Chapter 20 Sera
SERA
I’m half out the car before Dimitri realizes what’s happening.
He tries to stop me by grabbing the back of my coat, but I slip my arms free and take off toward the door at the end of the path.
The guard has just waved di Salvo through.
The wedge of light is shrinking rapidly, and I put on a burst of speed, surprised and immensely grateful that I’m able to move fast enough to slip through the opening before the metal door closes with a heavy clunk behind me.
The man I chased in here has vanished beyond the nondescript vestibule, down a hall currently guarded by the nasty looking bouncer. He’s a brick wall, blocking the way. As he glares at me, I realize I’m standing in this unknown place wearing nothing but sneakers and pajamas.
No weapon. No cell phone. No coat to stop the hulking brute from staring at my braless chest, my tits barely concealed by the thin fabric of my tank top.
The door behind me shakes. Dimitri is yelling on the other side. My eyes on the bouncer, I feel behind me for some sort of handle, doorknob, anything to get me out of this very rash, very stupid decision I’ve made. I don’t find a thing.
“You shouldn’t have come,” the guard says to my chest.
“You’re absolutely right. My mistake. So how about you...?” I point at the door behind me, the one that’s starting to shake as Dimitri tries to break it down.
“You need to go.”
“Yup, I totally agree.” I move so he can open the door, but he just shakes his head.
“Not that way.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder toward the hallway behind him. Lights are pulsing from whatever is on the other end, filling the space we’re in with trippy patterns. “That way.”
Oh God, this really was a horrible idea. Just one more shitty thing I can blame on di Salvo. “Is there another exit that way?”
“Yeah, sure.” The guard’s mouth twists in a sick interpretation of a smile. “Something like that. Now get moving.”
I don’t have the chance to argue. The guard wraps a meaty paw around my upper arm and throws me down the hall.
I stumble a few steps before I reach a thick glass door.
It opens easily and suddenly I’m in the pulsing center of a club.
Now all the flashing lights make sense. The place is vibrating with them, streaks of color rippling out from the same stage where a DJ is ruling over a packed dance floor.
I’m on some sort of balcony that wraps around the central part of the club.
Below me a mass of bodies moves to the music.
Waitresses edge along the perimeter, bottles of booze balanced precariously on trays.
Every few feet, an arm thrusts out of the crowd, grabbing a bottle and drawing it into the mayhem.
It’s the best dressed mayhem I’ve ever seen. The men are rocking suits. The women look like they all went to the same teeny tiny dress store favorited by Alik’s escort. Skin is showing everywhere, slick with sweat and the spray of champagne.
I can’t see Alik, the woman, or Renzo di Salvo anywhere.
Nor is there another obvious exit. Sticking around is a questionable idea, but without a clear way out that doesn’t involve another encounter with the bouncer I figure I’m better off blending in as best as I can until Dimitri finds a way inside.
There’s a metal staircase to my left that leads down to the main floor.
No one is paying me any attention as I descend to the lower level, the base beat of the music making my organs jump.
It’s not until I get to the dance floor that I see the guards stationed at regular intervals around the room.
Just as large as the guy at the door, they fit the stereotype of every low-level enforcer I’ve ever seen.
Bulky, with no need to conceal the weapons they’re carrying and an unmistakable deadness to their eyes.
They must’ve been concealed from view by the balcony, but now I’ve spotted them, I can’t help but count the number of armed men patrolling the perimeter.
I start to feel genuinely queasy when I tally at least ten.
A server walks by and my queasiness morphs into full-blown nausea.
She’s wearing something around her neck.
It’s too clunky to be a necklace. It looks more like a collar.
At the base of her skull, almost hidden behind her ponytail, there’s a gray box attached to the band.
Even in the funky lighting the resemblance to a shock collar is too similar to ignore.
Exactly like the ones my uncle used on his dogs.
I scan the crowd for more servers, finding three more. They’re all women, all dressed in the same skimpy white dress. All are wearing the same type of black strap around their necks, all with their hair partially concealing the receiver.
Holy shit. The women working here are wired with shock collars.
Not just the servers. Women on the dance floor are wearing them too. Corralled and controlled, like cattle in a pen.
Of course Renzo di Salvo is coming to a place like this, sick bastard. The fact that Alik’s here too makes me even more determined to get answers.
The next time a server walks by, I step out from the shadow of the overhang, using her for cover as I slip behind and push into the dancing crowd.
The air is cloying, hot and heavy with hands everywhere.
The crowd moves with the music and I do too, pushing through the bodies as much as I dare.
I’m about halfway across the dance floor when I catch gold sparkle out of the corner of my eye.
The mystery woman is on the balcony above me, directly opposite where I originally entered the room.
She comes to the ledge, Alik right behind her.
The club’s lights dance around her. She seems to shine from head to toe.
Gold hair, gold dress, golden legs that stretch down to dangerously high heels.
She’s gorgeous. The antithesis of me with my hair knotted on the top of my head, my wrinkled pajamas the least club-appropriate outfit imaginable, and my obscenely unsexy sneakers.
I push harder against the crowd, getting jostled every which way.
Against the wall in front of me is another set of stairs leading up to where Alik is standing.
I try to keep my attention focused on the staircase, but the flash of the woman’s dress makes it impossible.
She’s running a hand up his chest. Slipping her red-nailed fingers behind his neck.
Alik doesn’t react to any of it, his eyes fixed across the room, at a point on the balcony behind me.
He’s ignoring the woman and she’s getting pissed.
There’s only a few more bodies between me and the stairs when she pulls his head down, locking her lips against his.
I stumble, crashing into the back of a random guy.
He pivots, looking pissed as he yanks the cork from a bottle of champagne.
The fizzy liquid explodes, drenching us both.
It’s in my hair, on my face, making my thin top stick to my skin.
I’d be worried about how see-through my shirt is except I can’t tear my eyes off Alik and the woman, at the way his hands come to rest on her hips, his fingertips digging into the kind of curves I’ll never have.
My nose burns and I have to force down the lump that’s clogging my throat. I’m not going to cry. Not here, not because of this. I’m so busy talking myself off an emotional, jealous cliff that it takes a beat to notice that people are looking at me.
Staring, actually. At the same spot on my chest the bouncer had fixated on.
First, it’s the guy with the champagne. Then the woman he’s dancing with. More heads turn, and I wrap my arms around my chest, give the gawkers a dirty look. “What, you never see tits before?”
But even when I’m covered up, heads keep turning. There are whispers. Pointing, too. Freaked out, I look down to see what they’re staring at.
At first, I don’t understand what I’m seeing. There are numbers on my chest, above my right breast, just above the neckline of my now-transparent tank top. What looks like six or seven digits. Upside down from my perspective, but large enough to be clearly legible to everyone staring at me.
I rub at my skin, but they don’t come off. “What the hell?”
I cover the patch with my palm, search the back of my hand for the numbers, like they’re being projected onto me. But no. My skin just dances with the lights from the club. As soon as I pull my hand away, the numbers on my chest return, clear as day.
The guards are looking now, too. Looking hard, whispering into their earpieces as, one by one, they elbow through the crowd toward me. I don’t know where the numbers came from or what they mean, but everything happening right now says they’re bad.
I have to get out of here. I have to get help.
I move toward Alik without thinking, pushing people out of the way as I try to make it off the dance floor and to the staircase.
People start to shout, one lady teeters on her heels.
The guy she’s dancing with grabs me, but I shove him back.
He shouts something nasty, the men around him joining in.
It’s turning into a riot and I’m the at the center.
I risk looking up at the balcony. The woman in gold is practically writhing against Alik, her talons sunk into his shoulders as she advances on him with an obscenely openmouthed kiss.
Part of me wants to turn away, to pretend she’s not about to dry hump him in public.
But the crowd is turning feral, a pack of rabid animals intent on the kill, and I’m running out of time.
A glance over my shoulder confirms the guards are closing in.
Angry men on the dance floor are grabbing me.
I feel one strap of my tank top rip off. Someone keeps tugging my pants.
“Alik!” My shout is drowned out by the dance music and the foul rumble of the people around me.
“ALIK!” My scream turns into a shriek of fear when the man behind me gets both hands on my waistband and starts to drag my pants down.
The guards are shouting to let me go, that I’m marked, that I can’t be touched, but their orders are meaningless as the mob around me starts to chant horrible, horrible things.
I throw elbows, try to kick free, but I don’t have enough room to move.
There are more men around me now, more clubgoers egging on the guy behind me, the one gripping my hip painfully as he tries to strip me.
I thrash helplessly as one of the waitresses stands just feet away, eyes trained on the ground, ignoring all my pleas for help.
I haul in a breath, ready to scream as loud as I possibly can when I hear a familiar voice shout, “Sera—duck!” It’s said with so much authority I comply instantly, going limp so my torso slumps forward just as a bullet whips over my head and lodges square in the forehead of the guy behind me.
There’s a second when everything stops, when even the music seems to go silent.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Everyone on the dance floor is screaming and pushing for the exit. The guards are waving their weapons around, trying to figure out where the shot came from as they try—and fail—to move against the current of bodies.
The hands holding me are gone, my attacker dead, his blood all over the ground. I lurch away, almost fall. Someone catches me.
Not Alik, but Dimitri. Somehow, he’s made it inside. His eyes are violent, but his voice is calm. “Can you move, Miss Sera?”
I nod.
“Do it. Now.” He tugs me forward, his body a hulking mass in front. We get to the base of the staircase just as Alik leaps down the final few steps. He lands next to me, his face locked in a terrifying expression, gun still drawn. He’s the one who shot my attacker.
The woman in the gold dress is nowhere to be seen, but two men are glaring down at us from above.
Renzo and another man I’ve never seen before.
When they see me, di Salvo’s expression shifts from surprised to murderous in a blink, but the other one just smiles.
I didn’t think I could get more freaked out than I already am, but that smile turns my blood cold.
I swear he winks just as Dimitri hauls me forward and Alik steps close behind, me sandwiched between the two Russians as they quickly move us through a door concealed in the corner.
I don’t bother trying to keep track of the twists and turns. I just keep my head down and focus on not tripping. Alik is spewing things off in Russian and Dimitri is giving one-word responses.
The escape route feels endless, but it’s probably only been a minute, maybe less, before Dimitri shoves open a heavy door, holding me and Alik back until he can clear the area in front of us.
He nods and we hustle out, and I’m relieved to see that the men with guns are at least thirty feet away instead of three.
“Run!” Alik barks in my ear, and I do. We all do, straight for the SUV that Dimitri’s driven up over a curb and left running between the buildings directly in front of us.
My feet hit the pavement, and I realize I’ve lost my shoes.
Asphalt abrades my soles as Alik forces us to a crouch as we run, using his body to shield mine from the guards shooting at us.
Somehow, Dimitri manages to get into the driver’s seat and whip the SUV around so that the front of the vehicle takes the brunt of the attack.
Bullets ping off the armor-plated exterior as Alik and I scramble into the back seat.
I’m pressed flat to the leather, his body a heavy weight on top of mine as Dimitri throws the SUV in reverse, bullets rappelling off the windshield as we fly backwards.
We bounce across uneven ground before the SUV hits the road.
Alik’s bodyweight keeps me from tumbling to the floor.
He barks something at Dimitri, Dimitri barks back.
I shiver beneath one very furious Russian, body temperature plummeting as the shock sets in.
Outside, the angry shouts and gunfire fade into silence as we race away.