Chapter 4
HATCH
Everything drifts away like smoke, and all that’s left is Lucy.
I’ve seen her dance plenty of times, but only through a screen.
While my brother, Orion, was glued to his bride’s shadow from the day she turned eighteen, I’ve been the opposite.
I learned long ago that no good comes from being around me.
Especially not to women. But my father was the one who put targets on the Troisgarde daughters’ backs, so the least I could do for Lucy was stay the hell away.
But I watched her. Fuck, did I watch her. Dash helped set up cameras for Orion, and every chance I could, I’d sneak peeks at the woman I refuse to keep.
I’ve never seen her dance like this before, though. Never seen her like this.
Back at Bordeaux Conservatory, my little ballerina’s style was all precision and restraint, her expressions either playing a part or aloof.
Off stage was much the same. The Troisgarde daughters were socialites.
Hot rich girls and daughters to rumored crime families?
They might as well have been royalty. But the only time Lucy wasn’t a shy, disciplined perfectionist was around her tight circle of friends and family, holding herself apart from anyone who tried to get too close.
Any time they weren’t around, she’d curl in on herself with a romance book and hide away from the proverbial spotlight like a skittish little rabbit.
But this Lucy McKennon—Alice—is someone else entirely.
Precision and restraint are out the window, replaced by a sensual grace that flows over me like warm honey just from watching her.
She’s not performing in an uptight costume, with a perfect bun that doesn’t have a hair out of place.
She isn’t hitting turns perfectly, her limbs aren’t hard lines, and each count is a suggestion rather than a rule.
With this version of Lucy, the lighting, her mask, no one would know it’s her. But I sure as fuck do.
She’s feeling the beat, looking much more at home than she ever has on a stage—twirling around, lazily untying bows from her costume in a mix of ballet and seduction.
They fall like weightless confetti, loosening her corset and blue skirt.
The men are practically salivating to catch the pure white ribbons, exchanging them for everything from dollar bills and twenties.
Some toss red, blue, and yellow poker chips into a bucket, the sound swallowed by the music.
She glides with the melody like the notes float from the speakers to wrap around her and show her the way. All the while, her sultry gaze drags over the crowd, lingering on each man, convincing them she’s dancing just for him and daring him not to fall for her.
There’s no way I can resist. She hasn’t even graced me with a glance, and I’m already hooked.
A low whistle yanks me back to the surface.
My jaw clenches at the sight of the guy in the green mask, Frog, his body halfway over the railing that’s supposed to be guarding Lucy.
He says something up at her, the music too loud for me to hear.
Her shoulders tense like she just shuddered, and her next move obviously is out of sync, but she keeps going on the far side of the stage, opposite from him.
Frog cackles loudly, and he pushes his mask up. He licks his pencil-thin mustache and shouts this time.
“Aw, don’t be like that. Don’t act like you don’t want it!” He reaches over the metal railing to keep customers back as Lucy rolls on the stage, grabbing her blue skirt when she gets too close, tugging it off and leaving her in an almost see-through short, white petticoat.
She jolts away, and her lips part in a small yelp that I barely hear over the music. Her eyes are so wide, her lashes catch in the lace mask as her gaze searches the floor, finally landing for the first time… on me.
Her fear as she looks to me to save her pumps fury into my veins. I hold her gaze, breathing so hard I’m almost lightheaded when another nasally shout makes her flinch.
“Aw, don’t be shy. Come down here and suck me already, slut!”
Red. Red. Red. Red.
It’s all I see as my vision rips from my scared little bunny to lock onto my new prey…
I’m sprinting across the room, tearing his mask off, ripping the bastard’s tongue out and choking him with both. If this doesn’t kill him, I’ll take him out back and dunk his head under water until he drowns, or until a shark comes and rips his fucking head off. Maybe I’ll do that anyway—
I’m yanked backward by a bear hug from behind and shoved against the bar I didn’t realize I’d actually left—not just visualized. The air huffs from my lungs at the impact, making me blink back into reality.
A mountain of a guy in a black hood materializes in front of me as if coming to life from the darkness.
“You don’t wanna do that, bo,” his deep voice rumbles from behind a black balaclava.
The executioner.
“Oh, I think I really fucking do. Now move,” I seethe. He’s big, but I don’t give a shit. I’ve got at least two inches and twenty more pounds on him and it’s all full of rage.
In the edge of my vision, just past the bouncer, I check on Lucy and find her no longer looking to me, quickly rolling away from Frog and continuing her routine with her chin held high.
Good girl.
Mariposa snorts behind me. “Guess we know who you’re here for now.”
The bouncer turns his hooded head, following my line of sight before looking back at me again. “Didn’t realize Alice had a boyfriend.”
Alice.
I bite back the urge to correct her name and slowly register the rest of what he said. The boyfriend part.
It’s so close and so far away from the truth that the word waterboards cold saltwater over my heated skin. Half the fight leaves me, replaced by panic.
Shit. Did I just blow my cover? I’ve got to salvage this somehow. Make it so that they don’t tell her someone is looking for her.
“Boyfriend?” I snarl, grabbing hold of the lie like a lifeline, swallowing back the way it thickens in my throat, drowning me. “If I was, why would I go to a strip club to see pussy I could fuck at home?”
I scowl over my shoulder at the meddling caterpillar. “I just heard about the famous Alice back in Charleston. Wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
She takes a long drag from her hookah then shrugs in response, like she doesn’t give a shit.
But she stares at me for a long moment as she tries to read me in that infuriating way she’s done all night. Afraid she’ll see right through me, I face the bouncer.
“Turns out, she’s all hype,” I scoff, hating myself right now. “I’ve seen better at a dive bar. No way I’d lock that down.”
The executioner’s hood is pulled too far forward for me to see his eyes, but I feel his long stare.
Eventually, he nods. “Good. If she did, you wouldn’t have been let in. Rules are rules. No fighting in the Hole. Boyfriends are always itching for a fight when they come up in here.” He rolls his shoulders back, settling further into his stance. “Which means… no boyfriends.”
“Oh yeah?” I shift enough to see the stage. “Is that because a boyfriend wouldn’t let shit like that happen?” I jut my chin toward Frog, who’s trying to reach for her again with one hand, a single dollar bill in the other. “‘No touching the girls’ is one of your rules too, ain’t it?”
The bouncer crosses his thick arms. “What’s that matter to you, not-Alice’s-boyfriend?”
“I just hate when rules only matter for some people, is all,” I growl, my hackles raised, hands fisted.
Frog spouts off something that’s swallowed up by the song, but I’m sure it’s disgusting with the way Lucy flinches. Jesus Christ, I really should’ve told Kian she was here. If her father could see this, he’d burn this island to the goddamn waterline to bring her home. I’d light the match.
A strobe light flashes at the exact right time to see the top half of the bouncer’s face. The eye black he swiped over his lids like a bandit mask stops right below his thick black brows, angled slashes as he death glares at Frog.
Interesting.
If I didn’t know how murderous I feel, I’d think he’s nearly as pissed off as I am. A mix of jealousy and gratitude sear into my chest, but I tamp them down, grabbing whatever I can to convince him to do his goddamn job.
“For fuck’s sake, what’re you gonna do about it? Or am I right and the rules don’t apply?”
“Not for everyone.” His admission drags out, expression shrouded in darkness once more, resignation in his clipped tone. “Castle’s folks got their own rules. Something you’d know if you were from Charleston.”
His head dips, giving me a once-over. “So where are you actually from, Hatter?”
I bristle again.
Man, fake name or not, these folks are figuring out way more than I’d like.
I knew Wander Isle was small, but I underestimated the accuracy of their stranger-danger bullshit detectors and how protective they are of their own.
I shouldn’t have. It’s a rookie mistake, since small towns back in Appalachia are the same way.
But I thought I’d be able to fly under the radar better than I am.
“Look,” I begin, gentling my voice, pretending to give in. “I’m in between places right now, so yeah, maybe I don’t know everything that’s going on here. But I do know that I don’t give a fuck who Castle is—”
“You should,” the bouncer interrupts and tips his head to the skybox overlooking everything. “Don’t get on his bad side. Inside these walls, he controls everything. Sees everything.”
His emphasis on that one word has me really looking at the skybox.
With all the strobes and lights pointing at the only person in the room that anyone seems to care about, I see what he’s referring to. I’d missed them before, but once you find one, it’s easy to see and predict the rest. Cameras.
Everywhere.
They’re tucked away beside the bulbs that shine beneath the skybox picture window.
They’re strategically hidden by the sconces over what I’m betting are VIP rooms. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re also on every lamp, table, and poker game too.
The Rabbit Hole is so dark every bulb is near blinding if you look at it straight on.
Which means the cameras are in plain sight, just hidden in the light.
Dash said there wasn’t a security system logged with any firm or digital cloud that we know—and thanks to Wes at BlackStone Securities, we know every damn one of them.
But there’s definitely someone watching what goes on here. Probably closed circuit, not hooked up to any internet. So whatever happens here stays here. Or is, as the bouncer put it, controlled here.
Just then, a broad-shouldered silhouette appears in the skybox’s picture window, nearly spanning the height of it, the outline of a cigar and rocks glass in one hand. Like a king overseeing his domain.
His castle…
“Secrets for thee are not from he.”
“So that’s the game,” I murmur low under my breath.
“He owns the place,” the executioner continues. “The King of Wander, more or less. Frog’s one of the king’s men. No one fucks with the king’s men.”
I answer to my own King, I almost argue back, but Frog whistles and drunkenly slaps his hand on the stage, making Lucy jump.
She wobbles on her heel, catching herself with a hand on the pole in such a way that it almost looks natural.
Ever the professional, she maintains her coy smile, though it twitches at the edges.
She spins on the pole, hanging on by one hand and a thigh grip, and curves her spine backward in a bridge.
The move looks effortless and elegant, until Frog blows a ring of smoke up at her.
Lucy grimaces in disgust and snaps upright.
His laugh bellows behind her, ending in a wet cough that makes my own throat itch and my gut churn.
She quickly pulls herself up higher on the spinning pole to get away from the bastard.
I drag my gaze away but keep her in my periphery as I glare at the bouncer.
“I don’t give a fuck if he’s Jesus H. Christ straight outta the tomb,” I seethe. “If you don’t get Castle’s man, I’m gonna do it for you.”
After a beat, he asks in a slightly teasing tone. “You sure you’re not her boyfriend?”
“I’m not her boyfriend,” I grind out as I risk another glance at her, finding her give the crowd another “I only have eyes for you” smile that burns me up. It’s fake, of course. I know, because I’ve actually felt the real thing.
Granted, she doesn’t know that.
I swallow, fighting the way my throat closes. But I manage to get the truth out, my voice rough as gravel.
“We’ve never even met.”