31. Colton
COLTON
“Colton, are you still with us?” Says Anders, my boss and definitely the person I should be paying attention to asks.
Instead, I’m staring at Harper across the main club floor, watching as she talks with Sadie in a low, whispered tone, hands crossed over her chest and face pulled into a tight grimace.
Look at me.
It’s the same look she’s had since she spun away from me, darting out of her office to see Drug Enforcement Administration agents swarming her sanctuary.
They made a quiet entrance, saving the wreckage for the inside of the club, not wasting their energy to knock down the door.
Why would they, when the door was opened for them to walk right in? By me.
Over the last several hours I watched Harper, and Harper watched everything else.
Her home was searched top to bottom by goons with little care for the intimate space they were desecrating.
In those hours, she’s been careful to check in with the skeleton crew that had stayed behind, a few of Sadie’s techs that luckily seemed freaked out enough to keep the events of the night to themselves, though I’m sure there was persuasion in whatever form worked best. The two sisters had comforted, soothed and eventually sent the employees home once they had been cleared by my colleagues.
A term I use loosely at the moment. In their eagerness to uncover the drugs I had already assured them weren’t present, they had abandoned all pretense of civility.
Mirrors were shattered, floorboards backstage pulled up and costumes torn.
Through it all, Harper stood to the side with her sister, hands clenched tightly around the search warrant that had been served by James once she had emerged from the office, with me hot on her heels.
Not once since she walked out of the office has she looked at me.
No scowling, no anger or vitriol spit my way. Devastating silence.
We didn’t have enough time. I needed more time.
“Yes sir, I’m listening,” I reassure my boss, standing at attention and dragging my focus back to the conversation in front of me.
“Is there anywhere else that the team could have missed?” he asks in a hushed tone, looking at me expectantly. After all, that’s why I’m here, to uncover the drugs that we were so sure Harper was funneling through Cirque.
“There are compartments in the private rooms for all the outfits and small hatches that look like window boxes, they lead to a separate hall and a vault used to house all the jewelry the club sells and markets. The vault code is 090595.” Sadie’s birthday.
A fact that feels too dirty to tell them, another token of information I keep to myself.
I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, betraying a part of myself no matter the path I choose, always making the wrong turn.
Anders nods to two grunt agents who immediately set off towards the hall of private rooms, no doubt to cause more destruction. I don’t want them in those rooms, looking through the small details Harper planned with such care and craft.
I look back up, watching James discuss something with Sadie, who is not the stoic creature of her sister, her eyes never leaving me, cold and furious.
She answers his questions without even gracing him with eye contact.
She might not have the neutrality of her sister, but their capacity for rage is undoubtedly genetic.
Another thirty minutes goes by before Anders gestures to the two women, summoning them to come before him with a lazy flick of his wrist. Sadie’s hands clench at her sides but Harper merely raises a single brow at my behemoth of a boss before replying.
“Why don’t we take a seat, get comfortable before you apologize for the inconvenience. Would anyone like a drink? I’ll have to see what glasses your team left unbroken, but I’m sure we can make it work.” Harper’s voice is sweet, kind and accommodating despite the words she speaks.
Anders just chuckles, not rising to the bait. Yet.
He walks to the center of the club, James moving ahead of him to shift a few of the chairs out of the way to pull the small intimate tables together.
Myself, James, Anders, and one of his higher-ranked lackeys sit on one side as Harper and Sadie sit on the other side, tension thick enough to cut in the space between.
Where the fuck is Wade?
Just as the thought forms I see him enter the club, the DEA grunt agents parting for him to move through to reach our table, pulling up a chair and sitting down in front of me to sandwich Harper.
“Should we feign niceties or just get down to business,” asks Anders, leaning back against his chair, arrogance radiating off him, despite the fact his search didn’t turn up anything of note.
“I think we left niceties behind when one of your agents injured a member of my staff,” says Harper her fake smile dropping.
“Who was hurt?” I ask, unable to help it as I try to keep the tone neutral, burying my worry as deep as I can. My question was for Harper, but the answer comes in a deep growl next to her.
“Stella.” Wades voice is almost unrecognizable, and I realize that any tiny portion of his anger I’ve seen pales in comparison to the full force of his rage.
I’ve seen him annoyed, concerned and calculating, but this is something different.
The fury that bleeds from him is palpable, but even as he answers my question, his eyes are locked on the agent seated next to my boss, Agent Bronly.
A little brown-nosing asshole I’ve had to endure for years, though based on the way Wade is sizing him up, he isn’t long for this world.
Before I can ask anything else about what happened, and if Stella is ok, Harper steps in.
“How exactly did Cirque gain the attention of the DEA? I’m not in cuffs, so clearly whatever you anticipated finding here was to no avail,” Harper asks, eyes never leaving Anders, one boss speaking to another.
“We had a confidential informant provide some interesting information about a new product on the market,” says Anders, throwing the small baggie on the table in front of us.
“They told us the dealer that provided it said they were getting supplied from Cirque, specifically mentioning you by name, Ms. Mathers. Surely you can see the Bureau’s needs to investigate. ”
Harper doesn’t move to touch or look at the baggie thrown on the table in front of her. She doesn’t need to—she knows what black marking is etched on the side. The Jester.
“And what has your investigation found?” she asks, tone inquisitive.
“As you have surely realized, an agent has been working in your establishment to discover the extent of the operation. In the last several months that he has been here, however, his position has maintained that while the drugs are being funneled through Cirque, you are not the source of the operation.” I expect her attention to shift, to finally acknowledge me at the table, some form of awareness that I have been fighting for her this entire time.
Look at me.
“But despite your own agent telling you of my innocence, you decided to storm the gates and see for yourself?” she asks, the words accusatory but the tone remaining calm and collected.
Anders shifts uncomfortably before nodding at Bronly, who reaches down to throw a stack of large photos on the table next to the small baggie.
The photos are of a disfigured body—male, late thirties, gruff and unkempt, but familiar in a way that has my stomach sinking. This time, Harper does reach across the table to glide one finger over the photos, moving the top one aside to see the next underneath.
“Do you recognize this man?” Bronly asks her, eyes cruel and gleeful.
“You are asking me a question you already know the answer to. Yes, I do. He is a low-level dealer that I had the good fortune of meeting, though he wasn’t able to provide much information at the time.
” She doesn’t falter at the question, but I can see her posture stiffen slightly, unsure how much they know about what took place between her and the dealer lying dead in the photos.
“He was found murdered last night, shot execution-style with an unlit cigar shoved down his throat,” Bronly relays, watching her face for a reaction he won’t get.
“An unfortunate way to go,” Harper looks up from the photos to meet Bronly’s stare, “but at least it’s quick,” she grins. Well, fuck me, that’s terrifying.
Harper may be able to laugh at hearing this news, but I’m struggling to keep the concern from my face at Bronly’s relay.
It’s another message for Harper, another threat.
The cigar was another warning from the Jester to butt out of their business, to behave.
Letting Harper know every move made against them doesn’t go unnoticed or without retribution.
Bronly, to his credit, doesn’t break eye contact with a sinister-looking Harper, “Look, we know you talked to the dealer thanks to Colton.” He waves a hand in my direction. No need to point, they know who Colton is. “And we also know he walked out of here in one piece.”
At the news of my blatant lie to a superior, I expect maybe some brownie points thrown my way, maybe even a little forgiveness. All I get is the slight tensing of her jaw as she nods along with my lie, knowing damn well that Bob left in decidedly more than one piece that night.
Anders takes over the monologue of information, like they practiced their timing in the car to catch Harper in some dramatic gasp or outrage. Apparently, they weren’t reading any of my reports to James over the last few weeks, or they took no time to learn the behaviors of their target.