by Megyn Ward
I don’t even reach for it.
Hearing it, Gray aims a smirk at my bag before lifting it and his gaze to settle on my face. “Are you finished with me, Ms. Fiorella?” His tone—overly solicitous, bordering on mocking—tightens the skin on the back of my neck.
No.
I’m not finished with him.
I’m pretty sure I’m never going to be finished with him.
“Who’s Mike?”
He stops for a second and gives me a curious look before he answers me. “He tends bar in the VIP. Been mixing your drinks for about three years now.” The way he says it makes it obvious that I should know. I should know the name of a man I’ve seen almost every night of my life for the past three years and I should be ashamed of myself because I don’t.
“Why is he looking for you?”
“Probably because I fired him for dealing to your friend last night. The Cramer kid,” he tells me before I can stutter out my next questions. “Jordan.”
Jordy.
Gray caught Jordy buying drugs off one of his bartenders.
I think about how out of it Liz was last night when she showed up at my suite. How high she seemed. I thought it was a combination of booze and energy drinks that had been the culprit, but…
“They weren’t for him.” I shake my head. “Jordy doesn’t do drugs.” Another dumb thing to say. Not because it’s not true but because no one would believe it. He’s been to rehab a dozen times. Jordy’s past with drugs is tabloid legend—only it isn’t his past that’s been chronicled.
It’s his sister’s.
“If Jordy was buying drugs, they were for his sister.”
“Okay.”
His tone pisses me off. Flat. Indifferent.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t not believe you.” He uses it again—that flat, indifferent tone that says he’s had enough of me. That he’s reached his limit where my ridiculous privilege is concerned. “I just don’t care.” He shows me his palms, giving me another tight mouthed smirk when my phone vibrates again. “I’m gonna go,” Gray says jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the stairwell behind him. “Because some of us have actual jobs to do.” My phone vibrates again, the rattle of it in my bag enough to tighten the clench of his jaw. “You should probably answer that before your friends launch a search party,” Gray gives me a final head shake before he turns and walks away.
FOURTEEN
Grayson
WHEN I GET DOWNSTAIRS, THE PLACE IS SO packed that for a brief moment, I consider calling the fire marshal myself. Not that it would do me any good. I’m sure Jase pays through the nose to have city officials turn a blind eye toward his baby on a Friday night.
Reaching up, I reconnect the mic I disactivated and press the button pinned to my collar. “Where is he?” I ask, scanning the crowd. It’s useless. I couldn’t find my own dick in this crowd. “Where’s Mike?”
“I don’t know, Boss,” Angel answers almost immediately, his tone tight with apprehension. “He gave me the slip. It’s so fucking crowded in here that I lost—”
“It’s okay.” It’s not okay. Mike didn’t take getting fired very well and the last thing I need right now is a disgruntled employee running around unchecked inside my club, especially with a couple hundred VIPs swilling champagne upstairs. “But I need him found,” I tell him, pushing myself deeper into the crowd. “And get the dancers off the floor. Get one of the guys to tip them out and—”
“Ms. Fiorella’s driver is at the VIP entrance looking for you.” Not Angel this time. The new guy… what’s his name?
Shit.
“What’s he want?” Rivers and I have what I consider a decent working relationship. He knows Delilah is a pain in the ass and appreciates the fact that I make it a point to keep her safe and in line.
If knows that my reasons for that aren’t completely professional, he never lets on.
“He says he’s received instructions from Ms. Fiorella to drive one of the dancers home,” the new guy says. “Shanen?”
Shanen.
The dancer Delilah’s ex was harassing earlier.
Stopping in my tracks, I turn to look back the way I’d come. On cue, the door marked staff only opens and someone slips through it. Despite my height, I can’t see who it is through the crowd but I’d bet my bank account it’s Delilah.
Goddamn it, why can’t she stay in the VIP like—
I catch sight of Mike, the wayward bartender about twenty-yards away, weaving and slipping his way through the crush of club goers.
There’s no way I’ll catch him. Not in this crowd.
Instead of chasing him, I step up onto a low-slung club tables in one of our conversation pits, kicking a bunch of glasses and bottles out of my way on the way up.
“Hey!” the guy on the couch in front of it shouts up at me. “What the—”
I cut him off with a quick, hard look that has him looking like he swallowed his own tongue. “Sorry, man.”
Whatever.
Ignoring him and his stumbling apology, I scan the crowd from my new vantage point, trying to catch sight of Mike. After a quick sweep, I find him again.
He’s stopped moving. Wedged into a corner, next to a fire exit, shaggy blond head bent forward while he talks to who I assume is one of his customers.
I recognize him instantly.
Delilah’s ex.
I watch as they appear to shake hands, the exchange of money for product so smooth, I can see how Mike managed to deal under my nose for as long as he did.
Angry, I walk my gaze back toward the door I just saw Delilah come through. I spot her, wedging and squeezing her way through the crowd, working her way toward the fire exit, offering big smiles and stopping for selfies for anyone who has the balls to stop her forward progress and ask.
Reaching up, I press my mic. “Someone want to explain to me why in the name of fuck Niklaus Vanderhoff is still here, considering I 86ed him over an hour ago?”
“What?” Angel answers, the anxiety in his tone almost palpable. This was his night. Jase tapped him to run Delilah’s event and he’s completely lost control of the whole fucking thing. Not only that, he’s my second in command. Disappointing me is not something he wants to do. “That’s not possible, Boss,” he assures me. “I threw him and his douchebag buddies out myself. I know they left and I gave clear instructions that they were barred for the night.”
“Well, then someone wasn’t listening.” Letting go of my mic I feel tension settle into my shoulders. The acid spread of it up the back of my neck to bite into the base of my skull.
Because Mike the coke-dealing bartender is on the loose inside my club and so is Delilah’s dickface ex—and despite everything she just told me, it seems as if she’s on her way to meet up with them.
Either to buy drugs or to hook up with her ex.
Maybe both.
I press my mic again, this time hard enough to crack its plastic housing. “Angel—get Shanen from my office and get her to the VIP entrance. River’s is taking her home,” I say, barking orders like I’m back in the military. “Tony, grab the new guy and round up all the dancers. Get them tipped out and loaded onto one of the party buses and take them home.” I don’t tell him that it’ll be SOP from now own. Female employees aren’t walking home anymore. Not from my club.
“What about, Mike and Vanderhoff?” Angel asks, probably pissed to be given a bullshit job instead of something he sees as a task that will put him back into my good graces. “I can have Jimmy or Wade grab Shanen and help you—”
“I don’t need your help finding them,” I say as I step off the table. “I’ve got them in my sites.”
“Here.” Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out one of my business cards. The word COMP is printed on the back of it, along with my signature. “Give this to your waitress. She’ll bring you a fresh round and clear your tab,” I say, flipping it toward the guy whose table I commandeered.
Without waiting f
or a thank you, I start shoulder barging my way through the crowd, gaze narrowed and fixed on the fire exit hanging above the door Mike and Nik were conducting their business next to.
When I get there, they’re gone.
So is Delilah.
I scan the crowd, looking for something—Mike’s shaggy blond hair. The back of Nik’s ridiculously expensive shirt. Delilah’s flashy club dress—anything that’ll tell me in which direction they went.
Because it’s like they just vanished into thin air.
Goddamnit.
Before I can reach up and bark another order into my mic, people start to shout.
Fire!
Oh my god, that couch is on fire!
Holy shit, there’s a fire!
Get the fuck out of here!
Turning, back toward the center of the club, I see it. A large spire of flames, shooting up from one of the plush, velvet sofas that dot the club’s main floor. An instant later, the pulsating thump of music is replaced by the screech of fire alarms and people screaming and running away from the large pillar of smoke that’s erupted in the center of the club, toward the exits. An instant after that, the sprinkler system kicks in.
“Boss, what the fuck is—”
“Someone set one of the couches on fire,” I bark into my mic. “The sprinkler system will take care of it—I need everyone on an exit door, right now. Make sure it’s open and just start shoving people outside.” As if to demonstrate, I reach out and grab a random, scurrying body and shove it out the exit door, I’m standing in front of where it stumbles and coughs into the alley. “Angel, I need you out front, waiting for the fire department when they get here. Make sure they know it’s only a minor fire—” I grab another random, a couple this time, and gesture toward the exit door I’m holding open.
“You got it, Boss.”
Fuck.
Jase is going to shit a brick when this hits the news. I can already see the headline.
NYC HOTSPOT A LITTLE TOO HOT
“Tony—” Shoving the fire exit door all the way open, I step into the alley, kicking the doorstop down to make sure it stays that way. “go up to VIP and make sure everyone is out. And find someone to—”
Something catches my attention.
A quick flash of expensive silk.
A brief glimpse of tousled, pale blonde hair.
The stumbling clatter of designer heels against the pavement. Whatever it is grabs me and jerks me forward, eyes darting and dodging across the rapidly filling alley, looking for its source.
There.
At the mouth of the alley, about to step onto the street.
A man in dark pants and sweatshirt with the hood pulled up despite the fact that it’s practically June and hot as hell out here.
Despite the fact that he’s dressed suspiciously and hustling away from the sight of an attempted arson, that’s not what sets me in motion. Not what has me running at him, shoving and shouting my way through the crowd as it ducks and scurries out of my way.
No.
What has me chasing after him is that he’s trying to get away and he’s dragging Delilah behind him.
FIFTEEN
Delilah
THE TEXTS WERE FROM JANE, SILVER’S BEST FRIEND
Jane: Silver’s water
just broke. She’s in
labor.
Jane: Heading to the
hospital now.
Jane: Damnit, Lilah
you better be sober.
Jane: And not in jail.
Shit.
Silver is having her baby.
I wasn’t there when she had Noah. I can’t even remember where I was—just that when I finally surfaced he’d been nearly a month old. I promised myself I’d be there for her this time. That I’d be a good sister and a dutiful aunt and I meant it. I’m tired of letting my sister down. Of being the family disappointment.
Me: Sober as a judge
and OMW.
Sober as a judge is something that Grandpa Hawthorne used to say to my grandma when she chastised him for having more than one after dinner brandy. I always thought it was funny and never in a million years thought I’d be able to use it in its proper context.
Jane texts back almost immediately.
Jane: did I text the
right number? This
is Delilah’s phone,
right?
Me: Haha you’re
hilarious.
Jane: Well, TMZ
is reporting you’re
throwing a huge
party at Level, so…
Me: I can have a good
time and be sober.
Jane: This I have to
see to believe. Send
sober selfie ASAP.
Even though I know she’s kidding, I oblige. Turning my phone, I take a quick snap and hit send. The picture that pops up in the text box isn’t of sober Delilah. It’s of just had the mother of all orgasms Delilah. My mouth is swollen from Gray’s kisses. My cheeks are still flushed from a combination of the dirty things he whispered in my ear while he urged me to come for him and temper brought on from the fight we had almost directly afterward.
I’m a just had sex mess and Jane would have to be blind not to see it. I might as well be holding a sign that says, I just had sex in a stairwell with my hot security guy crush.
Instead of texting back an admonishment over my disheveled state and the obvious reasons for it, a heart pops up on the picture I sent her. A few seconds later, Jane texts back.
Jane: You look happy.
Text me when
you’re in Boston.
Happy?
As crazy as it sounds, considering everything that’s happening, I think she might be right. I’m happy because I kept my promise to my sister. She’s going to have a baby and I’m going to be there for her this time.
You sure your happiness doesn’t have anything to do with the hot guy you just managed to piss off?
Scrolling through my short list of important contacts, I send Rivers a quick text.
Me: I need you to
drive someone home.
Her name is Shanen.
She’ll meet you at the
car.
He texts back almost immediately.
Rivers: Very good.
Shall I return for you?
Shall I return for you? His insistence on formality, considering the fact that the man has literally held my hair for me while I puked always strikes me as funny.
Me: Yes. Text when
you get back, I’ll
be ready to go.
That will give me just enough time to find Gray and… say what? I know I insisted on this stupid party but I’m going to leave you holding the bag—duces?
You’ll tell him the truth. Your sister is in labor and you have leave. He’ll understand.
Even though I’m not entirely sure that’s the case, instead of heading back into the VIP area, I tuck my clutch under my arm and take the stairs to the lower level of the club.
As soon as I push my way through the door, I realize I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to say to Gray when I find him because I’m not going to find him. This place it crazy—so packed with bodies, I can barely move.
Okay, new plan.
Find anyone on Gray’s security team and ask them to find Gray.
Sticking close to the wall, I start weaving and maneuvering my way through the club, continuously scanning the crowd for someone in a dark T-shirt with SECURTIY stretched across his chest and shoulders in bright yellow.
“Ohmygawd—are you Delilah Fiorella?” someone gushes in my ear. “You are, aren’t you? Ohmy—can we get a selfie with you?”
Plastering a big grin on my face I turn toward the source of the question—a trio of young clubbers in short skirts and stripper heels. If they’re older than twenty, I’ll eat my own stripper heels. Realizing that I’m hypocrisy personified, I hold on to my grin and nod. “Of course!”
By the time I run the gauntlet, my face hurts from smiling so much and I’m exhausted.
Actually, I’m feeling a little fizzy.
Fizzy.
That’s what Grandpa Hawthorne called it when grandma had too much champagne at one of her galas. Not to worry, Liliah girl—your grandmother is just feeling a little fizzy.
That’s exactly how I feel.
Fizzy.
I’m two for two tonight.
Laughing out loud, I pull away from the crowd. Finding a dark corner, I wedge myself into it and take a breath. Leaning against the wall, I resist the urge to take my stupid shoes off. There’s no telling what’s on this floor. I’d probably need a million tetanus shots if I—
The back of my arm starts to burn like one of my selfie soldiers pinched me in their picture snapping frenzy.
Wait.
Did someone pinch me?
I give the sore spot on the back of my arm an absentminded rub and try to remember…
Out of nowhere, Gray appears above the crowd, scanning the crush of people like he’s looking for someone. His gaze passes right over me and I shout his name, even though I know he can’t see me. Can’t hear me because I’m feeling fizzy and I shouldn’t be because I’m as sober as a judge and the back of my arm feels like it’s on fire and I think someone did pinch me and I think I’m in trouble.
Big trouble.
Determined, I use my shoulder to push myself out of my slump and aim myself in his direction, but instead of making my way toward him, I sway like I’m standing on the deck of Grandpa Hawthorne’s sailboat.
Just a little squall, Lilah girl, we’ll be okay. Plant your feet, loosen your knees, and roll with it.
My phone buzzes in my clutch and even though I don’t want to check it right now, I fumble it open because it could be Jane again. Something could be wrong with Silver or the baby and I promised I’d be there this time. I promised to—