by Lisa Childs
“She was here,” Elizabeth Turrell said from where she sat at Paige’s side. “Then she thought she recognized someone in the crowd.”
“She knows someone here?” Renae asked doubtfully as she young trauma surgeon studied the bodies gyrating on the dance floor.
Campbell snorted. “A lot of these people look familiar to me, too.”
Nerves fluttered in Paige’s stomach. “It’s probably not a good thing that a prosecutor and a detective think my customers look familiar.”
“Your customers,” Elizabeth mused. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be back at the firm.”
Paige met her friend’s gaze; guilt darkened the other woman’s brown eyes. “Lizzy…”
“It’s my fault that you’re not,” Elizabeth said.
Paige squeezed the other woman’s hand. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“No, blame that dick you married,” Kate remarked as she joined the group of friends.
Lizzy’s ex—and Paige’s former employer—had fired Paige to spite Lizzy for finally finding the nerve to divorce him. He probably hadn’t wanted to fire Elizabeth, who was a divorce lawyer at the firm, because he might have had to pay more child support. So Roger had fired his ex’s friend instead. If Paige could have proved it, she would have sued him, but despite her suspicions and Lizzy’s certainty, she’d had no proof. And no job.
“So was it him?” Campbell asked.
“Who?” Kate asked.
“Whoever you thought you recognized,” the assistant D.A. reminded her.
Kate shrugged as if unconcerned, but her face was tense with distress, her skin drained of all color. “I don’t know….” She drew in a shaky breath, then fixed her gaze on Paige’s face. Her pale blue eyes narrowed. “I’m obviously not the only one who doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. What were you thinking, Paige, to buy this place?”
Goose bumps rose on Paige’s skin. So she hadn’t imagined that there was something strange about Club Underground. “What is it about this place? What do you know?”
Kate shrugged again. “Nothing I can prove.”
Elizabeth uttered a nervous laugh even as she shivered. “C’mon, Paige, don’t let Detective Wever’s cynical view of the world affect yours.”
Paige sighed. “I actually have my own cynical view.” And maybe that had colored her judgment regarding the club. If she didn’t dare care about it too much, she wouldn’t lose it, as she had lost everything else that mattered to her. First her father, then her mother, and more recently her husband, her career and her…
“Well, let’s toast for a brighter view,” Elizabeth suggested as she lifted the glass of champagne.
Kate lifted her glass, too, but she offered a warning instead of a toast. “We’re not done yet. We can celebrate your new gig tonight, but we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
Paige smiled. “I’m counting on that.” She needed to talk to Kate and find out what exactly the detective couldn’t prove, but the club was too crowded and too loud for them to have the conversation they needed to have. Kate nodded, as if she’d read Paige’s mind and had agreed to meet another time.
They were the kind of friends—all of them—who knew, instinctively, when she needed them and when she needed to be alone to regroup and recover. But even when they left her alone, they never completely left her—like so many other people in her life had.
“I’m so sorry that you got caught up in my personal mess,” Elizabeth said.
“Stop apologizing.” Paige slung an arm around Lizzy’s shoulders and squeezed. “I didn’t buy the club because I lost my job. I would have bought it had I still been working. Sebastian was looking for financing so he could buy it himself.” He’d been managing the club for years, ever since he’d shown up at her door a decade ago. Until then, she hadn’t even known she’d had a sibling, but she hadn’t been surprised given her father’s playboy reputation.
“Sebastian’s always looking for something,” Campbell remarked with a chuckle as, with her champagne flute, she gestured toward the dance floor.
Paige’s younger brother, a mike clutched in his fist, moved among the dancers as he sang a haunting ballad of love lost. A chill chased up and down her spine as she connected with the song; she had lived it. While they hadn’t grown up together, having had different mothers, Sebastian had been there for her when she’d needed him most. If not for his support, she might not have survived losing her love.
“You could have told him no,” Renae said with a snort of disgust.
Campbell laughed again. “I doubt any woman has ever summoned the willpower to tell Sebastian Culver no.” Apparently her brother hadn’t fallen far from the paternal tree.
She had had the willpower but nothing else—so she’d thought she had nothing to lose. Nothing but money. Now she worried that something else was at stake here in Club Underground, like perhaps her life.
Once the door closed behind the last patron, the club fell eerily silent. The click of Paige’s heels against the hardwood echoed as she walked down the hall toward her office. If she hadn’t left her purse in her desk, she wouldn’t have gone back because of the memories of what had happened earlier that evening.
She’d made another mistake—just the latest of many in her forty years. At least this time the only one who’d probably get hurt was herself.
She needed more. So did Ben. But the thought of no longer playing the sex games they’d been playing since shortly after their divorce filled Paige with dread. Her stomach churned at the prospect of dating real strangers, at having to weed through losers and potential serial killers to find a man she could trust as she trusted Ben. And the idea of never touching Ben, of never being with him again…
But even when they’d been living together, they’d never been completely together. From the day they’d met, Ben had always held a part of himself back from her. She’d excused it because he’d spent his childhood in foster homes, and because of his profession. He’d learned not to get attached, not to get involved. Her first mistake with him had been thinking it would be different with them, that she could love him enough to break down the wall he’d built around himself. Maybe she would have…had she been able to give him what he’d really wanted….
She pushed open the door Ben had left unlocked and dragged in a deep breath. The room smelled of him—that mixture of musk and leather and sweet cigars. But there was another scent she recognized. It could have been from him; he had often come home smelling of it after a particularly hellish night in the O.R.: death.
She glanced at her desk and noticed someone had brought in a flower arrangement. This was no congratulatory bouquet from her friends. The roses were black. A dozen of them, dried and dead, so brittle that petals dropped onto her files and closed laptop. The stems protruded from foam that someone had carved into a shape of a heart. But more than stems penetrated the foam: a wooden stake pierced the heart.
Hand shaking, she reached for the card that was stuck to the stake. Red ink, smeared like blood, spelled out the words: “You’re going to get what you deserve.”
She replaced the card and stepped out of her office. Once again a strange chill swept down the hall…from that maddeningly locked door. While that door was locked, her office hadn’t been. Anyone could have left the hideous bouquet. “Sebastian!”
She wasn’t afraid. She was tired.
“Paige! Are you all right?” Sebastian called out, his voice rough with emotion as he ran down the hall toward her.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, unsettled that he’d been so easily rattled. Hopefully she hadn’t sounded that upset; she refused to let some misguided joke or a case of nerves unsettle her. “I just found something in the office….”
“What? Another rat?”
They had found one the night she’d taken possession. She’d seen a rat in her office as a bad omen. And that had been even before she’d started hearing the voice telling her she didn’t belong.
“Ther
e’s no rat, just those,” she said, pointing toward the black roses as she had the rat droppings, with disgust. “I hope you didn’t waste your money on those hideous things.”
“I didn’t send them.”
“What?” she asked, unsure if she should believe him. Along with his considerable charm, Sebastian had quite the sense of humor. “Yeah, right.”
Hurt flashed in his bright blue eyes. “Paige, I wouldn’t purposely do anything that might upset you, especially tonight.”
She believed him but wished he was lying. “But if you didn’t send them…”
Who had? The question raised all kinds of sinister possibilities in her mind.
Chapter 4
Ben’s heart pounded against his ribs as he crashed through the unlocked door of Club Underground. He’d done this so many times, so many other nights, that he should have been used to the summons. But tonight was different—tonight he knew the emergency concerned Paige.
His hand shook so badly he had to tighten his grip on the handles of his medical bag. Sebastian had assured him that she wasn’t hurt; Ben didn’t need the bag. But he’d gotten used to carrying it with him as he never knew when he’d need it. Or when a member of that damn secret vampire society needed him.
As Ben walked into the dark bar, he called out for Sebastian.
“Down here,” his ex-brother-in-law replied, his deep voice drifting from the hall.
Ben headed toward that door Paige had found so fascinating, but before he reached it, strong fingers grasped his arm.
“In the office,” Sebastian said, tugging him inside the room he had not wanted to see again.
Hell, he never wanted to see any of Club Underground, but yet he came every time they called. Because he had no choice. And now Paige owned the place, which actually gave him another reason to stay away. He’d never brought her anything but pain. “Is she all right?”
“Yes. For now.”
“What happened?”
“Those happened,” Sebastian replied, pointing toward a bunch of black roses.
Ben noticed the stake embedded in the makeshift heart, and he understood the concern wasn’t about the flowers. “What the hell. Someone’s threatening Paige?”
Sebastian sighed. “After the bar closed down for the night, she found the arrangement in her office.”
“An office she shouldn’t even have here.” Ben ran a trembling hand over his hair. “But why use the stake to threaten Paige? It makes no sense. She’s not one of the society.”
“Maybe that’s the threat.”
“That they’ll make her into one of you? Then what? Kill her? It makes no sense,” Ben said, frustration and fear gnawing at him.
“Sometimes it doesn’t make sense,” Sebastian reminded him. “Sometimes somebody needs no motive other than madness.”
Ben shuddered, remembering the destruction he’d seen and tried to treat that had resulted from such madness.
He glanced at the flowers and the stake again. “There’s a note?” He reached for it, but Sebastian pulled his hand back.
“It says she’s going to get what she deserves.”
“I want to see it,” Ben said. “Maybe I’ll recognize the handwriting.”
“Don’t touch it,” Sebastian advised. “She wants to report this special delivery to Kate, the Zantrax major case detective.”
Ben groaned. “If Paige reports this to her, it’ll put them both in danger.”
“I talked her out of calling Kate tonight, but I think that was just because she was too tired to argue with me. And she probably didn’t want to wake up Kate.” Sebastian pushed a hand through his hair. “She cares more about her friends than she does herself.”
“She’s never done very well taking care of herself,” Ben remarked. “But neither of us did very well taking care of her, either.”
Sebastian’s face flushed with color and he protested, “Hey, that’s not fair—”
“We almost lost her once,” Ben reminded him. “Where is she now?”
“Home.”
“Alone?” Pressure tightened the muscles in his chest as his fear for her safety conflicted with his fear that she might not be alone. Although they’d been divorced four years, he wanted her with no one but him. Which made him selfish as hell, since he couldn’t give her what she deserved—happiness, security…
“She thinks she’s alone,” Sebastian said.
“But you have someone watching her?” Ben asked, the fear rushing back.
The other man nodded.
“Someone you can trust?”
Sebastian flinched. “You’re the only one I really trust—”
“Damn it, you promised you’d watch over her—that you’d make sure she didn’t get hurt.” And Ben shouldn’t have trusted anyone with that responsibility but himself. But, as Paige had often reminded him—when he’d tried to give her alimony—since he’d signed the divorce papers, she was no longer his responsibility.
“She’ll be safe,” Sebastian insisted. “The person watching her is too afraid to hurt her or to let her get hurt.”
“Afraid of you?” Ben asked, arching a brow with skepticism. Sebastian had the reputation of being more of a lover than a fighter.
“Afraid of you,” the other man clarified.
“Then I should be the one protecting her,” Ben said. The divorce hadn’t stopped him from caring about her no matter how much Paige wanted to keep things light and impersonal between them. All sex and no emotion. He couldn’t blame her after the way he’d hurt her.
Now he had to make certain no one else hurt her. He turned toward the door just as a guttural moan echoed down the hall. From all the years he’d been a surgeon, Ben readily recognized the cry of pain. While the cry was familiar, the voice was not. Ben grabbed his bag and hurried out to find his patient collapsed on the floor. Blood spurted between the fingers of the hand that the guy clutched against his throat.
“Son of a bitch,” Sebastian murmured from behind Ben. “Is he mortal…?”
“I think we’re about to find out.” Someone could have tried “turning” the guy into a vampire, but that process proved such a risk. Ben had treated many mortals as they turned; he’d lost more of them than he’d been able to save.
He focused on this patient, refusing to lose another one—even while he worried that he might lose Paige. Again.
The sun had yet to rise when Paige returned to Club Underground. An outside light illuminated the cement steps leading down to the bar. Trying to sleep had been pointless—with all the thoughts racing through her mind and chasing her back here to reinspect that sinister flower arrangement. She hurried down the stairs, the skin pricking between her shoulder blades as if someone’s gaze bored a hole in her back. Ever since she’d left her condo, she’d had that sensation, the one of being watched.
Her hand shook as she shoved the keys in the lock and opened the door. As she crossed the dance floor to the hall, her foot slipped and she fell, one leg forward, her other one folded beneath her. She sucked in a breath of pain over her forced splits. “What the hell…?”
She’d trusted Sebastian to supervise the cleaning crew, but one of the crew must have missed a spilled drink. She ran her hand across the polished floorboards, smearing something sticky across the wood and her skin. To identify the substance in the dim security lighting, she lifted her hand to her face. “Blood?”
And it wasn’t just on the floor. A streak had spattered across the wall next to the door to the hall leading to her office. Fear clutched at her heart—not for herself but for her brother. Was Sebastian all right? She opened her mouth to scream his name, but then a noise—a bump and a clatter—echoed down the hall. From her office or the locked door?
She reached for her purse, and the cell phone inside it. But when she’d fallen the contents had spilled out and scattered across the floor. Tears of frustration stung her eyes; she needed to call for help. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the bar, moving behind it to the phon
e sitting next to the register.
Another bump and a mumbled curse echoed down the hall. Her hand passed over the phone, and she closed her fingers around the neck of a bottle instead. No matter who she called, they wouldn’t arrive in time to protect her. She had to protect herself.
Adrenaline pulsing in every nerve ending, she headed around the bar to the hall—the liquor bottle clutched tight in her hand. Her flower sender was about to get his first round free—against the side of his head.
Paige stepped into the hall, brandishing the bottle as a weapon. But before she could swing at the shadow that stepped out of her office, strong fingers closed around her wrist.
“Damn it, Paige,” the man remarked, “you almost got me with that. What the hell—”
“Ben!” She smacked his shoulder with her free hand. “What the hell are you doing here—besides scaring me half to death?”
“Hey, you’re the one who nearly knocked me out,” Ben said. “I’m here because Sebastian asked me to come down.”
“Is he all right?” she asked, glancing around her ex to search for her brother. However, the office was empty except for that gruesome flower arrangement.
“He’s fine,” Ben said. “He’s already taken off.”
“What about the blood out there on the dance floor? Is that his?”
Ben shook his head. “No. It wasn’t his.”
“What happened out there? Who got hurt?”
His broad shoulders lifted in a weary shrug. “I don’t know. One of the cleaning crew must have cut himself. Sebastian didn’t say anything about it.”
“You didn’t notice the blood?”
He shook his head again. “After all the years I’ve spent in an O.R., I guess I’m desensitized to it.”
If only she could get desensitized to him…. Because where his fingers still gripped her wrist, her skin tingled and heat streaked throughout her body. She lifted her gaze to his face, and while his eyes darkened with desire, lines of fatigue radiated from them. And a dark shadow clung to his jaw.
