Chapter Twenty-Seven
I saw Luca from the window in the kitchen, zooming down the driveway on his motorcycle—and the sight is alarming. He didn’t say he was going anywhere. Where is he going? Am I alone? A sear of panic bursts from my chest. I drop the slick bowl coated in suds, and it splashes into the dish water.
“You okay?” a voice asks from behind me.
I spin around to see Jude, fear pulsing through my body. “Yeah… Where did Luca go?” My mind flashes to the basement. To Manny. To the moment I thought he was going to destroy me.
Jude holds his hands up. “I’m just here to hang out while he blows off steam.”
“What?” I snap, glancing back to the window. “Where’s he going?”
“I don’t know.” Jude shrugs. “Maybe The Den?”
“What’s that?”
Jude’s eyes grow wide, like he’s been caught. “Uh… Nothing.”
“What is it?” I demand, my stomach feeling sick.
“A strip club,” he mutters, his shoulders dropping like he just caught. “I’m sorry.”
“Why… Why would he go there?” Emotions wrack my chest, harder than I expect. “I’m right here.” Insecurities bubble up in my mind, and suddenly, I’m sitting on the floor in my bedroom in Georgia again, reading through all the messages Jared sent her about me—how I wasn’t enough for him.
I’m not enough.
“Emma, I don’t know if that’s where he’s going… I didn’t know the two of you were like that—I don’t think he knows you have feelings for him.”
My brow furrows. “We’re sleeping together.”
“Oh good lord,” Jude laughs. “Because that guarantees feelings. Come on. He sees how upset you are over Jared.”
“Because he tried to have me killed,” I exasperate, throwing my hands in the air. “Not because I love him or something! It’s just hard to understand it all, and I’m trying to process just how fucked up it is.”
Jude nods, his voice calm. “I get it. Let’s just not… Let’s just not get worked up right now. It doesn’t change what’s happening right now.”
“Can you track him?” I blurt.
Jude groans. “You don’t wanna do that.”
“Yes, I do. I want to know where he goes.”
“I get you have trust issues—and I totally understand, but do you really want to know?”
“Yes.” I glare at him. “And if you don’t do it, I’ll figure out how to myself.” I grab the dish towel and dry my hands, leaving everything in the sink. “And you can tell me more about TheDen, while you’re at it.”
He groans as I snake past him, and rush for the stairs, thundering up them. “Jeez, Emma, come on…”
But I don’t stop. I don’t slow down. I saw the option on the computer with some code name attached to devices. My guess is that partners keep tabs on each other. I make it to the door, which is closed.
Damnit. I don’t have the code.
“Ten, thirty-two, twelve.” Jude’s voice comes from behind me. “But whatever you find, you can’t assume he’s doing something with someone else. The Den is a complicated place.”
I roll my eyes. No strip club can be that complicated. I head straight for the computer, and wave the mouse, waking it up. I navigate to the file I found earlier and double click it.
“It’s encrypted.” Jude takes a seat beside me. “I’ll have to try to bypass it. My guess is only Manny and Luca had the passcode.”
I scoot over, letting Jude take over. “Can you teach me how to do this kind of stuff?”
Jude eyes me. “So you can keep tabs on Luca?”
“No, just because.” I purse my lips. “I’ve never been good at anything—and I thought I wanted to be a writer, but I’m not cut out for it. I want to be good at something.”
The sympathy in his face is annoying, but he shrugs. “You know, yeah. I’ll teach you—if you promise to stick around after your twenty days are up.”
My stomach knots up. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he nods, and then begins a step-by-step guide to bypassing the encryption. I take mental notes on the process, and my heart speeds up as it opens to a map. And sure enough, there’s Luca’s green dot, moving down the highway.
My teeth nearly start to chatter from nerves as I watch the dot continue to move at a steady pace. Jude sits there with me for the next twenty minutes, and together, we watch the dot eventually pull off into a parking lot.
And Jude’s sigh gives it away.
“He’s there, isn’t he?” I whip my head around to Jude. “Don’t fucking lie to me, either.”
“Does it matter? Are the two of you together or just in a weird situationship?”
I choke back hurt and anger. I’m such a freaking idiot. I swat at the tears and shove my chair back from the desk, committing the address to memory.
“Where are you going?” Jude calls after me. “You can’t show up there, Emma. You can’t.”
“Fuck off,” I shout back at him, tears now streaking down my face as I head for the garage. I don’t know where the stupid keys are.
“You can’t risk being seen.” A hand connects with my wrist, jerking me to a stop. “Your face is all over the news. You don’t wanna do that. You’ll get yourself—and Luca—killed.”
My shoulders fall in defeat, and I turn to face him. “I just need to see it for myself. I don’t want to play stupid anymore.”
Jude studies my face for a few moments, and then lets out a sigh. “Okay. Okay, I’ll take you. But again, The Den is complicated. It’s going to be a lot. It’s dark, so we can just disguise you. I’ve got some of my sister’s shit in my truck. Come on. We’ll see what we can do.”
***
“Your sister has interesting taste,” I mutter as I adjust the masquerade style mask on my face. I decided to wear my black skinny jeans and a black crop top I found in the bag of shit. Jude tried to convince me to put on a wig, but instead, I went for just putting my hair up in a high ponytail. In the dark, my hair color won’t be all that noticeable—not with this half-face mask.
“Does everyone wear masks?” I ask nervously as Jude pulls into the parking lot. His windows are all tinted with five percent, so he said I was fine to sit in the front. No one was probably going to be looking for me in California anyway.
“Most of the women do,” Jude answers me as he parks next to Lucas’s Ducati. “And some of the guys do, too.”
“Do you?” I turn to him.
His hazel eyes meet mine, and I realize they’re greener than hazel. In fact, maybe they are just green with flecks of brown. They’re actually stunning.
“I don’t wear a mask, no. I don’t have anything to hide being here. No one gives a shit who you are here, anyway.”
I nod. “Will he have a mask on?”
Jude closes his eyes and lets out a sigh. “No, probably not. They know Luca well here.”
My lips curls in disgust. “Gross.”
“You really don’t understand what you’re walking into.”
“A sex club,” I snap, shoving the door of the truck open and jumping out into the crisp early evening air. The club is tucked away, the entrance being located in an alley with the outside showing it as a warehouse.
“It’s hidden in plain sight,” Jude jokes. “And I’m sure the cops are paid off to let it be. That’s how shit works.”
“I know how it works.” I swallow the hurt and feed into my anger, suddenly imagining breaking a fucking glass over Luca’s head. I stalk toward the entrance.
“Whoa, you can’t go in without me,” Jude jogs to catch up. “You’re not going to be on any of the lists.”
Bile rises in my throat. It’s VIP. Great. Jude grabs my hand and gives me a reassuring smile when I cringe.
“Just for looks, okay?”
I nod and let him lead me to the stairwell set off the alley. We descend the steps to the plain black steel door. Sweat beads up under my mask, as Jude punches in a code on the door. It clicks, and he pushes it in. We step into an empty lobby—as if we’re in a waiting room. There standing next to another set of doors are a couple of guys who look like they eat small children for breakfast.
“Jude,” one of them says, lighting up a cigarette.
“Nate,” he gives him a nod, leading me to the double doors just past him. My heartbeat is rattling my ribcage now, and as Jude opens the door, it’s replaced with the heavy bass coming from a stage.
I’m not shocked by the topless women. I’m not shocked by anything I see thus far. Men drinking, women doing what they’re paid to do. My stomach churns, scanning the faces of the men with women on their laps.
No Luca.
“Where is he?”
“There’s more places to look,” Jude says. “Just don’t let go of my hand.” Something about his words send a jolt of fear through my body. “He won’t be here.”
My hand sweats in Jude’s as he leads me to a back exit—that leads to more shocking shit. Desperado by Rihanna slams into my ears and I fight the urge to cover them from the sheer volume…
Women, men, shadows of figures grind against each other, the smell of sex, smoke, and booze filling the air. I swallow the lump in my throat as Jude keeps my body tight to his. It’s so dark except for the neon lights flickering, giving flashes of sex every time it flickers.
The Den is a fucking sex club.
“Keep your head down,” Jude shouts over the moaning and music. Hands brush my ass and I stumble into Jude. He wraps his arm around my shoulder, but I’m too caught up in the frustration.
“I can’t see anyone’s faces,” I shout to Jude, my voice cracking. “How am I supposed to find him?”
Jude shakes his head, and I don’t know what that means as we slide through the crowd of bodies. He doesn’t seem interested in looking for Luca at the moment, and I wonder if it’s because he’s trying to shield me from what I might see. But I still try to find his face.
But I don’t see him. And I wonder if it’s only going to get worse.
Jude drags me to the next set of doors and pushes them open. We stumble into darkness. I catch my breath as the silence settles around us, the music dissipating as the doors latch.
I grasp Jude’s hand so hard my hand cramps. It’s pitch black. “Where are we?” I whisper into the blackness as Jude stands stark still.
“Where we might find Luca.”