Page 75 of Darkness

“And if there is?” Lincoln asks.

“You want some fun?” I turn to Hayden who smiles. “You can join Lincoln and remind them who's club this is.” When the office is empty, I look at Autumn looking out at the club, then up to the other floors. I know she wants to see the sixth floor, but it's not a floor which has a lot going on, and I’m not sure she’s ready for it yet. “How was work?” I ask her, as I walk back around to sit down, so I can finish work for the night.

“Okay, I got the window display finished, you want to see it?” She turns around looking through her cell as she makes her way to me. “I’m really happy with it. It’s my favorite one so far,” I take the cell from her to have a look.

I have no idea if this looks good or not, I don’t know the first thing about marketing a flower shop, but she’s happy with it and that’s all I care about. “You did a good job.” I pull her closer to me, so she sits on the edge of the desk. “I have about an hour of work left to do, so you have an hour to get ready.” I place my hands on her thighs. I love when she wears dresses, it always shows off her sexy legs.

“Ready for what?” She moves her hands through my hair so softly I never want her to stop doing it.

“You asked for a date, so I’m taking you on a date.” I got a table at the best restaurant in town, which normally has a waiting list, but when the owner is here a lot, more nights than he needs to be, it was easy to get a table.

“Really? Where are we going? Fancy, or casual?” The smile on her beautiful face is stunning. “Is it safe to go out?” The question continues to flow from her, and I smile.

“First, I don’t scare so easily, it’s a fancy place, and wear something sexy which I can rip off when we get home.” I stop talking and listen to the voice in my ear, then turn to the CCTV footage behind me.

“What are we looking at?” Autumn asks. She asks so many questions about the club, and how I do it all myself.

“Lincoln said there were three of them, so I want to see their faces, because if I see them in the club again, they will wish they never stepped in here.” I watch Lincoln and Hayden taking them down to the basement.

“What’s down there?” Autumn asks, and I turn back to face her, and smile. “I don’t want to know, do I?” she asks, and I burst out laughing.

“No, you don’t.” I get off my chair, and walk over to the elevator, and wait for it to open. “Now you get yourself ready, and I’ll be up once I finish the paperwork, and we can have a nice-”

“Date, you were going to say date.” Autumn knows me too well, because she knows I wasn’t going to say date. I was going to say meal, all this romantic stuff is still new to me. “Don’t say anything, because in my head it-” I stop her rambling when I kiss her. Now I enjoy when she talks nonstop, I’ll admit I zone out for most of it, but tonight I don't want her over thinking anything, and just have a nice time.

Placing my hand on the door so they don’t close, I tell her to get in and relax. I don’t have much work to do, all I have left is to work out staff shifts, and to make sure the VIP floor, and the sixth floor checks have been done for whoever wants to be up there next week. The rooms are booked months in advance, and they go through a lot of scrutiny. They go through a basic check when they book the room, a month before their slot we do another check on who they are, and then one last check a few days before. I need to keep my staff and business safe, no matter what.

I make my way down to the basement, I wasn’t going to tell Autumn the truth about the work I have to do, it will worry her for no reason. I smile at the mess Lincoln and Hayden have left the idiots in.

“Have fun?” I ask Hayden who looks like he needed this.

“Yeah,” he answers, then tells the guys to never come back to the club. I wait for them to leave, and walk around the basement.

It’s nothing special, nothing but black walls, concrete floors, and a few lights hanging from the ceiling. We don’t need anything fancy down here.

“Anything?” I turn to Lincoln.

“No movement from him. He went to work this morning, well England’s morning. He hasn’t brought a ticket to leave, I’m not finding anything on Yang leaving the States though, so he must have used his private jet, and gone through a system like we do,” Lincoln tells me, which was what I didn’t want to hear. Because I will never know when Yang will bring him here.

“So the only thing we have is watching him twenty-four seven?” I shake my head, looking down at the floor. “Yang will make his move soon, and we just have to be ready for it.” I hate being in the unknown, the man was the same in The Pit you never knew what his plan was, I could never beat him chess. The poker face that man has is the best I’ve seen.

“What about Rowan?” Hayden asks. “Yang, might have told Rowan, or he’s playing a game with us. Either way Rowan might get close to Autumn.” Hayden wipes the blood off his hands, and throws the towel on the table.

“First, he won’t get close to her, that’s the reason I have someone with her all the time. I have two options.” Rubbing my eyes because I’m being rushed into a job which I’m not enjoying. “I go to England and kill him-”

“And the second he is dead, and Autumn visits her family with you, you'll be the first person they look into. The man is very high up in the food chain.” Lincoln is the first to talk and for some reason they think I haven’t thought that.

“My second option is I send the brothers and they do it the Crawford way.” Now there is nothing I want more than to kill Rowan myself, but I also don’t want anyone looking into me,and with how high up that asshole is, the connections his father has, they will turn over every stone until they find something to connect me to his death. I can’t have that.

“When?” Hayden asks.

“Need to know Yang’s move first. Once I know his game plan, then I can make my move.” I know the boys will make it painful, they will have fun with it, and no one will know it was them.

“Right, we will monitor Rowan and Yang, you have a date.” Lincoln chuckles to himself. “You’re going to hate it.”

“You know because you’ve been on so many dates?” I ask him.

“No, but you have to sit there and talk. With Autumn you talk, but you also try to get out of certain conversations-”

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