Page 25 of The Count
“Can we just pretend this whole morning never happened? We have an uneasy truce, and dare I say it, a sort of trust? Can we focus on that and leave the rest?” I asked.
He turned to look at me. The sunlight glanced off his profile and a memory hit me hard and fast. Eddy, my teenage love, nineteen years old, the red and blue lights highlighting his features as the police car pulled away.
I put a hand on my belly, and focused out my own window again. I deliberately avoided trips down memory lane for twenty years. Why were they all stirring up now? After my heartbeat returned to normal I glanced back.
He studied me now. “Fine, but remember that when we go inside.”
The car stopped in front of a nondescript brick building. The driver opened my door and I followed Will inside a dimly-lit entryway. He reached behind him, and I scrambled to take hold in the dark. At the end of the long hallway, he knocked once and a door swung inward. He gave my hand one quick squeeze and released it.
The light hit me first, and once my vision adjusted to a new level of dim, I saw why he warned me about his intentions.
It looked like any other night club, but the lights we brighter, the music more sensual, and all the low couches scattered throughout the space were draped with half-naked women.
I dragged him back by the arm. “Is this a strip club?”
He leaned down and whispered, “no, it’s a brothel.”
I spied an upper level lining the room. Owning girls wasn’t in his dossier, so what business did we have here?
He pressed a cold drink in my hand, and I took a sip without looking. The whiskey burned all the way down. And kept on burning. The cheap stuff.
I glanced around, heavy security by tattooed figures. One of the tattoos told me they were members of The Wild Dogs. I leaned into Will. “Is this one of St. James’ places?”
I’d heard he kept girls but let the girls run things how they wanted. St. James offered protection and a way out with a word. A strangely respectable mobster.
He nodded and peered around the room, looking for something, or someone. It took a minute while he sipped his drink as if it didn’t hurt. I sat mine on the bar and waited. He stared across the room toward an alcove. A pretty young blonde lounged across its center. She eyed us as we approached.
“Mind if I sit?” He asked.
She surveyed him and gestured next to her. I sat beside him, thankful the couch was more than big enough for all of us.
She leaned in and traced a hand down his chest. “What can I do for you? Is your wife playing, or just watching?”
He said, “not playing,” at the same time I said, “not his wife.”
She smiled between us, and tracked her fingers over his Adam’s apple to his shirt collar. Something dark twisted through me as I watched her touch him. He wasn’t mine, but my body screamed at me to intercede, snatch her hands off him.
He glanced my way and raised an eyebrow. My emotions must have been written across my face. I cleared it to neutral and he looked back at the girl.
“I want information on one of your former employers.”
A line appeared between her eyebrows, and her smile slipped. “Who are you?”
“My name is Will. I want to hunt hum down, in a messy public way, but I need your help.”
She checked the neared security guard’s proximity and leaned closer. Likely to screw with me, she followed a path from his collar to his belt buckle. “It’s $500 an hour no matter what we do. Let’s go upstairs. Pay first.”
He stood, pulled out several $100 bills and handed them to her.
She smiled at me, stood, and led the way to a private room upstairs. It was like a miniature version of below, only a bed instead of a couch. He sat on a chair and I eyed the bed before perching on the very edge. She sat right next to me, so close our thighs touched.
“You’re not-wife needs to loosen up,” she told him.
He chuckled. “She doesn’t have a loosen up setting. This is Mercedes Mondego.”
She jerked away like my skin burned her. I guess she’d heard of me.
She looked at him. “Then you’re…”
