46. Sage #2
“Knox and Micah are there.” He finishes with his clothes and moves onto his shoes. “They went straight to the club after the football-cluster operation. Eli’s there too.”
“He is?” Jealousy slices through me at the thought of him with someone else.
Holden immediately touches my chin. “Not for that. I sent him to talk to Odin about getting us a proper crew for this.” He gestures at the room beyond the bathroom. “Because this is not a two-man job.”
“Is it going to be okay? The scene?” I ask, tugging the dress down over my hips.
Holden’s back is to me, standing in the bloody doorway, arms crossed.
“It’s going to be something. Now hurry.” He reaches into the duffel and hands me a pair of black heels.
I stare at them. “You had an entire outfit in your trunk?”
“I had plans.”
“Did they always involve bloodshed?”
“Not this much.”
A minute later, the dress is clinging to my bare skin because the underwear I arrived in is sealed inside a biohazard bag.
Apparently murder cleanup has a strict commando dress code.
I towel my hair until I don’t look like the star of a torture-porn film and step into the sky-high pumps.
Milo’s duffel is propped against the dresser.
The shrink-wrapped heap that was Dale Stine remains on the carpet where Milo rolled him, with a miniature plastic bow taped over his forehead.
Milo’s wearing a set of painter’s overalls and his hands are gloved up to the elbows.
He sees me in the mirror and lets out a low whistle. “Wow, kitten. You look . . . ”
“Gorgeous,” Holden finishes, his warm gaze drinking me in.
I almost want to curtsy, but under the current circumstances I just say thank you.
“You’re so welcome,” Milo says. “And hey! I gift-wrapped your corpse for you.” He holds up his hands, blood-spattered, and gives me a double thumbs-up.
“Looks great.”
He beams. “And you two are okay? I heard grunting. I figured it was fucking, but I just want to be sure.”
I roll my eyes. “We’re fine.”
“Good. Because I think I’m in love with this crime scene. I’m going to enter it in the state fair. Maybe win a blue ribbon for Most Likely to Ruin a Forensics Team’s Day.”
Holden moves toward the door, shaking his head while Milo moves on to humming “Killer Queen” by Queen, and I can’t tell if that’s deliberate or just how his brain works.
“I’ll be back later,” Holden tells him. “Do what you can with the walls while I’m gone.”
“You got it, boss.” Milo catches my eye and winks. “Have fun at the club, kitten. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“That leaves a lot of options.”
“Exactly.”
Holden’s hand finds the small of my back and steers me out the door, across the parking lot, into his car.
The drive is twenty minutes, and he spends most of it on the phone—short, clipped calls to people I don’t know, using words I half-understand.
Biohazard. Soft disposal. Room nine. Crew on-site by four.
I’m only half listening, anyway. This is the first time I’ll walk into the club during operating hours.
If I’d known that all I had to do to get through those brass-knockered doors at night was massacre some guy—I would have done it weeks ago.
The parking lot is packed—a sea of black SUVs and electric sedans glinting under streetlights, each one a subtle fuck you in capital letters to anyone hoping for anonymity on the coast.
Unholy Desires is a fortress with no sign out front, just a discreet entryway. There are no lines. Only appointments.
Holden folds me out of the car and across the pavement like I’m a trained bird of prey and he’s the handler.
The black dress leaves nothing to the imagination.
The heels make my legs look a mile long.
I still have blood under my nails, but I don’t think anyone can see unless they’re looking for it, and even then—what do you say to a girl with blood on her hands at a place like this? You tip better, maybe.
Holden swipes into the front door. There’s a bouncer inside who hands us silver masks and lets us through the second set of doors.
The sound hits first. Low bass, dark and slow. Ambient and heavy. Then the light—dim, warm, amber and red, coming from fixtures I can’t see. The air smells like expensive perfume and leather and pure, raw heat.
It’s everything I imagined and nothing like I expected.
There’s a couple on the stage, naked, side by side.
She’s red-haired and tall, her wrists in elegant cuffs chained to a steel post. He’s lean and dark, kneeling with his head bowed.
A second woman circles them both in six-inch stilettos and a latex catsuit, her crop tapping against her palm as she considers them.
The crowd doesn’t cheer. They don’t leer. They watch with the same kind of awe people have watching ballet—intent, hungry, completely absorbed.
The domme stalks behind the man, says something I can’t hear, then cracks the leather crop across his ass. He doesn’t cry out, just shudders—so hard and beautiful it makes my throat clench.
Holden’s hand tightens at the curve of my waist, like even in here I still need a leash.
“Stay close,” he murmurs, as if there’s a chance in hell I’d run.
I want to run, but not away—I want to run my hands over this room until every rough edge and shining surface is mapped into my skin.
We move through the main floor, past the bar where Micah hovers.
He’s flushed, hair perfectly tousled, dress shirt open a button too far for most restaurants but probably standard here.
I catch his eye behind his black mask, and he gives me a curious grin.
Like he doesn’t understand why I’m here.
But Holden is in command mode and steers me toward the VIP corridor where Knox is on guard.
His arms are crossed, and he’s watching the room with that steady, dark-eyed scan.
Knox is sexy all of the time. But he’s sexy as fuck when he’s in security mode.
The man is in all black, sleeves rolled, looking like a wet dream or a man you’d cross the street to avoid—depending on your risk tolerance.
Holden plants me in front of Knox like he’s delivering a package.
“Don’t let her out of your sight,” he says. Then he turns and disappears down the corridor toward a door labeled “No Entry.”
Knox looks at me. From behind his mask, his eyes narrow, tracking the details—the damp hair, the new dress, my bare throat where the choker should be, the particular energy I’m giving off that has nothing to do with a normal night at the club. His frown deepens.
“Fury,” he says. “What did you do?”