Page 48 of What Lies Within

“Tyke.” Marco slides from his low-backed bar stool. The fucking cushion is a plush black velvet, the metal copper to match the marble veins. “Three times within as many weeks. People will start talking.”

“You’d love that.” Egotistical bastard. “You sure this is the best place to talk?”

Trade may be off-peak, but there are still no less than eight people in here who I've got no background for—no idea what their interests are or who they could work for. Joe Public couldn't care less what happens to my daughter, but who's to say none of these fuckers is a plant by Terry.

“I’ve booked a private room.” The chiseled fucker waves the bartender over with two fingers raised arrogantly beside his head. “Drink?”

“I’m good.”

Marco drags his gaze the length of me, scrutinizing the man who stands before him. I get the cliche, the stereotype. Men operating outside the law should always have one or both of a whiskey and a cigar. I enjoy one, dabble with the other, but when my goddamn lifeblood is missing, presumed held captive, then it doesn't seem like much of a time for celebration.

Besides—I start to drink now, there ain’t no telling when I’d stop.

“You?” I have no doubt Marco fails to use Rigs’ name on purpose. A slight against the guy as though he's lesser.

“Pass.” Rigs snatches a toothpick from a gilded holder, popping it between his lips. “Might get something off the menu, though.” He snatches up the slim card, no more than four options typed in aesthetic intervals on the parchment. “Maybe two things.” He frowns, flicking the card to check the back for more.

The bartender arrives, decked out in a black satin waistcoat over a black button-down, melting seamlessly into the luxurious vibe of the joint. He passes Marco a keycard—also black—with the hotel's emblem centered and a gold number embossed over the top. "To your left, through those doors, gentlemen." Themiddle-aged man's gaze lingers a second too long on me for my liking, yet I let it pass.

I’ve never stepped foot in this place before now, and this is why. No amount of begging from Charlene could get me to change my mind. Didn’t care when she threw the whole ‘If you loved me, you'd do this for me' shit my way. I know how the general folk views our kind. Don't matter that I'm wealthier than half the fucks in here—if I don't dress the same, fit their ideal of what a cultured man is, I ain't welcome.

Can’t say I feel as though I miss out on much.

"Won't be long," I remind Rigs, hand resting against my concealed weapon on my side. "Twenty minutes, tops, and then we're out of here."

“I’ll get ordering, then.”

He talks with the bartender over the options as our remaining trio shifts through the doors on the far side of the bar and into a low-lit hallway. Swanky portraits hang in intervals on the black walls, lit by bronze sconces over each one. Men decked out in three-piece suits, their hairstyles and immaculately groomed mustaches tell me they're founding fathers of some kind. Maybe the men who built the place. Don't know and don't care.

Marco slips the keycard over a reader on a door second to the left, and the lock lets out a singular beep as it disengages.

“What sort of shit do ski bunnies get up to when they’re off the slopes if they need locked meeting rooms?”

Marco grins, moving to the far side of a square table. “It’s not the bunnies holding the meetings. It’s their husbands.”

I steal a quick final look at one of those fucking portraits as Deo shuts the door behind us and sigh when I note the man's heritage. "No wonder the place is so fucking palatial." It's a fucking Mafia operation. No doubt one of the many placesthey wash their cash in vast amounts over a short time through unsuspecting tourists, therefore mitigating risk.

“What can I do for you today, gentlemen?” Marco settles in the leather seat, leaning back and resting his hands in his lap, thumbs steepled.

“First off,” I turn to Deo, hovering by the seat opposite mine. “We got a list of properties to check out for signs of Maddie. The men are on it now." I run my eye subtly over how the kid's clothes hang and the places they hug his frame. No sign of a concealed weapon.

No reason to worry, although the longer I'm in here, the more the locked door itches in the recesses of my mind.

"I want to go help, too." He grabs the back of the seat before him, his forearms corded by the pressure he places on the leather through his fingertips.

Marco rolls his eyes at his son’s outburst. “Let the working-class men do the hard work, boy.”

His son looks ready to rip his father’s head from his shoulders. “Maybe you’re okay with sitting idle while your employees do your dirty work, but I’m not.”

I bristle at the insinuation we’re under Marco in any way, at his service.

"I'm helping," Deo says with a finality I admire.

“Fine.” Marco waves him off with the back of his hand before asking me, “How’d you come across this list? Why’d it take this long?”

"Had to sweet talk a mutual connection," I explain, opting for vagueness over a lengthy recount of my morning. "Secondly, I'd appreciate your help watching over things until I return from my trip next week." I refuse to sit, to let myself relax and be caught off guard.

Marco studies me for what feels to be the longest minute of silence in the history of man. "How?" is all he finally says, his arrogance shining in the pits of his deep brown irises.

---