“Sounds good.” Caroline puts on a huge grin and hurries to her locker to snag the list taped to the outside.
“Gaming rooms. That’s going to be a great night for you.” I open my locker and shuck off my coat, hanging it inside.
“See, these heels are working for me already,” she says.
“Hopefully you’ll still be able to stand in a few hours.”
“I’ll be fine,” she assures me, leaning over the counter at the vanity mirrors to inspect her make up and comb her fingers through her lush black hair. “I’ll see you out there?”
“Yeah, I just need to change; then I’ll head out.”
“Why don’t you just come in your uniform?” she questions, a hand on her hip.
“Because it’s too tight to drive in comfortably,” I say, pulling out my uniform. “I’ll be out in five.”
“Oookay.” She checks herself in the mirror once more, then heads out.
I squeeze myself into my uniform. The black satin dress hugs my hips, and its square neckline skims just above my breasts. If I had more of them, it would probably help. But just like my bank accounts, there’s a deficit.
As I’m hooking the thin gold choker around my throat, my phone dances on the shelf in my locker. Another email notification about a balance that’s overdue glares up at me from my notifications.
I swipe the message away, noticing the date. My stomach squeezes, and the breath whooshes out of my lungs.
How could I have forgotten the date?
Pressing a hand to my stomach, I close my eyes and breathe. Five counts in, hold for three, out for five. I can do this.
I have to do this.
Life has to go on.
“Vee, time’s up, you coming?” Caroline pops her head in the door.
“Yeah. I’m coming.” I throw my phone back in my locker and slam it shut.
“They’re all here tonight.” Caroline sounds more like a high school girl than the twenty-seven-year-old woman she is with her announcement.
“Who?” With this club, ‘they’ could be anyone.
The mayoral board, the police chief and his entourage, any crime syndicate that isn’t at odds with the owners of the club. Anyone with enough money to secure a membership to Obsidian is going to have ties to something underhanded.
“The Volkovs. All three of them.” She squeezes my arm. “Which includes Ivan.”
“Caroline. The Volkovs own the place; they’re here all the time,” I remind her as I grab my cocktail tray.
“No, I mean they’re down here. They’re playing cards with Lev Yakovley and some other guy I’ve never seen before.”
“Aren’t you in those rooms tonight?”
I grin at her; she’s crushed on the youngest of the brothers for as long as I’ve known her.
“I am.” She presses her tray to her chest and tilts her head back. “And if there is a God he’ll put Kaz in my life tonight. Maybe you could put in a good word with Ivan for me.”
Caroline nudges me with an elbow and gives a wink.
“Don’t get started with that again.”
Ivan is the middle brother of the Volkov crime family, and ever since his gaze lingered slightly longer on me than Caroline, she’s been hounding me that he’s into me.
