Page 66 of Kings & Corruption

I bounced along to the music, feeling the vibe. I’d been to lots of underground clubs when I’d been traveling, and I’d always loved how insulated I’d felt from the rest of the world. Out of time. Like there was no place else in the world but that room and those people. In a room like that, I wasn’t Emma’s sister or Frank’s daughter.

I wasn’t even Willa.

I was nobody, and sometimes it was really liberating to be nobody.

I looked over and spotted Oscar pointing his camera at me. I smiled, and a second later, he lowered the camera. His eyes met mine through the darkness, the lights sweeping over his face, and I felt the pull of his body, a gravitational force I wasn’t sure I even wanted to resist.

Then someone came up and leaned in to talk to him and the spell was broken.

I was debating the wisdom of grabbing a drink from the bar — when in Rome — when a groan went up from the crowd. The movie had glitched, the image warping before the screen turned black.

“I got this,” Oscar said. He took my hand. “Come on, tiger. You’re with me.”

Chapter30

Willa

Oscar pulled me through the crowd back into the hallway. It was packed, and it seemed like everyone was moving toward the big theater at the end of the hall, migrating in one direction like a pack of wolves.

We came to a black door about halfway down the hall. Oscar opened it and ushered me through, then shut the door behind us.

It was quieter in here, a tiny vestibule and a set of long narrow stairs leading upward, the music just a beat beyond the painted black walls.

“After you,” Oscar said, gesturing to the stairs.

I narrowed my eyes. “I feel like you either want to look at my ass or you’re planning to cut me into a million pieces while everyone dances out there.”

He grinned. “It’s the ass, for sure.”

I sighed and started up the stairs. When I reached the top, I stepped right into a large messy room. I knew right away what it was.

“This is the projection room,” I said, walking toward the wall of glass.

“Yep,” Oscar said, heading for the machinery in front of the big window.

The music was louder here than it had been in the vestibule, but still muted, and the crowd I’d been part of a few minutes before looked like ants as they moved through the lights crisscrossing the theater.

“You guys don’t get in trouble for using this place?” I asked.

“No.”

Typical. Getting information out of the Kings was proving to be a challenge.

I wandered the room, picking up dusty black cases marked with the names of movies from the 90s and setting them back down, inspecting old schedules that listed movie times, while he worked on the projector.

By the time I made my way back to the big window,Casinowas back onscreen, a small plane landing on a lush green golf course, Joe Pesci trying to hit it with golf balls while two men in suits ran away.

“Do you pick the movies?” I turned around and found Oscar pointing the camera at me again. “Why are you taking pictures of me?”

He took another, lowered the camera, and stared at me. “Because you’re beautiful. And because I like looking at you.”

It had been a mistake, coming to the projection room with Oscar Drago. The air was charged with the chemistry that had been crackling between us, the muffled music making it feel like we were in a world of our own.

There was no one else around. No witnesses to pressure me into making good decisions.

He set down the camera and stalked toward me, his combat boots thudding ominously on the old floors, his dark eyes a well of lust I was already drowning in.

There was no preamble. No buildup.

---