Page 39 of Beneath the Blindfold

It was still early. Unless she was out in the suburbs, I could ambush her date and make it back to the club before it opened. Traffic would have to cooperate. Didn’t happen much in Chicago, but a brother could hope.

Whatever. Focus.

Me:Name and number. Or you call him.

Kyle:And tell him what?

Me:Setting them up was a mistake.

Kyle:Was it? Sounds like you finally want to make your move.

I stabbed my finger at the phone so hard, I was lucky it didn’t break.

Me:ASSHOLE.

Kyle:Yeah, we established that. If it helps, this thing wasn’t my idea. Going into a movie. Text me later.

Was he shitting me?

Me:WTF?

There was no response.

Me:Hope your dick falls off.

The bastard didn’t answer me. I stared at the bottle of nasty-ass liquor and got angry as fuck. What the hell was I going to do?

I was a powerful guy. Connected to everyone, and treated like goddamn royalty. The superintendent of the Chicago PD was a client, and I cooperated with the FBI when some big-time john came through my doors. I could pull favors in an emergency. One phone call and I’d have most of the city out looking for Courtney Crawford.

Goddammit. That would be some crazy-ass shit, right there.

Instead, as much as it’d suck, I’d sit here and wait for her to answer my message. I’d been through worse nights at the club. I’d tussled with another bouncer here once, and broken a client’s jaw when he strangled one of my girls half-to-death. I didn’t like fighting. Didn’t like the feeling of my fists pounding against something soft and warm, and knowing I was causing pain. No judgment of the guys who came to the club to get off like that, but I liked using my hands to give pleasure.

“Julius,” a male voice echoed through my earpiece. It was Deiondre, my newest security guy. “Some girl’s at the front. You got an audition tonight?”

Not that I knew about, but sometimes a girl I was recruiting showed up without scheduling. I focused on the screen at the main entrance, enlarging it so I—

It felt like I’d been smacked in the center of my chest with a football helmet.

What the fuck?

No idea what Courtney was doing here. Only thing I knew was Kyle McCreary was a fucking dead man. Courtney looked nervous as hell, and I wasn’t too proud to admit I was scared shitless. She didn’t know what I did. I fed her the same line of bullshit everyone else got, that the blindfold club was an exclusive, members only, wine club.

I’d been grandfathered in with the lie, thanks to her husband Tariq. I wasn’t embarrassed about the business I ran. Why the fuck should I be? Everyone who walked through the door wanted to be here, especially my girls. I kept them safe, gave them a classy place to do their business, and we all made truckloads of cash.

But I couldn’t go back on the lie once it’d been told. Court would have questions, and one of them would be if her husband had ever visited. I’d been trapped. Tariq and I had played football together at Ohio State, and he was real fucking quick to remind me “Bros before hoes.” The longer it went on, the deeper my hole got.

Every time Tariq showed up at my club, cheated on his wife, and I didn’t say a thing to her, it was like I was the bigger bastard. My betrayal stung more.

“She’s asking about you,” Deiondre said. “You want me to send her up?”

Fuck, no! I launched to my feet. “I’ll come down. Don’t say nothing to her.”

I took the stairs down, two steps at a time. All the doors in the main hallway were open and the cleaning people were busy inside the client rooms, prepping for the night. A war drum pounded in my chest, harder than the moments in the tunnel before a big football game. How much had Kyle told her?

Shit, what if this was the end of me and her, before we even got going?

No. I wouldn’t let that happen. I yanked the door open to the entry checkpoint and put my hands on the doorframe, blocking the inside of the club from view.

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