Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Dominic
There was a buzzing in my ears.
The low drumming of music could be faintly heard close by, a repetitive bass that thrummed in sync with the throbbing in my head. Even in the cold darkness of my studio, a headache was forming.
As I reclined in my seat, my muscles ached. I hadn’t been this tense in months.
My phone sat on the desk in front me, still open to the messages between me and Lena.
First the incident at the church and now this. People always said it was a small world, but this was some unbelievable shit.
My eyes narrowed as I caught the tattoo on my right wrist. A blade and twin snakes.
How the fuck could this happen?
I wanted to laugh even though I was pissed.
If we didn’t have our heads screwed on so tight, I would be grabbing Leslie this very second, and we would be out hunting Jasper and his crew tonight, throwing their asses to the ground and stomping till their skulls were crushed beneath our feet.
But we had to play this right.
For the first time in years paranoia crawled its way into my head.
This was bad.
They couldn’t have known about Lena, there was no fucking way. I knew Leslie hadn’t said a word even when his ass was so drunk he couldn’t walk straight. Micheal was gone and had no reason to say anything. Andrea…she promised us.
But maybe I needed to talk to her, it had been a few weeks now.
Lez and I hadn’t had contact with Jasper and the others for a few years now. It had to be a coincidence.
My gaze shot up to the monitors and my expression softened a little. Her apartment window was dark now. I could just make it out from the other side of the street.
Wish I could say this was only the first time I watched her window, but it wasn’t. Even if she looked recovered on the outside, I wasn’t so convinced. Getting kidnapped and forced to stay in an underground room could really fuck someone up for good. We would know.
There was a dull thud from below. I wiped a hand across my face.
Fuck…I had to tell Leslie.
Annoyed, I got up and left the safety of my room to make my way downstairs.
The drumming of the music grew louder, worsening my headache. I shot down to ground level, turning right into a set of thick double doors. As soon as I opened them, I was blasted with heavy techno.
The room was dimmed down with neon red light, the shadows in the corners menacing. I crossed the large empty space and made straight for the other side, through a wide doorway into the next room.
Unlike the last room, this one was crowded with people talking loudly over the music.
Smoke hung in the air and the stench of weed hit me from a group in the corner taking turns with a pipe.
A few at the bar looked my way as I passed.
I heard my name being hollered but I didn’t so much as glance around.
A sliding metal door was open to one side, and I could see out in the night.
Several sports cars and a few bikes were parked in the courtyard with people hanging around.
I made for the door when a big man in a sports jersey stopped me.
“Yo, Dom.” Kris nodded. “Didn’t think you’d be down tonight.”
“Where’s Lez?” I signed.
He tilted his head behind him toward the courtyard. “You know. Where he usually is.”
Right.
I patted him on the shoulder and slipped past him into the heat.
I passed the cars and bikes and wrenched open another door opposite the courtyard into a tall building and slid into the dark without hesitation.
Low orange light cast into the hallway from an open doorway.
Here, the music was less loud but only barely.
I could smell the sweet scent of a vape mingled with weed.
I rounded into the room and found more people sitting around drinking, but my focus went over to where a large projector screen hung on the wall and several people were huddled around watching.
Lez sat in the center of a low back couch.
A girl clung to his arm on one side, her head resting on his shoulder, while two others sat close, giggling, clearly off their rocker on something.
Joint in his mouth, Lez hardly seemed to notice them as his focus was on the screen.
Controller in his hand, he was playing Grand Theft Auto again, racing down streets.
Christ, as if he didn’t have enough of GTA in his own fucking life.
One of the girls laughed as she looked around, then went silent once she saw me. Even in the low light I saw her face flush, eyes wide, looking a little nervous.
I didn’t use to be this intimidating. Can’t imagine what changed.
Steering around the couch, I stood in front of the screen right in Leslie’s way.
The rest of the girls went silent. The others around us didn’t so much as utter a remark. Only Lez, after he took the joint out of his mouth, had anything to say.
“Down in front, motherfucker.”
He smirked, but I didn’t smile back. I could see it in his eyes he was already tipsy or extremely high or both. I signed. “We have to talk.”
He grunted, putting his controller in one of the girl’s hands before attempting to take another hit from his joint. I leaned in and smacked it out of his mouth.
“Dom, what the fuck—”
I signed at him again.
“Alright. Alright, god damn.”
As he attempted to get up, he staggered. Thankfully, the girl clinging to him helped him stay on his feet.
“He’s a little hammered.” She chuckled, nearly staggering herself.
I recognized her as the girl I’d seen him with before.
Ares. She had on some black minidress under her leather jacket, her black hair straight down her back.
And she had fangs, what I assumed were her real teeth surgically changed.
Her eyes were bright green but were clearly contacts.
Besides that, I thought her features reminded me of Lena, slender with round hips, warm light-brown skin, and a couple of tattoos around her collarbone.
But this girl couldn’t hold a damn candle to Lena.
“What’s up?” Lez said as he just stood there like he was actually going to hear our conversation over everything, let alone remember it in the morning.
I could practically feel my temple throbbing.
Without thinking, I grabbed his arm and started to lead him out. Ares let him go as he stumbled.
“Hey, be careful!” she called.
I forced him out of the room and down the hall. When we slipped into an empty room still being renovated, he tugged his arm away.
“What the fuck are you on?”
My hands flew as I tried to explain. “We got trouble.”
Lez’s eyes narrowed as he finally seemed to perk up. “What kind of trouble?”
“Jasper.”
He blinked. “Jasper? As in Serpent Kings Jasper?”
“They call themselves the Order of the Serpent now.”
“Fuck me, he just keeps making the name worse,” Lez mumbled, sliding a hand through his hair. “What about him?”
I hesitated, trying to come up with the best way to explain. “He took someone.”
Lez frowned. “Okay?”
“Someone close to someone we know. Don’t know why.”
“I’m not following. Someone of who?”
I signed her name slowly. “L-E-N-A.”
The expression on Lez’s face was hard to describe but it was clear now I had his full undivided attention. “Our Lena?”
I gave him an exasperated glare as I jerked my hands. “Yes, our Lena.”
But not really our Lena because she hated our guts—especially Leslie’s—and for good reason.
It took Lez a moment to come to terms with what I was saying, then his voice got real low and murderous. “Jasper hurt her?”
“Not her. Her sister.”
Lez’s mouth twitched, his hands forming into fists. “How could he have found out about her? Did someone rat? Andrea?”
I shook my head, hand swiping through the air. “No, I don’t think it was her. Purely coincidence.”
“You’re shitting me,” he whispered.
“I’m not.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, don’t know.”
He gave me a suspicious look. “She contact you or was this something you got from one of our insiders?”
I gave him a look back and he understood without me having to say it.
He glanced away, jaw clenched tight. Then he nodded.
Wiping his mouth, he staggered to the center of the room.
I let him process everything for a moment before he turned back to me.
“We start contacting everyone who still has ties with the group. I’ll get Kris and a few others to ambush one of the fuckers and—”
I put up my hand. “Wait. We need to think this through some more. You’re drunk and I need to do a little digging.”
“If they took her sister, they might take her. She isn’t safe.”
“I know. That’s why we are going to watch her closely. And I’m going to be seeing her soon so we can get more details.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Dom.”
“Tomorrow night, hopefully. If she doesn’t back out.”
Lez’s hands twitched and I knew he was itching for a knife. “I’m still gonna start contacting people.”
“Fine. Maybe write everything down in case you forget in the morning.”
“I’m not that wasted.”
“Yeah, right.”
He moved for the door, then stopped. “You think she’ll talk to me?”
Sober Lez wouldn’t be asking. He’d be keeping that question in his head, acting like he didn’t care. Which, come tomorrow, I expected would be his attitude. But drunk Lez was too curious not to know. And he would only admit it to me.
When he turned his head to look at me, I signed with the only honest answer I could give him. “Probably not.”