The Red Room wasn’t my idea. It was Jase’s, of all people. He’s quiet, keeps to himself, but he created a club that’s the perfect cover-up and a successful business at that. He always stays in the back, where other business is conducted, but nonetheless, Jase’s creation is something he’s proud of. And every time I come here, I’m reminded of that fact.
The music thrums in my veins before the large red glass doors even open. In a gray tailored suit, I don’t exactly blend in with the nightlife. Not like Jase does in his faded jeans and crisp, button-down, open at the collar.
I prefer a suit. Jase prefers to blend in. Each method has its advantages.
“Welcome back, sirs,” Jared greets us as we step into the club, the music at full volume and the smells of alcohol and sex appeal hit me instantly. With the dark red paisley wallpaper that lines the walls and black chandeliers hanging from the sixteen-foot-high black ceiling, The Red Room looks like a nightclub of sin at first glance.
As the alcohol pours throughout the night and the bodies grind against one another, sin is an accurate description. The money flows as easily as the liquor.
Walking past the grinding bodies and kitten eyes from several women holding drinks in one hand and their clutches in another, I ignore it all, listening intently to what Jared has to say.
I stopped everything to come down here with my brother. All because Jared, the club manager, and head of business while we’re away, said he had a girl who would talk.
“You sure it’s her?” Jase asks him.
“Yeah,” Jared nods as we pass the second bar and make our way around the edge of the dance floor to get to the backroom. “She comes in every week asking for it.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“Nothing. Just that the delivery is on a delay.” The DJ starts a new set and the dance floor roars so loudly the ground shakes as the steel doors to the backroom push open and then close softly, finally silencing the distractions of the club.
“Thanks for waiting for us,” Jase tells the two men in the back of the room. Mick is one of them; I don’t know the name of the other, but Jase does. This is Jase’s place to run. Everyone knows him, and he knows everyone, so I let him lead and stay quiet.
Quiet is dangerous, and that’s exactly how I want them to see me.
“Of course, Mr. Cross,” Mick says and nods his head at Jase then quirks a smile at me as he adds, “and Mr. Cross.”
The small girl seated at the lone table in the room grips the plastic cup of a pink drink that’s probably got just as much sugar in it as alcohol. Her lips part open with a hint of disbelief and then she licks them, smiling although it’s thin and withered. Just like the state of her body under the too-tight tube top.
“You’re waiting for the delivery?” Jase asks, looking to the left and right as if he doesn’t want to say it out loud and get caught by someone. I’d laugh at him and his display, but he’s damn good at what he does, and I do enjoy a good show.
The girl imitates him, looking over her shoulders at the two hired men of ours in The Red Room t-shirts and black jeans before she nods. “You guys have the best sweets.”
“Sweets?” I ask, and she grins at me like she knows a secret she can’t wait to tell me.
“It’s what the streets are calling it now,” she says and bites down on her lower lip, letting her body sway. Jase and I pull out our chairs across from her, the legs scraping across the floor. Sweets. Plural. Because that fucker Romano has his version out. I keep the small hint of friendliness firmly in place. But I’m nothing but pissed at the reminder
“Sweet Lullaby, you mean?” Jase asks, lifting an eyebrow. And again, she nods.
“You’re buying a lot of this stuff,” Jase tells her although it comes out a question. Her nails scratch down her arms as she glances all around us. She’s jittery and the chair legs beneath her keep rasping on the floor.
“I just need it, okay?” Her words are rushed. The air changes around her instantly.
Noting her hollow cheeks, dead eyes, and pale lips, the humor, and vibe that she’s down to have a good time have vanished.
“Is it really what you need?” Jase asks and leans forward to stare into her eyes. “’Cause we’ve got some other stuff you might want?”
She’s in need of a hit. That’s for damn sure and if I had to guess her drug of choice is heroin. Maybe coke.
“I just need to grab it and get back,” she answers, but her voice is breathy and uncertain. I wait a moment, glancing at Jase as we both hear her swallow over the muted sound of the music playing in the club.
“I think we have some coming, sorry about the wait, miss…?”
“Jenny. Jenny Parks,” she answers him and then reaches into her purse for her phone. The two men behind us make a move for their guns, and the little blonde doesn’t even notice.
“Fuck, it’s already past nine,” she says and her face crumples with a mix of anxiety and fear.
As she slips her thumb into her mouth to chew on her nail, Jase asks her, “Hey, is there anything I can get you while you wait?”
“Anything to calm you down a little? Another drink or something stronger?” I add.
Her breath comes out harder. “Yeah, maybe,” she replies as her eyes dart from me to Jase. “I just wanted to come in and get the stuff. It’ll be here soon?” she asks again, looking down at the phone to check the time. “Like, how soon.”
“It could be a bit,” Jase says and shrugs, looking at Mick and she watches him shrug too. “We’ve got other stuff while you wait,” he offers but she’s already shaking her head, still biting that thumbnail.
She speaks over the finger in her mouth. “I need the sweets first.”
The problem with a junkie is that they have a one-track mind. They want the drug. And it’s obvious that she gets hers when she delivers our drug to the real buyer.
Jase shrugs again. “An hour, maybe?” He glances at me and I nod my head.
“Fuck,” she mutters and cradles her face in her hands.
“You want us to drop it off somewhere else?” Jase asks, and she peeks up through her lashes. We’re getting the address of where this product is going. Either from her telling us or from us following her. Whatever the fuck we have to do.
“I have to get back. I’m sorry,” she rushes her words as she slides her phone off the table and into her purse.
“We can get you something to take the edge off while it comes in and we can talk a little?” Jared suggests to her from where he’s standing guard by the steel doors. She seems to get it then. The reality of what’s going on hits her like a ton of bricks and she’s shit at hiding it.
“It’s just… it’s my brother. You know? He needs it, and he doesn’t like me to be late.“
“Your brother?” Jase questions and I glance at Mick, standing behind the seated blonde, who shakes his head once. Little Jenny doesn’t have a brother.
“Yeah, and he doesn’t like people to come around, you know?” Again, her words are rushed and she looks at the men behind her then at us.
“I can just come back another time,” she mumbles. Her breathing is sporadic as she pulls her purse to her chest.
She takes a second to stand up, but Mick’s hand on her shoulder makes her pause.
A second drops between us all, heavy with the consequences of what’s to come.
She’s buying for someone else and lying to cover it up. Someone who keeps her doped up and someone who scares her enough to give her the strength to resist her next hit from us.
Her head turns slowly so she can see Mick’s large hand gripping tighter onto her shoulder. The fear that drifts from her is palpable and sickening.
“You tell your brother we’re sorry we couldn’t get it to him tonight, Jenny,” Jase speaks up and instantly Mick’s grip on the girl loosens.
I can practically hear her heart beating as she looks at Jase wide-eyed. She’s frozen still until he leans back in his seat and tells her with a wink, “We’ll have it for you next time.”
“You let us know if you want to talk anytime now, you hear me?” Jared says as he opens the door to the club and the music flows into the small back room.
Jenny nods her head furiously, stumbling into the empty chair next to her before taking off out of the room without another look back.
“Follow her,” I tell Mick and with a single nod he’s gone. Jase’s blunt nails tap against the table as the door closes and the sound of the nightlife beyond it is muted once again.
“You let her off easy,” I say quietly under my breath.
“Girls don’t need to be dragged into this shit.” That’s his only answer and he doesn’t bother to lower his voice like I did.
The same table he’s tapping, I’ve covered with blood in the past. It wouldn’t have come to that with the blonde, but a little lie to get her talking wouldn’t have hurt her. Showing our cards that we know she’s buying for someone else, well that might have gotten a word or two from her. Maybe a name.
“Maybe he’s sending girls because he knows you’re weak for them,” I suggest. All of us have our limits. And women happen to be the common thread between us.
“Fuck you, I’m not weak,” he tells me although I can see him considering it. It’s in his eyes.
The corners of my lips tip up into a smirk as Jared lights up a cigarette. But with a puff and the words that come out of his mouth, the smile vanishes. “With the Talvery girl shit, they should know we aren’t pussies when it comes to women.”
The silence stretches in the room for a moment with neither of us commenting.
“The Talvery girl,” I say beneath my breath and it gets a comment from Jared, but I don’t bother to listen to him. “She’s mine,” I tell him, cutting off his joke or whatever the fuck was coming out of his mouth.
I stand abruptly, letting an anger I haven’t felt in a long time dictate my words. Staring into Jared’s eyes, the words rip from my mouth, “The next time someone refers to her as that, the Talvery girl,” I practically spit out the name, “you tell them, she’s all mine.”
My teeth grind against each other so hard, I swear they’ll crack.
Jared doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. I don’t think he’s breathing, although the cigarette in his mouth stays oddly still with the glow of amber making his expression look even paler.
My muscles coil, waiting for him to call her that again. She’s not the Talvery girl. She doesn’t belong to them.
“What’s her name?” I ask him, tilting my head and that cigarette wavers in his mouth. “Take out the fucking cigarette and tell me what the fuck her name is.” My eyes pierce into his as he drops the cigarette from his mouth, barely catching it between his fingers and swallowing thickly. The cords of his neck are tight, and I can hear him swallow.
“I—I—” he stutters, and I lean in closer to scream in his face, the words of my question scratching and ripping their way up my throat, “What’s her name?”
“I don’t know,” he says in a quavering admission.
“It’s Aria,” I say then pat his shoulders with both of my hands as he struggles to look me in the eyes. The anger wanes as I feel his sweat beneath my hands.
“It’s Aria, and she doesn’t belong to the Talverys anymore.” My words are calm, eerily so.
“Of course, she doesn’t,” Jared shakes his head slightly, his lips turning into a hesitant smile. “She’s yours. Aria is yours and she’s called Aria.”
He won’t shut the fuck up, the poor prick.
“You let anyone who calls her otherwise know,” I tell him, nodding my head once toward a spot on the brick wall. The bricks are redder, newer and don’t blend in.
“I’d hate to lose it and have to blow some fucker’s poor skull open because he pissed me off.”
“Yeah,” Jared’s answer is a whisper of fear. “Aria, and she’s yours.”
Jase’s hand hitting the back of my shoulder is the only thing that rips my gaze away from Jared’s.
“Keep up the good work, Jared.” Jase adds, “Good job tonight,” and pushes the door open to go back out into the bar.
He holds it open for me and I move around Jared, still very much stuck in his place and only nodding his response as if he’s scared to speak. As I take a step to leave, I glance down at him, the disgusting smell of piss overriding the scent of cigarettes. The fucker pissed himself.
I wish I could smile or feel any sense of pleasure from knowing how deeply rooted the fear goes. But all I can think is that these assholes are calling my Aria, the Talvery girl.
She’s so much more than that.
“You’ve got to back down with that,” Jase tells me as we walk side by side through the club. There’s no one around us that could hear, but still, I want to tell him to fuck off.
“I don’t have to do shit,” I respond in a grunt, the rage still looming, but even as the words are spoken, I know he’s right. They could use her against me. She could so easily become known as my weakness.
“What’s the point of doing that?” he asks me, cutting off my train of thought.
But I don’t have an answer ready. There’s always a reason. Everything I do has a purpose. It takes the entire walk through the club for me to respond, and not until we’re out of the front doors where the cool air greets us, and the moonlight lingers over the parking lot.
The wind whips against my face, and Jase slips his hands into his pockets as the valet pulls our car up to the curb. “The point is that they’ve forgotten she’s mine when they call her a Talvery. I won’t have anyone forget she belongs to me.”
