by Lexi Blake
She took one of the canapés off the platter. She actually had an appetite for once.
One way or another, she was going to make sure her husband came back from Florida in one piece. And then they could finally have closure.
Chapter Six
Alex glanced down at his watch and silently cursed.
“They’re going to be here, right?” Kristen cast a nervous glance toward the stairs and the door at the top where apparently the great Chazz Breyer was going to eventually make an appearance.
It was the door to the office he would eventually have to get into. Alone.
“Sean texted me. His flight landed an hour ago. They should be here any minute.”
“I don’t like last minute changes in plans,” Kristen grumbled. She was dressed casually in jeans and a V-neck T-shirt that showed off a nice rack. Her strawberry blonde hair was in waves across her shoulders, but he couldn’t get the sight of Eve spread out on her desk out of his head. He’d thought of nothing else for the last twenty-four hours. He’d tried to call her, but she wouldn’t answer her cell. He’d skipped the dinner party where he’d been sure to see her because he’d wanted to get packed and ready, and now he wondered if that had been a mistake.
He shouldn’t have left things that way between them, but she hadn’t given him a choice.
“So, what do you think of the place, Anthony?” She dropped his fake name casually. For now he was Anthony Priest, known to most as Master A.
He had to pull it together because they weren’t alone. Several young women were currently milling about either cleaning tables or restocking the bar. As far as he could tell, the club was a repurposed industrial warehouse. Sanctum was the same, but Cuffs had maintained much more of its former identity than Sanctum. The floors were concrete and the walls, for the most part, were still metal and girders. There was a bar area and what appeared to be a roped off VIP-type area. The VIP area looked like someone had ordered a bunch of BDSM equipment off the Internet and tried to approximate a play space, but nothing was set up properly. He hoped no one actually tried to play here. “It looks like crap.”
“Yeah.” Kristen frowned as she crossed her arms over her chest. “They would have been better off hiring a decorator, but Chazz decided he would save the money. You have to understand that most of the regulars who come here are just tourists who read a couple of books and decide they’re in the lifestyle. Then there are the college kids who just want to drink, and the guys who come out because our cocktail waitresses are dressed in fet wear. No one knows what they’re doing.”
“But you do.” He’d been studying her from the time they’d met at DFW through the hours on the plane. She was odd. Totally competent one minute, he was halfway intimidated by how smart she was. She had been talking about trying to map out Evans’s organization and the methods she’d been using to track him, and then the flight attendant had brought around the wine and she’d clapped like a little girl and claimed that first class was “the bomb.” And the girl seemed deadly intent on drinking her share. She’d had five glasses of wine, but he couldn’t tell she felt a thing. She was perfectly steady.
He’d sat beside her on the plane, studying the files she’d hacked into while she’d read something on her e-reader that made her fan herself more than once.
She was a complete enigma.
She shrugged a little. “I’ve been around. Look, brother, I know it comes as a shock that I’ve taken to the lifestyle, but we need you here. And can anything be worse than my coming out? Mom nearly had a heart attack because I had disrupted her perfectly good plan to marry me off to the doctor next door. You know how a really good plan can slip up, don’t you, Anthony?”
Yeah, and he was out of practice. He needed to save the questions about her past for the condo because he was supposed to be her big brother here. And a nasty, badass Dom. He had the temporary tats to prove it. Kristen turned out to be quite the artist with the airbrush. “Yes. Well, I’ll have to make some plans for this place because that equipment looks like shit, and it’s going to get worse if it isn’t properly taken care of.”
“Well, that’s what I’m hiring you for, isn’t it, Master A?” The door to the office had opened and a man with a medium-sized build and a longish, dark ponytail began to walk down the stairs. He was dressed in a T-shirt and running pants, his sneakers squeaking on the metal stairs. A heavy gold chain hung around his neck. Alex pegged his age at fortyish, though it was obvious he was trying to look like he was twenty-one and fresh off the Jersey Shore.
“I wasn’t aware you had hired me at all yet.”
His heavy Jersey accent flooded the room. “Hey, any family of Kris’s is family of mine. Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”
Kristen gave him a bubbly smile. Yeah, she looked like the perfect picture of innocence. “You know that’s true, Chazz. We’re all one big freaky family here. Anthony, I told you the interview is a formality. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing at all. We’re very happy to have you, Master A. I’m afraid we’re trying to find our feet.” Chazz looked him over as though sizing him up. “You’re a big guy. Did Kris tell you I might need you for some bodyguard work as well as being our resident expert?”
The bodyguard work was something he was terribly interested in. According to Kristen, Chazz went off on mysterious meetings at least once a week and took some of the bouncers with him every time. She’d tried to talk to a couple, but they were all closed mouthed about what they were doing. Then there was the night once a week where the club was supposed to be closed, but she’d seen the lights on and cars in the parking lot. She’d tried to get in, but found security on the doors, security she didn’t recognize. “I’ve done a little muscle work in my time.”
“Yes, you have. A very impressive résumé. So you’ve worked in a couple of clubs?”
According to the résumé Adam had created, he’d worked in clubs in New York, DC, and Houston and was a trained security guard. The résumé had been uploaded to the web, and to the casual viewer, it looked like Anthony Priest had been looking for work for about three months. He had résumés at several websites, a FetLife account, and all the various footprints he would naturally leave behind in cyberspace.
“I’ve worked in actual BDSM clubs. This is my first experience with a nightclub.”
Chazz nodded. “I need to get myself a membership to one of those clubs.”
Alex didn’t bother to mention that the private clubs tended to screen out idiots like Chazz. “So what exactly do you expect from me?”
“Kris here had a great idea,” Chazz explained. “She thinks instead of just having themed tables and cocktail waitresses, we should differentiate ourselves. We want to run actual scenes. You know for entertainment and shit.”
He forced himself not to shudder. “And you expect me to use this equipment? On my sub?”
“I have a whole collection of whips and paddles and some canes and stuff. I got them secondhand. They’re all over the walls, just like a real dungeon. All you’ll have to do is walk up to one and pluck it down, my man,” Chazz argued.
Chazz wouldn’t know a “real” dungeon if it bit him in the ass. It was obvious Chazz either didn’t practice or didn’t care about his subs. “Secondhand? And they just sit on the wall? I’m not using those. They have to stay purely decorative. Humans sweat and bleed, and there are various other bodily emissions I won’t even get into. You’re going to get your ass sued. I’ll bring my own kit and I’ll make sure everything is sterile.”
“Whoa, so we’re like infection central here,” a deep voice said. “I always knew it.”
Alex turned and saw a young man, probably somewhere around twenty-five. He was wearing a muscle shirt that showed off a single tat on his arm. Army.
“I don’t need your sarcasm, Jesse.” Chazz shook his head. “I swear if he wasn’t so good with a gun, I would have fired his ass a long time ago. That’s my lead bouncer, Jesse Murdoch. He also functions as m
y bodyguard and I haven’t died yet, so he’s not a complete idiot.”
Jesse gave a sarcastic salute. “I aim to please, boss. Hey, Kris. So this is big brother.”
There was something about the way the younger man eyed him that made Alex wary. He’d spent too long in the FBI to not be able to size people up. He wasn’t on Eve’s level, but something was off with Jesse Murdoch. His eyes quickly went to every single place where Alex might be packing. He was looking for guns. Smart kid, but Alex wasn’t strapped yet. Even the great and mighty Ian Taggart hadn’t found a way to get a gun through public airport security.
“Don’t pay any attention to him. He plays here from time to time, but only with the regulars. He’s not a true Dom,” Chazz said, puffing up a little.
What the fuck was a “true Dom”? Idiot. Alex simply nodded as though Chazz was obviously a member of the “True Dom Club.” If that asshole was a Dom, Alex would eat his shoe.
“So, I heard you were also bringing a cousin along?” Chazz asked.
Sean. “Yes, Kris mentioned you needed someone to run the kitchen.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, my last guy kind of sucked.”
“He gave everyone food poisoning,” Jesse added.
If he couldn’t take down Evans for drug dealing and terrorism, at least he could call the health department in on the fucker. “I can assure you my cousin won’t give anyone food poisoning.”
Real poisoning was totally on the table, however. That hadn’t slipped his mind. He would prefer to strangle the fucker, but the purpose of this whole exercise was to take Evans out, and he would do that any way he could. If he decided that the best path to a successful operation was a portion of deadly French fries, then that was the way he would go.
Fuck. He might have to think of something else because Sean had become a horrible food snob. He likely wouldn’t lower himself to make French fries. Alex had to hope that Michael Evans liked foie gras.
Chazz leaned against one of the tables, his eyes narrowing. “Your cousin did some time.”
According to all his Adam-approved records, Sean Reilly had spent time in prison for armed robbery and assault. “He fell in with a bad crowd. We’ve all done that from time to time.”
“Yes, I did my own time, so I understand. You did a little time, too.”
That told him something. Chazz had a halfway decent hacker on the staff. Adam had suggested a juvenile record for Alex, something he could bury under a couple of layers of bureaucracy. It was a little test, Adam had explained. He wanted to know just how savvy these guys were so he wouldn’t underestimate them. As Adam was listening to everything that was being said thanks to the micro wire he’d placed on Alex’s belt buckle, he was very likely formulating his tech plans right now.
Alex frowned, acting surprised. “That record was expunged.”
If he could convince them he was just a dumb grunt, they would trust him faster, speak more freely around him, see him as no kind of threat.
Kristen put a hand on his arm and gave Chazz her own frown, looking every inch the protective sister. “He was seventeen, Chazz. You can’t hold it against him.”
Chazz held his hands up, a superior smile on his face. “Hey, I don’t hold nothing against nobody. But there’s no such thing as buried these days, not records or anything else. You would do good to remember that. Big guy like you is good to have around, if you know what I mean.”
Alex damn well knew what he meant. He meant that it was only a matter of time until he was in. He nodded. “Yeah, I want to be helpful, but my first order of business is to get this club in shape. Do I have any kind of budget?”
“Write it up and let me know what you need, but don’t throw anything out without talking to me. Now, where are your other friends? Because Kris promised you were bringing along a sub of your own who can help train these dumb bitches. We have some bigwigs coming in a few weeks. They’re very interested in ‘playing’ as we call it in our little world.” He waved his hand at the women who were currently cleaning his club.
So they were basically using their subs as prostitutes. Nice. One more strike against the fucker, but it would fit with Evans’s philosophies. It made for a problem though. “I don’t share my sub.”
He wasn’t going to put Amanda in harm’s way. She was simply here as backup. The last thing he needed was to worry about her being raped because these guys didn’t take care of their women.
“Kris told me,” Chazz said, holding a hand up. “She said you were a one-sub Dom. I don’t get it, man. There’s so much trim in the world. I couldn’t hold myself to just one, but, hey, to each his own. I was a little surprised you let her off the leash long enough to fly here by herself.”
Only because he seemed to be under a mistaken impression about how D/s relationships worked. “It was easier for her to fly in with Sean. I trust him. He’ll take care of her.”
“Yeah, you gotta have someone to keep an eye on your bitch,” Chazz said.
Kristen squeezed his arm lightly. “Amanda is on her way. You’re going to love her. She’s practically the perfect sub. She’ll have these women trained in no time.”
Alex smiled. If Chazz kept calling what seemed like perfectly pleasant women bitches, he was going to strangle the fucker. Though he’d laughingly called Eve a bitch from time to time, it was with deep affection, the same way she would call him a righteous asshole. Still, the whole idea of Amanda walking through those doors and greeting him with a kiss put his gut in a knot. He should have played gay and brought Adam in. It would have been easier on him to kiss Adam than Amanda.
The door opened and a stream of late-afternoon light filtered in making a shadow of the woman walking in the door. She was followed by a big, bulky shadow. Sean. Alex released a long breath. He felt better with Sean here. His back was much safer than before.
Amanda walked through, and it looked like she’d followed his instructions to the letter. Her hair was longer than it had been before. He didn’t know if it was a wig or extensions, but it would change her in a subtle way. And that was what he wanted, for her not to look exactly like Amanda King.
She moved out of the shadow and he caught a look at the new Amanda. He felt the smile slip off his face because she really didn’t look like Amanda at all.
He blinked to clear his vision because he hadn’t seen Amanda. He’d seen Eve, with chestnut-brown hair that brushed the tops of her breasts. She was dressed in the skimpiest clothes he’d ever seen her wear, a mini skirt that couldn’t possibly cover her ass. It looked like someone had wrapped a bandage around her hips and called it a skirt. Her tank top molded to every inch of her torso, stopping roughly an inch above the skirt, giving him a glimpse of skin every time she moved.
And her freaking legs looked a million miles long in what had to be five-and-a-half inch platforms. She was wearing the thin leather collar that should have been around Amanda’s neck.
Eve. Eve was here, and she looked like sex in stilettos.
Kristen didn’t miss a beat. She greeted Eve like they were the old friends they were supposed to be. “Hey, Mandy. How was the flight?”
“Great. Couldn’t have been better.” Eve smiled up at him.
Sean held out a hand in greeting. Nothing in his expression gave away the fact that the operation had just gone to hell. “Hey, brother.” He looked around the club. “This is a shit hole.”
“Nice, Sean.” He forced himself to stay calm. “This is Chazz. He runs this shit hole. This is my cousin, Sean Reilly.”
Chazz snorted a little. “Well, Reilly, that’s why I’m hiring you and Master A. I want to class the place up a little before our big meetings. You’re going to have to work fast because we have three VIPs coming in next week. It’s what I like to call a dry run for the major meeting coming up in a couple of weeks. We’re going to have to make this place classy for the big boss.” Chazz’s beady rat eyes took in every inch of flesh Eve was showing off. He didn’t seem capable of hiding the leer on his face. “Th
ough you already class the place up, sweetheart. I take back what I said, Master A. If I had that fine piece of ass in bed with me, maybe I could let the others go.”
He started to see red, but Eve was right next him, a hand on his arm. She giggled. She actually giggled at that fucker and looked like a bubblehead who thought it was flattering to be called a piece of ass. “I think I’m going to like it here, Master.”
Chazz winked and took another look at her legs before nodding toward his office. “I’ll make sure you like it here. Now, let’s get down to business. I think Kris can show Mandy around. Why don’t we go upstairs and talk about what I need from you all over the next couple of weeks? Master A, if you’ll join us.”
Chazz didn’t wait around, simply started up the stairs.
Sean put a hand on his shoulder, his head leaning in close. “Save the punishment for later, man. Don’t blow the op because you’re pissed.”
Oh, but he was super pissed. And terrified. And volcanically angry at being maneuvered into a place where he had to allow her in or give up everything. And Sean was right. He had to think about this for two seconds. He glanced back at Eve.
“Here, sub.”
Her eyes flared. Yeah, she wasn’t used to him commanding her, but she was the one who had decided to blow all his plans to hell, so she would just have to handle the big bad Dom. And the big bad Dom wasn’t about to play nice. Oh, no. He’d played things her way for far too long, and she wasn’t going to come out of this unscathed.
Eve walked over, a tight smile on her face. “Yes, Master?”
He gripped the back of her neck. Even in those fuck-me shoes, she couldn’t match his height. He forced her up on her toes. He brought his voice low. “We will discuss this in a few hours, sub. If you want to play, angel, we’re going to play it my way. You want to take on the role of my slave? You better think about what that means. It means I’ll have you the way I want you. I’ll fuck you when I want, where I want, how I want, and I won’t listen to your protests. You belong to me. Mine. You’re fucking mine for however long this lasts.”
