Chapter Nine #2
There were a few other apps—Snapchat, TikTok, and some mobile game Jack didn’t recognize.
Her notes app was full of half-written lists, one labeled “things that piss me off” with bullet points that included ads on the side of buses, one that just said Wordle (men), and people who didn’t know how to zipper merge on the highway, plus Betty in all caps at the bottom of the list.
Jack checked Snapchat last. Ava had a few streaks with various people, one who was nicknamed “daddy domme” but whose handle was @x.msrae.x.
He opened the most recent Snapchat. Pictured was a white woman in a sleek black dress and vicious red stilettos.
She was smirking at the camera, and the photo was captioned with an invitation:
Dynamo again? Loved you in that little red dress, baby girl.
Sure thing, Jack typed in response. Tonight?
He added a string of emojis, a little face with hearts that seemed like something Ava might use, and that one heart with the hands that a man he used to meet, and fuck, always sent.
And a sparkle for good measure. That seemed like something someone referred to as baby girl might use.
Then he replaced her phone on the kitchen counter, returned to his room, turned out the lights, and waited.
To Ava’s credit, she lasted nearly a full hour before she left her room.
If Jack had guessed, he would have calculated a much quicker escape attempt, especially given the impulsivity she’d displayed in the past half a day he had been observing her. She shouldn’t have the patience to wait him out. She certainly didn’t have the patience to wait until he was asleep.
Then again, he wouldn’t have guessed Ava would have the wherewithal to steal his gun to begin with. She baffled him, and that made her dangerous.
Most people came with predictive text—he recognized patterns everywhere, saw them repeat over and over again across people all over the country, and could usually reasonably guess someone’s next action or words before, maybe, they did themselves. It made him good at what he did.
Until Ava.
Now Ava’s door quietly unlocked. Jack memorized the sound of her as she moved through the house—the soft footfall as she made her way down the hallway slowly, the catch of her breath as she paused outside his room, the sigh of relief as she found her phone still on the kitchen counter.
It occurred to Jack only after she had passed that she was armed, that she could have shot him through the door, that she had maybe even been considering that when she hesitated outside his room. That she had never actually been frozen in fear.
The front door eased open—she was making every effort to be quiet, and while he had considered he should and could stop her, he would probably gain more useful intel if he followed her, unseen. She would lead him to more unaware than she would be willing to if she knew he was following her.
Jack waited another moment before strapping a handgun to his waist and pulling on a jacket that was large enough to conceal it.
If there was a metal detector at Dynamo—or wherever she was really going—he would have to stow the handgun near the building or find a rear entrance to sneak through.
But in his experience it was always better to be prepared—and it was always better, when leaving a rental house, to assume you might not return to it.
Ava had probably ordered an Uber, or was planning to, so—
The sound of a car leaving the driveway stopped him in his tracks. He ran to the door, which was hanging open. Clearly Ava hadn’t planned to return, either, because she had left the door open and—
She was stealing his fucking car.
He had his keys. He had his keys.
That was the fucking thing. How did a librarian with a very limited legal record, who was nearly underwater in debt and legal trouble, have the skills to hot-wire a car in a few minutes?
Jack swore under his breath and waited for the taillights to disappear down the long, dark driveway before he went to the locked garage the property owner kept adjacent to the house.
The owner had assured him he’d have complete privacy here, that this part was just for storage, which—in Jack’s experience, at least—meant there was likely to be an extra vehicle, or sometimes necessary tools.
He jimmied the lock and was rewarded by a motorcycle, an older model that looked like it hadn’t been driven in years.
Well, Jack O’Sullivan was going to lose his perfect star rating as a model guest on the app.
Jack had booked the rental under Steve Johnson—and Steve Johnson was going to need a new profile.
Maybe he’d be Bill next time, or Joe, or something equally forgettable.
The motorcycle was parked next to a workbench, so Jack rummaged through the drawers until he found the key.
It took a few tries, but Jack managed to get the bike started, snagged a dusty helmet that was hanging on the wall, and followed Ava into the damp spring night.
He didn’t see his rental car again until he found it, parked haphazardly in a fire lane in front of Dynamo, already booted and ready to be towed. A few disgruntled bouncers were lingering in front of it, talking to the man who drove the tow truck.
Jack sighed as he parked the motorcycle in an open spot and pocketed the key.
Now he was stuck out here with two vehicles, and if he wanted that rental car back—and the hefty deposit he had placed on it in order to pay in cash—he would have to talk to the bouncers and the tow truck driver.
Three—no, four—more people who would remember a name, a face, a conversation in passing.
And when it came to witnesses, descriptions, and the stories people would tell the police after all this was done, this was the kind of thing that could get someone like him killed or, worse, caught.
“Hey,” Jack said resignedly, pulling his hood a little lower and putting his N95 on. “This is my car.”
One of the bouncers, a tall man with light-brown skin and reddish hair, looked Jack up and down. “This car? We saw some lady park it here and sprint inside. We had to drag her back to show her ID.”
“Yeah, she’s with me,” Jack said. “I have the key right here. Can I just go park the car?”
“If you pay me to take the boot off.” The tow truck driver had pale skin and was wearing a faded red shirt with the picture of some kid on it, dates beneath the image, the numbers cracked and worn from many wears and many washes. His hands were dirty, the nails chipped.
“How much?” Jack asked.
The driver told him a number that made Jack wince, but he dug for cash and handed it over.
“That your wife?” the first bouncer asked. “Because if mine parked like that, it’d mean she was asking me to take her to one of those back rooms.”
One of the other bouncers shoved him and laughed. “Come on now,” he said. “Rita would take you to one of those back rooms just for suggesting that.”
Jack ignored them—he had guessed that Dynamo offered a spicier option then some clubs, based on the leather he’d seen in Ava’s Snapchat, so the man’s banter provided him with no new information.
Instead, he looked at the tow truck driver expectantly, waiting for him to move.
The man huffed and complied, and Jack took the opportunity to get out of there quickly.
The steering column was damaged, wires visible, but it was, thankfully, still drivable.
He parked it—legally—a few blocks away and returned to the club. The bouncer gave him another once-over and asked for ID, which Jack supplied—an old ID, not good enough for short-term rentals or law enforcement, but good enough for something like this.
“Rory O’Callaghan?” The man looked at him a second time, eyes narrowing. “Take your mask down for me, man.”
The fake ID was a decent one. Jack had no worries about that. But being noticed, being seen, all of that was dangerous. And thanks to Ava’s careless parking job, Jack was now firmly on the bouncer’s radar.
The club’s sign was blinking neon purple, pink and blue, Dynamo in bold letters stretched over the entryway.
When Jack entered, it was to a mess of sweaty, dancing bodies in front of him, a bar to the left, and strobing lights above.
Jay would have needed his eye patch for something like this, or the strobe of the lights would have caused a seizure.
He’d hated the eye patch at first and hated the incessant stream of pirate-related jokes he’d been subjected to by strangers with too much goddamn audacity, but in the end they had found one he’d liked. Jack had helped him pick it out.
Now Jack pressed the thought down firmly. Jay was usually buried deep, all those memories tamped down so firmly that nothing could touch that part of Jack. Nothing could shake him. Not even Ava Cavalcante and the way she charmed and aroused and surprised him.
Jack pushed through the throng of bodies on the dance floor toward a hallway leading off at the back right corner, past the stage where a few people of various genders were working a collection of poles.
He dodged a woman who had bent over to throw up and stopped in front of a bouncer who was blocking the way to the hallway.
He was another tall, broad man, though this one looked sharper than the ones who had been joking about wives and back rooms.
“Can I help you, man?” the bouncer asked him.
“I’m here to see someone,” Jack said. “To meet with Ms. Rae.”
He was familiar enough with the kink world, though not usually in a club setting—he had been to the dungeons, the play parties, but avoided the larger clubs, even before his line of work had demanded anonymity. Even when he’d had the safety of Jay at his side.
“You been here before?”
“No,” Jack said.
“So this is a consult?”
“Yes.”
“You know anybody here?”
Jack hesitated and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Actually,” he said, giving the detail slowly, as if reluctant. “My wife comes here to meet her domme. She’s here with Ms. Rae now.”
His reluctance held an element of the genuine: The ruse that Ava was his wife was becoming a recurring cover story, and not one Jack particularly liked.
The bouncer grinned at this. “Oh, the spitfire?” he asked. “She tried to steal my security badge.”
He patted his pockets and then frowned.
“I’m guessing she succeeded,” Jack said dryly. “Listen, I’d really like to go and get her out of your hair. And I also wouldn’t tell anyone that she managed to lift your ID and have unfettered access to the most sensitive rooms in this club.”
The grin turned to a scowl. “Fuck you, man,” he said. “She always meets in the room down at the end with Ms. Rae. Get her out of here and get me back my badge.”
Ava’s chaotic tendency to lift other people’s things and walk away with them had served Jack. For once. Though she still had his fucking gun.
The hallway narrowed, doors on either side firmly shut. An exit sign glowed dimly at the far end, very little sound coming from any of the rooms—most likely they were soundproofed, or at least close to it.
A door opened, a man in skintight leather pants and a leather harness on his chest emerging. His eyes trailed up and down Jack’s body lazily, and he laughed when Jack held his gaze.
“Okay, daddy,” he said. “I see you. You came here with somebody?”
“Yes,” Jack told him. Another day, this might be an invitation he’d take the man up on. Another version of his life, maybe.
But right now he had a job to do, and if Ava left him in the dust, this entire thing would get a lot more complicated.
“Have you seen my wife?” Jack asked. “Short. Mean. Auburn hair. Likes to steal shit.”
“I’m Gray,” the man said. “He/they.”
“Rory,” Jack told him. “He/him.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen your wife,” Gray said. “She’s in the room at the end of the hall with Ms. Rae. Probably getting topped and bratting the whole time, though you seem like you could manage that just fine yourself.”
“Thanks.” Jack shouldered past him toward a red door at the end of the hallway. He could feel Gray’s eyes on him as he went, burning into his back.