Chapter 33
Scarlett
I fucking hate this place.
The club that Basti dances at, it’s a shithole.
I’m scowling as I kick open the greasy door that leads to the back.
There’s a narrow hallway here for security.
These particular men are useless though, sitting here in metal folding chairs while they smoke and watch porn on their phones.
Bastian’s been here on nights when dancers get attacked by customers and these losers don’t do a goddamn thing.
This isn’t the first time I’ve come to fight these guys.
“Get the fuck out.” My voice is like ice.
I never wanted Bastian to work in this place—it’s called the Wandering Lamb, isn’t that messed up?
—but he started when we were in ninth grade.
I didn’t have the means to care for him then, not like I do now.
My mouth splits into a grin. Still cold though, my wicked smile.
I’m standing in the open door (it’s now propped open with a half-full bottle of cheap liquor) staring at these guys like I’m death itself. Me. Not one of the men standing behind me. I am the monster tonight. It’s Christmas Eve, and Gram was totally crestfallen that we had to leave the house, and…
Screw it. These guys are tasting my merry freakish wrath. There’s a cheap calendar tacked to the wall, cum-stained and featuring a young shirtless guy in red pants and a Santa hat. ‘S the only way you’d know it was a holiday at all.
“The hell? Aw, shit, it’s that crazy bitch again,” the first guard says, rising from his folding chair and fixing his pants.
Ah, this guy. He doesn’t watch porn, just jerks off to the men dancing on the other side of this wall.
I want to kill him as badly as I’ve ever wanted to kill any other person.
I can’t though. Our murders must be kept to a bare minimum or one day, that’s all it’ll ever be. Life will be murder.
Bohnes is grinning beside me, just a creepy smile in the dark. He wouldn’t mind that, but he’d rather do it as a hobby instead of a career.
“What did you do to these guys before?” Widow asks dryly, cracking his knuckles. These men don’t even register with him. He knows I could kill them both by myself. Completely and utterly by myself. “Seems like you got yourself a reputation, princess.”
“Poured sugar in their gas tanks, sent their browser history to their significant others, and stabbed them in five non-vital spots.” I draw the blade that I have strapped to my thigh. Adrian likes all that. I can tell by his sharp intake of breath. “I don’t give orders twice.”
I lunge at the first guy as he draws back his fist to hit me, obviously dumber than a box of rocks. Even if he wasn’t worried about me (mistake), there are four absolute nutbags behind me. Huge ones. With muscles and weapons and deep, abiding inner rage.
Duck the guy’s fist, easy. Stab the blade into his leg. Stab, stab, stab. Stupid fuck.
He falls backward over his own metal chair, screaming and clutching at his gushing wound.
I stand there in the blood in a pair of heels that I won from the track.
Designer, obviously. Black and red, so maybe the stains won’t show.
Ash could also clean them for me. Now there’s an idea I can get behind.
The second dude takes off without us having to fight him, disappearing into the bushes across the parking lot.
Bye-bye.
“Remove him,” I command, stepping aside for Widow and Bohnes to take care of the mess. Alexei is pinching his nose with gloved fingers, looking away with his beautiful eyes squeezed shut. His blond lashes look silver against his cheek in the moonlight. “You okay, hubby?”
Disgusted as he is, Alexei can’t entirely force back his smile.
“The smell in there is like nothing I have ever encountered before.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a mask, slipping it on with a shudder. It’s a white KN-95 mask. Someone drew messy Sharpie teeth on it, so it’s eerie as fuck. “Even with this, it’ll be a challenge.”
“You think the smell is bad?” Ash asks with a derisive laugh, scooting aside so that Widow can drag the wounded man by his wounded leg.
Hah. I love that. He’s smoking a cigarette at the same time that he’s unceremoniously carting the dude across the oily pavement.
Bohnes has the third guy in a headlock, guiding him out of the hallway without incident.
Who would fight back at this point? “The texture is worse. Sticky under your shoes. Unknown splatters on the chairs. This place is hazardous.”
“How many times have you been here?” I ask, fisting the bloodied knife. Hardest part of wielding a blade is not losing your grip when it gets slippery. That’s why I wore just one of my leather driving gloves. Good grip and all. “Huh, Mr. Force?”
“At least a dozen,” Ash admits as Widow and Bohnes return and Alexei tries his very hardest not to throw up inside his mask. “I’ve had lap dances from guys here in the past.”
I grip the knife even harder and give Ash a sharp look as he smiles at me, like he thinks he’s cute.
My damsel in distress. My prince in a tower.
I shouldn’t have let him come tonight. He’s good with a sword, but I’m nervous.
I’m also nervous to leave him at home unsupervised.
I understand men like Jonas Kelly far better than I wish I did.
His ultimate act of revenge will absolutely involve his son. Until he’s neutralized, Ash is at risk.
Also, Bohnes is injured. I wish the pair of them were at home together.
“Ash, the amount of bullshit that comes from your mouth that I actually believe is insane. Any other bitch, and I’d call her out on such a risky decision.” I tuck the knife away and give the guys a look. “This is one of those moments where we have to split up for maximum efficiency, isn’t it?”
“I’ll be right above your head, inside the ceiling,” Bohnes murmurs, pressing his hand against the back of my head and softly kissing my hair with a romantic sigh.
The moon turns him into something ethereal and undying.
He makes me believe that he’s undead, that he’s immortal, that I’ll never have to lose him.
“Please don’t worry a lick about little old me. ”
“I’m your Nightmare,” I reply, ticked-off. I don’t slap his hand away from my hair though. “Obviously I’m going to fucking worry. You do not need to climb into the ceiling. Ash has been practicing, and he isn’t injured. Let him do it.”
Ash seems thrilled by the offer, snapping to attention like a soldier. He’s got his sword in his hand, like he was prepared for some serious head-lopping in this hallway. He sheathes it with an expert motion, like some sort of video game male lead.
Widow is smoking his cigarette with mad chill, waiting beside us like he’s more than prepared to unleash another ‘parking space’ on Kellin. Bohnes sighs and hangs his hand, indicating a specific tile on the ceiling to Ash.
“I won’t let you down.” Ash does a quick bow, dark hair flopping and sword clattering. “Yakusoku.”
He stands up straight and moves into the hallway, climbs onto a metal folding chair, and removes the indicated square tile from the drop ceiling. He tosses it on the floor where it shatters to pieces. Up he goes, disappearing into the hole in the blink of an eye.
“Humiliating,” Kellin murmurs, like reviving from the brink of death just to attend his own wedding wasn’t badass. I ignore his gloominess, holding out my hand to let him know I’ll at least allow him to walk into the narrow hallway ahead of me.
It’s dark in there, a series of holes spilling cylinders of light into the gloomy space. Leaning forward, Bohnes fits one of his ice-blue eyes to what looks like a goddamn glory hole. If he gets a dick in the eye, I will kill someone that’s not supposed to die tonight.
“This spot has a good view of the entrance,” he remarks as Widow grabs onto the old door and yanks on it. I wish he wasn’t wearing a jacket so I could see his arm muscles bunching with the strain. Off its hinges goes the door, clattering onto the pavement as he looks at his palms in disgust.
“It is sticky,” he says, nostrils flaring.
This club, a strip club with male dancers, that strongly encourages its employees to give backroom services, is not a great place for him to be.
He could easily be triggered by what he sees tonight.
I won’t know about it until after though. Widow is a professional.
“Here.” Alexei pours a liberal amount of sanitizer on his teammate’s hands and then struts past, putting a garbage bag over the center chair and holding out his hand to me. “I won’t have my wife sitting on some other man’s semen.”
I grin at that. How fucking unhinged. What a cutie.
“Don’t mind if I do.” I accept his hand and then fold my sexy-clad ass into the chair.
I wanted tonight to be special, so I wore a slutty red dress out of respect for Lemon.
I lean forward, putting my own eye up to the glory hole and peering through.
My fear of Bohnes getting a dick in the eye is apparently unfounded.
Even though we came in this door from the street, we’re on the second floor.
The main portion of the club is technically the basement of the building we’re in.
Customers have to descend a set of steps to get there.
It’s a dimly lit, super seedy little place.
The sort the average citizen doesn’t dare enter for fear of getting stabbed.
As I demonstrated tonight, the threat is very real.
There’s a main stage and four smaller stages. Tonight, there are dancers on every single one of them and the place is relatively packed. I recognize at least one guy from Prescott High working. He’s only sixteen.
My blood starts to boil, so I turn down the temperature. I can’t save the world.
Being here on Christmas Eve makes it all worse. The flashing multicolored Christmas lights on the walls. Underage waiters wearing Santa hats. Guys walking around in underwear made of tinsel or fake snow. So tragic.