Chapter 25 #3
Melody slipped her phone back into her purse and shoved it into the locker where she stored her things during her shift.
Her break had ended two minutes ago, but she wasn’t going to leave Mateo hanging after she’d been waiting to hear back from him all day.
She wasted another thirty seconds staring at Mateo’s text and grinning like an idiot before being forced to delete them all.
She didn’t even have his number saved, having it memorized.
There could be no evidence of their conversations.
Hell, after tomorrow, it probably wouldn’t be wise to text him at all.
Leaving the breakroom, she muttered to herself under her breath. “Get it together, Mel.”
If she didn’t stop daydreaming about Mateo, she was going to give herself away.
It was going to be hard enough to control her instinctive reactions to his nearness with Roman hovering nearby.
The man was perceptive, especially concerning the people under his control.
He would notice if something was off with her.
As she sidled back to the bar to check in with Rudy, Melody tried to mentally prepare herself for what the following days and weeks might bring.
She had no way of knowing how long Korenic would be in town, how much time he would spend at Solstice, or how he would respond to the raids.
She didn’t know if he was aware that he and his entire organization were under federal investigation.
One thing she did know for certain, once Roman learned all the details of the aftermath—that Suede, Wilson, and Morrison had, apparently, all started talking to save their own asses—Roman was going to be furious.
There would be consequences, retaliation.
Blood. He would be even more suspicious of the people in his inner circle, watching them all like a hawk. Melody would be under a microscope.
The familiar anxiety began welling up in her again, and she took a few deep breaths to settle herself.
She had to pull herself together by tomorrow.
She had to push aside memories of The Copper Rose and that little motel off the highway.
She had to stop imagining other nights like that in her future, more moments in which a man she did not deserve opened a previously foreign world to her.
A world of dates and pet names and whispered conversations in the dark.
A world of dizzying kisses and soul-stirring lovemaking and feelings that were too new and fragile to name.
Because the truth was, there was no future with Mateo, nothing they could have beyond that one perfect night.
He might not know it yet—he would never want to admit it—but whatever was happening between them was now ending before it really even started.
It had to. For the sake of both her life and his, it had to.
“Hey, cher,” Rudy yelled to be heard over the music, waving his hand to catch her attention. “Bottle service, VIP 3.”
Melody accepted the ice-filled champagne bucket and tray holding three bottles and a scattering of flutes.
She moved by rote, lifting the tray to her shoulder and holding the bucket in her other hand as she weaved her way through the second-floor tables toward VIP.
The club was nearly full already, the excitement for tomorrow night’s event drawing a lot of regulars.
Melody acknowledged familiar faces as she moved through the crowd, noticing several pairs of eyes following her. Roman’s spies.
She found four men in VIP booth 3, where the remnants of a previous bottle service sat scattered on the table in front of them.
They mostly ignored her as she cleared the empty bottles and dirty glasses to replace them with the fresh ones.
A hand fell on the back of one thigh from behind, sliding up to cup an ass cheek.
Melody gritted her teeth and choked down the flash of anger burning in her throat.
She’d been groped and pinched more times than she could count, and not just at Solstice.
In the past, she might not have reacted, so used to being treated like a piece of meat or a toy.
That was before Mateo. Before he had shown her what it felt like to be cherished and desired. To be loved.
A champagne flute fell from her grasp, her fingers suddenly growing numb. She stumbled, and one of the men caught her by the arm, putting her upright.
“You all right, doll face?”
Melody blinked and shook her head, trying to regain hold of her equilibrium. All four of the men were watching her, mildly curious but mostly leering. She recognized two of them as guys Roman had entertained at the club on multiple occasions.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll clean it up.”
They dismissed her, going back to their conversation while she crouched to pick up the cracked flute.
She made quick work of laying out their bottle service before collecting everything and making her escape.
Finding the booth next to them empty, she fell onto the black leather sofa and tossed her tray down.
She was suddenly dizzy and out of sorts, her heart taking up a rapid cadence against her ribs.
Loved? Had she really convinced herself that what Mateo felt toward her could in any way be misconstrued as love? Infatuation, sure. Obsession, absolutely. Sympathy, no question. But love?
She was projecting. This was nothing more than the fantasy of the little girl inside her, that pesky piece of her heart that still remained even after all she had endured.
She was so starved for affection, so lonely in a world filled with people who only wanted her for what she could give them, that she’d interpreted simple acts of kindness as something else.
She had twisted their significance, telling herself they meant things they didn’t.
Mateo was stressed, lonely, and grieving.
He had latched onto her for reasons she couldn’t understand; that even he didn’t seem to understand.
That didn’t equal love. He didn’t know her, not really. He still didn’t know the truth.
“The fuck was wrong with that bitch?”
Melody perked up as the voices of the men in VIP 3 drifted toward her.
“Probably nervous … feds have been hanging around the club ...”
“No fucking way.”
Melody almost doubled over, one hand braced against her belly.
How the hell did they know about the feds?
Did they know about Mateo specifically? She held her breath and leaned around the side of her couch.
She didn’t want them to notice her lingering nearby, but could only make out so much of what they were saying.
“ … Suede, Wilson, and Morrison … all arrested …”
“Security will be tight … Korenic won’t risk it … eyes everywhere.”
“Gonna have to lay low for a while.”
They abruptly changed the subject, so Melody slowly eased back upright on the sofa. She remained where she sat long enough that they might not notice her walking away. Picking up the tray, she rushed back to the bar and hurled everything down in front of Rudy.
“Gotta pee,” she announced. “Be right back.”
She ignored him yelling after her that she’d just come off a break, nearly colliding with a group of drunk girls coming from downstairs as she made her way back to the break room.
Slamming the door behind her, she leaned against it, relieved to find the room still empty.
Her breath burned in her lungs, and her heart now beat so hard and fast she feared it might leap out of her throat.
It made sense for Korenic and his associates to fear the feds after the raids.
But if Suede and the others had all talked, the FBI had to know about the connection to Roman, who owned Solstice.
She wasn’t sure if Roman had actual proof that Mateo and his crew had been sniffing around at the club, but that didn’t matter.
If Roman didn’t know exactly who was closing in on him, he would find out. He always did.
This was exactly what she had tried to warn Mateo about. She had seen this coming the moment she’d realized he wasn’t just coming to Solstice for pretty waitresses and bad Scotch.
Pushing away from the door, she went back to her locker and retrieved her phone.
With shaking hands, she typed in Mateo’s number.
Staring at the cursor, she chewed her lip and considered what she might say.
She didn’t want to worry him, or he’d come running right this second, and that was the last thing she needed.
But she had to see him before Glow Night, warn him that he was close to being compromised.
While she was at it, maybe she could tell him the rest of it.
Maybe he would understand and help her like he’d promised. Maybe …
“No,” she whispered to herself, blinking back tears. “It has to be a clean break.”
There would be no way out of this for him otherwise.
If she didn’t protect him, he would get himself killed.
And she could only protect him if she pushed him away.
She had her own plans, which had been in place since before she’d known of Mateo’s existence.
She would make sure he stayed away this time, and then look out for herself as she always had.
It was the only way. Before she could talk herself out of it, she shot off her message before shoving her phone back into her bag and hurrying back to work.
We need to talk. Tomorrow night. Before Glow.