10

10

KADE

This place is pretentious as fuck.

High ceiling with low lighting. Loud music with no one dancing but the people barely wearing any clothes on poles and those suspended bits of material Stacey dances with.

Douchebag men cheating on their wives while waitresses sit in their laps and accept money for touches.

I blow out a cloud of smoke as I stare at my surroundings. To the right of us, there’s a bar – but no one is standing at it. All the servers are rushing around, trying to tend to the rich wankers throwing around money like confetti.

For being full of millionaires, the place smells.

I almost want to turn my nose up, but I don’t want to draw any attention to myself.

Bernadette sits on my left in the booth, her daughter Cassie to my right, and they chat away like normal mother and daughter while a girl with a white mask covering her face dances to the slow, sensual song.

I don’t watch her – it feels wrong to watch. Especially since I know she’s drugged. It’s very likely that all the employees at this place are on some sort of drug.

My system is pretty fucking messed up right now too, which is maybe why I’m overanalysing my surroundings. Maybe this girl isn’t even on the mini stage in front of us?

I look down as both women place their hands on my thighs, still deep in conversation.

Removing them will cause more trouble than I need, but do I want to stub my cigarette out on their hands?

Fuck, yes.

Each booth is large, with leather seats, positioned in a half circle. There are mini pole-dancing stages in the middle of each booth, someone dancing around the pole while people watch – tossing some cash for a flash of tits. Bernadette loves it here – she wanted to bring Cassie, her insufferable daughter – and she’s already given me a migraine from talking.

Bernadette is still insisting that I marry her, and obviously, I’m still refusing. My dad is still locked up in solitary because of it though. Usually his punishment would make me give in, but I fucking can’t marry Cassie Sawyer.

I won’t.

I tell them I’m slipping to the bathroom, huff out a breath and shove my hands into my pockets, needing this night to be over already. Once I take a piss, I go left and head for the bar in the other room. It’s busier, louder, and music blares throughout while dancers twirl on poles and move around the groups of people as money is stuffed into the straps of their underwear.

I stop at the bar and order a drink, closing my eyes for a beat while I push through the overwhelming feeling of everything.

A throat clears to my left, and when I look, I see my assistant.

“Don’t make it obvious,” Barry says. “Look forward, sir.”

I grit my teeth and avert my eyes to my glass of whisky. “Please tell me you’re here with your wife.” He doesn’t have friends – he doesn’t see the point in them. And if he’s not here with Lisa, then that means…

“My wife who’s heavily pregnant? No.”

Fuck. “Where’s Stacey?”

He pauses and takes a drink of his water. “I have it under control, sir. Don’t draw any attention to her.”

My breathing is already laboured from the drugs, but knowing she’s so close, with Bernadette within walking distance? I think I’m about to have another panic attack. “Get her out of here,” I tell him in a strained voice. “That’s an order. Get. Her. Out.”

“I’m trying,” he replies. “She’s been stuck to her boyfriend’s lap all night.”

The world freezes – or maybe it’s the beats of my heart that stall. “Boyfriend?”

Barry is about to speak again when the song changes.

“Spiracle” by Flower Face plays, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise. The need to look for her wins, and I let my eyes roam the room.

The whisky gets caught in my throat. Am I fucking hallucinating right now? I must be – I better be.

In a tight dress, hair down her back, Stacey sits on some guy’s lap. I can’t see his face properly from this angle, but he’s surrounded by three other guys. All of them are drinking, and the one Stacey is sitting on has his hand low on her back, her arm across his shoulders.

She has her back to me, but I fucking know it’s her.

All of them start chanting her name, and the guy’s hand leaves her back and gestures to the pole in the middle of the mini stage. The same as the booths in the other room.

Stacey stands – staggers.

When she starts to dance, she throws her head over her shoulder, and our eyes meet. A silent pleading – I can feel it. That’s why she put this song on. It’s the same one she told me to listen to when we were younger to describe how she felt about me.

I know every lyric by heart.

She knows I’m here – she wants me to save her.

My feet move before I can think, but a hard force yanks me back.

Barry’s hand is on my shoulder. To outsiders, it’s a friendly hold, but his fingers dig into me. “You can’t go to her.”

“Get your fucking paws off me, Barry.” I swipe at his arm, forcing him to release his grip, and he steps back. “She needs my help. Don’t you dare try to stop me.”

“Shut up,” he snaps, surprising me. “You were about to make a diabolical mistake. I told you – I’m watching her. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but it doesn’t feel good. You marching over there will only make it worse.”

I rein in the need to punch him for talking to me like that. “Every reason to go over there and grab her. She needs me.”

“Do that and you risk exposing her to Bernadette. She’s in the next fucking room, sir.” He blows out a breath and shakes his head. “Emmerson is missing – presumed dead. He was on her guard and vanished. I tried to find out what happened, even went to talk to Stacey after she finished dancing – which she wasn’t at for weeks, by the way – then that bastard she’s sitting with said she was his girlfriend and that I was to fuck off. I think he has something to do with Emmerson’s disappearance.”

I glance at her again, but we’re too far away to see any of their faces. Thankfully, Stacey isn’t dancing on the pole anymore; she’s just standing there, rubbing her arm – she’s nervous as the guy she was sitting on talks to her. I want to wrap her in my arms and run away with her.

Maybe I could do it now. Put a bullet in each one of the guys’ heads, throw Stacey over my shoulder and get the fuck out – leave Bernadette and her daughter here and disappear.

Bernadette is drunk – she’ll want to leave soon.

I can’t leave.

Before we can make an elaborate plan to try to get Stacey away from the group of assholes, three of the men stand, and the one she was sitting on whispers something in her ear, kisses her cheek and slips something into her hand – a small blade.

Wait, a blade?

“I know that fucker’s face,” I say, fisting my hands – needing to go over there and smash his face into every wall in this place. “Remember when I asked you to run checks on the guy who was standing at the manor gates talking to Stacey? That’s him.”

“The records were blank,” Barry replies. “I couldn’t find a single piece of information on him.”

“He might be the same person who called her at the hotel in Edinburgh.” When she rode my face and dry-humped me while on the phone to him – fucking bastard.

“You armed?”

“Yes, sir,” he replies, nodding as we watch the three guys walk with Stacey. She’s heading to the door that leads to all the hotel rooms – the rooms where everyone fucks.

She glances over her shoulder again, and I can see the desperation and fear in her eyes as she looks at the guy who gave her the blade – then her eyes slip to me for a split second.

I try to step forward, but Barry grabs my arm again. “I know you want to go after her. I get it. I would burn this place down for Lisa, but we need to be smart about this. Causing a scene will only draw attention to her. If Bernadette sees her, it’s game over. If you think the way she tortures you is bad, imagine what she’d do to Stacey.”

I fist my hands at my sides again. “We’re following them.”

“Of course we are.” Barry pulls out his phone and, within seconds, hacks the venue’s security system. “A room was booked a few minutes ago.”

The guy who Stacey was sitting on rubs his hands down his face, grabs at his shaggy blonde hair and sits at the booth with his elbows on his knees. He’s shaking his head and keeps glancing at the door she went through.

Who the fuck are you?

I step forward again, fully intending to pummel the fucker into the ground, but yet again Barry grabs my arm, and I glare at him.

“Eighth floor. We’ll get him later, sir. Miss Rhodes needs us more.”

And here I thought I was the boss.

I quickly check on Bernadette, Archie and Cassie. They’re still sitting at the booth – drunk as fuck and flirting with the waiter. I pull out my phone and shoot her a text to buy me some time.

Me: One of your clients is here. She wants an hour with me. What do I do?

Cassie is insistent that if I agree to marry her – not that I ever will – then I’ve not to sleep with others, meaning my sexual slavery comes to an end. But Bernadette is still refusing that condition since I make her a lot of money and popularity from it.

She glances down at her phone then grins widely as she shows Archie the screen.

Bernadette: What a stupid question. When have we ever turned down a client? I’ll have a car pick us up once you’re done.

She’ll eventually know it’s a lie – the clients pay her directly, and I get a cut. She usually gives them three days to settle the bill after the session. I’ll be punished, but I guess it’ll be worth it.

We ride the elevator up to the eighth floor, both our guns drawn but hidden within our suit jackets. The hotel-room door is still open, and when we reach it, I lower my aim while Barry swears under his breath and locks the door behind us.

Standing in the middle of the room, splatters of blood all over her, her dress ripped down the middle, Stacey holds the blade, hand raised to the side as tears stream down her face. Her chest is rising and falling, her lips trembling as she gasps.

Fuck.