2. April 10th

APRIL 10TH

TB

Multicolored lights swungand spun chaotically to shine down on the dance floor. Fog machines flooded the floor with cold mist, enveloping the dancers packed in "The Pool," as it was called, because of its entrances being five steps down from the main floor. The club was hot. Too hot for his liking. Worst of all, his organs felt like they were being shocked with electricity, and his blood seemed to pulse with the synthetic bass line of classic Depeche Mode.

The club's speakers are working overtime tonight. Too loud.

Internally, he sighed. Even to him, his inner voice sounded old. He hadn't wanted to come to The Library tonight, but he was twitchy. Pissed off. Well… pissed off was a constant state for him, so this qualified as more pissed off than usual. Coming to the club should have helped ease the twitchiness, but as soon as he arrived, he remembered it hadn't helped the last few times he'd come here before going overseas.

Same shit, different day. What's the point?

He blamed part of his current negativity on his team leader, Waters, for being the ultimate dumbass. The man was acting completely out of character, leaving his woman while she was possibly still vulnerable to danger, simply on the orders of their boss. The man was going to pay for his mistake in more ways than one.

I love that man like a brother, but sometimes…

Then there was the long-standing fuckery of one of his teammates, Nemo, who irritated him simply by breathing. They'd only been back from Roatán for a few hours, and he'd already been the victim of two confetti cannons, an air horn, and a skeleton popping out of a closet at him. TB wished that the snake the idiot had recently battled with would have bitten him on the dick instead of the ass.

You know you need to stand off to the side when opening any door in the office, dumbass.

Internally, he sighed. Putting on his club persona, Lobo, was usually an easy task. He spent most of his adult life using codenames, nicknames, and aliases in his undercover work in the Israeli military and then again in his self-contractor role over the dark web. Going to work for Tribe five years ago had added another name to the resume. Being someone else was nothing new, but lately, it was exhausting and a little like he no longer knew who he was.

Perhaps the worst part of why he was in a crap mood right now was his current conversation partner. Tilly, the club name for internet influencer Matilda Moll, a young twenty-something from the Valley, had sashayed over to him at the club and tried to flirt with him. She was a regular at the club and overall a sweet thing when she wasn't being a brat, but TB didn't like sweet things.

Flame is a sweet thing. You like her.

Shut up, goody-two-shoes, or I'll throat-punch you right out of my head.

I'm frustrated. I need something to work my frustration out on. Tilly would be perfect in brat mode.

The trouble was, all he wanted was to swat her away like an annoying mosquito.

Sighing internally, he realized he should have skipped the club and stayed home to chat with Flame. That's what he had wanted to do, but he chickened out like a total pussy and forced himself to come here. Flame was too sweet. Too nice for the likes of someone like him. She deserved romance and a man who would be home every night to make love to her. Not a jaded fuck like him. His hands were far too bloody to even think of being in the same room with her.

And yet, it was what he desperately wanted. Through their online chats, he discovered she was harboring such naughtiness in her head, all he wanted to do was muss her up. It didn't even matter that he had no clue what she looked like. He'd honestly fallen in love over a computer chat. Him. The love bug had bitten Mister Asshole, and he was so infected, his brain kept trying to come up with scenarios where he deserved his little Flame in his life every day.

But every scenario he came up with was a bust, and when his team leader threw in the towel on the best thing that ever happened to him? TB knew an omen when he saw one. That was the only clue he needed to remind him that relationships were not for men like them.

Technically, relationships were forbidden. One disastrous project involving Waters' sister, Sarah, brought that on. For a brief while, however, the team had looked on at the off-the-wall chemistry of Waters and the spitfire film director, Kubrick, and had been rooting for them. They'd all been believers for a short while. And then, poof! It went up in smoke.

Internally, he snorted at the direction his thoughts were running. He was such a hypocrite. Not too long ago, he'd been telling his team leader to seize the opportunity instead of turning his back on the possibilities with a woman he'd fallen for. For a brief while, it looked like he'd done it. Now the poor bastard was sulking in his office at Tribe, his tail between his legs, and TB was ignoring the very advice he'd given his team leader.

Well, my situation isn't the same.

Really? Exactly how is it different?

He hated when the voices in his head argued with one another. He always felt like he was stuck in the middle of some weird ménage à trois. It was creepy.

I'm not a nice guy, and Waters is.

Nice? You remember the project in Somalia, right? He's the one who taught you that trick with the handsaw.

And I hope I never have to use it. That even gave me nightmares.

Raising his glass to his mouth, TB took a generous swallow of his water. He never drank while at the club. If he took part in the club's upper-level activities, nothing should interfere with those experiences. But right now, Tilly's never-ending chatter was making him wish for a heavy dose of Scotch and a sharp pencil to stab through his eardrum to his brain and end the misery.

"I desperately wanted to dump my energy drink on his antique desk since he was being such a total prick, you know? Apparently, I didn't set my phone alarm last night, or else I slept through it. I mean, I was up really late helping my friend through her latest man disaster. But what else was I supposed to do? Girl code says you don't let the bestie down, no matter if you have to go to work the next morning or not. So what if I was fifteen minutes late?

"Then the boss was mad because I allegedly misplaced some files he needed for a client today. I found them eventually. He spends the first five or ten minutes shooting the shit with them about their golfing, or their fishing, or whatever stupid old-man hobby they have, anyway. The client wouldn't even have known it had been missing.

"And to top it all off, he claimed I double-booked his lunch appointment today with his mother's birthday lunch date. If he let me merge his personal calendar and his business calendar into the frickin' computer app, I wouldn't have to remember to check both of them before scheduling anything. Who cares if the rest of the staff can see his personal schedule? We're all too damn busy to be poking around in his private life.

"Besides, even if I did all those things, everyone has bad days, right?"

TB didn't bother to reply. He knew she wasn't really expecting an answer, and her dialogue would continue.

"You look a bit like you've had a bad day yourself. I like the broody look myself, so I don't mind. Goes with all the black clothing, the leather jacket, and your dark hair. Totally smokin'. And your eyelashes! I know a lot of women who would kill for eyelashes like yours, so thick and dark. I bet you'd be really hot if you smiled more."

He barely refrained from rolling his eyes.

"I mean, not that you're not really hot now. You totally are," she corrected. "I know you're really built, and I bet you spend a lot of time at the gym. That's hot, too. You don't see a lot of guys your age who take such great care of their appearance. I like that. Normally, I wouldn't be interested in someone so much older than me, but you're different."

Guys my age? I'm thirty-seven, not seventy-seven.

"So, are you?"

He took another swallow from his glass, finished his water, and set the empty glass on the bar. He flicked a finger at Ryleigh, his favorite bartender, signaling he needed a refill. Without looking at Tilly, he asked, "Am I what?"

"Having a bad day."

He nodded at Ryleigh as she pushed his refilled glass toward him.

"No."

"Oh. Wow. I mean, like I said, you've totally got that broody alpha thing going, but you're looking even more grouchy than usual. Do you wanna dance? Might cheer you up. I'm a really good dancer."

"No."

"Oh. Okay. Um… do you wanna go upstairs?" she asked nervously. "Maybe I could make your day better if we did a scene."

TB stood straight and grabbed his glass from the bar top. "I thought you were exclusive with Cosmos." He slammed the water in his glass, set the empty glass on the bar, and slid it toward a smirking Ryleigh, who had overheard Tilly's offer.

She looked properly embarrassed at his rebuke. "I'm sorry, Master Lobo. I thought maybe…" She shrugged. "Everyone's been talking about how you haven't been involved in a scene in a while. The subs talk about how they really enjoyed partnering with you. I just was hoping I might get to see for myself, especially since you haven't been doing scenes with anyone. I figured that meant you were available." She sighed. "Besides, I think Cosmos is tiring of me."

Tiring of the chatter, probably.

"Go on, Tilly."

"Yes, Master Lobo."

Picking up her drink, she turned and began walking over to her friends at their high table along The Pool. On the way there, she began circumventing the bodies coming off the dance floor. Someone bumped into her hard, spilling her drink on her dress and almost knocking her to the floor. The person helped Tilly right herself, and then the river of people from the dance floor was rushing upon and around them, dividing into two paths to avoid the obstacle, much like salmon swimming upstream to spawn. He tried to follow them, making sure she was okay, but he lost them in the crowd.

TB turned to face the bar as he shook his head and sighed in frustration.

"You can't blame her, Lobo. But you could have been a little nicer about the put-down."

"Are you telling me how to handle my business, Rye?"

"Yes."

"I should put you over my knee."

"I'm no one's sub to punish. Just working here to fund my editing costs. BDSM is fun to read, but not really my thing in real life."

"Everyone's got their kink, Rye." TB reached for his wallet and pulled out a twenty. "Even you." Placing the bill on the bar, he winked at her.

Just before eleven,Fleur, a newer submissive, and Tripoli, a current dungeon master, approached him. TB was talking with another club member, a tall, blond businessman-type named Loki, one-third of a triad that had joined the club last month.

Loki held out his hand to the former Marine. "Tripoli."

Tripoli grasped his hand. "Loki." He nodded at TB. "Lobo. Sorry to interrupt, but Fleur was just telling me that Tilly is missing. She thought Tilly was heading over to their table after talking to you, but she never arrived. Did she mention going anywhere when she left you at the bar?"

Lobo frowned and looked at Fleur. "I definitely sent her back to your table. I saw her get bumped into by someone in the crowd, and he was helping her regain her footing when the crowd poured in from the dance floor. Are you sure she's not at the bar?"

"No, Master Lobo. I looked. She doesn't seem to be anywhere."

"Is Cosmos here tonight? They're on contract for another month yet. Maybe they're in a scene upstairs?"

"No, Sir. Cosmos is in London until next week on business."

"Where else did you look?"

"I went to the Dungeon, but she wasn't there. I checked the locker room, and her locker was locked, all of her things in it. I know her combination and checked it."

Loki spoke up. "I'll go check with Frost at the front desk. Maybe she signed out and took a rideshare home. Fleur, why don't you come with me, and we can have you call Tilly from your phone. If the rideshare doesn't pan out, maybe she got a ride home from someone."

"Thank you, Master Lobo and Master Loki."

TB and Loki shared a look before the latter led Fleur to the lobby. TB turned back to Tripoli.

"Did you notify Tabitha?" Lobo asked.

"That was my next step," Tripoli replied. "Didn't want to jump the gun, but with each place Fleur told me she looked, the hairs on my neck started standing up further and further. I was going to check with Triumph in security as well. He's running cameras tonight. Figured maybe we could try to run footage to find her, or at least a direction to search."

"I'll go do that," TB offered. "You go check some of the restricted areas since you work here. Maybe she's hiding out, licking her wounds."

Tripoli smirked. "Approached you, and you shot her down, didn't you?"

TB rolled his eyes. "I don't understand some of these newer submissives. Someone's not training them very well. Pretty brazen."

Tripoli shrugged his shoulders. "It's just how these younger girls are. Some Doms like brats. Gives them a reason to dole out some punishment."

TB grimaced. "Too much work." He wasn't into the punishment angle of BDSM. He dealt with it nonstop as part of his job. He didn't want to deal with it in his personal life. "It could be she's hiding somewhere. Or maybe one of the newer Doms convinced her to break the rules and find a restricted area for some entertainment."

Loki returned. "Frost hasn't seen her, and she didn't sign out while she was on her break. Her phone is still in the lockbox."

The men shared another look.

TB stared at Tripoli. "Better check the alley, as well."

Tripoli nodded and took off.

Loki looked at TB. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

TB grunted. "You and me both."