“Sir—”
“That’s another thing,” Rider says. “Your team’s vehicles can’t block the club entrance. Move the cars to the next block. You can keep one man outside the front door. The rest of your team waits up the street.”
“We will not—” Jacobson starts through set teeth.
I’m late to my meeting, and I’ve had enough. “Move the vehicles.”
“Sir—”
“Your protest is noted.”
I’ll give Jacobson credit. Once he’s lost the battle, he organizes his retreat with perfect efficiency. “Collins, you take the door. Everyone else, move out.” Jacobson turns back to Rider with a bland stare. “Is there place I can make a private phone call? I need to update Mr. Best.”
Rider isn’t the least bit intimidated. “Flynn, take him to my office.”
The Sawgrass team moves toward the door. Collins—a rangy blond soldier with the body of a linebacker—takes the lead, clearly pleased to have been singled out.
Rider waits until the door is closed before he lets down his guard. “Sorry about that,” he says, coming forward to shake my hand. “Rules are rules.”
“I understand,” I say. Then: “This is my wife.” I’m still not used to saying the phrase out loud. “Kate Lynch.” They shake and mutter pleasantries before I ask, “Fournier’s here?”
“In one of the private rooms.” Rider presses on a panel behind the mahogany desk, which proves to be a door leading to a well-lit service hallway. “I’ll take you this way.”
As Kate and I follow, Rider says, “If you were here for regular club activities, Felicia would give you the whole welcome speech. Greenrooms for our guests, men to the right, women to the left. Undress as much as you want. Make yourselves at home. If you need anything ask someone with a Kynk pin.”
He touches his lapel, and I realize he’s referring to the brass oval Felicia wears with her flags. I glance back toward the lobby, only to find that the door has closed behind us. We take a few more steps before I realize I’ve left the MacAllan behind.
“Dammit!” I say. “I brought a gift for Fournier, but I left it in the car.”
Rider touches a communications device on his lapel. “I’ll have someone get it.”
I shake my head. “My men won’t be in the mood to hand over anything to a stranger. It’ll be faster for me to get it.”
“Go on,” Rider says, gesturing back toward the door.
I look at Kate, and she gives me a sharp nod. She hasn’t said a word since we stepped inside the club. I wonder if she’s second-guessing her decision to come to Kynk. There’s no way to ask her now.
The door whispers closed behind me as I return to the foyer. Felicia is busy at her desk, greeting a guest who looks suspiciously like the man who won last year’s Oscar for Best Actor. I ease past them, nod at the bouncers, and slip out of the club.
It’s dark on the sidewalk. I expect Collins to be standing just outside the door, so he can point me toward the cars. He’s nowhere in sight, though, so I start walking down the street.
I’m not afraid of warehouse districts. Shannon dragged me through enough of them when I was a kid. I know I can hold my own in any fist fight. Besides, I’m pretty sure the seediness on this block is a calculated gesture, that Rider wants his club to look more dangerous than it is.
Still, Jacobson would have a stroke if he knew I was out here on my own. Collins better have a good story. Maybe he went with the team when they moved the cars, and he’s walking back. Maybe he had to take a piss—he could be leaning against the wall in that alley, the one opening to my left.
Muscle memory never goes away. As I pass the entrance to the alley, I automatically move toward the street, stepping out of range for any mugger who happens to lurk in the shadows. I keep my eyes up, looking for danger.
Collins is in the alley, but he isn’t taking a leak. He’s standing in a pool of light next to a sleek black limo. He’s running his fingers through slips of paper, clearly counting out bills.
“Nyet!” says the man leaning out the driver’s side window and slapping at Collins’ hand. The single word is loud on the deserted waterfront.
That’s the sum of my Russian language skills—no—but I recognize the tattooed eight-pointed star stretched across the driver’s biceps. It marks a thief, a soldier in the bratva ranks.
Collins is taking money from the Russian mob.
23
KATE
