JAMIE
THE FLOOR AND walls in my second-most-used office quivered in time with the thumping bass of the music being played downstairs. Red’s, the newest acquisition in my club line, had benefited from a full sound system upgrade as well as an aesthetic makeover in the last couple of months. I thought a refurb would bring in classier frat boys who spent more on their booze, and it meant I could up the door price. But with the music making my whiskey vibrate with impact tremors similar to those in the movie Jurassic Park, I was thinking I’d made a huge fucking mistake. I couldn’t concentrate, which meant I’d have to redo all this shit tomorrow. This place wasn’t just used as a means of income—as far as my income went, it was way down the list of high earners—but the eight clubs and bars I owned across the city did serve a purpose: laundering some of the money from my less-than-legal ventures. I just had to get a little creative with the paperwork and let my extremely overpaid accountant take care of the rest.
As one song seamlessly morphed into another, I groaned and closed my eyes, reaching up and massaging my temples in small circles. Tomorrow I’d put in orders to have the office soundproofed.
A knock at the door interrupted my internal grumblings. “What?” I barked, leaning forward and picking up my drink.
Dodger stuck his head around the door. “Alberto Salazar is here. His car just pulled up outside.”
“Okay. Have Ed show him up here, will ya?” I replied.
A frown lined his forehead. “Looks like he brought Mateo with him.” He practically spat the name, his loathing glaringly apparent.
“Oh, great.” I snorted, raising the glass to my lips and throwing the amber liquid into my mouth, swallowing the whole thing in one gulp and reveling in the burn, warming all the way down to my stomach. I’d requested a meeting with the elder Salazar brother, not his sociopath sibling. Mateo was a loose cannon with a reputation for being both reckless and ruthless. He had a crazed look in his eye most of the time, like he was envisioning twenty different ways to kill you. I’d heard rumors about him, a lot of fucked-up rumors, not the least of which was about his penchant for little girls who had a couple of years to go before becoming legal. Mateo Salazar was the one person in this world I would love to shoot right between the eyes. I would happily do time for it too, because assholes like him shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets, but taking him out would start a turf war that I simply couldn’t get my crew involved in.
I met Dodger’s eyes and could see the concern there. He was worried about this, and probably rightly so. The last time I’d been in close quarters with Mateo, the little prick had tried to kill me—pointed a gun at me and everything. Being in a crowded place would definitely be safer on this occasion. “Tell you what, seeing as that junkie bastard came too, let’s have the meeting downstairs,” I suggested thoughtfully.
Dodger visibly relaxed at my suggestion, his shoulders losing some of the tension. “Good thinking.”
I stood and picked up my favorite automatic switchblade, pushing it into the pocket of my dress pants before walking over to Dodger. I wasn’t one for carrying guns—I had guys I paid for that particular task—but there was no way I was going to be near Mateo and not have at least something on me. “Come on then, buddy. Let’s go remind the little pricks who runs this town.” I gripped his shoulder, squeezing a couple of times in a supportive gesture. Dodger really hated this side of the business; he was into the cars, but he’d tried to convince me several times over to leave the other stuff alone and let the other organizations pick up the slack. But it wasn’t in me to do half-assed jobs.
As we walked down the stairs, the music grew louder. Once in the club I looked around, taking in all the crowds of people. Carl, one of the security guys who stood at the bottom of my office stairwell and stopped people from going upstairs, dipped his head in greeting. “Boss.”
I stepped closer to him, motioning with my chin toward a table over on the other side of the club, barely visible through the hordes of people around me who were all having a good time and spending their hard-earned cash. The table was at the opposite end of the club from the DJ and the five-foot speakers that were mounted on the stage. It was currently occupied by six women sharing a bottle of the cheap house white.
“Carl, get that table empty for me, will ya? Give them a couple of bottles of champagne for their trouble,” I instructed. There were other tables free, but that one would be the best option—quieter, off to the side, but still within the thick of the club so Mateo would keep himself in check.
“Sure thing.”
“There’ll be some other security up in here in a bit. I have a meeting, so you just hang back and keep your eye on the crowds as usual. All right?” I instructed. Carl was just security, hired because of his massive stature, someone to prevent trouble in the clubs.
I watched him walk over to the table, flashing his best smile as he declared that the ladies needed to vacate the table because Mr. Cole himself needed it. I didn’t hang around any longer, but wove my way through the throng of people, skirting the edge of the dance floor, saying hello to anyone I recognized, politely refusing a couple of drink offers from regular customers who I should know by name, but didn’t.
“Want me to sit in on the meeting?” Ed offered, coming to my side when I finally made it to the coatroom.
I shook my head. “Dodger and I can handle it.”
I didn’t miss the disappointed twitch to his eye or how his jaw clenched. Ed hated that I didn’t let him get too involved in the organization; I was pretty sure he resented me for taking over Brett’s crew and bumping him way down the ranks. He was old enough to be my father, after all. It probably irked him to no end to have a boss almost half his age telling him what to do and demoting him. Too fucking bad.
His mouth opened, probably to protest and tell me again how useful he could be and that he’d like to be more involved in things, but that was when the door opened and the Salazar brothers, along with three of their crew, sauntered in.
Alberto entered first—tall, lean, and confident—striding toward me with his hand outstretched. I raised one eyebrow and looked down at his hand incredulously, then back up to his face, not bothering to reciprocate the polite gesture. He’d been selling on my turf; I hadn’t summoned him for polite gestures. After a couple of seconds, he obviously came to that conclusion too and dropped his hand to his side.
“Kid Cole, nice to see you again,” he greeted me, his native Mexican accent thick in his words.
I didn’t answer, just looked past him at his brother. Mateo didn’t stand as tall as Alberto or have his build, but there was something about him, maybe the way he carried himself, that put me at unease. I had always been skilled at reading people, and my gut told me that Mateo would rather kill me than look at me. There was just something off about him. If it weren’t for his brother’s influence he probably would have disrespected our boundary agreement a long time ago.
Mateo’s brown eyes locked on mine, a hint of amusement dancing there; a black teardrop tattoo at the outer corner of his right eye was prominent against his olive skin, as was the large spider tattooed on the side of his neck. When he reached up and scratched at his jaw, I saw the thin black lines inked like tally marks on the side of his left pointer finger—his trigger finger. Rumor had it each line represented a murder he had committed. I counted two sets of five and one single line there. It seemed he’d been busy since the last time I saw him. There had been nine there a couple of months ago when he’d pointed that gun at me.
Mateo didn’t speak, his lip curled slightly with disrespect as I looked him over, assessing whether I would have problems with him today. He was slightly twitchy, as usual, a by-product of his heroin addiction no doubt, but he looked like he was in control of himself.
I turned my attention back to Alberto. “Did you have to bring that with you?” I asked, jerking my chin at Mateo, ignoring the snarl and the string of Spanish expletives that were thrown at me from his direction.
Alberto shrugged, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Can’t trust him to be left alone,” he joked. I snorted a laugh. At least we were both being honest. I didn’t like Alberto and the way he practiced his business or peddled his cheap product, but at least he was honorable and, usually, true to his word.
“No weapons allowed in the club. If you’re carrying, then you can leave them here and collect them on the way out,” I stated, waving one of my security guards forward.
Mateo frowned, his hand going to the weapon under his brown leather jacket, but Alberto nodded and instantly reached inside his own jacket, pulling out a black semiautomatic and placing it in the tray the security guard carried over. His crew followed suit, putting their weapons in the tray. Mateo still hadn’t made a move.
I raised one eyebrow, pulling back my shoulders, daring him to make the move his eyes were telling me he wanted to make.
Dodger stepped forward. “If you prefer, you can go play with your gun in the car while the big boys have their meeting,” he suggested, his tone condescending. I grinned over at him.
A couple of seconds passed before Alberto turned to his brother, uttering something in his native tongue that I didn’t understand. Mateo’s jaw twitched in anger, but he removed his ivory-handled pistol and matching knife, placing them on top of the other weapons, his eyes filled with longing as he watched the guard walk off with them into the security office.
“Perfect. Follow me, then.” I turned without waiting and walked back through the double doors and into the main area of the packed club, heading to the table I’d requested Carl clear.
The waitress, a slim girl with golden-tanned skin and raven-black hair, came over almost immediately, weaving through the crowd and silently setting a bottle of whiskey and four filled glasses on our table before sauntering off.
I eyed Mateo, who was eyeing the retreating waitress. “Thought you’d been picked up yesterday,” I said, selecting a drink and taking a sip.
Mateo rolled his shoulders as his gaze met mine. “They didn’t have enough to hold me.”
I’d heard from my source inside the police that Mateo had been arrested for aggravated assault the previous day. From what I’d been told, it was an open-and-shut case with several witnesses to attest it was him who shoved a pool cue all the way through his opponent’s thigh because he’d lost the frame to him.
“Oh, really? Shame.” Was a fucking shame, too.
A cocky grin spread across his face. “Turns out the witnesses changed their minds about making statements.”
Alberto sat forward, cupping his glass between his palms. “Look, can we get down to why you asked me to come here tonight? All this pussyfooting around is just wasting time, and I’m sure both of us have better things we could be doing.”
Straight to business; I liked that. “Fine,” I agreed, turning my full attention back to him. “I want you to stay the fuck out of my clubs. The next time you send pushers into my place of business and disrespect me like that I’m going to bring down a shitstorm on you so bad you won’t even know what happened. You know your boundaries. We allow you to sell your shit on the city streets, within reason.” I leaned forward, looking directly into his eyes so he knew I meant every word of what I was saying. “If you cross the line again, I will take everything you’ve built and make it fall down around you. Don’t think I don’t know where you cook your shit up. One phone call and I can have people there in a matter of minutes to firebomb your labs to the ground. I’d like to see how you conduct your business then.”
His eye twitched while I said my piece. “Now, Kid, let’s be reasonable.”
I sat back in my chair, picking up my drink, watching him over the rim of it. “Reasonable,” I repeated. “So you think I’m being unreasonable somehow?”
He flinched slightly, his shoulders stiffening at the threat in my voice. He knew I could crush him in the blink of an eye. “Not unreasonable, no,” he backtracked. “I just think you’re not even considering how good a partnership between us could be.”
I had to laugh at that. “What exactly do I have to gain from joining forces with a liability like you two?” I poured another drink, shaking my head in amusement.
The hordes of people near our table were getting slightly rowdier now, a couple of the guys whooping and chinking their bottles in a toast. I glanced over, and almost instantly, a flash of copper at the back of the group farthest away from me, over near the podium, caught my attention. Even in the darkened club, the color was like a beacon, calling to me, grabbing my attention and holding it.
Oh, shit. It can’t be. There’s no way it is. She can’t be here...can she?
My glass stopped halfway to my lips as I squinted through the crowd, willing the red-haired girl to turn toward me, even just a fraction so I could get a glimpse of her face. Was it her?
Turn around. Please turn...
“Well, we have built up a fairly large following,” Alberto said, dragging me back to reality.
Dodger snorted. “A following? You make yourself sound like some sort of freaking cult.”
I swallowed and blinked a couple of times, forcefully dragging my eyes away from the redhead girl’s back even though it took everything in me to do it. “I don’t care how big your client list is. We have our own clients, high-end ones. We don’t need to occupy ourselves with people who deal on the street. I’ve told you that before.”
“Ah, but our overheads are far less than yours, I bet. We make twice as much profit per ounce as you,” Alberto protested. “If you were to purchase our product and pass it on to your clients, we would both profit from it.”
“That’s because your product is cheap-ass shit. My clients wouldn’t be my clients very long if I tried to give them levamisole-cut coke,” I replied calmly. We’d had this discussion before; my answer had been the same then.
Without my permission, my eyes drifted back in the girl’s direction. I watched the way her hair swished as she danced, the way her black jeans hugged her hips and the curve of her ass. I fidgeted in my seat, willing her to turn. And suddenly, as if she could tell I was staring at her, waiting with bated breath to see if this was the girl I’d fallen so deeply in love with, she and the tall blonde bombshell she was dancing with linked arms and did a little drunken twirl, giggling to themselves.
Air rushed out of my lungs as my eyes landed on the girl who had stolen my heart with one innocent blush and beautiful smile. Ellie had always captivated me, even the first time I laid eyes on her, and three years later it was no different. She was stunning, so beautiful that it made my heart sing. To me, she was perfect. Everything about her was mesmerizing, from her bright red hair to her freckled nose, right down to her Converse-loving feet. The girl was still everything right in my world.
I couldn’t take my eyes from her. I watched as she clinked glasses with her friend, who I now realized was, in fact, Stacey, and they both then downed the contents. I was unable to fight the smile as Ellie instantly winced and brought her hand to her mouth, pressing the back of it to her lips for a couple of seconds and wrinkling her nose like she always did after a shot. I’d missed that. Such a small thing, but even that made my heart ache and my balls clench.
“Kid?” Alberto’s voice was almost a distant memory as I watched Ellie, entranced.
Stacey glanced behind her and then turned back to Ellie, grinning and grabbing her hand, tugging her toward one of the podiums. They were just small raised stages that we sometimes had dancers in on Saturday nights, but on regular weekday nights, they were empty and girls liked to go up there for a bit of extra space to dance. Ellie was reluctant at first, shaking her head as a furious blush colored her cheeks, which I could easily make out even from the other side of the club in the dim light. I smiled. She never had liked being the center of attention. But Stacey was adamant and boosted herself up onto the four-foot podium, beckoning Ellie with a pleading expression until Ellie finally gave in and climbed up, too.
“Kid!” The voice was louder this time, so I turned, scowling at Alberto.
“What?” I snapped. Couldn’t he see I was fucking busy?
He raised one bushy black eyebrow. “Is everything okay? You seem kind of distracted.” His tone was clipped; clearly he was angered that I wasn’t giving him my full attention.
Mateo sat forward, his eyes locked on Ellie, who was now dancing on the podium, her movements shy because people were watching. “You know that girl?”
“No,” I answered immediately, my reply coming out harsher than I’d intended. “Nice ass, that’s all,” I lied, shrugging, willing them to believe me.
Mateo sat back in his chair, and a slow smile spread across his face, drawing attention to the white scar that ran through his bottom lip. “She has got a sweet ass,” he agreed, reaching for his drink and taking a slow sip. His sharp, keen eyes locked onto mine, twinkling with what appeared to be excitement.
I gripped the edge of the table so tightly my fingers ached, trying not to react. I needed to remain in control, not show any emotions or how important Ellie was to me. I ran the city because people knew not to challenge me—they always had more to lose than I did. I didn’t have anything I cared about, so there was never any leverage for people to use against me. It didn’t matter to me if I lived or died, because I had nothing worth living for anyway. That loneliness made me hard, confident, overly cocky, and practically invincible. I was less afraid than people who had more to lose than I did. That couldn’t change.
“Let’s just get on with this, shall we? I called you here to tell you to keep your drugs far away from my clubs. I think I’ve made my point clear, so this meeting is over,” I growled.
Alberto sighed deeply, shaking his head. “Look, Kid, I apologize if one of our pushers came into your club. I don’t know who it was, but I’ll find out and they’ll be punished. We didn’t order it, so it was probably just a rogue seller wanting to make a few bucks extra by selling in a club. Can we not let this sour the relationship we already have?”
Mateo was totally uninterested now and was tapping away on his cell phone, a wry smile on his face that I wanted to smack off for him.
“We don’t have a relationship. I allow you to conduct your business. You’re grateful,” I answered drily. I was fighting a losing battle to keep my eyes from Ellie. My whole body was jumpy, twitching in my seat, desperate to get up and go over to her. I gripped the table tighter to keep myself in place.
“But it can be so much more. We can help you. We have the numbers and can bring so much to your organization,” Alberto urged.
“So much fucking butt hurt you mean,” Dodger chimed in.
“Now, don’t be like that,” Alberto implored.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a tall, well-built man making his way through the crowd, heading toward Ellie. He stopped at the side of her podium. My lip curled and my hands unconsciously clenched into fists. The guy was tall, well over six foot five, so his face was level with the girls’ chests as he leaned in and said something to them. Stacey laughed and shook her head; Ellie looked blatantly uncomfortable.
Around me I could hear Dodger and Alberto talking, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’t drag my attention from the steroid-filled brick shithouse who was still leaning in and trying to get Ellie’s attention.
My body jerked when his meaty hand reached toward her, brushing against Ellie’s hip. She twisted to the side, shaking her head, saying something to rebuff his advance as she shot him a nervous, please-go-away smile.
The crowd around them had parted now, giving him space, looking at him a little warily, as if he was intoxicated and needed a wide berth. He said something else to Ellie and she frowned, shaking her head again. I could almost read her lips saying “no, thank you” before she turned her back on him and continued to dance with Stacey, her shoulders stiff now, her movements awkward and uncomfortable.
The guy wasn’t giving up, though; he clearly didn’t like to take no for an answer. He laughed and shoved his hand into his pocket, pulling out a couple of dollar bills. I frowned, grinding my teeth, assuming he was going to offer to buy her a drink. Instead, he reached up and tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned, her tight smile polite but exasperated, he quickly reached forward and shoved the notes into the waistband of her jeans like she was some kind of stripper as he clapped exaggeratedly along to the music and jeered in encouragement.
That was when I saw red.
All rational thought flew from my head. All I could see was his hands on her, her being disrespected, him degrading her. I sprang from my chair, sending it flying in the process, and bounded over there. Ellie was busy yanking the money from her waistband, her scowl seething, so she didn’t see me approach.
Neither did he as he jeered encouragingly, laughing. “Oh, come on, sugar tits, show us how you dance real nice.”
He barely finished his sentence before my fist collided with the back of his head, sending him sprawling forward onto his knees, his chest hitting the podium with a loud thunk. My hand burned from the impact, but I barely felt it as I strode forward another step, throwing my knee into his side twice, hearing the satisfying grunt of pain that left his lips. All around me was red fog; there was just me and him and my blazing anger. I wanted him to bleed, I wanted to pull my knife from my pocket and slit his throat, watching as he gurgled for breath, but some small part of me was conscious of the spectating crowd. So instead, I fisted my left hand in his hair, yanked his head back, and brought my right fist down square into his face.
His nose gushed with blood on the first strike, the skin above his cheekbone split on the second, his hands came up to weakly defend himself on the third, and his lip burst open on the fourth. Anger made my blood boil. I drew in ragged breaths as I threw my bloodied fist into his face a fifth time. His body had gone limp now, wobbling on his knees as his arms dropped to his sides and his eyes fell vacant. I untwisted my hand from his hair, and his body slid to the ground with a dull thud, blood running from his face and dripping onto the hardwood floor I’d had installed only a couple of months ago.
All around me, people had stopped moving. Shocked faces looked on, watching the scene with morbid interest. The rage was subsiding a little as I glared down at the guy’s battered, unconscious body. A shiver of unease ran up my spine as I looked past the blood on his face. I recognized him: one of the men who had come here with the Salazars. My gaze flicked to his bare forearm for confirmation, and sure enough, there was his crew ink: the snake wrapped around a dagger with the letter S carved into the hilt of it.
My eyes darted to the table I’d vacated. Dodger was standing, his expression wary as he looked over at me; Alberto was on his feet too, eyes wide and shocked, but Mateo—Mateo was watching the scene before him with his arms folded across his chest and a shit-eating grin plastered on his smug face.
That was when it hit me. Mateo had been on his cell phone, obviously telling this guy to come and harass Ellie to see if he could get a rise out of me. He hadn’t believed me when I said I didn’t know her. Mateo had orchestrated this whole thing, and I had played right into his hands.
I’d fucked up. Badly.
I turned back to Ellie, noting she was still on the podium, her body now perfectly still as she stared down at me, her face ashen, her mouth agape. She looked as though she’d seen a ghost.
“Get down. Now!” I barked.
She gulped, her eyes locked onto mine. “Jamie?” she whispered.