Chapter 9 #2
Mateo’s neck prickled as he eyed the drink she had called ‘The Veil’.
If it wasn’t his imagination, Donovan stiffened beside him, going deathly quiet.
The liquid was dark purple and had dry ice smoke drifting off its surface.
His throat clenched as he envisioned the worn book in Aveline’s hands, demonic markings and the image of Azrael leaping at him off the pages.
Suddenly, the atmosphere of the club became stifling, the walls closing in.
He struggled to breathe, his chest burning as if the fog wafting from downstairs were really acrid smoke.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Mateo fought for composure, realizing that Melody was watching him, waiting for him to accept or refuse one of the shots.
The wide-eyed innocence in her stare sent doubt swirling through the suspicion filling his gut.
He’d be stupid to think the name of the drink was a coincidence, but she had said it like she might when mentioning a fast-food joint or a gas station.
The owner of the club might have ties to The Veil, but what about Melody?
Donovan had been ready to shrug her off as being just a waitress in a club, but Mateo couldn’t ignore his instincts.
Something about this woman in this place didn’t sit right with him.
“I’ll try Sins of the Flesh,” he said, once he managed to find his voice.
He held Melody’s gaze as he threw the shot back.
The tequila scorched his throat and heated his belly, while the chili infusion made his tongue tingle.
The combination was intriguing. He liked it enough to ask her for another one.
She watched him down it while setting her tray on the empty table near them.
Plopping down across from Mateo, she stretched her legs out and crossed them at the ankles.
“Y’all don’t mind if I sit here for a minute, do you? These are my favorite shoes, but they aren’t the best for being on my feet all night.”
“Knock yourself out,” Donovan said, at the same time Mateo muttered, “You didn’t seem to have any trouble dancing in them.”
Melody chose to acknowledge Mateo, hardly seeming to have heard Donovan. One of her eyebrows ticked up. “You were watching me?”
Mateo let his gaze move down her body, lingering on her shimmering legs. He wondered if body glitter was edible and how it might taste. Probably not great. Not that it would stop him from licking—
“Everybody was watching you,” he blurted, because he had to say something.
He could feel Donovan observing them, and realized that his abrasiveness would seem strange when, as far as he knew, they’d only met Melody once.
The man had no idea what Mateo got up to in his private time.
If he did, he’d likely call up D.C. and report him to Carlisle.
Melody shrugged. “Trina needs a break sometimes. And when I’m on break, I like to dance. They don’t bring the cage out often.”
“You were good,” Donovan said, leaning in to be heard over the music. “Unc here couldn’t keep his eyes off you.”
Mateo cut a sharp glare at Donovan, who only joined Melody in a laugh. He wasn’t fond of this habit they seemed to share—laughing at him.
“So, what’s the deal?” she asked suddenly. “Two attractive guys come to a club like Solstice and neither tries to pick up a girl, or even dance with one? I didn’t think our drinks were that good.”
Donovan grinned. “I’m seeing someone, so the whole pick-up thing isn’t really happening right now. I don’t know about Mateo, though … you’d have to ask him.”
Melody swiveled a questioning glance at him.
He grimaced. “No pick-ups for me, either.”
“And dancing?” she prodded.
“I can’t remember the last time I asked a woman to dance.”
Way to point out how ancient you are. At least, he was ancient compared to most of the teen to twenty-somethings crowding this club.
For that matter, he had no idea how old Melody might be. She didn’t look any younger than Donovan, but that would still put him a decade or more older than her. Surprisingly, the thought wasn’t as much of a turnoff as he’d thought it would be.
“What if a woman were to ask you?” she prodded, a clear challenge in her eyes.
After the awkward end of their coffee date, Mateo had expected her to keep her distance.
Maybe she would think him rude or weird or not worth the trouble of getting to know.
Their moments of flirtation couldn’t have made much of an impression after the way he’d run out on her.
But she was looking at him as if waiting for an answer. As if she were daring him to say yes.
Beside him, Donovan seemed to be choking on the sip he’d just taken of his drink. Though his coughs sounded suspiciously like chuckles.
“Depends on the woman,” Mateo countered.
“And if I’m the one asking?” she teased.
Something inside him jerked and drew taut, as if he were a fish snared on a hook. It was exactly how he felt as he snatched up the gauntlet she’d just thrown down. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“I get fifteen minutes every hour for a break.”
Donovan swiveled his head back and forth as he watched the exchange as if it were the most entertaining thing he’d ever seen.
Leaning back in his chair, Mateo nodded before he could change his mind. “I’ll be here.”
Giving him another meaningful look, she took up her tray and left, heading back to the bar. He didn’t dare turn his head, but could feel the Donovan’s gaze boring into the side of his head.
After a beat of silence, Donovan laughed, reaching out to clap one hand on Mateo’s shoulder. “Oh, snap!”
Rolling his eyes, he turned to meet Donovan’s gaze. “What?”
“I’m impressed. That whole brooding guy thing you have going on works like a charm. You got game.”
Mateo watched Melody empty her tray of the empty shot glasses. “I’m too old to have game.”
Donovan snorted. “False. Old guy game is the best game. You have all the experience. You’re all wise and shit. Women love that.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Right,” Donovan drawled. “The fact that you two were practically eye-fucking each other just now isn’t an issue.”
“Williams told us to blend in, so I’m blending in. You should try it.”
Donovan had been about to reply, but movement near the VIP section caught his eye.
“We got something,” he said, inclining his head toward the booth where five men were getting settled and attempting to gain Melody’s attention. Among them were Suede, Morrison, and Wilson.
Only Jones and the surveillance team would be able to hear what was being discussed in the booth, but Mateo watched them anyway.
He didn’t want to miss anything that could offer him a clue to what Suede and his crew might be up to tonight.
Melody treated the men as she had the other night, smiling and laughing with them, spinning in a circle to show off her outfit as they looked her over.
“I’m telling you, something isn’t right with her,” Mateo said. “She knows them.”
“Maybe,” Donovan hedged. “I’ll leave you to figure that out. I’m gonna go piss, and then I’ll hang out downstairs for a while.”
It was a good idea, and maybe while he was downstairs, Donovan would see something of interest. For his part, Mateo was rooted to the spot.
Melody would come looking for him during her break, and that would be his chance to dig into her life a little more.
It wasn’t why he had come here, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight for the suspicion tearing him up inside.
He couldn’t make a move on Suede or the others without the information they might gather from the wiretap.
That left only Melody for the night, and he was determined to keep her in his sights.
He watched her serve drinks, stopping frequently at the VIP booth to replace empty bottles and dirty glasses.
At one point, she joined the VIPs on the leather sectional and stayed for a good ten minutes.
Mateo tried to reconcile this version of Melody with the one he’d shared coffee and beignets with and found it impossible.
From the outside, she appeared the same, if only a little more polished.
But Mateo had been trained to read people, to look past the surface to what they were hiding.
His study of Melody had already begun exposing contradictions.
It wasn’t just that he’d seen her dressed down and without makeup, or that when she wasn’t entertaining customers, she looked bored to tears.
Everything about her was altered in the environment of the club, completely at odds with the woman he’d been following in his spare time.
She walked differently, carried herself with aloofness and a touch of conceit.
She attracted stares every time she moved from one place to the other, yet ignored those stares as if she thought herself above the people who dared to try undressing her with their eyes.
The woman from the café had been gentler, sweeter.
The hard glisten in her eyes had been decidedly absent, and even her voice had softened, losing the sharpness it had when she was teasing or joking.
When she hadn’t realized he was watching her, she moved differently, walked differently, held her head differently.
One of these personas was a facade, but Mateo couldn’t figure out which was her true face.
He hadn’t gotten close enough to her yet.
There was a part of him that wanted to get closer because of the ridiculous, delicious, spine-tingling things he felt when she got anywhere near him.
Logic told him to stop thinking with his dick.
It was clearly infatuated with Melody and couldn’t understand his rational mind.
A mind that told him he was already entangled in one conflict of interest when it came to this case. The last thing he needed was another.