Chapter 1
BIANCA
Hearts.
Inside the cooler are hearts.
As in the organ.
The human organ.
Three human hearts lie inside.
“Bianca?” Harrison calls again from the restroom. “What is it?”
The words escape me again.
My mouth isn’t functioning, but my brain is. The puzzle pieces are coming together.
God, I’m going to be sick.
The people who disappear from Aces are being killed. Their organs are harvested, sold on the black market to people wanting to delay their inevitable deaths, even for just a few years.
After their corpses have been disemboweled, their heads are removed, buried in a separate location, to keep people from identifying them. There isn’t anything valuable in the head anyway. You can’t transplant a brain.
Rouge sits on the board of Harrison’s hospital. That’s her in. She must sell the organs to St. Charles. They pay her in the red diamonds Alissa and Maddox found in her safe. No need to launder money when it’s in the form of precious stones.
But organs can’t last that long before they’re transplanted. I don’t know the exact science, but it can’t be more than a few hours.
Which means…
My blood runs cold.
These hearts were harvested recently.
And someone will come to collect them soon.
We have to get out of here.
A pound on the door again. The muffled voice of the female patron waiting outside rings all the way into this crawlspace. “Hello? Are you almost done cleaning up?”
No time to think.
I can’t take these hearts with me. They’re evidence. Stone-cold evidence of my sister’s wrongdoing. If I take them, Rouge will find out. She’ll see security footage of Harrison and me entering the ladies’ restroom. It won’t be hard to put two and two together after that.
She’s my sister, but I’m sure she’d have no trouble finding a new home for my hearts, lungs, and eyes. The thought nauseates me.
The woman at the door pounds again. “I swear to God, let me in now!”
I close the cooler, place it back under the folding table, and exit the crawlspace. I pull the flush lever up again to close the opening.
Harrison’s eyes are wide. “Babe, what was in there?”
I swallow, take a shaky breath in. “No time now. We just need to get out of here.”
He grabs my shoulders. “What is it? Are you in danger?”
I shake my head. “I’ll be fine. But you need to get the hell out of here. Now.” I depress the club-shaped button on the wall that opens the wall up to the staircase of the waitstaff entrance. “I’ll meet you back at your place.”
“But we took your car here,” he says.
“Take a cab home. I’ll cover the fare. Just go.”
“I’m not worried about the fare,” he replies. “What the hell was in there?”
“There’s no time.” I check my watch. “My next set is up soon. If I’m late, Rouge will know that I found out what’s in the crawlspace.”
“And what exactly is in the crawlspace?”
I shake my head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I grab his shoulders, lead him to the staircase, and press the button again to close the secret door in the wall.
Harrison turns around to defy me again, but the walls close over his stunned face before he can get another word out.
I turn and move the chaise out of the door’s way, finally opening the door to reveal the identity of the female patron.
“Mrs. Roth.” I bow my head.
She drops her jaw. “Bianca! I thought you were the custodian.”
Right. I said I was Hilda. We don’t employ anyone named Hilda. We don’t even have custodial staff. The cards clean up the club after it closes every night. It was just the first name that came to mind.
I blink. “Yes. Well, I was…embarrassed. My own bathroom is out of order, and I’ve been experiencing some”—I lean in—“feminine troubles this evening. And things came in a bit stronger this month than usual.”
Mrs. Roth grimaces. “My God, Bianca. Be a little more discreet.”
“Apologies.” I cross my arms. “I didn’t want anyone else to come in, so I blocked the door. I didn’t think I’d be in here as long as I was. I’m so sorry for keeping you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Roth rolls her eyes and huffs past me into a stall. I breathe a sigh of relief. She didn’t choose the one that leads to the secret crawlspace.
I leave the bathroom and make a beeline toward my dressing room. When I get there, I finally allow the weight of my discovery to fall on me, if only for a moment. The tears starts flowing, and I scream into a lacey makeup towel while trying not to lose whatever is left in my stomach.
I allow myself three minutes.
That’s all the time I have.
When you’re an actress, you learn to leave your personal life at the door when you walk on the stage for a performance.
Even the discovery of the cooler of hearts, as horrific as it is, can be compartmentalized. It has to be. I have no choice.
I take a deep breath in. Another. A third.
Harrison is safe. Rouge didn’t find him in the club tonight.
If she had…
God, I can’t think about his heart sitting in that cooler.
He’s okay.
That’s what matters right now.
Everything else can wait.
I wipe my eyes, retouch my makeup where it’s been blurred by my tears.
I swallow down the feelings and exit my dressing room, head to the stage.
Showtime.