Killer Kai (Superstars of Nocturna Beach #1)

Prologue

I shouldn't be here.

Not only should I not be here, but my bank account is going to hate me in the morning for this spur-of-the-moment indulgence.

I'm supposed to be across town interviewing at a strip club as a bartender, because the bills are piling up, and I'm still hitting a wall in the industry I spent my life training for. But I don't have it in me. Not tonight.

I can't stoop to serving a bunch of lecherous men stale beer in a dive bar with an attached stripper pole and a stage. I can't do it.

Even I have standards.

Plus, my bartending experience is limited to serving the frat boys on a Tuesday night in the little deli and bar joint down the road from the local college. They don't expect much, and there's only like ten of them that even come in.

Instead, I chanced across a flier in the coin-op laundromat today while I was cleaning my one good outfit for the interview, and made a split-second decision that I know will change the trajectory of my life forever.

As in, it's likely to make me homeless. But I need a night out. I need to breathe again.

And I can't do that in my shitty apartment, or the coin-op down the block, or in a dive joint on the wharf filled with men who don't understand the word no and stare at your tits while they leave shitty tips—or no tips at all.

So I'm here, at a high-end bar where the drinks are likely to cost me an arm and a leg, sitting on a stool at the bar with a sigh and a promise to myself to limit myself to one drink.

I'll have one drink and then I'll go home.

As I sit down, the woman next to me turns to watch my arrival, and I flash her a friendly smile, though it's just a mask. I don't feel very friendly, or happy, or charitable with emotion. I'm dead inside, thanks to that prick. Life is slowly circling the drain.

“What are you having?” she asks me as I raise my finger for the bartender, and I can't help but blink slowly and stare at her like she's lost her mind. "My treat.”

I can't believe my ears. “You’re buying me a drink? But you don’t know me.”

“Because I can.” She frowns. “It’s because I see something familiar in you.”

“Like you think we’ve met before?” I eye her with suspicion. I don't know this woman; I know that for certain. So either she's pulling my leg, or she's hitting on me. And I'm in the mood for neither. “I don’t know you, and no offense, but I don’t swing that way.”

“Oh, god, no, I don’t mean that!” She's laughing at my misconception, and I cringe inwardly. Way to go, Denali. You're not that hot. “I meant there’s something in your eyes that reminds me of me, a long time ago.”

“The world beat you down, too?”

She's not smiling anymore. "Once or twice, yeah. Life has a funny way of kicking you when you’re down.”

That's a sentiment I can understand. “Life’s been kicking me a lot lately. Think I might be bruised in places I didn’t even know I could bruise.”

“I’ve been there before, life being what it is and all.” She lifts her beer bottle and gestures at the one the bartender holds out for me. “Here’s to hoping things start looking up for you soon, yeah?”

“Thanks,” I mutter, taking the beer. It's fancier than I normally drink, but if I'm not paying, I might as well enjoy this drink, right? “Here’s to hoping things even out for me soon. I can only take so much more bad news.”

Eyes dancing with curiosity and sympathy turn on me. “Wanna talk about it?”

Staring down into the beer bottle in my hand, I scowl, because I don't, not really, but at the same time, I do. “Not much to say. A man I thought I could trust fucked me over, no surprise there. And when I did the right thing and turned him in, he made sure it was me who suffered.” My hair forms a curtain between me and the rest of the world. “Now I’ll be lucky if I ever find another job in the entertainment industry.”

“What do you do in entertainment?” She's perked up now, and I don't know what it matters to her, but I tell her anyway.

“I used to manage social media for an actor whose ego was the size of a small planet. But he doesn’t like to be told no. And if you dare to defy him, he’ll ruin you and make it look like it was all your fault in the process.” Boy, did he ever.

Men like him are a dime a dozen, but I was thankful I only had to work for one before I learned how to pick them out. Unfortunately, that was one too many.

“Some men abuse the power they let go to their heads.”

“Well, he wasn’t too bad to deal with until he tried to take what I didn’t wanna give.

" Like my virginity. "All of a sudden, the nice guy act disappeared, and I found myself without a job and blacklisted in the industry.” I huff in aggravation, taking another sip of the quickly-warming beer.. “All because I didn’t wanna fuck him. Go figure.”

She seems to think this over for a minute, her eyes thoughtful. “If you could get back into the industry, would you want to?”

“I’d love to get back to it. It’s not easy work, but it’s what I’m good at.” My free hand reaches up and begins absently twisting a lock of my strawberry-blonde hair around my fingers. “It’s all I’m good at.”

The look on her face is skeptical, but she doesn't call me on the self-flagellation. “Social media management is a thankless, difficult job. What made you get into it in the first place?”

“I’m good at managing people and diffusing bad situations. And I know social media. From the first moment I made an account on uMe, it’s been the one place I’ve felt like I’m doing something right.”

It's literally the place I can be whoever I want to be, and nobody has to know that I'm not as awesome as I pretend. I've learned the algorithms, I've worked out how to curate engagement, and I even know what sells. And I'm so damn good at it, I get paid for it.

Or I would, if the asshole hadn't made sure to shut down my only line of revenue and turn me into a pariah in my own field.

“I know how that feels, believe it or not. And the entertainment industry can chew you up and spit you out. It’s done it to me once or twice before.

” She sounds like she's got a story, but I don't ask for it, because she's made it clear we're talking about me here, not her.

“But sometimes, you find luck and a helping hand in the strangest and most unlikely of places.” She slips a business card across the sparkling bartop in my direction, then sets her empty beer bottle on the edge of it to weigh it down.

She's not putting pressure on me to pick it up.

It's up to me to make that decision on my own.

“If you decide you wanna find a place to start over, you call me. I could use someone like you on my team.”

She stands up and drops a fifty on the bar to cover the tab and a tip, then walks away with a little wave, and I'm left wondering who she was, or what that interaction even was.

I'm too curious not to pick up the card, so the second the bartender takes the money left for him, I slip the card out from under the bottle and skim the lines printed in shiny gold lettering.

Arista Simmons, Foreign Talent Liaison, kNight Entertainment.

At the bottom is an email address, a phone number, and the address of what I assume is the building she works in. On the back, a little QR code that I whip out my phone and scan without even thinking.

A website pops up, and I gasp.

I applied to this company the second the Asshole fired me, right before I was blacklisted.

And I'd had an interview set up for their media team.

Unfortunately, I ended up in the hospital with a sprained ankle on my way to that interview, because some asshole tried to run me down as I stepped off the sidewalk.

I don't believe in fate. And I certainly don't think just one woman can get me in with the wall of bullshit I've been so far unable to surmount.

Still, it won't hurt to pocket the damn card, and I break my own rules and order one more fancy beer, wincing as I hand over the little bit of cash on my person, and down it in one go.

I won't be getting drunk tonight, but I'll certainly be getting a buzz. And when I get home, pass out, and wake up, maybe the world will look a little less bleak.

Hope is a hell of a drug. Sometimes, it's like living in an active addiction. And when the world comes falling down on me once more, it'll be like living through withdrawal.

I just hope the fallout this time isn't too bad.