Chapter Thirty
The lights dimmed, and I braced for what was coming. I’d already sat through one song, watching Chloe dance to Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire.”
Torture.
Pure fucking torture.
Not only because she was in black leather pants that hugged her magnificent ass, a black halter top that showed about six inches of her toned stomach, black heels, and a fuck ton of silver jewelry coupled with dark and dramatic makeup around her eyes and devil-red lipstick.
The torture of that started when she’d walked out of the bedroom, declaring she was ready to leave.
Thankfully the woman was always punctual, with a personal philosophy that if she wasn’t ten minutes early, she was late.
That meant she’d given me enough time to drag her ass back into my bedroom before I peeled those leather pants down, used my mouth between her legs to explain exactly how I felt about the hair, makeup, and outfit.
After that I fucked her bent over my bed.
We left my house with her hair no longer looking early 2000s sex vixen but instead a thoroughly fucked sex vixen.
She was on time to work, but not her normal early.
No, the real torture was sitting across the room from where she swayed her hips, watching every asshole within viewing distance also watching her sway her hips.
And if their eyes weren’t locked onto her ass, they were practically drooling as they stared at her tits.
Making matters worse, Blackwell was one of these assholes.
As was Len Taylor. It gave me no relief seeing Beck sitting at their table.
Now I was going to have to sit through her second song of the evening. Thank fuck after she was done, she only had another hour before her shift was over, and then Gavin would be there to pick her up.
I wouldn’t admit this to Chloe, because she loved her Mustang and was more than a little pissed it was damaged, and not only that, but she was going to be two weeks without it.
I on the other hand was happy her car was out of commission; therefore she couldn’t argue about the drop-offs and pickups from the Vault.
Further from that, I was happy my ass was at a table inside the bar—even if I was fighting back the urge to carve out half a dozen assholes’ eyeballs from their heads.
I’d rather endure the rage than be sitting down the road with a boulder in my gut, with nothing more than hope that Chloe was safe while she was working.
What I wasn’t happy about was even though today we’d made progress, it wasn’t much.
After hours of digging through Lucy MacMillan’s and Amber Sadler’s finances, we’d found a credit card charge putting Lucy at Bozeman airport two and half years ago.
And Amber had used her debit card in a vending machine eighteen months ago at a private airport in Rhode Island.
Both of those charges were made within thirty miles of where Sterling Blackwell owned property.
It wasn’t ironclad proof he had something to do with their disappearances, but it was a nail in his coffin.
I’d gone back over Cynthia’s charges, and the only out-of-state purchases had been in Henderson, Nevada.
Chloe had explained, due to the timing, she was relatively certain those charges were made when Cynthia went to Poppy’s family’s house for Thanksgiving.
Since Blackwell didn’t own property in Nevada, it didn’t matter.
Her in-state charges hadn’t gone farther than Santa Barbara, and, again, Blackwell didn’t own a house near there.
We still didn’t have dick on Dex. None of the searches on any of the vehicles we’d tagged coming and going from the Vault could be traced to anyone with that name.
Another look into Summit Jets didn’t come up with anything either.
Which meant I hit Len Taylor’s client list just to double-check, and nothing was there either.
The guy was a ghost, and without knowing what he was driving, we couldn’t even try and get a picture of him from a traffic camera.
Dead end.
And the only thing I hated more than dead ends were motherfuckers staring at my woman’s tits. Especially when that motherfucker was Sterling.
Pete kicked my foot under the table. I didn’t take my eyes off Blackwell. Now that Justin Timberlake was going on about rockin’ some bitch’s world on the dance floor and Chloe was back to dancing, this time doing more than swaying her hips, the ass clown was practically salivating.
“Brother, cool it.”
I rearranged my features but didn’t look away. If anyone saw me, they’d think I was watching Chloe, enjoying the show. After all, that was what the servers at the Vault were there for.
Entertainment.
That was part of the appeal of the bar.
My gut clenched, and I went back to wanting to carve the man’s eyes out of his head.
My woman was not for the motherfucker’s entertainment.
Yet, she was.
Christ.
I wanted . . . no, needed this shit to be done.
“Beck’s gotta—”
“Cool it,” Pete interrupted. “He needs to play it the way he’s playing it.”
Fuck. He wasn’t wrong, and I hated that he was right.
I leaned back in my chair and suffered through the next four minutes of agony while my woman showed a room full of men how well she could move that tight little body of hers.
It was then I made the decision, after this shit was over, she was never going to a dance club without me, and she certainly wasn’t hitting the floor without me by her side to beat back the assholes who’d most definitely want a piece of her.
After the longest two hundred and forty seconds of my life, the song came to end and the servers went back to doing the second part of their jobs, pushing booze.
“Can I get you gentlemen another round?” Naomi, the bitch who’d cornered my woman, asked.
“Please,” Pete answered.
“Certainly, Mr. York,” she purred. “How about you, Mr. Sinclair?”
I swallowed down my disdain when her lips curved up into what I was sure she’d hoped was a come-hither smile that she wanted me to read and, if she was lucky, act on.
It sucked to admit, but before Chloe, I would’ve given her a second look, probably even would’ve accepted the invitation.
Though the regret would come faster than normal when her clothes came off and all I got was hard points and boney.
Not even her obviously fake tits could make up for the curves she lacked other places.
But she was easy, and before Chloe, that was my type.
Women who put out with no expectations. Women I wouldn’t respect mostly because there’d be no getting to know them.
Women who wouldn’t latch on in hopes of getting more.
Women who didn’t want or see a future. And that worked for me since the future I’d wanted had been tied to Chloe and I’d been certain that was an impossibility.
“Water.”
I didn’t miss the flash of disappointment.
“Of course. It’ll be just a few minutes before the bar reopens.”
I glanced over and saw three bartenders cleaning the bar top. This was a necessity seeing as the two female bartenders had just climbed down after dancing on top of it.
“That’s fine, Naomi. Thank you.”
She transferred her attention back to Pete and smiled, before she walked away.
“You’re off your game,” Pete admonished, but he did so with a smirk.
“When your woman’s dancing in a room full of horny men who don’t know which part of her they want first, this happening while they’re fighting their dicks getting hard, you can explain to me how to stay focused.”
“Fair enough.”
I was looking at Pete, but in my peripheral, I caught Chloe stop at Blackwell’s table. No doubt he’d requested her section again.
“You know he’d blow the mission before he let anything happen to your girl.”
Pete was talking about Beck.
I knew that was the truth, but it didn’t make it any easier watching Blackwell smile at Chloe the same way Naomi had been smiling at me, knowing damn well he wanted a piece of her.
“You think he’s gonna let Beck in?” I asked.
“He’s down a guard. If he has something planned soon and is desperate, maybe. If he’s got more security we don’t know about already set up, he’d be stupid to bring someone new into the fold this soon.”
That was my take as well. Blackwell was keeping Beck close while in San Diego, but that didn’t mean enough trust had been built to bring him along to a party.
However, that was exactly what we needed to happen.
It would confirm these parties were taking place at one of the many properties Blackwell owned.
We’d also understand what exactly was happening at these parties.
Prostitution was one thing. The kind that meant the women or men involved were sober and consenting and there of their own free will to make money however they saw fit to make a living.
Forced prostitution was something else. Kidnapping and trafficking another level.
We had three missing women that we knew of, spanning over two years. That didn’t give us anything, because while that was horrific, it didn’t say trafficking. If Blackwell had a ring set up, he’d be selling more women than one a year.
Finally, Chloe walked away from Blackwell’s table, and the knot in my gut released enough I could take a full breath.
Not that it lasted long, when Blackwell pushed back from the table and made his way through the room, weirdly headed in Poppy’s direction.
A quick glance at Beck, and he was following Blackwell’s path while shifting his gaze to Poppy, then back to Blackwell.
“Fuck,” I grunted.
“You can say that again.”
Blackwell stopped in front of Poppy. Smiled. Leaned close but not too close, then his mouth started moving. Poppy immediately started nodding and smiling back.
“Fuck.”
This time Pete didn’t say anything. Not that he could, because Naomi was back with our drinks. She was also blocking our view.
By the time Naomi was done, Blackwell was walking back to his table with a smile on his face that gave me a shiver.
“Whatever that was, was not good.”
“Nope,” Pete agreed.
“Whatever that was, was not fucking good,” I repeated.
“You’re right, brother. And I’m warning you, not only was that not good, but whatever that shit was, it’s going to make you lose your mind.”
Motherfucker got to Poppy.
Now I was well and truly fucked.