut mohawk around.
Plus, even in the dim light, you could tell he had purple eyes.
As usual, he was flanked by two males who were the size of him and looked like they ate bullets for breakfast. Xhex was not with them, but that was fine. That was good.
“I so want to be that guy when I grow up,” Qhuinn drawled.
“Just don’t cut your hair,” Blay said. “It’s too beau—I mean, mohawks require a lot of upkeep.”
As Blay fired back his beer, Qhuinn’s mismatched eyes briefly touched on his best friend’s face before hurrying away.
After signaling the waitress for another Jack, John cranked himself around and stared through the waterfall wall at the gen-pop section of the club. Out there on the dance floor, there were a ton of women looking for exactly what he wanted to give them. All he had to do was go out there and pick among the willing volunteers.
Great plan, except, for no good reason, he thought of The Maury Show. Did he really want to run the risk of impregnating some random human woman? You were supposed to know when they were ovulating, but what the fuck did he know from female anything?
Frowning, he turned back around, fisted his fresh Jack, and focused on the working girls.
Professionals. Who knew the kind of get-off game he was looking to get into. Much better.
He focused on a dark-haired female who had a face like the Virgin Mary. Marie-Terese, he thought he’d heard her name was. She was the boss of the working girls, but she was also available for hire: At the moment, she was hip-out and come-hithering a guy in a three-piece who seemed very interested in her goods.
Come with me, John signed to Qhuinn.
“Where—Okay, gotcha.” Qhuinn polished off his beer and slid out. “Guess we’ll be back, Blay.”
“Yeah. Have…a good time.”
John led the way over to the brunette, and her blue eyes seemed surprised as the two of them came up to her. With some kind of sultry apology, she stepped away from her prospect.
“You need something?” she said, with no come-on whatsoever. She was friendly, though, because she knew that John and the boys were special guests of the Reverend’s. Although naturally not why.
Ask her how much, he signed to Qhuinn. For both of us.
Qhuinn cleared his throat. “He wants to know how much.”
She frowned. “Depends on who you want. The girls have—” John pointed to the woman. “Me?”
John nodded.
As the brunette’s blue eyes narrowed and her red lips pursed, John imagined her mouth on him and his cock liked the picture, popping up an instant, cheering erection. Yeah, she had a very nice mou—
“No,” she said. “You can’t have me.”
Qhuinn spoke up before John’s hands could go flying. “Why? Our money’s as good as anyone else’s.”
“I get to pick who I do business with. Some of the other girls, they might feel differently. You can ask them.”
John was willing to bet the shutdown had something to do with Xhex. God knew there had been a lot of eye contact between him and the club’s head of security and Marie-Terese didn’t want to get in the middle of that, no doubt.
At least, he told himself it was that, as opposed to the fact that even a prostitute couldn’t stand the idea of being with him.
Okay, cool, John signed. Who would you suggest?
After Qhuinn spoke, she said, “I would suggest you go back to your Jack and leave the girls alone.”
Not going to happen, and I want a professional.
Qhuinn translated, and Marie-Terese’s frown got even deeper. “I’ll be honest with you. This feels like a fuck-you. Like you’re sending a message. You want to get laid, go find some chippie on the dance floor or in one of these booths. Don’t do it with someone who works with her, okay?”
Right. Totally was about Xhex.
The old John would have done what she suggested. Fuck that; the old John wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. But things had changed.
Thanks, but I think we’ll ask one of your colleagues. Take care.
John turned away as Qhuinn spoke, but Marie-Terese grabbed his arm. “Fine. You want to be an asshole, go talk to Gina over there in the red.”
John bowed a little, then took the suggestion, going up to a black-haired woman who was dressed in red vinyl so bright, the shit nearly qualified as a strobe light.
Unlike Marie-Terese, she was on board with the plan before Qhuinn even got to the ask. “Five hundred,” she said with a wide smile. “Each. I’m assuming this is together?”
John nodded, a little astonished that it was so easy. Then again, that was what they were paying for. Easy.
“Shall we go into the back?” Gina positioned herself between him and Qhuinn, took each of them by an arm, and led them past Blay, who was fixated on his beer.
As they went down the hallway that led to the private bathrooms, John felt like he had a fever: Hot and disassociated from what was around him, he was bobbing along, tethered only to the thin arm of the prostitute he was about to pay to fuck.
If she were to let go, he was quite sure he would simply float away.
FORTY-FIVE
As Xhex came up the steps and into the VIP section, at first she wasn’t sure what the hell she was seeing. It looked like John and Qhuinn were going into the back with Gina. Unless, of course, there happened to be another two guys just like them, one of whom had a tat in the Old Language on the back of his
neck and another who had shoulders as big as Rehv’s.
But that absolutely was Gina in her red-don’t-mean-stop dress.
Trez’s voice came through Xhex’s earpiece. “Rehv is here and we’re waiting for you.”
Yeah, well, they were going to wait a little longer.
Xhex turned around and headed back for the velvet rope—at least until her path got blocked by a guy wearing wannabe Prada.
“Hey, baby, where you going so fast.”
Dumb move on his part. The coked-up piece of Euro-irrelevance picked the wrong female to step in front of.
“Get out of my way before I move you.”
“What’s the matter?” He reached out for her hip. “Can’t handle a real man—Ow.”
Xhex turned the guy’s grope into a knuckle-crusher, twisting his hand in her fist until his arm flamingoed on him. “Right,” she said. “About one hour and twenty minutes ago you bought seven hundred dollars’ worth of coke. In spite of the amount you’ve been doing in the bathrooms, I’m wagering you have enough left on you to get popped for possession. So get the fuck out of my way, and if you try to touch me again, I will break all these fingers, then go to work on your other hand.”
She let him loose with a shove, sending him skipping into his buddies.
Xhex kept going, leaving the VIP area and striding past the dance floor. Under the stairs to the mezzanine floor, she went up to a door marked SECURITY STAFF ONLY and entered a code. The hallway on the other side led her by her staff’s locker room and to her destination, the security office. After she entered another code, she walked into the twenty-by-twenty room where all the monitoring equipment dumped data into computers.
Everything on the property, except for Rehv’s office and Rally’s scale den, which were on a separate system, was digitally recorded here, and gray-blue screens showed pictures from all around the club.
“Hey, Chuck,” she said to the guy behind the desk. “You mind if I have a minute alone?”
“No problem. Have to have a bathroom break anyway.”
She traded places, sinking down into the Kirk chair, as the boys called it. “I don’t need long.”
“Neither do I, boss. You want something to drink?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
As Chuck nodded and hulked out, she focused on the monitors that showed the bathrooms off the VIP section—
Oh…God.
The trio from hell were crowded in together, with Gina in the middle, John kissing his way down to her breasts, and Qhuinn, who was standing behind the woman, slipping his hands around to the front of her hips.
Pinned between the males, Gina did not look like she was working. She looked like she was a woman getting off in a big way.
Damn it.
Although at least it was Gina. Xhex had no particular relationship with her, as the woman had just come on staff, so it wasn’t much different than if John had banged some chick from the dance floor.
Xhex eased back in the chair and forced herself to review the other monitors. People were all over the wall, flickering images of them drinking, doing lines, having sex, dancing, talking, staring off into the distance, filling her sight.
This was good, she thought. This was…good. John had lost his romantic delusions and was going elsewhere. This was good—
“Xhex, where are you?” came Trez’s voice in her earpiece.
She yanked up her arm and spoke into her watch. “Give me a fucking minute!”
The Moor’s response was typically calm. “You okay?”
“I…Look, I’m sorry. I’m coming now.”
Yeah, and so was Gina. Christ.
Xhex stood up from the Kirk chair, her eyes going back to the screen she had pointedly not stared at.
Things had progressed. Fast.
John was moving his hips.
Just as Xhex winced and went to leave, he looked up into the security camera. Whether he knew it was there or whether that was just where his eyes ended up, it was hard to know.
Shit. His face was grim, his jaw set hard, his stare soulless in a way that saddened her.
Xhex tried not to see the change in him for what it was and failed. She had done this to him. Maybe she wasn’t the only reason he’d turned to stone, but she was a big part of it.
He looked away.
She turned away.
Chuck put his head through the door. “You need more time?”
“No, thanks. I’ve seen enough.”
She clapped her man on the shoulder and left, going out and to the right. At the end of the hall there was a reinforced black door. Entering yet another code, she took the passageway to Rehv’s office, and when she came through his door, the three males around the desk all looked at her warily.
She took up res against the black wall across from them. “What.”
Rehv leaned back in his chair, crossing his fur-clad arms over his chest. “Are you getting ready to go into your needing.”
As he spoke, Trez and iAm both made the Shadow hand motion for warding off disaster.
“God, no. Why do you ask?”
“Because, no offense, you’re cranky as fuck.”
“I am not.” As the males looked at one another, she barked, “Stop that.”
Oh, great, now they all just pointedly didn’t look at each other.
“Can we get this meeting over with,” she said, trying to moderate her tone.
Rehv unfurled his arms and sat forward. “Yeah. I’m about outtie to go meet with the council.”
“You want us to come with you?” Trez asked.
“As long as we don’t have any big deals scheduled after midnight.”
Xhex shook her head. “The last one on the books for this week happened at nine and went off without a problem. Although I will say our buyer was extremely nervous, and that was before it came over the police scanner that another drug dealer’s been found dead.”
“So out of the six major subcontractors who buy from us, there are two left? Man, that’s a turf war, right there.”
“And whoever’s pulling this shit is probably going to try to work his way up the food chain.”
Trez spoke up. “Which is why iAm and I think you should have someone with you twenty-four/seven until this shit shakes out.”
Rehv seemed annoyed but he didn’t disagree. “We got any intel on who’s leaving all those bodies around?”
“Well, duh,” Trez said. “People think it’s you.”
“Not logical. Why would I kill off my own buyers?”
Now Rehv was the one getting the hairy eyeball from the peanut gallery. “Oh, come on,” he said. “I’m not that bad. Well, okay, but only if someone fucks with me. And I’m sorry, but the four who’ve died? Straight-up businessmen. No bullshit. They were good customers.”
“You talk to your suppliers?” Trez asked.
“Yup. Told them to hang tight and confirmed I was expecting to move the same amount of product. Those who we lost will quickly be replaced by others, because dealers are like weeds. They always grow back.”
There was some discussion about the market and pricing, and then Rehv said, “Before we run out of time, talk to me about the club. What’s going down?”
Right, great question, Xhex thought. And our survey says? Ding-ding-ding: John Matthew, most likely. On his knees in front of Gina.
“Xhex, are you growling?”
“No.” She forced herself to focus and gave a quick overview of the incidents thus far tonight. Trez reported on the Iron Mask, which he had been put in charge of, and then iAm talked finances and about Sal’s Restaurant, another of Rehv’s holdings. All in all, it was business as usual—considering they were breaking the kind of human laws that got you felony convictions if you were caught.
Still Xhex’s head was only partially in the game, and when it came time to leave, she was the first to hit the door, even though she usually lingered.
She walked out of the office at the perfect time.
If she’d wanted to get kneed in the balls.
At just that moment, Qhuinn appeared at the head of the hall of private baths, his lips swollen and red, his hair tousled, the scent of sex and orgasms and dirty deeds done with finesse preceding him.
She stopped, even though that was a dumb-ass idea.
Gina was next, and she looked like she needed a drink. As in Gatorade. The woman was boneless, not because she was in her deliberate trolling-for-sex mode, but because she’d been worked out properly, and the soft smile on her mouth was far too private and honest for Xhex’s liking.
John was the last out, his head held high, his stare clear, his shoulders back.
He had been magnificent. She was willing to bet…he had been magnificent.
His head turned and he met her eyes. Gone was the shy regard, the blush, the awkward fawning. He nodded once and looked away, composed…and ready for more sex, given the way he sized up another one of the prostitutes.
An uneasy, unfamiliar sorrow rippled through Xhex’s chest, screwing up the even beat of her heart. In her drive to save him from the chaos her last lover had gone through, she’d ruined something; in pushing him away, she’d stripped him of something precious.
His innocence was gone.
Xhex put her wristwatch up to her mouth. “I need some air.”
Trez’s response was straight-up approval. “Good idea.”
“I’ll be back right before you leave for the council meeting.”
When Lash returned from his father’s lair, he gave himself only about ten minutes to come fully back to life before he got in the Mercedes and drove over to the shitty ranch house where the drugs had been packaged. He was so groggy he thought it was a wonder he didn’t hit something, and he almost did. While rubbing at his eyes and trying to dial his phone, he didn’t brake fast enough at a stoplight, and it was only because the city of Caldwell’s salting trucks had been out earlier that his tires had anything worth grabbing hold of.
He put the phone down and concentrated on the behind-the-wheel shit. Probably better not to speak to Mr. D anyway, given that he was in father fog, as he called it.
Shit, the heater was making him even logier.
