Chapter 6
Colt
five days! If you don’t fucking call me or return a text, I’m calling the fucking police.
Tell me where you are!
At least that you’re okay.
Aiden’s texts continued filling Aubrey’s phone.
I wished I hadn’t kept the damn thing charged, but it was the only way to have any idea whether or not Devlin was going after her family again—and to make sure her family didn’t get any stupid ideas.
Like going to the police.
But the texts only added to my frustration.
The police. I had to do something, but I had no fucking idea what to say to a brother whose sister was currently helpless at the hands of my heartless brother.
I knew what I’d do in Aiden’s shoes, but I was also a jackass criminal with no regard for my own wellbeing. He was a father. That probably made him a worse foe.
My thumb hovered over the call button for a second while I debated my options. With a single twitch, the receiving phone began to ring.
“Thank god,” the voice on the end of the line said.
I swallowed. “If you want your sister safe, stay away from cops.”
“More threats? Who is this? Devlin?”
“Fuck no,” I growled before he could ask a billion more questions. I closed my eyes, seeing pulsing red lights behind my eyelids. “This is Colt, and it’s not a threat. I’m trying to protect her.”
Did I actually just say that?
“Protect her?” he scoffed. At least we were both equally skeptical of my abilities in that arena. “Where is she?”
The question of the week. “She’s not available right now.”
“My sister better be okay.”
No kidding. With no one and nothing else to take my frustration out on, Aiden got the brunt. “Quite a threat from someone with no power.”
“Or I could just stop listening to your bullshit and call the cops.”
“She’ll end up dead before they realize they’re chasing their own tails.”
“Then what the hell do you suggest? You sure as hell have done a shit job at whatever you’re doing.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
“I don’t give a fuck what she is to you—she’s my sister, and whatever you dug her into, I’ll make sure you pay for it.”
“I didn’t drag her into this city or introduce her to my brother,” I yelled. “Maybe you should blame whoever sent her running to this town to escape.”
“What do you know about it?” he hissed.
“Enough to know that whatever she’s running from must’ve seemed far worse than this city.”
“But you don’t even know where she is now, do you?”
What do I say?
“She’s with Devlin.”
“Devlin? The asshole who threatened my daughter? I thought you were in control of the situation. I should’ve known better than to believe—”
I banged my head against the wall behind me. His voice turned into a long drone. No more words, no more meaning. Just an annoying tone that wouldn’t go away—like a mosquito buzzing in my ear. “Look, you want her dead, then, by all means, call the fucking cops.”
I ended the call and turned it off so I wouldn’t be interrupted again. I had enough to fucking deal with and enough to remind me that I was doing a shit job of it. And that my only means of escaping this fucking nightmare waited in a small vial in the next room.
Chasing lines and losing my mind… exactly what Devlin wanted. I could try to reason that if I gave him that he’d let her go, but I knew better. He had something to prove. An imaginary debt that he wanted paid. The grudge he held against me for being born.
What was wrong with my family and this damn town?
Every day that passed I was farther from finding Aubrey. And I had a feeling that she was farther from ever coming back the same.
As if that was ever a possibility.
If Devlin and I had anything common, it was the fact that we fucked up every woman we touched. Every life we touched.
That’s why I’d vowed to stay alone. Not to get involved with anything beyond sex. That’s all it was every supposed to be with Aubrey, but even from the very beginning it had been more. She fulfilled some sick need inside of me. Gave me a way to let it all out.
Jace said she’d kept me out of trouble, but it was the complete opposite. She was my trouble.
I let out a long breath, scratching at the thick layer of scruff that had taken up residence on my face. I hadn’t bathed in two days, hadn’t shaved since the day before Aubrey was taken, hadn’t slept in nearly thirty-six hours—I was a mess.
But I also hadn’t snorted away reality in one hundred and thirty-two hours. And twenty-seven minutes.
Yes, I was keeping track.
But only because heroin was one of two things on my mind every second of every day.
The other had been missing for one hundred and forty hours.
Every minute that ticked away took part of my sanity. Part of my patience. And all my will-power.
Five long, excruciating, skin-crawling, anger-inducing days of searching for Aubrey. Turning over every slime covered rock. Threatening every douche and hooker within an hour of the city. And I still had nothing.
Nothing.
How the hell could Devlin just drop off the face of the planet with her? Devlin. The center of every bad deal, confidant of nearly every criminal, and basically vice-Mayor—second only to Merc—of the city. Someone had to know where he was or at the very least how to reach him.
But Merc still hadn’t returned, and Wilson was still acting weird—if he answered his phone at all. He never mentioned the Audi again, or the two men, and unfortunately without pre-arranged signals it’s nearly impossible to get inside another criminal’s mind.
The license plate was untraceable—likely a stolen car with forged plates, but I’d need a VIN to confirm that. So I had no way to track down the snoops or confirm their identity, but one thing I was certain of—they didn’t seem the type to be running with Wilson. They were too…. Direct. And, almost polite. Wilson’s men were condescending jerks. There had to be something I was missing.
I bolted for the door, raising Isabella’s hackles as I passed, but I had to get out. I grabbed my coat and pulled it on as I raced to my car. Driving had to be enough of an escape for now.
I drove downtown to the repair shop Sasha owned. A couple of emo kids stood at the counter, complaining about something and pointing at their phones every few seconds. I tried to keep myself occupied on the other side of the shop, poking through covers, screen protectors, and every other bit of randomness I could find while my foot tapped impatiently against the floor.
Finally, they handed over a credit card, gathered whatever was on the counter, and left.
Sasha followed them across the shop and locked the door behind them. “If I had anything I would have called.”
“We have to be missing something. They have—”
She put up her hand and cut me off. “I don’t miss things. But I can only trace the phones we know about. They could have set something up to forward calls to a different number. Whatever they’re doing, I can’t pick up a location. I even hacked Devlin’s crap security system. He and Merc have some of those cheap-ass trackers on their cars, you know? Monitor the location online.”
My heart sank.
“Merc… did he have it on his Ferrari?”
“His baby?” She rolled her eyes at me. “I’m sure he did, but I thought we were trying to find Devlin…. And Merc still isn’t back from Vegas from what I can tell.”
Well, the latter was good news. “Can you trace the location of the Ferrari, or not?”
She gave me a flat look. “Is that really a question?”
Sasha nodded toward the back of the store, and I followed her through the employee door. The air in the back room was hot and crisp—almost difficult to breathe—thanks to all the electronic equipment running.
“Can’t believe you keep all this shit here,” I said.
“Where else would I keep it? Believe me, no one’s finding anything incriminating here. Everything in this room would be useless before they even got close.” She sat down in a chair in front of one of the screens and her fingers raced across the keys while I leaned against the wall and tried to pay attention to anything except the incessant tapping noise created by her fingernails.
“Last known location was the East side of town—but that was almost seven weeks ago. Seems it was cut off dead after that.”
I almost collapsed through the wall. So, Merc would have been able to trace the car to where I’d dropped it off, but no farther than that. Thank goodness for Wilson’s inane attention to detail. But that didn’t get me any closer to my main goal.
“I’m not even going to ask why you care.” Sasha sighed and spun around in her seat. “Got anything else I might be able to trace to Devlin?”
I shook my head. “Not unless he’s installing tracking devices in his strippers and hookers now.”
“I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised, but—”
“I know. Dead end as far as the info we have.”
Dead end.
I couldn’t stop wondering if Aubrey was dead. But if so, why hadn’t Devlin left her on my doorstep? No, she was alive. But to what end?
“Buck let slip that this was about a girl,” Sasha whispered.
I bit the inside of my cheek and scowled at her, keeping my head lowered and my eyes raised.
“Is Lex still working for him?” Did everyone in town know every detail of my personal business?
“Yeah. Jace has been talking to her.”
“But you haven’t?”
I scoffed and kicked my foot at the wall. “No. What good would that do? She’s not going to magically come up with new information because I ask her.”
“No, but she might be more willing to dig a little deeper.”
“There is no deeper. Devlin has practically fallen off the face of the planet as far as any of us are concerned. Without him around there’s nowhere for her to dig.”
“Someone has to be running the club. And that someone has to be in contact with Devlin.”
“Already thought of that. It was a no go.”
Sasha cleared her throat and shook her head, and then, I caught on.
She wasn’t talking about trying to force someone to contact Devlin. She was suggesting that I ask Lex to get the information—probably via means I didn’t want to think about. “No. I’m not even sick enough to ask anyone to do that.”
But I had been sick enough to ask Aubrey to let me fuck her in return for paying off her debt to Devlin. I didn’t have anything to even offer Lex—as if I was even considering the plan.
“Maybe she can snoop around while everyone’s…,” she trailed off, “distracted. You know how they all get around the girls.”
“She could also get killed in the process.”
“And what about the girl you’re trying to find?”
I rubbed my hand over my nose then pinched the bridge. How far would our stupid, deadly game spread? “Know any idiots who might be stupid enough to cause a little disturbance at the club?”
“I know plenty of druggies who will do just about anything for money to get a hit.” Within seconds of saying it, she dropped her gaze and twisted in her chair.
She was right, but I didn’t need money, and I already had the drugs at home.
“There’s this guy,” she said, “everyone calls him Periwinkle, but don’t say that to his face. He’s always hanging around that abandoned building on fifth or in the alley behind it. Offer him some dough and you’re on your way. But you also might want to take him some fresh clothes if you want him to get past Addiction’s bouncer.”
find, just like Sasha promised. But she failed to mention that he’d earned his nickname from the hideous periwinkle sport coat and matching fedora. Idiot must’ve thought he looked like some high-dollar pimp, when he really looked like a clueless imbecile.
This didn’t bode well for my waning patience.
I climbed out of my car and approached, keeping my eyes on the unpredictable surroundings, but Periwinkle saved me much of the trouble. Scampering toward me with his hands in his pockets.
“Hey man,” he whispered—as I tried not to vomit from the smell. “Got a hit.”
“God, you’re perfect,” I murmured.
“What’s that? Yeah? I can pay. I mean, not now. But I—”
“Shut up,” I growled, shoving him toward my car. I showed him a roll of hundred-dollar bills and his eyes widened.
“Hey. Man… I don’t… You’re not my type.” But he couldn’t take his eyes off the wad of money. I suspected that my not being his type wouldn’t have actually stopped him on any occasion.
“How about the girls at Addiction? Are they your type?”
He frowned and finally ripped his gaze off the money to peer up at me. “Uh. Are you kidding?”
Backing away, I popped open the trunk and pulled out a bag of fresh clothes—I’d guessed at the size based on Sasha’s info, but they should fit him for the most part. Then, I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the cheap-ass motel across the street and held up a fifty. “Get a room, get a shower, and meet me back out here if you want the rest of the money.”
“Uh,” he snatched away the bill and slowly took the bag of clothes as he gave me one long, final sideways glance before he disappeared into the motel.
Within fifteen minutes, he returned a lot less pungent and a little classier looking—as if that was a grand feat given what he’d been wearing.
“What’s the catch?” he asked, taking a step away from me before I could shove him toward the car.
“No catch. Walk into Addiction, be your obviously charming self, and the money’s yours.”
“How much?”
“Three to get you in and make your dreams come true. Four when you’re done.”
“You’re shittin’ me.” He gave me a wide grin. “Did I win a contest or something?”
My brain felt like it’d just been struck by lightning. “Or something,” I said, ushering him toward my car. This was going to be a long, long evening.
I parked at the far end of the parking lot and handed him the first of his money. “Slip the bouncer a C-note and you’re in.”
“Dude that only leaves me two hundred… How am I supposed to reward the ladies?” He motioned like he was squeezing a pair of breasts. “I mean, besides my presence.”
This plan was either going to be really good, or really bad. I handed him an extra hundred just to get him out of the car. “Buy a drink if you want change.”
I waited about ten minutes after he got out of the car, then headed inside myself, walking right by the bouncer while he was hitting on a couple of women—lucky it wasn’t the guy I’d decked when charging out with Aubrey.
Inside, I scanned the room until I spotted Alex with an older man in the corner. She straddled his legs, leaning her chest toward his face, while he grinned and squirmed in his seat. He probably couldn’t even get it up without a couple of pills. Lex was good, but not a miracle worker.
I ducked through the crowd, making my way to the back until I stood in Lex’s line of sight. Her eyes were glazed over, focusing only on the task at hand—getting tips and appeasing her employer. Fuck, may as well call Devlin what he was—her owner.
She glanced up once, and then her head jerked up. I nodded my head for her to join me, but she froze, and the old man grabbed at her violently. Closing my eyes, I turned my head away. I’d seen it a hundred times. A thousand times. Men mistreating every woman in the building. Men mistreating Alex, and I’d been so bitter that I told myself she deserved it.
I needed to get all of this over with so I could go back to my isolated mindset of not giving a damn about anyone. So I could go home, get lost in a hit, and forget about the rest of the world.
Devlin had what he wanted.
I forced my way forward and dropped a couple of bills in the old man’s lap. This was going to be an expensive night. “I’ll cover your next few dances if I can have her.”
He snorted and shoved Lex away. “Good riddance. She’s not that great anyhow.”
Asshole. I pulled Alex toward one of the private rooms.
Three young men already occupied the room, along with two strippers who were thoroughly engrossed and probably quite thankful to have some customers who were young and moderately attractive.
But the guys didn’t look old enough to be in the club, let alone drinking, despite the numerous bottles scattered around the room and currently in their hands. They looked the type that got tired of banging their cheerleader girlfriends, so they stole daddy’s credit card, got some fake ID’s and decided to hit the most high-dollar strip club in town.
They didn’t even notice that I opened the curtain.
“Get out,” I growled.
“Private party, asshole,” one of the guys stood, then promptly toppled back into his seat, while another succeeded in standing and staggered in my direction.
I grabbed him, swung him around and into the wall. “Get out or I tell the manager to run your fake IDs.”
“You don’t know—”
I tightened my grip around his neck until he could no longer speak. “No. You don’t know shit about this club or about who you’re dealing with. Get out.”
“Calm down, man.” The third boy stood, lifting his friend off the couch. “Let’s just find somewhere to enjoy ourselves. I’m not into getting my ass arrested today.”
The dipshit I’d been holding scowled back at me as he slid past the curtain and into the crowd, but the two strippers didn’t follow.
“And I thought you were supposed to be the least grumpy of the brothers,” the redhead said, grabbing pieces of her costume from the floor.
I groaned, dug in my pocket and tossed them each a fifty. “Better?”
The black-haired girl rolled her eyes before tucking the note into her bra and adjusting the straps. Then, they both returned to the floor as well.
“Well, that was a surprise,” Lex said, swinging out her arms as she spun in the middle of the room to face me. “Should I start stripping now, or do you have something other than a private show in mind?”
“I need your help.”
She made a sound in her throat and pressed her lips together as she plopped down on the couch. “Sway, I take it? I’ve already told Jace everything I know. Devlin isn’t here, and I haven’t seen or heard from him.”
“She’s been gone for more than five days, Lex. You know Devlin—”
“Yeah, and I’m sure whatever he’s doing isn’t exactly pleasant—to put it nicely, but I have nothing.” She squinted past me and rose to her feet to stare out the two-way mirror behind me. “What the hell is that douche up to?”
I turned—expecting either one of the junior frat boys or Periwinkle to be causing a scene. Of course, it was Periwinkle leaned over the stage with his head between the legs of a dancer.
“Think of him as a distraction,” I said.
“A distraction?” She raised an eyebrow at me, then her face went flat, and her eyes hardened. “No. Whatever you’re thinking, no.”
“Lexi—”
“Don’t.” She flipped her hand up in the air at me and paced back to the couch.
“I need you to slip into the office while no one’s looking. If I go back, all eyes will be on me, they won’t give you a second look.”
“Oh, really? Have you met most of the men around here? Or are you making another kind of statement?”
“No,” I said emphatically. “I just mean it’s not uncommon for you to be back there.”
“In other circumstances, yes. Going through Devlin’s shit? I don’t think so.”
“I’ll make sure everyone stays busy. Please, Lexi. I need to find her. A name, a number, a location—anything. I just need some kind of lead.”
“Strange to see you so determined. Lucky girl must have better moves in the bedroom than she does on stage.” She gave me a melancholy smile and sighed. “Fine, but only because she didn’t seem the kind to deserve this.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and raised my eyes to the ceiling. “Neither did you.”
She wouldn’t look at me, instead, she kept her head lowered and picked at her manicured nails. I knew she wanted more from me. Jace’s comment kicked me in the gut. Whether I held people close or let them go, they ended up getting hurt because of me. But if I’d have fought for Alex, she would have ended up in Aubrey’s current position eventually. Whether that was better or worse than the hell she’d been living for the last several months, I had yet to find out.
Lexi reached for the curtain, but I grabbed her wrist. “Be careful.”
She gave me a faint nod and a forced smile, then disappeared into the club. I watched through the two-way mirror, catching sight of her brunette curls as she slipped through the employee door.
Across the room, Periwinkle was now seated, but not causing any less of a stir. He reached out and grabbed one of the passing waitresses. She twisted, nearly spilling a tray full of drinks on his head, but in a graceful move that had to have been learned through years of experience, she managed to save everything.
Not before Periwinkle’s hand slipped into her apron—unbeknownst to her, judging from the way she brushed him off and walked away.
The little weasel had asked me for more money, and now he was stealing from the staff as well. Someone was going to get a very big surprise by the end of the night.
A group of dancers stared at him from across the room, and I wondered if any of them had caught on to his charade yet. Or weren’t too high out of their minds to care.
A few minutes later, a tall man in a dark suit—one of Devlin’s managers—walked out of the employee door with a member of Devlin’s security team. They stood motionless for a few minutes, but their line of sight was locked onto Periwinkle. I just had to hope he could keep them distracted long enough for Alex to get out safely. They could, of course, simply throw him out now and be done with the problem.
The men put their heads together, and the security man led the charge through the crowd to my decoy. Periwinkle spotted them and jumped out of his seat and onto the stage before either of them could close in. The guard followed, catching Periwinkle by the back of his jacket before he could jump down the other side and tackling him to the floor.
What a circus.
And I wasn’t even in a mood to thoroughly enjoy it.
Periwinkle squirmed, then tossed a handful of money into the air. Patrons and a few of the dancers closed in, trying to grab the bills and causing enough of a disturbance for Periwinkle to escape again. He made a run for the door, only to be stopped by the bouncer.
Idiot.
So much for the night of his dreams.
The bouncer grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the wall, then dragged him out of sight. The manager and other security guard followed—probably intending to search him before they beat the crap out of him and dumped him back on the streets.
I rested my forearm against the wall next to the mirror and leaned my forehead against my hand. Since Devlin had broken into my house, my entire life had begun to feel foreign—and at the same time clearer. It was a clarity I didn’t want.
To know that I had no control. To know I couldn’t keep my promises. To know I couldn’t escape.
Ever.
The curtain opened, and the cool air from the vents in the main room rushed against my body.
“Everything in the office is locked down,” Alex said.
I nodded and stared at the pale reflection of myself in the glass. What else did I expect really?
“Manager,” I nodded toward the front of the club. “You know his number?”
“Not off the top of my head.” She sighed and handed me a crumpled piece of paper. “But this number was in the trash. No idea what it is, but you said anything.”
I pulled out my phone and texted the number to Sasha—hoping she could tell me who it was and where it might lead.
“There was also a file—girl’s names and pictures. Colt, I don’t know what they’re planning, but someone has to stop it.”
I know. And I wasn’t going to tell her, but I did have an inkling of what they were planning. A high-dollar brothel with the potential to put all others to shame if the two men who’d paid me a visit were correct.
“I want out.” Alex’s quiet voice blended with the music, but the words were crystal clear. “I don’t want to die here. I want to get clean. And—and….” She trailed off, dragging her feet as she walked to the back of the room and sat down. “He took my baby.”
I could barely hear a sound, but I’d read her lips, and I didn’t believe what my eyes told me she’d said. “What?”
Alex dropped her head into her hands, and her body shook. I sat down next to her, tentatively putting my hand on her back. She looked up at me in shock for a second, then she molded her features back into her stoic stripper face. “Nothing.”
“Lexi.”
“Don’t call me that,” she spat.
I cupped her cheek, pressing my thumb against her chin and drawing her gaze up to my face. “Tell me.”
“Why? There’s no point.” She’d slipped away again. Back inside of her façade. Considering it was probably much safer there, I considered leaving her in it, but I had to dig.
“I’ll make him pay.”
She snorted and jerked away from me. “Just another average story of an Addiction stripper—one that Devlin has a grudge against, anyhow. He found out I was pregnant.” Her hands began to shake, and she tucked them between her legs to stop them. “Can’t really strip in that condition, huh?”
Breaking away from me, she stood, adjusted her clothing, straightened her hair, and headed for the curtain.
“Lexi,” I called out to her, but I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry? “Thank you.”
“Wanna thank me? Find Aubrey,” she muttered, looking over her shoulder. “Then find a way to bring Devlin down.”