Sneak Peak at Bender #2
Angel folded his arms across his chest. “You know damn good and well they’re trying to drive our customers away. They provide a less-than-suitable atmosphere for their strip clubs, and suddenly we’re the issue when we give everyone a nice atmosphere to go to.”
I slid my hand down my face. “I want to laugh about it, but if they keep ramping shit up, they’ll throw us into yet another turf war.”
Angel chuckled. “You think we can’t handle it or something?”
I shook my head. “It’s not that…”
I turned back toward the computer screen and read through Reaper’s email one more time. It didn’t seem urgent, which told me that he had probably chased those fuckers off before they could do much damage. But, for all we knew, they were simply casing our joints.
We have to be on our guard.
“Oh, my God!” someone shrieked.
I’d never moved so quickly in all my life.
The music had stopped pumping and the lights of the club shut down.
The bright, fluorescent lights that were only turned on during office hours in the afternoons illuminated the entire place, causing everyone to shield their eyes.
People cursed around us while a couple of other screams came from the upper VIP level of our club.
And as Angel and myself climbed the stairs two at a time, it didn’t take us long to figure out what the hell had happened.
“Holy shit,” Angel hissed.
The body laying right there at the top of the steps dripped blood onto the floor.
Women shrieked and started toward the back stairwell emergency exit and burst through the doors, sounding alarms that caused everyone to stampede out of the fucking club.
I looked around and found a suede blanket hanging off one of the couches upstairs.
I ripped it off the arm of the piece of furniture and tossed it over the man’s body, who had been rumored to be part of the mafia in the first place.
While I didn’t care much for the outside proclivities of many of our clients, I knew this was bad.
“He was in a private fucking room all night,” Angel said flatly. “I guided him up here myself and gave him the key. Hadn’t seen him since.”
I gestured down to his lifeless body. “Well, obviously he left at least once.”
He bent down and picked up the blanket. “I don’t see any injuries. No broken bones. He’s just… bleeding a hell of a lot from his eyes, ears, and his—”
“Shit,” I hissed when I peeked my head into the cracked door of the VIP room. “Angel?”
He came up beside me. “Yeah?”
I threw the door open, revealing the dead escort lying on the floor. “Does his lack of injuries look like hers?”
Angel turned his head away. “They were poisoned. They had to have been.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I need to know who the fuck else was in this room and I need it now.”
“Um, eh—excuse me?” a soft voice asked.
I whipped around and found a young girl with tears streaking her cheeks leaning against the railing of the second floor.
She had her arms wrapped tightly around her and she trembled so violently that I was concerned her legs would bottom out beneath her.
I turned to face her, tilting my head and attempting to make myself look as unintimidating as possible.
“Angel, I’m going to take her downstairs for some water. You got this up here?”
He pulled out his cell phone. “Yeah, I got it. You go.”
I offered my hand to the young woman. “Come. There’s an ice water with your name on it.”
She quickly took my hand and I guided her down the steps.
Her heels were impossibly high, and about halfway down the steps I paused so she could take them off.
I offered to carry them for her, but she didn’t pass them on to me.
So, we eased our way to the bar as the last of the panicked crowd exited through any door they could find.
“Can someone turn off those fucking alarms!?” I bellowed.
And a few seconds later, an eerie sort of quiet washed over the expansive, empty space.
“Ice water?” I asked as I wrapped myself around behind the bar.
I dismissed the bartenders with a wave of my hand as the young woman nodded. “Yes, please. With ice to munch on?”
I grinned. “Ice water with extra ice, coming right up.”
I made both of us the same drink before I leaned against the counter, hoping she’d open up to me.
“All you need to do is tell me what you saw. That’s it. No more, and no less. Okay?” I asked.
She chugged the water back before she started chewing on a piece of ice. “I don’t know. I mean, we had drinks delivered—”
“What kind of drinks?”
She thought for a while on it. “A bottle of…”
Her eyes scanned the bottles behind me before she pointed.
“That red bottle, there. And two of those gold and black bottles.”
I peeked behind me. “All right, so a gin and two tequila bottles. Any mixers?”
She shook her head. “Just soda chasers. That’s all they wanted.”
“Do you know what kind of soda?”
She nodded. “Dr. Pepper and Sprite. It was all I drank that evening.”
So, the poison was in the liquor. “Do you know who delivered the bottles?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t recognize the guy, no.”
A guy delivered the liquor? We didn’t have any men that worked the VIP bar upstairs.
I reached out and patted her arm. “You did good, thank you for—”
“What the fuck is going on here!?”
A man and his cronies stormed through the front doors, startling the young woman so much that she jumped. Ice went everywhere, and she scurried from the barstool and rushed toward a back exit.
“Wait, wait, wait. Not that doo—”
And the second she slammed through it, the alarm blared once more.
“God damn it!” I roared.
I whipped around to face the men.
“I take it you’re here to retrieve bodies,” I said.
One of the men in all-black suits rushed up to me, glaring me down as if he was supposed to mean something to me. “So, it’s true? He’s dead?”
I nodded. “And one of the women he was with. So, you guys can either start talking or we can start investigating. Your choice.”
Just before either of us swung, though, Angel interrupted things. “You guys really need to see this. Come on.”
We all looked around at one another before we followed Angel up the steps.
We passed the bodies and we passed the VIP room where the crime had occurred and we found ourselves standing behind the private bar on the second floor.
And right there behind the bar, collapsed with her eyes wide open, was Mora.
The bartender that had been scheduled that evening for the private affair.
“Shit,” I hissed, “get me a blanket.”
The men in all-black suits turned away. “We need to see his body.”
I pointed. “He’s the one next to the stairs.”
And as the men walked away from us, I dipped down and whispered a soft prayer for the lovely woman we had just hired mere weeks before.
Then, I stood to my feet and drew in a deep breath. “Angel?”
“Yep?”
I slowly turned to face him. “Call Fangs. We need church, and we need it now.”