Chapter 13
KIR
Inexplicable fury at this development surges inside me. But I do nothing to tamp it down. As if I could, anyway, with the rage every flicker of that fucking sign brings out.
She works at a fucking strip club .
“I just waitress there.”
I take in the whole sleazy dump—the men smoking and drinking beers outside, lecherously discussing the girls inside. The shady characters on motorcycles or leaning out of muscle or street racing cars.
She could be this place’s fucking accountant , and I’d hate it.
My anger isn’t directed at her, of course. Just at the circumstances that would force a girl like her to work at a place like this.
A meat market. A place for men to come and let out their inner predator. A place that swallows up girls in tough situations and spits out the bones when it’s done.
An overly muscled bouncer with long hair and a ludicrous tribal tat all over the right side of his face and curling around his eye nods to me as I approach the front door.
“Twenty bucks cover charge. Two drink minimum?—”
“I’m looking for a girl who was here last time I came in,” I say with a tight smile, cutting him off. “Blonde, blues eyes, about yea tall...”
I frown, remembering the night I took her home, when I saw…well, everything.
“A tattoo of ballet slippers on her ankle,” I add, remembering the ink I spotted when I cleaning her up.
I fucking hate the guy's lascivious grin of recognition.
“Oh, you mean Cherry.”
I scowl. “Cherry.”
“Cherry Pie,” he grunts. “That’s her name here.”
Why the fuck does that sound like a goddamn stripper name …
“Her, yes,” I growl, biting back savage blackness.
“Yeah, she ain’t working tonight, buddy. One sec—” He glances past me and grins. “Laaaadies! How we doin’?”
I step aside for the extremely loud, extremely drunk group of women, including one wearing a sash proclaiming “brIDE TO BE!” and a tiara made of pink dildos.
A bachelorette party. Great.
The fucker on the door is, of course, eye-fucking the lot of them and trying to be his version of charming.
But pretty quickly, as the women give him shit about checking their IDs, inquire about a VIP table while simultaneously complaining about the cover charge, and finally ask if he will be “taking his thing out”, his charm drops to zero.
I know his type. Women, or indeed anyone he deems beneath him, are only there for his enjoyment or entertainment. The second they aren’t entertaining or enjoyable, he goes right back to not giving a shit about them.
Eventually, scowling, he ushers them inside and kicks the door shut behind them. I seize my opportunity.
“Fucking women,” I groan. “Am I right?”
The guy shakes his head darkly. “For real , brother.” He turns and spits on the ground. “Sometimes you just gotta lay hands, know what I'm sayin’?”
He grins at me. I don’t grin back.
I bite back the desire to break his face as I stick out a hand. “Kevin.”
“Zak,” he grunts, shaking my hand. “Bro, just quickly…” He leans close. “Can I tell you something about that chick you're looking for?”
My jaw clenches. “By all means,” I mutter.
“Total whore, brother. Bitch has been leading me on for months. You know the type. Well, she gets mouthy the other night…” He sucks his teeth and leans back on his heels, folding his arms smugly over his chest. “Let’s just say, she knows her place and the right way to speak to a man now. Know what I’m sayin’?”
That I do, motherfucker.
I don’t trust myself to say anything. Not yet. Instead, I grin, hand Zak the twenty-dollar cover charge, and step into the club.
The rage from before resurfaces when I sweep my eyes over the dimly lit interior.
More pink and turquoise neon illuminates a stage with three poles and a catwalk that runs out between the small, round tables.
Barstools rim the stage, with surly men guzzling beer leering at and cat-calling a brunette on stage swaying her hips.
The fucking place smells like cigars, beer, and broken dreams.
“Excuse me, baby.”
I turn, letting a waitress with a tray of beers walk by me and toward a table of rowdy men.
She’s wearing a thong bikini bottom and stiletto boots. Nothing else.
“I just waitress there.”
My vision blurs with rage and I have to remind myself to breathe.
Brooklyn will not be coming back to this fucking cesspit.
I force myself to concentrate on what I came here to do. I scan the interior and spot only three security cameras: one pointed at the bar, another at the stage, and a third aimed down the hallway toward the VIP rooms. That’s it.
There are two other bouncers in here besides Fuckhead out front. But they’re barely paying attention to anything but the tits on stage. One of them is even having a beer, for fuck’s sake.
This will be almost too easy.
Just the same, I stumble by them one at a time, pretending I’m drunk and using my slurred “Whoa, sorry, man” to get close enough to cut the wires from their radios to their earpieces with my knife.
I clear the restroom next, then head back outside and clap Zak on the shoulder.
“Couple of guys fighting in the men’s room.” I shrug. “Figured you might want to know.”
He swears under his breath before he thumbs his radio. “Sean! Terence! We got a problem in the men’s room. Deal with it.”
Unsurprisingly, he gets no reply, since Sean and Terence's earpieces aren't working.
Zak’s face fills with what I assume is steroid-fueled anger and thumbs his radio again. “Sean! Terry!” he barks. “Stop watching the girls and do your fucking job !”
Still no answer. By now Zak looks like he's ready to kill.
“ Fuck !” he snarls, whirling back to me. “Look…Kevin, was it?”
“That’s me.”
He exhales. “I hate to ask, brother, but…you think you could stay out here by the door for a minute while I deal with this? Anyone shows up, just tell them it’s a ten-minute wait to get in. I’ll have the manager comp your drinks all night.”
I smile. “No problem at all.”
He grins. “Appreciate it, man.”
I give him about a ten-second head start before I step back into the club and follow him as he marches straight for the restroom.
The minute he’s inside, he’s fucking mine .
I slam a fist into one of his kidneys from behind, then the other, then his ear, making him scream before I kick his knees and send him collapsing to the piss-wet, sticky floor. I lock the door and calmly walk over to him.
He starts to scramble to his feet, but I’m much faster. And despite his size and juiced-up bulk, I sincerely doubt the fucker has ever been in a real fight in his life, aside from throwing drunks out of this place.
Me, though?
I’ve been in several .
When I start working him over, I do so methodically, making a deliberate statement. Like an artist or a surgeon. I break his nose first, then his left orbital, then get to work on his mouth, knocking two teeth out.
His abdomen is next, my fists pounding his torso over and over, until even his gym-honed muscles cave and I hear the satisfying snap of ribs. His balls similarly feel the wrath of my shoe, until the top of my foot actually hurts a bit.
He’s done after that, slumped whimpering and bleeding all over the floor, which I’m quite sure is even more piss-wet now.
He mumbles for mercy when I flick out my knife, grab his greasy ponytail in a fist and yank his head back, exposing his neck to the blade.
I’m not going to kill him, though I would really like to. But if it’s known that he hit Brooklyn the other night, and then he winds up dead in the men's room of the strip club where she works, she’d be at the top of any semi-competent police detective’s suspect list.
And I know what it feels like to not want the police poking into your life.
I squat beside him, tapping his neck with the tip of my knife a few times before I put it away.
“In case it’s unclear,” I growl quietly, “this is about Brooklyn Ellis.”
His puffy, swelling eyes widen a little bit.
“As in, Cherry Pie . There will be no retaliation, got it?” I say icily. “You take this out on her, or anyone else? I’ll know, and I’ll find you, and next time, I won’t stop . Nod if you understa?—”
“ Fuucck yooou, ” Zak blurts through his bloody mouth.
I punch him as hard as I can between the eyes, smiling when his head bounces off the sticky floor with a crack, knocking him out.
Pissing on his unconscious body isn’t necessary, but fuck , it feels good.
Then I slip out of the restroom and walk calmly out the front door.
I'm sure I didn’t get all her monsters tonight.
But it’s a start.