40. Chapter 40
Chapter 40
Ronan
“ H ow do you know she’s here?” Enzo asked, walking behind me toward the back door of The Full Spread. He looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was following us.
“I recognized Frank. I watched him take her.” I gritted my teeth, clenching my hands into fists at my sides. When I tried the door, it was locked. Did I really expect it not to be? “Take the window.” I pointed to the window leading into the men’s restroom.
“But I don’t get it. Is he Irish? Why would she be here ? Do you think Nikki is in on it?” He covered the back of his knife with his jacket and slammed it into the corner of the window, shattering the glass. If anyone was inside, they heard it break and heard the shards sprinkling on the tile floor.
I urged him with a nod. “My guess is there’s more of a connection there than we realized. Will you just climb through and let me in?”
Enzo rolled his eyes, pushing up on the side of the window and pulling himself through. He dropped into the bathroom, and his boots crushed glass beneath his feet. Not a subtle entrance. Within a couple seconds, the door was opening, and I was following him in.
“Do you think she’s helping them push the drugs?” he asked, stopping suddenly and turning toward me. “Maybe the Irish are helping her!”
“I don’t know.” I looked around each corner, checking the shadows for any hint that Nellie was nearby.
He stopped, pushing open the door to the office and peering around it. The room was empty, and he huffed quietly, leaving the door ajar when he continued down the hall. “I mean, really, though—do we think she’d kill her own girls?”
“At this point, I’m not sure what she’s capable of, but something tells me she’s been in with the Cassidys the whole time.” It was eerily quiet in the building, but the tension was thick. At this time, there should’ve been dancers flitting around and bartenders preparing shelves of bottles for opening. Instead, it was empty.
Enzo shook his head like he was trying to wrap his mind around the influx of information neither of us had any grasp on yet. “Jesus fuck, this is wild.”
Then, there was a crash, and we both whipped around back toward the hallway behind the bar. “Fucking bitch!” a man shouted, followed by a high-pitched shriek. Nellie.
We raced back down the hallway, skipping past the doors to the office and the bathroom we had already checked. There was only one other door, tucked in the back of the office.
The door to the storage closet was locked, and I rattled the knob more furiously when I heard the loud clap of skin-on-skin contact and then a pained cry. “Get out of the way,” Enzo demanded, and I stepped to the left before he reared back and slammed the heel of his boot into the part of the door just above the knob.
Splintered wood flew into the air, and the loud crack announced our entry, as if the broken glass hadn’t already done so. “What the fuck?” Frank cursed, whipping his head in our direction. He hadn’t heard us.
A stack of crates was on its side, and miscellaneous glass bottles had spread across the floor. Some of them had broken, and the small room smelled like a foul college party with a few too many spilled shots. Nellie was panting and glaring at Frank, who returned it with a sneer of his own. Her hair hung in her face, and when she huffed, blowing a loose strand away from her eyes, it fell right back where it was. She pursed her lips.
“Am I interrupting something?” I asked, calmly fixing my suit jacket while Frank stood and shoved his sleeves up his arms. “It looks like you’ve got something that belongs to me.”
When I nodded at Nellie, Enzo rushed forward, pulling his knife from his belt and using it to cut the tape on her wrists. She winced when she put her hands in her lap, rubbing one wrist and then the other. I looked at her, and there was something different in her eyes—almost like she didn’t know who I was.
“You’re exactly who I was looking for,” Nikki said. I spun around to face her, zoning in on each purposeful click of her heels against the ground. “I knew you’d come after little miss thing back there.” Nellie gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth.
There was a quick scuffle behind me, and the gun when off before I even turned around. Nellie screamed, the sound competing with the ringing of the shot, and then there was a thud. I turned to see Frank in a rapidly growing red puddle, Nellie’s face stark white.
I rushed to her, squatting and trying to wrap my arms around her, but she scurried back away from me. Her leg dragged through the blood, smearing it behind her. “Don’t,” she said breathlessly, putting both of her swollen, almost purple hands up in front of her.
“Oh, look. It appears your little girlfriend isn’t quite so blinded by your charm anymore, is she?” Nikki taunted, circling the perimeter of the room. “Especially now that she knows you aren’t who she thinks you are.” She sounded like the note Nellie received. Not everyone is who we think they are. I glared at her.
“Enzo, take Nellie and go,” I demanded coldly. Nellie tried to scurry away from Enzo, even when he grabbed her and scooped her into his arms. She tried to fight it, smacking at his chest and kicking her feet, but then her eyes dropped, and so did her head. Her exhaustion was starting to win, and she stopped fighting, letting him carry her out.
I turned my attention back to Nikki, who continued to circle the room. She stepped over the pool of blood, clicking her tongue and shaking her head when she looked at her apparent partner-in-crime.
“What do you want Nikki?” I asked when she hummed again, obviously waiting for me to break the silence. Did she think it would give her the upper hand?
She chuckled. “I need someone to take the fall for the death of my girls.” Was she serious?
“That’s not me.” I crossed my arms over my chest, still prepared to reach for the gun concealed on my hip. I had a personal principle against shooting a woman, but I would do it if I had to.
Nikki grinned, tossing her hair over her shoulder when she stepped closer to me. I could smell the cheap perfume she wore too much of over the metallic scent of a fresh wound. “Oh, but it is.”
“No. You see, I know your game. You think we haven’t been watching you?” I turned to face her dead on when she started to circle me more closely. “You thought we wouldn’t notice the Irish presence or the way you turned a blind eye to everything that happened in here, but we’re always watching.”
She shrugged like she had still won. “I told your girl what really happened with her brother."
Again, I saw red, and a loud growl ripped from deep in my chest. In a snap, my hand closed around her neck, pinning her against the shelf of bottles behind her. They rattled when her body rocked against it, and the sound accompanied the grunt forced from her. “What did you just say?”
“Doesn’t she deserve to know her new boyfriend is the reason her brother is dead?” Her words were strained at the end of the statement when I closed my hand tighter around her neck, watching her cheeks turn darker and her eyes widen.
“You know, I should break your neck and let you die in here with your friend,” I snarled at her.
Nikki smirked even as she struggled for a full breath. “Aw, and here I was thinking we were getting our happy ever after.”
I let go of her, and she dropped to a heap on the floor, putting her hand over her neck. She sucked in a deep breath, followed by another one, and then she stood after taking a quick glance at her partner’s body. The pool of blood was no longer stretching towards the edges of the room.
“The only happy ever after you’re getting is walking out of here alive. For now.” I towered over her, gritting my teeth and glaring. “You’re done. Your club is done. Your career is done. Your protection is gone.”
“So you think.” Her voice was raspy, and when she went to stand, she wobbled a bit before she regained her balance.
“So I know. If you ever touch something that belongs to me again, I’ll burn every inch of your skin with battery acid before I bury you alive. Do I make myself clear?” My voice was soft, and even though she gulped, Nikki didn’t flinch. “Don’t fucking test me, Nikki.”