Taking a stool, Drake dropped his chin on a fist and watched the man do his work. It was enough to take his mind off whatever that had been with Natasha.
The ease with which Scotty laughed and communicated with the customers while simultaneously mixing beverages and keeping his area in order was like a form of art. Or it could have been the abs contouring the front of his tight-fitting white T-shirt that was the art form. Either way, Drake liked what he was looking at, and for just a moment, he let himself watch. He watched and imagined what it could be like to come into work and be able to only run the club. To be free to sit and watch Scotty without worrying about what was happening in the back rooms or what the next big tip he was going to give the cops would be. He imagined what it could be like to walk right behind the bar and take Scotty into his arms and kiss him without wondering what type of danger that could put him in.
But the truth of the matter was, it didn’t matter how much he wanted the freedom to be with Scotty and be free of the cartel; he wasn’t free and he wouldn’t be until he had taken their organization down. As much as he wanted Scotty, which was obvious with each shift he made to readjust himself, he couldn’t go down that path.
“Sorry, Drake! I couldn’t find you!” Jenny said from behind him. As Drake turned toward her, quickly drawn out of his daydream, she set a tumbler of scotch in front of him.
“Oh yeah, thanks.”
Jenny smiled, shifted her tray, and started to turn but then stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot, Tank told me to remind you that you should be wearing your earpiece. Frankie called and said he would need help in the back in about ten minutes.”
Drake subconsciously touched his empty ear. He hadn’t even thought to grab his earpiece today. Something with Frankie being out of the club made it seem less necessary. “Yeah, I wondered why I could hear myself think today,” he said. “Thank you, Jenny. How’s it going today? Getting good tips?”
She shrugged. “It’s not great, but it’s not horrible. Yesterday was better.”
Drake nodded. Yeah, it was what he expected of a Monday night. “Well, I won’t keep you from it. Thanks for remembering my drink.” With a small toast of his scotch, he dismissed Jenny.
As soon as her back was turned, he frowned. What the hell was going on? Frankie had said they wouldn’t be back until around close, and they still had at least an hour before last call.
Drake swirled his scotch before draining the glass in one go. It burned just right, warming his body and settling his nerves all at once. With a sigh, Drake gave one last lingering glance at Scotty, who returned his gaze with a wink, making Drake’s heart jump, before making his way toward his office. He probably should grab his earpiece before Frankie came in. Who knew what kind of trouble was coming.
Chapter 8
THERE WAS too much blood. Drake had thought that maybe his sensitivity toward blood and broken flesh had diminished after so many interrogations, but now, seeing the puddles of blood, too much blood for a single person to lose and keep breathing, curdled his stomach. It took all his willpower to swallow back his bile as he pressed down on what used to be a white T-shirt, now saturated in deep red.
Hyde, the large man lying barely conscious on the table with three bullet holes in his chest, struggled to breathe. Drake didn’t really know the man. He had seen him around. Every once in a while the guy had come to the club, utilizing the back room for a sale or sometimes just for the soundproofing. He recognized him as one of Frankie’s guys, but he wasn’t one of the regulars. But now he was dying practically in Drake’s arms.
Using all the strength he could muster, Drake tried to staunch the blood coming out the two holes he was in charge of keeping under control, but the flow was too heavy.
“Oh God, oh God!” a kid Drake never met before cried as he leaned, nearly collapsed, against the wall. His face was plaster white, his chest moving in and out quickly with his frantic puffs.
“Jacob! We need those towels!” Drake called out, surprised at how calm his voice sounded. He didn’t sound like he was about to lose it at all. Keeping up appearances, he turned to face the hyperventilating kid. “Hey! We could use a hand here!”
The kid pushed off the wall on visibly shaking legs and approached slowly. His Adam’s apple bobbed wildly as he swallowed, hopefully keeping whatever was threatening to show at bay.
Drake pointed with his chin, directing the kid to put pressure on another wound on Hyde’s shoulder, but the kid collapsed before he could get close enough.
Frankie shook his head. “Useless,” he murmured under his breath before hovering over the wounded man, checking him over. He used his fingers to pull open Hyde’s eyelids, studying him. Apparently, he didn’t like what he saw because he took the man’s face in his fingers.
“Hey, stay with me, Hyde,” Frankie said, slapping his face lightly to get his attention. “Keep your eyes on me, okay? Doc is coming.”
Hyde tried to obey. His head lolled to face Frankie, his eyes squinting, but just when Drake started to think that maybe things weren’t as bad as he had thought, Hyde jerked in his arms and spat dark blood.
“Shit, man! It must have hit a lung or something!” Jacob yelled, rushing forward with a handful of towels used behind the bar.
Frankie grabbed a towel from Jacob and used it to wipe up some of the dark fluid on Hyde’s face.
“Oh, shit, man! Shit, it looks bad!” The fallen kid had managed to regain his feet, but his voice still held a quivering panic. Frankie glared at the kid across from Hyde’s body.
“He’s fine,” Frankie growled. He looked back down at Hyde. “You’re fine, Hyde. Keep your eyes on me, okay. Doc will be here soon.” Drake had no clue how Frankie was able to keep his voice so calm and smooth. His accent wasn’t even all that noticeable as he spoke.
“He’s not okay, man. He’s not okay! It’s bad. It’s really, really bad.” The kid’s wobbling voice broke through Frankie’s soothing one.
Jacob spun suddenly, weapon held in his bloodstained hand. The kid cried out, jumping backward and hitting the wall he had earlier been leaning on.
“Jacob!” Frankie shouted, never taking his eyes off Hyde. “Go see if Doc’s here.”
“But I—” Jacob protested, wagging his gun at the now-blubbering kid.
“Just go!” Frankie shouted, and this time his tone demanded action.
Jacob’s jaw clenched and unclenched before he dropped his arm back to his side. His heavy gaze rested on Frankie, who was still busily staunching Hyde’s blood, and then he finally turned and walked out the door.
Drake winced. “Hopefully he went toward the back and not into the club.” That would be all he needed—a blood-soaked, armed kid running around and freaking everyone out. They definitely didn’t need the cops coming around.
“He knows Doc only comes in the back.” Frankie wiped away the blood from Hyde’s lips before taking his head in his hands so the man could focus on him. “Stay with me, Hyde.”
“What the hell happened?” Drake asked. He switched out the soaked T-shirt for a couple of towels. He would have to remember to put those on the inventory list. There was no way he could wash these enough times.
The blood absorbed into the towel quickly. The warm liquid practically squishing under his fingers made the bile rise in the back of his throat. He tried to swallow it back, but it refused to budge, and he coughed to try and cover the gagging noise he desperately needed to make.
“Goddamn cops! That’s what happened!” Frankie said through clenched teeth. “The fuckers were staking out the park. When Hyde went to make the sale, they surrounded him. Somehow, the bastard was able to get out of the park but not before taking a couple of rounds. I took Jacob with me because it was supposed to be an easy in and out. It was a good way to learn the ropes. Fucking cops!”
“Shit,” Drake said. “Who’s this?” He nodded toward the still-blubbering kid.
Frankie’s face darkened. “The buyer.”
“I didn’t
know, man, I didn’t know! I had nothing to do with it!”
Frankie’s snarl snapped the kid’s protesting mouth shut. “Shut the hell up!”
The kid whimpered and opened his mouth as if to speak again, but the entry of Doc, the only doctor on the cartel payroll as far as Drake knew, cut his dissent short.
Drake held his position as the doctor was debriefed on the situation by Frankie and then gratefully traded off with one of Doc’s assistants as they started to take control. Drake watched them work for a series of moments. The men and woman surrounded Hyde, each faced with a specific task. They moved around the body, using tools and disinfectants to try to remove the bullets and stop the bleeding.
Everything seemed to be moving along smoothly when suddenly Hyde’s body started to thrash on the table, knocking a couple of the men away before they were able to rush back to try to hold him down. Doc yelled something that Drake didn’t understand and then the body stilled, releasing a loud gush of air.
Slowly the people around the table backed away. Doc shook his head and started to remove his gloves. Hyde didn’t move, didn’t take a breath.
“Oh God,” Drake whispered around the ocean swimming in his head.
It was hot in the office. Was everyone else sweating? He couldn’t breathe. There was absolutely no air. Maybe that was why Hyde couldn’t breathe. Maybe they had to open a damn window. No one was going to be able to breathe in here.
“You okay, Boss Man?” Frankie said, standing shoulder to shoulder with Drake. He had a bottle of Jack in his hand and took a long swig. He offered it to Drake, but Drake couldn’t tear his eyes away from the body lying on his table.
Drake swallowed hard a couple of times before jerking his head in a nod. Yeah, sure he was okay. He just had a dead guy on a table behind his office, but you know, other than that it was business as usual.
“Is he dead?” The kid’s wail echoed in Drake’s ears. “Oh God, he’s dead!”
Jacob, who had stayed near the door, brought his pistol back up, his eyes hard.
“Jacob,” Frankie scolded, dragging Jacob’s gaze back toward him. “No, that’s too loud.”
Pulling his own gun out in a quick motion, he shot the kid twice in the chest, watching in calm silence as the kid flew back from the close-range shots, his chest erupting into starbursts of red. The kid’s body fell along the wall, sliding down in an unceremonious heap, blood trickling out the corner of his mouth.
“You should start carrying a silencer.” Drake watched in shocked silence as Frankie, cool and even, holstered his weapon, then took another swig from his bottle of Jack. “Someone get this pile of dead shit outta here.”
Drake stood blankly, trying to move forward to comply with Frankie’s commanding tone, but his legs wouldn’t obey him. In fact, he couldn’t really feel his legs. He looked down to make sure they were attached. They were. That meant he probably still had fingers as well. Drake tried to flex his fingers and thought maybe a drink would do him some good, help him get his head back on straight, but as he folded his fingers, he realized his skin felt tight. Too tight. Glancing down, Drake remembered, to his horror, that he was covered in blood. His clothes were spotted in large patches of wet red, and his hands were encased in what looked like brownish gloves.
“Jesus.” Drake gagged at the sight and lost all confidence in his ability to hold in any of the contents of his stomach.
“You okay, Boss Man?” Frankie asked, voice low. He held out the bottle of Jack to Drake, who took it with trembling fingers. Frankie watched him closely, eyebrow cocked. “Don’t worry, you get used to it.”
Numbly, Drake nodded at Frankie’s bleak words. He lifted the bottle of Jack to his lips, but the coppery scent of death stopped him short, and he gagged as he saw the smear of red along the dark bottle. With fumbling fingers, Drake thrust the bottle back to Frankie, who took it with a laugh, watching Drake’s struggle.
Staggering in a rush, Drake barely made it to toilet outside of his office. It had been a close call, but he made it in the nick of time. He let his head hang for a while longer, just in case he wasn’t as empty as he thought he was, but then finally feeling like it was over, he sat back against the door. Raising a hand, he went to wipe his mouth but remembered at the last second the reason he had been sick in the first place.
Jumping to his feet, he dashed to the sink and turned the hot water all the way on. He scrubbed at his skin, working the blood away, trying to rinse it off. He grabbed the soap, but it only made the blood foam in a red lather, causing his stomach to flip again. He probably had some more bile in his system to dispose of, but he worked it back, focusing instead on cleaning his hands.
He let the hot water scald him. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting the blood off his hands.
After a couple of minutes of frantic scrubbing, the only red left on his hands was skin rubbed raw and burned. He looked in the mirror, ignoring the bloodstains on his shirt. He met his own eyes in horror.
This was what was happening out there. Every time he gave up some piece of the cartel to the cops, someone ended up dead or dying. He wouldn’t have had as much of a problem with it if it were the actual people behind the cartel, if it were Boredega, Tony, or even Frankie. He wouldn’t have been able to shed a tear, but with these random guys—the ones who maybe made a few bad choices here and there and ended up in a bad spot—these deaths and injuries seemed useless. Wasteful. Wasteful use of police operations. And useless losses of cartel assets. Sure, they kept the business going, but these people were expendable. They were just a gear that would be oiled and replaced. It created a hitch, but it was definitely not a deterrent.
Even though he hadn’t been the one to set the cops on them this time, he quite literally had blood on his hands. He knew there were casualties involved. He had a whole section of his crime board devoted to them. He was going to have to find a picture of Hyde to put on there. He didn’t even know if the man was involved enough to be on his board. But he deserved to be commemorated along with the others lost to the cartel.
A hysterical laugh escaped his lips as he thought of everyone who had lost their lives to the cartel. The list was long, and good people were on it. His family was on that list. He had to remember that. Sure, Hyde didn’t deserve to die, but he had made his bed when he joined the cartel, and now he had to lie in it.
Drake pushed himself back from the mirror. He had to man up. He was in this for the long haul. And if he was going to be who was needed, if he was going to earn Frankie’s and then Tony’s trust, then he had better get used to it.
Taking a deep breath, Drake readied himself to go back out into the office. He had two dead bodies and a change of clothes that he had to deal with. It was just another day at the office.
Chapter 9
“SO, WHAT are you fine-looking ladies up to tonight?” Jacob leaned against the bar, definitely invading the two blondes’ personal space. He dropped his tray to the side so he could run a hand through his short-cropped dark hair, then posed against the bar, leaning back and lifting his chin, shooting them a cocky smile.
Drake smirked as the girls gave Jacob a quick, disinterested, verging on repulsed look before turning back to face each other to talk. Drake couldn’t help but shake his head at the kid’s overinflated ego. He had been working the bar for over two months, and not once had Drake seen him succeed in truly impressing anyone. Somehow, the kid still managed to have an ego; it must have been the byproduct of privilege, being a child of the cartel.
At the blatant rejection, Jacob’s face darkened. Drake watched as a muscle in his cheek twitched. Instead of walking away like most spurned men, the kid stood staring, his eyes narrowing as he inched closer so that he was only a hairsbreadth from the first blonde.
The second blonde pursed her lips as she eyed Jacob distastefully. The first blonde’s fingers clenched around her clutch, and her shoulders tensed at Jacob’s close proximity. Drake watched amazed as the two seemed to have a full conv
ersation with their eyes that spoke volumes louder than the completely separate conversation they were having with their mouths.
“I haven’t seen you two around here before,” Jacob said, his tone light despite his determined look.
The blondes ignored him, Blonde One rolling her eyes, then tilting her head to indicate to Blonde Two that they should leave. Blonde Two put her hand on Blonde One’s arm and stood, pulling her friend with her, but stopped short when Jacob’s own hand snapped out, clasping Blonde One’s upper arm. Blonde One’s entire body stilled at the intrusion. After the passing of a few tense moments, Blonde One attempted to shrug off Jacob’s grasp, but his fingers only tightened, marking Blonde One’s tan skin with white.
“Get the fuck away from her!” Blonde Two shouted, drawing quick looks from other patrons nearby, but no one paid much mind.
Drake held his breath as he watched. He took a step forward, ready to intervene. He couldn’t have any of his staff, even if that staff was not necessarily his staff, assaulting guests. He clenched his jaw as he opened his mic to ask for assistance. He started to call for Paul or Tank, who he knew were watching the door and the dance floor, but stopped before he did, eyes widened in amazement.
Blonde One jutted her free arm’s elbow back, nailing Jacob directly in the ribs. The woman was slight in build, but any sharp elbow to the chest was enough to distract an aggressor, especially if the aggressor wasn’t expecting it. Jacob doubled over, releasing Blonde One to put both hands to his chest, his breath expelling in a surprised whoosh.
Drake couldn’t help his smirk as Blonde One didn’t stop there but added well-deserved insult to injury by spinning around and slapping Jacob across his cheek, leaving a splash of red in her wake. Jacob’s head turned with the force of the slap. Slowly, as if stuck in molasses, Jacob turned back to face the two blondes, eyes narrowed, chin jutted forward. Drake’s breath caught as he took in Jacob’s dark gaze. If he hadn’t watched him almost cold-bloodedly murder a kid days earlier, he would have thought the look to be that of a petulant child. But instead the glint in Jacob’s eyes sent a chill down Drake’s spine. The blondes, unaffected by Jacob’s violent past, turned up their noses and walked away.
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