“Man, you must go through a shit ton of alarms.” The shaved-head guy whistles, and I just nod. He’s not wrong.
“Rooster, go get Swiss. He’ll want to know all his cleaning went to shit.”
Shaved-head guy—Rooster—nods and heads out.
Only then do I notice the noise as the door opens for a second to let him slip out. I must have still been out of it when I first woke to have missed all that ruckus the first time they busted in here. Got to hand it to whoever made this place—the soundproofing is legit. With the door closed, you can hear a pin drop inside, but not a damn thing outside, much less a party going on.
“Mickey, get a towel and start cleaning,” Domino says, and the Irishman scoffs.
“Ain’t cleaning up his blood. He sprayed it, he cleans it.”
“You really want Swiss to come in here with the place like this?” Domino asks.
Mickey snarls but then opens a cabinet door and starts cleaning. Not well, but I guess it’s better than nothing. He really should have wet it first and put soap or even white vinegar on it before he started just smearing the blood drops around. But I keep that to myself. Not about to offer assistance that would just have me being the one told to clean up the blood spatter.
Swiss, the guy who drew my blood earlier, comes in with a grumble. I get a glimpse of the party once more, noting the number ofpeople. At least triple what I thought I saw when I was ushered in here before.
I feel eyes on me and see Domino just watching me. Nothing else. I feel like a bug on the wall with that amount of focus on me.
“Some party,” I say to get him talking, but he just nods.
“It would be if I can ever enjoy it.” Swiss harrumphs as he walks around the clinic, pulling cabinets open and getting stuff out. “First night a decent set of vamps shows up, and I’m in here with you fuckers.”
I turn back to Domino and raise an eyebrow. “Vamps?”
“Club girls. Or wannabes,” Mickey supplies for me, and I notice he’s taken a step back from Lucky’s table to lean against some cabinets while Swiss attends to Lucky’s broken nose. “New Year’s Eve is our unofficial trial period to get some new girls in the club.”
“Trial period? What, like to see if they’re any good at head and can take it up the ass?”
Swiss barks out a laugh that has me flinching a bit. Didn’t expect him to be so boisterous.
“I wish. More like to see if they can handle their liquor without causing drama, and giving our boys enough time to run a check on them to make sure they’re clean and clear of anything that can bring harm to the club.”
My eyes widen the more Swiss talks. Is he supposed to tell me all this? I feel as if that’s privileged info, something you only tell someone if you know you’re going to kill them.
“They know. It’s not a secret.”
I snap my head to Domino and see he’s reading me well. Like to a point that I should be worried that all my secrets will be plucked from my head any second now.
A knock comes at the door, and everyone turns to the one who pokes his head in. Rooster scans the room a second, then looks at Domino. “Visitor.”
“For me?” Domino asks.
Rooster shakes his head. “No. For her.”
Yeah, definitely a fly-on-the-wall moment here. Too many eyes are on me, and someone is going to squash me if I don’t get the hell out soon. “Right, sounds like that’s my cue to leave.”
If only I can do that without the dizziness that’s swarming me from sitting up so quickly, that’ll be great. But I was never considered lucky, and I guess neither is my suite mate.
Chapter 7—Domino
Something about this girl gets to me. Sure, she’s hot. And yeah, the first time I saw her, I was struck by her looks. The second time, I was almost struck byher. There’s something about her that just intrigues me. I know she isn’t telling me everything. Not like I asked, of course, but she isn’t offering anything free of charge.
I had Link, the local tech guy for this chapter and a buddy of Grim’s, check the feeds. I had security reinstalled and upgraded within three days of taking over. Link was quick to step in and work with Flint, my guy back home, to make sure we were up and running quickly.
Link falls in the same category as Grim—above the rest of those here, but still not completely out of the doghouse yet. But I’ve got a gut feeling both will pass. Might even make fine officers one day.
We also updated the cameras at all our local spots, not just around the compound, and Link had a field day getting a clear shot of Viv clocking Lucky. We might have both laughed our asses off for a solid minute as we replayed it a few times. After our small childish moment—that will definitely happen again, because no doubt Link made a copy of that feed to show the rest of the boys later—he went through the whole day’s footage. We got a clear view of Viv making her way to Howlers around one and getting into the same limo about twenty minutes later.
