Chapter Fourteen
Kay
Guns.
So many guns.
Pointed at me.
If my world wasn’t just rocked by the hand of the mafia man standing next to me, I might have screamed. I stepped closer to him in the face of death, praying my demon would save me.
Don’t get me wrong, ya girl could fight, but when someone brought a gun to a fist fight…
“Gentleman,” Collin stated, “I didn’t know that pissing me off was on the agenda this evening.”
The weapons were lowered immediately as one man to the left of me began rattling off in Italian.
Collin and I stepped into the second level of Club Sweat, the floor for members only that required an access card to enter.
The man was still yelling at us as we made our way across the vast floor.
There was a bar in the center of the room, a giant glass circle, with a tower of alcohol in the middle.
My eyes scanned the brands as we passed.
“Jesus,” I muttered. Some of the most expensive bottles in the world were sitting on the top shelf. There were rooms along the walls—well…
“Yeah, G told me she has to work in these pods. They're like private rooms for meetings and shit.”
My brother’s words from months ago echoed in my head as we approached one of the pods. Collin’s hand dropped to the small of my back and ushered me inside.
In the center of the pod was a circular table—with a naked woman dancing on it.
My jaw opened as her huge tits swung back and forth but didn’t shock me the most. It was her eyes.
She stared straight ahead—at nothing—as her hands wrapped around the pole sticking out from the table and spun.
She stopped and lowered herself as she spread her knees letting everyone see everything.
A finger slid under my chin and forced my mouth closed.
“Nothing you haven’t seen before, darling,” Collin said low. Darling.
He was putting on a show, and I needed to follow suit. I nodded and took a seat, trying to calm my nerves. The orgasm he gave me helped so much which made me wonder if he did that on purpose...
I glanced up at him as he spoke quietly with some man standing a foot away from me. This man, the one who embodied the face of death, wanted me to feel…protected.
Col sat beside me, in the center of the round bench that crowded around the stripper table, spreading his knees as he looked up to the short man still yelling at us in a different language.
Men filed in, dressed in three-piece suits, lighting up cigars and pouring their liquor.
I crossed my legs and straightened my back, my breath hitching as Collin’s fingers found the end of my ponytail. My eyes found his.
You’re safe, Angel.
I nodded slightly before he turned to look straight ahead. Show time.
“Tu terrai la tua lingua alla mia presenza, o io la taglierò,” my demon said calmly to the man in front of us.
Holy shit.
He spoke Italian. What did he say?
The man in front of us was only about five foot six, shorter than me.
His face was swollen and sweaty and he wore cheap cologne and a silk shirt.
I studied him, and when he turned his head to say something to the waitress who entered, I saw that he was missing an ear.
A deep chuckle had me twisting my neck to find a man—a large man—standing about two feet from me.
“Come now, Collin. Let’s keep the tongue cutting to a minimum this evening,” he said, chuckling before sipping his drink.
“Then tell your dog to get out of my face,” Collin clipped, sending a chill down my spine.
He threatened to cut his tongue out…in Italian?
I looked back to him; his eyes were focused on the large man.
His jaw jumped underneath his pale skin, which made the tattoos on his neck look even more terrifying.
“Lasciateci,” the large man said to his goon.
I watched as Mr. Sweaty left, huffing and puffing.
“Romano sent you again?”
“I came on my own,” Collin answered simply, sounding bored.
“To what do I owe pleasure? Last time, you killed three of my men…anymore on your list,” Large Man drawled.
“Do not test me, Roman,” my demon said, ushering for me to sit back against him. I did what he wanted, keeping up appearances, but I was uncomfortable as hell. How the fuck did Gwen do this?
She shut it off, remember? You don’t know how to do that.
I envied my friend and her ability to shut everything off. All I could do was get into a safe routine and work like a robot day in and day out.
“Who is this?” Large Man's eyes trailed up and down my body shamelessly, the look in his eyes something I was all too familiar with.
I stiffened. Roman was in front of me now, and he sniffed me. “Fuck, she smells sweet.”
Did that motherfucker just—
“Another word, and it will be your tongue, Roman,” Collin said as his fingers continued playing with my hair.
“My apologies, sir,” he rumbled as he looked at me again. A nasty smirk crossed his face as he sat back, and I held his eyes until he decided to look up at the dancing woman.
The evening dagged on from there. Men talked, drank, and smoked. I remained beside Collin as he made conversation, and the funny thing about it was…the men came to him.
My demon never left his seat.
I began to wonder what the hell we were even doing here until—
“I want to know about the rings,” Collin demanded to no one in particular. One by one the men began to take their seats, watching the hitman with guarded eyes, but I saw the underlying fear within each pair.
The trafficking rings. Holy shit. My stomach twisted.
“That isn’t our business to share. If the boss wants you in on it, he’ll bring you in. You know that.,” Roman said.
Wait—he didn’t know about them?
Haley and I were right.
“He isn’t bringing the right material.” Col waved him off as a waitress handed him a drink. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him take a sip.
“I suppose you have the right material?” one of the men questioned, puffing on his cigar, regarding my demon through the waves of smoke.
“You're looking at her.”
Fear sunk its claws into me from all sides as a scream lodged itself in my lungs.
My eyes scanned the room, meeting the heartless stare of hungry men.
Memories I'd worked so hard to shove down deep obliterated the walls I had built around them. Flashes of hands, faces, and slick bodies came forth, cutting off my airway. A single finger trailed down the length of my bare arm. It wasn’t Collin’s touch.
His touch left an ache. This man’s touch left me nauseous.
“She is perfection, I’ll give you that, Stevens.”
My demon hummed in agreement, shifting beside me.
I kept my stare straight ahead, my heart crying out for the woman above me.
I knew all too well the stare she held. The image of an American Flag pinned to a cream-colored wall came to me, and I was back in that room—their voices growing louder than the ones in the present.
My lips parted as my face relaxed, void of any emotion.
Fear was there, of course, but you couldn’t show it.
You can’t allow them the satisfaction of your fear—just be numb and count to one thousand, and it would be over. They couldn’t last forever.
“I have more.” The man who'd held my heart captive for nearly a decade brought me back into the present, the beginnings of my panic attack drifting back into the shadows. He said it was all a lie. I just had to trust him.
There was good in him.
There was good in him.
There was good in him.
“You do?” another man questioned, a horrid eagerness evident in his tone. Sick bastard. Bile rose up in my throat, but I kept my composure.
Collin laughed, and it wasn’t a good one. It was the stuff of nightmares. “You wouldn’t believe the merchandise I possess,” he bragged.
Roman inhaled his cigar and, as the smoke trailed out from his lips, he eyed the stripper. “We need some more. The ones we have are…overused.”
A few of the men chuckled, and Collin held up his hand to silence them. “You can have them.”
Roman chuckled. “What’s in it for you, errand boy?”
Collin smiled at him, showing all his perfect white teeth. He held that gorgeous smile as three blades landed into three separate men across the room. The men shifted in their seats as fear took over while bodies collapsed to the floor with a thud.
“You forget the type of errands I used to run, Roman Barone.”
“Clear out the club,” Roman ordered, keeping eye contact with my hitman. The tension in the air was deadly, cold…dark.
I swallowed and fisted my hands at my sides as goosebumps pebbled my arms. Outside of the pod, people scurried, rushing to the exits. I could only assume the bottom level was cleared out too.
“That’s six of my men, Co—”
Collin stood quickly, pulling his gun out and shooting two more men—right between the eyes.
His aim was impeccable. The sound of the gun caused me to jump as the stripper dropped down to the table, taking cover.
She got into the fetal position, her hands behind her neck.
When she looked up at me, her brown eyes were wild with fear. “Run,” she mouthed to me.
“And that’s eight. I’m so glad you're able to comprehend basic math, Roman,” my demon growled, his blue eyes staring intensely at the man who challenged him. The larger man held his hands up. “Alright! You win. Anthony, put your gun away.”
“Does someone else want to play?” Collin said calmly, turning around to look at a young man holding a gun in his trembling hands.
“No! Collin! He's just a child!”
His back was to me, but his shoulders tensed up. “This is no place for a child,” he said, his voice lower—colder.
“Get out of here, Anthony!”
The kid ran. Smart. I looked at the woman on the table. “Go. Now,” I hissed as the young man ran away. She scrambled off the table and fled.
Collin turned back around to face Ronan, anger evident in his features.