Doc: a Club Alias novel

by KD Robichaux

  And the world stops spinning.

  My heart plummets to my stomach and catches fire in the lava-like acid there as equal parts rage and terror fill me.

  Yes, Heather was right when she said Randy is short for his last name. It’s short for Randolph.

  The papers start to shake in my hand the longer I look at the picture, because although he’s much older than the last time I saw him, I’d recognize those soulless eyes anywhere.

  They’re the eyes of Elias Randolph, the boy who raped my sweet Shelly twenty-four years ago.

  Chapter 22

  Doc

  “We should take my car,” Heather says as Seth locks the glass front door of Imperium Security. “Astrid drove, so they’ll think it’s weird if your car comes through the gate. They won’t look twice at mine.”

  “Good thinking,” I tell her, and as we’re walking around the building to the parking garage, we hear tires squeal, echoing down the street. Within seconds, an SUV comes to a skidding stop next to us before we can go down the stairs to where Heather parked.

  Corbin jumps out of the passenger side, and I get the barest glimpse of Brian before the door is shut and he takes off around the front of the building.

  “What’s happening?” Corbin asks, his voice low and deep as we head down the stairs. Seconds later, Brian is coming through the garage gate and taking the nearest parking spot.

  He spots us making our way to Heather’s car and meets up with us as she’s clicking the remote to unlock the doors of a white Lexus.

  “Guess we’re gonna cuddle, boys,” Seth says, pulling his backpack off, hopping in the back seat, and sliding to the middle. Brian and Corbin take the seats beside him as I fold into the front passenger side, and Heather takes the wheel. Without even waiting for a signal or for one of us to speak, she backs out of the space and whips around to the gate to exit the parking garage.

  “Fuck a job at Club Alias, Doc. She needs to be our new getaway driver,” Seth says through a cackle, and I don’t tell him off for his inappropriate timing for jokes, since I know for a fact that it’s his defense mechanism whenever he’s scared to death. It’s not just me he’s worried for, or even himself, because he adores Astrid. I know he’s thinking of his wife, Twyla, and how she would react if something were to happen to her only sister. After what she’d been through to keep Astrid safe, she would be beyond devasted for something to hurt her now, when she’s finally getting her life in order.

  “Okay, spill. What. Is. Happening?” Corbin repeats, and I start talking, able to form words now that we’re speeding toward the love of my life.

  “Backstory. Twenty-four years ago, the girl I was going to marry, Shelly, was raped at a party. The fucker got off with probation, the judge deciding he was too young to be sent to jail for the crime. Long story short, she ended her own life, setting the course for the rest of mine.” I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn my head to the left to see it’s Brian’s. Everyone in the car murmurs their condolences, but I continue on. “Astrid now has this makeup artist job at the strip club Brian had under surveillance. Before he even knew what was going on there, he had suspicions about it. It turns out it’s a modern-day brothel. And the owner of the fucking place is none other than Elias Randolph—aka Randy these days, apparently—who raped Shelly all those years ago.”

  “Fuuuck,” Corbin growls, and I snort.

  “You don’t know the half of it. The body of a missing woman, the former makeup artist at A Secret who had supposedly been found safe in another state, was discovered in the woods earlier today. Heather here bravely came to tell us the entire story. It is suspected that Randy killed her during their night together. He’s known for forcing the women to sleep with him and calls it square because he pays them. Seth says the field coroner reported the cause of death was most likely strangulation, which goes along with what Heather said. She told us the woman’s lifeless body was carried out the back door naked but with something around her throat,” I explain.

  “Which they must’ve removed before dumping her, because there wasn’t anything in the report about a weapon used,” Seth adds.

  “Your text said we have to go get Astrid 911,” Brian finally speaks, ever the quiet one who takes in all the information before making a statement.

  I quickly explain all the details about the levels of the strip club, Crystal, the referral contest, her recognizing Astrid from their barre class, and how she was going to talk her into dancing for the extra cash. “And then Astrid sent me texts earlier when my phone was dead saying she was going to dance for one hour in the nightclub section. Heather says Crystal will have to prove she won the referral money by showing Randy that Astrid is in fact dancing in the club. We can’t let that happen. The fucker is a goddamn rapist for sure, and a suspected murderer who is known for ‘disappearing’ women who tell him no. I don’t want him to even lay eyes on my woman. I will not let him take another woman I love away from me. Never again. Even if I have to kill him myself with my bare hands,” I growl, my hands shaking as my control starts to slip.

  A hand grips my shoulder again, and then one on the back of my neck. “That’s not going to happen, Doc. We’ve got you. And we’re not going to let anyone hurt Astrid. None of us will. We all love her, and there’s no fucking way we’ll let anything get in the way of you finally finding your happiness,” Corbin says adamantly, and I feel choked up as the hands let me go.

  “I’ve already found my happiness,” I murmur. “We can’t let him take it away when I just fucking got her.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Brian prompts.

  I shake my head. “We haven’t gotten there yet.”

  “Speak for yourself, bro,” Seth says, his face now buried in his laptop he pulled from his bag he grabbed on the way out the door, and I’ve never been more grateful for his prodigal brain in all the years I’ve known him. “The lovely Heather here is going to enter through the gate and park in the employee lot, pointing out which door of this monstrosity is the one closest to the girls’ dressing room. She’s gonna go in like she normally would, and if anyone stops to question her, she’ll make up an excuse about how she was just running late but was there to work. After making her way to the dressing room, she’s going to let us in through the door she pointed out, and first and foremost, we’re going to find Astrid.”

  I nod, agreeing with that plan. “Hopefully that’ll be the end of it. We’ll get in, get my woman, and get out. Done. And she’ll never fucking step foot in there again.”

  “But that doesn’t take care of Ra—”

  My head whips around to face Brian, and I indicate with my eyes toward Heather, reminding him she doesn’t know we’re more than just a security team. His jaw snaps shut and his nostrils flare, and I know he wants to talk about what will happen with Randy, but we need to keep quiet about that until she’s out of the car.

  Seth fills the silence. “If she’s not in the dance club, we’ll have to search for her. The place is fucking gargantuan, so in order to find her fast, Heather, we’ll need your help showing us the most likely places she’ll be.”

  Heather speaks for the first time since we got in the car. “If she’s not in the dance club or in the dressing room, the only other place she would be is upstairs in Randy’s private room. It’s down the left corridor, the very last room on the right. But I don’t know how y’all would be able to sneak up there. Even us girls can’t go up there without being escorted, and the stairs are guarded like freaking Ft. Knox.”

  Brian cracks the knuckles of his giant hands, all our eyes turning to him to see the wicked smirk he has on his face. Getting into places he’s not welcome is Brian’s forte, which is highly entertaining to watch on a normal day that doesn’t involve the safety of my woman, because he’s so fucking big. Bigger than even me. At 6’8”, the man is a goddamn giant, but he’s as stealthy as a cat and can take down a roomful of enemies before they even realize he’s among them. He’s not just the muscle of the team; he’
s equal parts brain and brawn. “You leave that to us,” he assures her.

  “What about security at this place?” Corbin asks. “We going to have to worry about surveillance while we’re going through the gate and back door?”

  Seth’s fingers fly over his laptop’s keyboard. “Luckily, Brian’s Spidey senses went off on this place a few weeks ago. We had no idea it was a business. It just rubbed him weird that these people showed up night after night at what looked like someone’s residence. So we’ve been tapped into their surveillance system for a while now. At the moment, I’m recording the empty hallway between the dressing room and the door we’ll be coming through, and then I’ll replace the feed on the security’s monitor in a loop, so they won’t see it when Heather lets us in.”

  Heather visibly relaxes, her body sinking into her seat and her knuckles not so tight around the steering wheel. “Thank God,” she breathes.

  “I need a map of the place,” I hear Brian tell Seth quietly, and he must pull one up on his laptop, because suddenly both Brian and Corbin’s heads pull toward Seth’s in the middle of the back seat, and I watch the three of them mumble amongst themselves as they point to different locations on the screen. If I weren’t an atomic bomb of anxiety waiting to explode at the moment, I’d find the image of them funny, but instead, I’m just grateful as fuck I have these men on my team.

  Soon, we’re pulling up to the gate of A Secret, and Heather rolls down her window and punches in the code. The gates open, and she pushes the button for her window to rise back into place as she follows the driveway that takes us to the parking lot around the back of the mansion. She parks on the far end of one row and points out a door between two tall trees. “That’s the door. It’s always locked from the outside.”

  “Cutting the silent alarm for it… now,” Seth says, and her brows rise.

  “Never realized there was an alarm on it. Guess that’s why it’s called a silent one.” She shrugs. “I have to take one of the golf carts to the front of the building. Watch out for the valets when you see me open the door. They’re trained security personnel who keep an eye out back here,” she warns.

  “Got it,” I say. “And Heather?” I catch her arm before she gets out of her car, and she looks at me. “Thank you again. You’re the real hero here.”

  “I believe it’s heroine, Dr. Walker. Your Astrid taught me that when she was telling me about a book I might like. I just thought she was talking about the main character having a drug problem, but she set me straight.” She winks, and I can’t help but smile. “See y’all in a few,” she says, and she hops out, slams her door, and tosses her purse up on her shoulder as she hurries to the line of golf carts at the front of the lot.

  “That window,” Brian says, leaning forward to look out the windshield as he points. “It’s in the attic that takes up the entire top level of the house. The surveillance feed shows it’s completely dark, using the night-vision cameras. I’ll come through there and lure any and all security away from the second level so Doc and Sarge can head up using the elevator near the kitchen, which isn’t too far from the dressing room. That way you aren’t trying to sneak up these big, open staircases for all to see.”

  “Right now, there’s a guard at the top of the elevator, but not at the bottom where we’ll enter. There are two guards posted at the bottom of each of the two staircases and one walking the second-floor hallway. There are other guards throughout the first floor in each of the different clubs, so let’s keep this stealthy so we don’t draw any unnecessary attention,” Seth says.

  Corbin reaches behind his back and pulls his pistol around, checking the chamber. He reaches into his boot, pulling out a black metal cylinder and twisting it onto the end of his gun. It’s not hard to imagine he was a sniper in the army for years, his hands steady, not an ounce of emotion on his face as he sets up his silencer. “Plan A: Astrid is in the dance club and hasn’t been seen by this fuckstick yet. We grab her and leave. We’ll take care of him later and make it look like Karma did her job. Plan B: He’s seen her. We let him take her where he’s gonna take her, away from the crowd, and we bust in and grab her before he has a chance to hurt her. We’ll play the rest of that scenario by ear. Plan C: He’s already taken her somewhere and we have to find them. Sounds like this fucker would want to enjoy his victim for a while, so no matter what we find, I’m a hundred and ten percent positive she’ll be alive, so get that worry out of your head right the fuck now, Doc.”

  My eyes lift to his from where they’ve been watching him load bullets into two more magazines and then turn to Brian when he speaks.

  “You’ve never been on a mission with us before, Doc. We’ve got this. You know you can trust us to get our girl out of this safely. In fact, I know you’re going to tell me to fuck off when I suggest this, but if you want to wait here while we run in and take care of this, none of us will bat an eyelash. You took an oath to do no harm. That’s why you’ve got us.” His face is serious, his eyes imploring me to stay here, I’m sure to keep me out of the way so I don’t fuck up their mission. But I fucking can’t. There’s no way I can just sit back and let my team rescue my woman when she’s in danger.

  “You’re right. Fuck off,” I tell him, giving him a half-smile.

  Seth shakes his head, his eyes never leaving his laptop screen. “If y’all couldn’t keep my nerdy behind-the-scenes ass in the car when Twyla got taken, did you really think you’d keep Thor out of the way of saving his girl?” he prompts.

  “Thor?” Corbin asks, raising a brow as he looks from Seth to me.

  “Oh, y’all haven’t heard Astrid talk to him on speakerphone, apparently. Docky-poo has a new nickname given to him from his ‘goddess,’” he says, air quoting with one hand for a second before going back to typing a mile a minute.

  “And what’s that?” Brian asks, a smirk forming on his lips.

  “Goddess has claimed him as her Viking,” he says the word dreamily, holding his head up a moment to flutter his eyelashes at me, and if I didn’t love the dude as my own brother, I’d punch him in the face. “My sis has quite the obsession with his ‘Thor arms’ as she calls them, which led to him reminding her of a Norse god, which led to him being a big-ass warrior. I get it.” Seth shrugs.

  Corbin chuckles, but when I look at him, he’s nodding, his expression good-natured instead of poking fun. “Goddess and Viking. I like it. It’ll be weird hearing someone call you anything other than Doc. It was strange enough hearing her call you by your real first name. But this is perfect. I’m happy for you, boss. Truly.”

  “I second that,” Brian says, reaching up and slapping me on the shoulder a couple of times, and then his eyes look past me through the windshield. “There she is.”

  My head whips around, my heart suddenly clenching because for a split second I think he means Astrid, but alas. It’s Heather, flapping her hand at us for a moment before closing the door behind her once again, leaving just a crack.

  I reach for my handle, but right when I would’ve shoved open my door, Brian’s hand snatches mine out of the air, his arm coming through the space between the headrest and the passenger door as fast as a striking rattlesnake. He lets go and points out the windshield, and it’s then I see a valet is bringing a car down the driveway to park it in the customer lot.

  “Fuck, I’m sorry,” I whisper as if the valet would be able to hear me from the other side of the backyard of this huge estate. Maybe it would be wiser for me to stay behind, instead of fucking up my trained soldiers’ mission and risking Astrid’s safe recovery.

  But I shake off the thought before it’s even complete in my mind. I may only be the scholarly type, have always used my brain as opposed to brawn when it comes to our team, but I’m a fucking man, and my woman is in danger. Nothing in this world would be able to keep me from saving her my goddamn self. I’m also not stupid. I know I’d never be able to do this on my own, which makes me so grateful for the men in my life who are more family than coworkers.
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  Soon, we see the valet take another one of the golf carts, and he disappears around the side of the mansion.

  “Here,” Seth says, reaching into his backpack and handing each of us an earpiece. We fit them in quickly, and I wait for what’s next, deciding to follow their lead and not jump the gun again. He hits a button. “Hear the tone?” he asks. When we all confirm, he nods. “Good. You’re set. I’ll be at the ready if you need anything from me. I’ll watch y’all on the real surveillance feed, your eye in the sky, while covering it up on their monitors. Bring my wife’s sister home safe, boys, or we’ll all be dead meat.”

  With that, Corbin exits the car, closing the door quietly, and Brian and I do the same on the passenger side. I follow Corbin, Brian behind me, as we cross the lawn between the parking lot and the back door.

  Chapter 23

  Astrid

  This is hands down the most fun thousand bucks I’ll ever make in my life. I’ve spent the past thirty minutes dancing my ass off with men more than double my age who have been surprisingly very gentlemanly as they allow me to dance circles around them to the music pumping through the formal dining room turned nightclub. I can’t wipe the smile from my face as my newest partner attempts to do a proper waltz to the beat of Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back,” giggling when he steps on my toes and apologizes profusely.

  I look up and see Crystal on the edge of the dance floor. She’s pointing to me, leaning close to a relatively good-looking guy dressed in all black, and I wave at her with a wide grin. She crooks a finger at me and I nod, standing on my tiptoes to tell the older man thank you for the dance and then making my way over to her.

  “This is awesome!” I tell her once I’m near, and she grins wickedly, her head turning toward the man next to her.

  “Randy, meet Astrid, our new makeup artist who has agreed to dance tonight,” she introduces.