Chapter 23
KATE
It takes Cole a lot longer to retrieve his gift for Fournier than I think it should. Our driver’s paranoia is catching. I keep remembering the shadowy warehouses we passed on our way in, all the places a mugger with a gun or knife could hide.
But Gage Rider doesn’t seem concerned. As we wait in the hallway, he offers to fetch me a drink from the nearest bar. I’d love a shot of whiskey, something to steady my nerves, but I decline. I don’t want to say or do anything to disrupt Cole’s business meeting.
Gage says, “Is that Irish I hear in your voice?”
“By way of Baltimore. I was born in Maryland but spent a lot of my childhood in Ireland.”
“Whereabouts?”
“County Donegal.”
He hasn’t been there, but he used to play hockey with a guy from Ireland.
I dig up some petrified etiquette lessons Granny drilled into my skull, and I ask him where he grew up.
Connecticut seems ordinary enough, but I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone who went to a prep school.
He tosses off the names of Burgess Academy and Dartmouth like they’re Baltimore City Community College.
It’s time to find another line of conversation, but I’m starting to feel claustrophobic.
It’s not Gage—he’s a perfect host. But it’s been donkey’s years since I’ve worn anything other than ratty old exercise clothes.
The waistband on my linen trousers feels too tight.
The plunging neckline on my sleeveless silk top seems too daring.
I’m actually wearing my best knickers, along with a matching bra, and the lace on both makes me want to scratch like a mangy dog.
“I think—” I say, before I realize I’m interrupting Gage’s story about his first trip to New York City, on a school field trip. Embarrassed, I clear my throat. “Cole should—”
“Cole shouldn’t have left the two of you for so long.” My husband’s voice washes over me like a soothing bath. “I apologize,” he says. “A business matter came up.”
I smile because he does, but I can see the tension around his eyes. More importantly, I can see his hands are empty. Something interrupted his retrieval of the MacAllan 84. And from the minuscule shake of his head, he doesn’t want me to mention it.
Gage says, “No apology necessary. I figured you’re rather we wait here, instead of going out on the floor.” He looks at both of us—me in my society best, Cole in his usual all-black attire of summer weight trousers and crisp cotton shirt.
As Gage sets his palm on the door at the end of the hallway, I cast a quick glance toward Cole. He’s frowning, but his palm is firm on the small of my back. We won’t talk about whatever happened. We’ll just go through to our meeting.
I blink in the dim lights once the door to the service hallway has closed. We’re in a door-lined corridor, one wall finished with nondescript paint, the other faced with rough red brick.
A man comes around the corner leading three women on leashes.
He’s wearing nothing but black briefs, his engorged dick thrusting through the fly like a dousing rod.
One woman is dressed as a kitten in a black vinyl bodysuit, pointy-eared headband, and a long leather tail.
Another woman is a rabbit with a white-lace baby-doll dress, floppy ears pinned to her hair and a powder-puff tail above her ample arse.
The third woman is covered head to toe in gold body-paint, just her tits outlined in crimson.
All four of them duck into a room at the far end of the hallway.
“Everything okay?” Gage asks.
I realize my lips are curled in something related to a snarl. I know these people are adults. They’ve chosen their costumes. Each woman agreed to be put on a leash.
But I didn’t have a choice when Cole put a leash around my neck.
Or maybe it’s the Catholic schoolgirl inside me that rebels.
Maybe it’s my inner sub who trembles at the thought of anyone discovering what I’ve agreed to do in private.
And just maybe it’s the fact that I’m impossibly, obscenely intrigued by what that foursome is willing to do in front of others.
“Kate?” Cole asks.
He’s not asking me to play a scene in public. Besides, I’m the one who insisted on coming to this meeting. I’d sound like a naive child if I got squeamish now.
“Yeah,” I say. “Everything’s grand.”
“We’re in here,” Gage says, as if we just watched a quartet of worshippers stepping to the rail for communion at Sunday mass.
Here turns out to be the third room on our left.
Gage wastes no time introducing Jean-Luc Fournier.
Our host checks that drinks are laid out on the sidebar, and he nods toward a portable table and chairs.
“Let any of my staff know if you need anything,” he says.
“I’ll walk you out when you’re done. Get you back to your team, Cole. Kate.”
He smiles as he says it. I’m not sure if he’s generously offering his time or reminding us to follow house rules. Before I can decide, he closes the door, leaving us some appropriate privacy for our meeting.
Cole apologizes for our late arrival, but Fournier doesn’t seem to mind. I get the impression he was enjoying the view through the open door.
We all sit at the table, and Fournier opens a briefcase to produce a tall stack of papers. Cole leans close, and they start to review the information, page by page.
It should be odd, conducting a business meeting in a sex club.
Glancing around this private room, I recognize various equipment from our dungeon back home.
There’s a hook in the center of the ceiling.
Clamps are embedded near the floor for tying off ropes.
There’s a faint shadow against the far wall, the height and width of a bed that has clearly been moved from the room.
An inconspicuous drain is set into the floor.
But none of that matters. Cole and Fournier are intent on paperwork—assets and liabilities, leases and pending contracts. As the business language washes over me, I remember huddling outside Da’s office loads of times, listening to him run meetings for the clan.
He was proud to call himself a businessman. He wanted everyone to think he was legitimate; that’s why he always wore a suit and necktie, why he carried a Montblanc pen.
But whenever Da became frustrated with a business partner, he reverted to the old ways. He hollered. He threatened. He lied. Da wanted the Canton Crew to be legitimate, but he was never willing to take the time to build his companies from the ground up.
Cole and Fournier confer for almost three hours. Cole isn’t afraid to ask questions—about how the hockey league affects business, about international issues between the US and Canada, about the hiring and firing of personnel.
By the end, both men seem to be in perfect agreement. They stand and shake hands. Fournier promises to send copies of all the documents they’ve reviewed. Cole says his lawyers should sign off on the deal by the end of the month.
When Fournier opens the door, a young woman steps forward. Wearing a polite smile and the black suit of a caterer, she offers to take him to the lobby.
“That went well,” I say to Cole.
“Better than I expected.”
“Now will you tell me what happened when you went back for the present?”
Glancing toward the open door, he frowns. I understand why when he tells me about Collins counting cash from the feckin’ bratva. Cole’s return was delayed because he had to track down Jacobson, in Gage Rider’s office. We’ve finally found our traitor.
“So what happens now?”
“Jacobson doesn’t want to spook him. Collins will be a passenger in the tailing car on the way back to the airport. The driver has already been told to get trapped in traffic. Collins will miss our flight and make his own way home.”
“And then?”
“Best will handle the interrogation himself. Tomorrow.”
I swallow hard at interrogation. I’m a mob princess. I don’t need Cole to explain what will happen.
Cole’s jaw is iron. “The sooner we get home, the safer I’ll feel. Ready?”
As he holds the door for me, the heat of his body radiates through his sleeve.
We step into the corridor where I expect to find a guide as Fournier did, or maybe Gage himself.
Instead, the hall is empty. Scowling, Cole starts to head toward the service passage we used to get here, only to find that we need some sort of security card to open the door.
“I don’t think—” I say.
Before I can finish the thought, we hear a ripple of applause. A couple of people cheer over a wave of laughter. Gage Rider’s voice rises over the amusement, amplified through a microphone. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s one way to win a bet.”
Sighing, Cole turns toward the gathering. He laces his fingers between mine as we walk down the hall. The gesture pulls me close to his side.
When we round the corner, we find ourselves in a large room. The walls and ceiling are painted black, which makes the space seem smaller than it is. Gage stands on a raised platform, his tuxedo shimmering in a hot white spotlight.
Beside him is a giant roulette wheel, the outer edge studded with brass nails. Instead of numbers, black and red, the disk is marked with words, twenty or more. Paddle. Ball gag. Whip.
Two black-clad staff members are carrying a heavy leather chair off the stage.
A man dressed in tuxedo trousers is leaning over a woman in a school-girl outfit.
He’s holding a paddle, and she’s rubbing her arse.
“Come on, honeycakes. It was all for a good cause.” He riffles a stack of bills in front of her pouting lips.
“I’ll buy you something special with our winnings. ”
Gage makes a show of checking a stack of index cards he pulls from his breast pocket. “Let’s see now… Who is our last contestant?”
Cole maneuvers me to stand in front of him. His whisper is hot in my ear. “Looks like we’ll be a few minutes.”