68. Thea
68
Thea
W hat was Dar doing here? Talk about ruining my mood. Eden caught me staring across the room and her eyebrows shot up.
“Oh great, I didn’t realize it was Skank’s Night,” she whisper-shouted.
The blond draped over Dar’s thighs looked up and scowled, having heard Eden’s comment despite the music.
“Maybe we should go,” I mused, half to myself, but Eden was too busy calling the server over to notice.
“A bottle of champagne, please!” she said.
“Wait, what? I don’t want any champagne!” Jesus Christ. My father would shit a brick if he discovered I was quaffing champagne on his coin.
“Don’t be a killjoy!” Eden booped me on the nose and almost broke it. It was time to cut the girl off. She’d drunk way too much.
“I’m not a killjoy,” I hissed, aware that the party booth, aka Dar and his floozies, were listening. “I just think you need to slow down a bit.”
“I’m fiiiiine ! I can handle my drink,” she scoffed before hiccuping again. “Oh look, cute guys for us!” When I looked up, two guys were swaggering toward our sofa, both wearing expensive watches and perma-tans that spoke of extended vacations in sunny climates.
Since Dar was watching, I figured it was a good opportunity to behave badly.
“Hello, ladies! You look lonely. Mind if we join you?” The one with sleek, dark hair and a chiseled jaw flashed white teeth at Eden while his fair-haired friend openly checked me out. He wasn’t bad looking, just not my type, but Eden was practically salivating with eagerness to get to know them better.
Ugh.
“No, we don’t mind at all!” she giggled, flicking her pink hair like a pro. I leaned forward and smiled at the fair-haired one. He reminded me of Ryan Gosling. Easy on the eye.
“I’m Lachlan and that’s Ryan,” the dark-haired one said. Was he for real? What were the chances a Ryan Gosling lookalike was actually called Ryan?
There was a pregnant pause while the guys waited for us to offer them our names, but I was too stunned and Eden too drunk. Eventually, I recovered enough to say,
“I’m Kylie and she’s Kendall.”
Eden snorted. We’d decided at the start of the night to use fake names. It stopped idiots looking us up on social media and then sliding into our DMs if we didn’t want to hear from them again. Not that I had social media, but Eden was a prolific TikTok and Instagram user.
“Wow, like the Kardashians,” fake Ryan said with a huff of laughter. He clearly thought we were fucking with him.
Luckily, the server arrived with our bottle of Verve Clicquot.
The two guys slid onto our sofa, fake Ryan on my side and Lachlan next to Eden. She giggled happily and didn’t seem at all perturbed when Lachlan rested his hand on her knee.
Ryan edged closer to me and I summoned a friendly smile for Dar’s benefit. He’d lost interest in his little blond friend and was busy watching us. Probably to see if I acted like a slut, which was what he’d accused me of being since his unexpected arrival on campus.
“So, what do you do, sweetheart? Are you a model or an influencer?”
“No, I kill people for fun,” I dead-panned, before grinning like a loon.
“Oh, haha, very funny,” Ryan chuckled, but he sat back and didn’t seem quite so interested in getting to know me.
“She’s a bad-ass for real,” Eden interjected, much to my annoyance. “But beneath the scary exterior, our The…oops… Kylie is a cute little koala.”
“Nope, I’m really not,” I told Ryan.
“Hmm, well, Lachlan and I are lawyers. We work in the corporate sector with some big-name clients.” He puffed up his chest and made a point of flashing his Rolex at me.
I yawned. Boring .
Sadly, Eden was busy lapping up Lachlan’s bullshit and for the next hour, I had to sit and listen to one story after another about skiing in Courchevel and vacations with A-listers in Dubai.
Big yawn.
Eventually, I needed a break from the bullshit, so I made my excuses and left to visit the bathroom.
The VIP bathrooms were far nicer than those downstairs. No crowds, complimentary toiletries and face creams, fresh flowers, and more. I was tempted to collapse on one of the chairs and stay a while, soaking up the ambiance.
Would Eden notice if I’d disappeared?
Probably not. Lachlan was working super hard to woo her. Ryan hadn’t quite given up on me, but he wasn’t as interested and had spent the last 10 minutes staring at his phone.
By the time I’d wasted a while repairing my hair and makeup, I made my way back outside. Only Dar was waiting for me in the corridor. The moment I appeared from the ladies’ bathroom, he pounced.
“Here to pick up a new client?” he sneered, caging me in with two brawny arms, not that I’d noticed the way his muscular biceps stretched the fabric of his tailored shirt.
“Client?” I scratched my head in confusion. What was he on about? Then the penny dropped.
“Oh, fuck off, Dario. I have no idea why you think so badly of me, but since you apparently don’t feel like having an adult conversation, then I can’t be bothered listening to your bullshit.”
“I don’t talk to sluts!” he hissed, leaning in close enough that I could smell his spicy cologne and the clean scent of his skin. His arms were way bigger than they used to be. He had really packed on the muscle in the last few years.
My pussy wept.
“And yet you’re talking to me,” I pointed out, ignoring my traitorous pussy. “Go figure!”
Dar’s eyes dropped into my cleavage and his eyes darkened. Good to know he wasn’t completely immune to my charms.
“Do your boyfriends know you’re here throwing yourself at other guys?”
“Boyfriends?”
“The Russian bastardo and the Scottish stronzo .”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have any boyfriends, just friends with benefits, and no, they don’t know I’m here, but I’m sure you’ll tell them.”
“I’m sure they’d love to know you’re whoring yourself out while they’re away for the weekend!”
If that’s what they thought, then screw them. I wasn’t in a relationship with either of them and was therefore free to do what I wanted and with whom. For all I knew, the pair of them were banging other women. Possibly right now.
The thought of Kyril and Landon tag-teaming some other bitch made me feel stabby, but I decided not to over-think it. If I was a free agent, they were too. Still, something must have shown on my face because Dar smirked.
“Have fun with your whore of a friend,” he spat before pushing off from the wall and walking away.
How dare he call Eden a whore! Darkness descended and I reached into my purse for the butterfly knife I’d hidden in there. That man had pushed me too far. We might have history, but I was done with being his punch bag.
I stormed after him, fully intending on calling him out for his misogynistic bullshit, but when I burst into the VIP lounge, four strangers sat on the sofa where I’d left Eden. All thoughts of gutting Dar like a fucking haddock disappeared in a puff of anxiety.
Where had she gone?
Dar’s little groupies had also disappeared and while I scanned the room, he strolled back down towards the dance floor.
A server crossed my path and I grabbed her arm.
“Hey, did you see where my friend with the pink hair went?”
She shook her head. “No, sorry.”
Shit . Maybe she’d hit the dance floor with Lachlan. Cursing my stupid shoes, I hobbled back down the stairs and stopped half-way to scan the mass of people moving to the latest dance tracks, but I couldn’t see Eden’s bubblegum pink hair anywhere.
“Did my friend with the pink hair pass you?” The security guy guarding the velvet rope scowled at my sharp tone but shook his head.
“I only got here five minutes ago. Frank might have seen her, but he went on his break when I arrived.”
Dammit, Eden! That girl had a death wish, I swear. I pulled my phone from my clutch and dialed her number, but it rang out. Hardly surprising given the current volume of the music blasting from the speakers.
Since there was no sign of Eden around the dance floor or near the bar, I circled back to the lobby area, looking out for Ryan and Lachlan, too. If she left, it was likely with them. I hoped they hadn’t roofied her while I was wasting time in the bathroom.
The two beefy guys working on the main door claimed not to have seen Eden, so I went back inside to look again.
The music was deafening, the crowd high on life and recreational drugs, and it took me a while to push through. By the time I made it to the back of the club, where a corridor led to another set of bathrooms and an emergency exit, I had a serious case of bad vibes.
Over the years, I’d learned to trust my instincts. An innate sense of self-preservation had saved me more than a few times. This was one of those occasions.
Eden wouldn’t have gone off with two random dudes. As much as she moaned about Michael, I got the impression she really did like him. And if I was right, she wouldn’t have left me to pursue a hookup with two sleazy lawyers.
I pushed open the emergency exit. Thankfully, it wasn’t alarmed, so no security guards came running. It led into a corridor lined with doors. I tried each one, but they were all locked.
Eventually, I reached a reinforced metal door, which I assumed led outside. I was all out of options at this point, so with my trusty knife in my right hand, I pushed the bar down and stepped out.
The suited men I’d spotted earlier stood in a dark alley talking to Lachlan and Ryan, with Eden propped up between them. Her eyes were half-closed. I knew damn well she’d drunk a ton of cocktails and champagne, but I suspected someone - Lachlan or Ryan - had drugged her. Probably while I was procrastinating in the ladies’ bathroom.
All four guys spun around at the sound of the door opening. I was amused to see none of them looked remotely phased when they realized it was a small female, not one of the hulking club staff.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Lachlan said with a smirk. “Come to join the party?”.
“I need my friend back,” I whined while acting like a drunk girl who had no clue what was going on.
If these idiots had any sense, they’d hand Eden over and get out of here before shit hit the fan, but they weren’t that bright.
Because I stood next to a large dumpster, the knife in my hand wasn’t visible. I wobbled on my heels, giving the impression of a girl who’d had too much to drink but was not completely wasted.
In reality, I was stone cold sober. Adrenaline had burned away what remained of the alcohol in my system, leaving me ready to kick some ass.
I wasn’t a great believer in coincidence and something told me Eden’s kidnapping wasn’t a random act by a bunch of sexual predators. Whatever these guys were up to, they’d deliberately targeted her.
If I got the opportunity, I’d be asking them some tough questions, but my priority was rescuing Eden before she got hurt.
“Why don’t you come with us?” Lachlan scored extra points for persistence, while Ryan stayed quiet. Mostly likely because he’d gotten nowhere with me previously. The other two meatheads didn’t contribute either. Instead, they looked bored and one kept glancing at his phone.
“Come where?”
“To a cool party. A friend of ours has a penthouse apartment. You can meet him. He makes movies.” Lachlan’s eyes drifted down my body, taking in my slip dress and tanned legs. “I bet you’d look good on the screen, babe.” Hmm. Were they working for people traffickers? Or merely opportunists? It was hard to tell.
“A party?” I pretended to be interested while stumbling closer. Ryan smiled, looking pleased at the fact I was showing an interest in his friend’s party.
“Look man, the car will be here shortly,” one of the suit guys snapped with irritation. “Grab the second girl and let’s go before anyone else comes outside.”
“Who’s in charge here?” Lachlan said in a deceptively calm voice. “Yeah, not you, asshole, so shut the fuck up.” He turned back to me. “You wanna go party, Kylie?”
In the few seconds he’d taken his eyes off me, I’d edged behind Ryan, who was too busy looking at Lachlan to spot what I was up to. Ryan was barely 5’9”, so it was easy to grab his hair, yank him back, and slash his throat.
He didn’t have time to react. None of them did. Crimson blood arced across the alley, covering Lachlan and Eden, much to my chagrin. Poor Eden. Thank God she was out of it. I doubted she’d be happy to know her white bodycon dress might never recover. Oops.
Ryan Gosling’s less hot twin brother dropped to the ground, gurgling as his life-force ebbed away.
Lachlan’s eyes bulged in shock. He didn’t seem to know what had happened. The arm supporting Eden’s slack body loosened, and she slid down. Good. She’d be safer on the floor.
Both suits recovered just as I stabbed Lachlan in the neck. One pulled a gun and fired at me. The other ran. Lachlan helpfully acted as a human shield, taking a bullet in the chest. I threw my knife, hitting the shooter in the eye, killing him immediately.
With the fourth man long gone, I scanned the alley to make sure there were no more threats, then knelt in the filth to check on Eden.
“Thea?” She groaned when I half-lifted her dead weight, grunting with the effort.
“It’s OK, you’re safe,” I said. I needed to get her out of here. Although the gun used by the now dead suit man had been fitted with a suppressor, someone might still have heard the shot. There was also a camera above the door. It wasn’t blinking, so I suspected it had been deactivated, but again, I couldn’t be sure.
“Call Declan,” Eden muttered, still out of it. “He’ll come.”
Declan Kelly, Irish Mafia heir. There was a risk he’d know who I was, but I was all out of ideas. So I pulled her phone from her purse, unlocked it, and found his number.
“Eden, milseán , is some boy bothering you again?”
“This is her friend, Thea, and yeah, you could say that…”
Declan’s voice went from teasing to savage in a heartbeat. “Tell me what the fuck’s going on and why you’re calling, not my cousin!”