“Do you know who it is?” Shelly asked, and I shook my head. “It’s that guy who’s here most nights. The really cute one with loads of money. They say he chooses a bottle girl to work the VIP area and the tips are insane!”
Oh yeah, I’d seen him around the club a few times. He was one of the regulars, but I never spoke to him. He wasn’t very … approachable.
“Woohoo,” I deadpanned. “I hope it’s me …”
Shelly stopped mid-step, which made me jerk to a stop, too. “If you don’t want to do this, just say so and I’ll find someone else. This is too important!”
I stared into Shelly’s glittering eyes and realized this was important to her. This money could make or break her. I thought I remembered she was in college on her own—was she a single parent, or was that Miranda? Either way, I needed to stop being an asshole. I might not need this job, but she did. And technically, I did need this job. I had bills to pay, too. So maybe I should put a little pep in my step.
“Sorry, Shelly, it just hasn’t been a good night. You’re right, though.” I gave her a genuine smile. “Let’s go get those tips.”
She brightened and we finished crossing the club, heading up the metal staircase that led to the VIP area. When we got halfway up, we lit the sparklers and hurried up to the section to make our grand entrance.
The security stepped to the side immediately, and I saw a mix of guys and a few women lounging in the VIP section. We strutted around the room as the men leered at us and we popped bottles, making them cheer. They surrounded us as we began to pour them drinks, and this smaller group was just as hyped as the ones down on the dance floor.
Except for one. He reclined on a black leather lounge chair in the back, sprawled out, observing everything and everyone. He must be the one Shelly was talking about. He didn’t look like he belonged with the rest of the group. He wore jeans, boots, and an untucked black button-up shirt. While his demeanor was all very casual, there was a presence to him that told me he was the boss.
When our presentation was over, I grabbed a cup and a bottle and sauntered over to him. His gaze rolled over to me as I approached, and he took in every inch of me as if recording it to memory. His perusal was a little disconcerting because it wasn’t sexual in any way, which was what I’d become used to in a place like this.
“Drink?” I raised a brow and held up the bottle.
He tilted his head up to get a better look at me. “No.” He shot me down and turned away, dismissing me.
I was taken aback. In a place like this where the men were sleazy and took every chance to chat up the women, this was sort of … refreshing. Unfortunately, he wanted nothing to do with me. Of course.
He ran a hand through his dark hair and then peered up at me again as if just remembering I was standing there. “You’re still here.”
“It’s my job,” I scoffed. “What’s your deal?”
As he slowly stood from the lounge chair, I noticed he was taller than I thought. He walked toward me and lowered himself to be at eye level with me with an enigmatic smirk.
“What’s my deal?” he repeated.
“Yeah, you don’t have to be rude.”
“My apologies for hurting your delicate sensibilities.”
I could tell he was taunting me, which only angered me further. I knew his kind—the rich playboys who thought they could do whatever they wanted and get away with it.
“You’re not sorry, so don’t give me your fake-ass apologies,” I scoffed.
He jerked back, somewhat surprised. “Is this how you talk to all the clientele?”
I squeezed the neck of the liquor bottle I was still holding. If I had the strength, I’d snap it in half.
“Only the assholes.”
I hadn’t realized we were getting closer and closer as we spoke. We were now just mere inches away from one another. My gaze fell to his plump lips and I quickly snapped my glare back up to his emerald greens. They were glittering with laughter.
“What’s your name?”
I frowned. “Billie,” I lied. I wasn’t going to give this weirdo my real—or fake name.
“Your real name,” he asked a little more sternly, his eyes focused on mine.
I swallowed and clutched the neck of the bottle I was holding. “I said, Billie,” I gritted through my teeth.
“Hmm.” He straightened. “Interesting.”
“Octavia?” Shelly called me and I jumped away from the stranger as if we’d been caught doing something we shouldn’t have been. I heard him laugh behind his hand. It only made me grind my teeth.
“Yes, Shelly?”
“I need your help,” she said, her gaze ping-ponging between us suspiciously before she turned back around.
The man passed me and joined his friends. Stunned and unsure of what happened, I shook my head and went over to find Shelly.
We continued pouring drinks and were about to clean up and get more bottles when security approached us.
“Mr. Monroe only wants Shelly working the VIP area. Sorry, Octavia,” the guard said as he escorted me out of the section.
I turned back to find Mr. Monroe sitting in the lounge chair again, watching me with a smirk on his face. He held up his drink at me as if to salute.
Asshole.
2
Working at the nightclub was messing with my sleep schedule—big time. I didn’t get home until five in the morning, and by the time I showered and got to bed it was almost seven, which meant I slept the morning and most of the early afternoon away, not leaving much time for me to get things done before my next shift.
I still lived in the run-down studio I’d acquired several months ago, right on the border of downtown Los Angeles and MacArthur Park. It was affordable and no one asked any questions, which was what I needed. It was barely big enough to house a bed, TV, and a tiny closet, but along with an alcove that contained a dresser and a miniscule bathroom, my studio apartment also boasted a miniature kitchen with the works. It was perfect. It wasn’t like my previous luxury apartment, but I wasn’t complaining.
After sleeping until four in the afternoon, I hurriedly got dressed and hopped in my car. Now, I was standing in front of a warehouse in Sun Valley, waiting for the door to unlock in an industrial part of town. I hadn’t knocked or anything; all I did was look up at the camera and wait. After hearing the click of the lock disengaging, I opened the door. The inside was dark with no windows available to illuminate the space, but a wall of computers lit the way with a flickering blue light. I headed to the back of the small warehouse where I knew I’d find Nick.
He sat behind three massive computer screens, pushing his black framed glasses up the bridge of his nose as he typed at such a fast pace, I couldn’t track the motions of his fingers as they raced across the keyboard. Nick was a young guy, maybe nineteen, and he had the whole goth-look down to the black fingernails and eyeliner. I was sure it was just a phase. I hoped so, anyway.
When I first disappeared, I tracked Nick down for his help. A client of mine had hired him in the past, and it took me about a month to track down his contact information so he could help me get a new identity. But he also had other talents that were of use to me.
“Nick!” I called out as I approached his desk. “You haven’t been answering my texts.”
He was hunched over, fully concentrating on his screens. Without looking up from the computer screen four inches from his face, he said, “Busy.”
“We had a deal, Nick, and NightCrawlers is turning out to be a bust. I think your intel is wrong—”
His head popped up and he narrowed his eyes at me. “My intel is never wrong. You gave me a description of your guy for hire, and that’s where it led.” He twisted his mouth to the side as if contemplating and then sighed. “There’s been chatter in the dark web that something huge is about to go down at NightCrawlers. You might want to stick it out.”
I rolled my eyes. “You could have led with that!”
He smirked. “Neve
r doubt me.” Nick went back to his furious typing and I plopped myself down on the futon by the far wall.
I peered around the cavernous space, noting the abundance of cameras positioned throughout the warehouse. It was unnerving, and I wondered what happened to this young kid to make him so paranoid, not to mention how he came to cater to a more unsavory clientele.
“Have you looked into the murder of Camila Cortez like I asked?” I inquired. I also had Nick looking into my murder. It was a risk because if he saw a picture of me, he’d figure out pretty quickly that we were the same person, but I needed someone like him to investigate what I couldn’t. Nick had access to things normal people didn’t, and if he could find out why someone wanted me dead, maybe this would all start to make sense and I could go back home.
“All her social media has been wiped from the web,” Nick answered mindlessly. “I put some feelers out, but so far, no one’s taken the bait.”
My social media was deleted? How? And how has my family not noticed? Unless they were the ones who did it. No, that didn’t make sense. My sister loved social media. She would be hash-tagging my disappearance all over the place.
“What about Ben? Anything new on him?” My boyfriend … or ex-boyfriend, whatever, had hired a private investigator to find me when I first went missing. He was obsessed with finding me the first few months, but it’d been quiet for a while. I didn’t know if he was up to something or if he’d just given up and moved on. Whatever the case, I still wanted to keep an eye on him.
“Nothing new,” Nick murmured, barely paying attention to me.
I stood from the futon and went around Nick’s desk to see what he was doing, but as I made it around, he immediately shut off the screens.
“Can I help you?” he asked, and my suspicion was on high alert. It must have been written on my face because he said, “You know, you’re not my only client. I’m working with confidential information, Octavia. Information you can’t be privy to.”
I stepped away and circled back around the desk. “My bad.” I held my hands up. “You’re just being a little shifty, Nick, and you’ve been dodging me for days. You know how that makes you look?”
He ran a hand through his dyed hair and nodded. “You can trust me, Octavia. I won’t let you down.”
That was the problem. After everything that had happened to me, I didn’t trust anybody.
After leaving Nick’s warehouse, I headed for the Valley. I drove a few times around the block, which, now that I thought about it, made me the suspicious one, but I just wanted to make sure nothing weird was going on. I took the same route almost every day. It had almost become like a ritual for me, though it was a killer on my gas tank driving out to Sherman Oaks in the Valley all the time.
I parked down the road and on the other side of the street from my parents’ house. If someone looked out the door they would see me, but since I had a certain level of comfort that no one would recognize my crappy car, I slouched down and watched them. The house was a ranch style, single level home, with a brick wall on one side and wood panels on the other. The yard was filled with stately green shrubs and riotous blooms from my mom’s garden.
My family stuck to a routine, which meant at this time of day everyone was on their way home from work, and my brother and sister would be showing up soon for dinner. Ever since I disappeared, they’d made a point to do family dinners every night, no matter what.
With each passing day, my mother looked even more worn down and exhausted. In addition to the horrors she saw daily as a nurse, her burden was compounded by the fact that she had a daughter missing. All of which only made my guilt worse.
The last thing I said to my mother was that if she lost the house because of her stubborn pride, I would never forgive her. We didn’t leave things on good terms, and now all I wanted to do was fix it. I didn’t want that to be her last memory of me.
According to the police reports, they found copious amounts of my blood on the rooftop of the parking garage. They speculated that I was attacked and was being held captive by someone—or worse, they’d taken my body and disposed of it. But my parents refused to think the worst. They still had hope that I was alive. It was my one bright spot, because when this was all over, I’d finally be able to go home and make things right.
But first, I would find my murderer. And I was going to find out why they wanted me dead. Even if it killed me.
Again.
3
The night was dragging by and my stiletto-bound feet ached. NightCrawlers was more packed than usual, and even with so many folks to inebriate, time crept by at a snail’s pace.
I’d been banned from the VIP area, which Roberto wanted to talk to me about. I’d successfully dodged that conversation so far tonight by staying busy, working the floor. And with the amount of people in the club tonight, it was suffocating.
An elevated stage was situated in the middle of the dance floor where the club sometimes hired “dancers”. On nights like tonight when there were no dancers, they asked one of the Shot Girls to go put on a show. Tonight was my night. I pushed my way through the heaving crowd to collect new bottles for my show. I couldn’t wait for the day I could quit this job. I was still way too paranoid, obsessed with looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was behind me.
Holding the bottles aloft, I swerved through the crowd and climbed up onto the small stage. Once I was up there, barely dressed and coated with too much body glitter, the DJ announced the shots and a crowd formed, already shoving money in my face.
A wave of hands and faces blurred around me and I didn’t notice who reached up and pinched my hip, but when I looked down, I saw a black dahlia pinned on my waistband. This was really getting on my nerves, but at least now I knew it was a clubgoer leaving me these flowers.
I scanned the crowd, but didn’t see anyone suspicious. Everyone was in their own zone. The only ones paying attention to me were the ones waiting for a shot. I ripped the dahlia off my hip and tossed it on the ground. Hopefully whoever it was could take a hint and see I wasn’t interested.
I plastered on a fake smile, but it was forced because I really wasn’t in the mood to be perky. A grabby guy had just finished slipping money in my waistband when I thought I heard a shriek. The half-lit partiers around me didn’t seem to notice, and the guy had already adjusted his head between my breasts and was waiting for his shot. I scanned the crowd, but I couldn’t see anything in the darkness. Just as I poured the shot, I heard the unmistakable sound of screaming.
Panicked patrons started running, trying to push their way out of the club and screaming bloody murder as they scrambled toward the exits. The hysterical frenzy caught on and more people started rushing for the door. Suddenly, people were being knocked down and trampled and the music screeched to a stop as the DJ vaulted off the stage. I could only stand there, petrified, unable to pick a clear path to escape as people streamed around where I stood on the stage.
From my vantage point, I saw a gaggle of men standing in the back of the club near the emergency exit. The giant, hulking men began trashing the club as they stormed their way further inside. Two of them bounded behind the bar and smashed the mirror on the wall before they started breaking bottles. The others steadily moved across the floor, brawling with the male clubgoers and tossing the girls around.
I had to get out of there, but I knew if I stepped down from the stage in my sky-high stilettos, I would be crushed by the stampede of panicked people that still flooded toward the exits. And if I stayed, one of those guys would eventually work his way over here and put his hands on me. Neither option was good.
The dance floor was clearing. I had to make a choice fast.
In a daze, I peered over at the VIP area and saw an amazing sight … the asshole and his group of friends jumped down onto the dance floor … from the second-floor landing.
What the hell?
They darted across the floor, but instead of running away, they rushed towards the danger, ai
ming for the guys who had busted into NightCrawlers.
Was this a gang fight? We weren’t located in the best part of town.
I couldn’t wait anymore. Taking advantage of the distraction caused by Mr. Asshole and his friends, I jumped off the stage, still clutching the bottles (Don’t ask me why.) And just as I suspected, I was trampled. Someone body-slammed me and I fell to the ground. Unable to get up with the crush of people trying to run away, I tucked in my arms and legs and tried to protect my head.
After what felt like hours but in reality were mere minutes, the frantic legs around me slowed. Just as I was about to make a run for it, someone grabbed me by the arm and hauled me off the ground. I let out a shriek as I came face-to-face with one of the beefy men who had bombarded NightCrawlers. Without thinking, I raised one of the bottles I was still holding and smashed it in his face. The glass shattered everywhere, some of it cutting my hand. He dropped me immediately.
“Bitch!” he yelled as he held his hands up to his bleeding face.
I turned and attempted to run away, but one of his buddies blocked my escape. I darted around him to go the other way, but there stood another one. I was surrounded.
The one I hit started to huff really loudly, then he let out a guttural yell as his face morphed into a monster I’d only ever seen in my nightmares.
In mindless terror, I screamed.
His fingernails elongated and formed into long, yellow talons, and his teeth lengthened and grew into sharp points. When he snapped them at me, I stumbled back and sprawled onto one of his friends, who laughed and tossed me forward just as the monster guy slashed his talons across my abdomen.
I gasped and felt the air leave my lungs as a searing pain engulfed my senses. I dropped to my knees, clutching my bleeding stomach. I looked down at it in shock, my hands trembling, and saw my entrails barely contained by the ribbons of skin across my abdomen. Even in my terrified state, I knew I was losing too much blood.
Phoenix Burn (From the Ashes Trilogy Book 1) Page 2