“Boss,” the bouncer says, as he holds the door open for him. I look up to him as he pulls me in and keeps me close.
“Is this your club?”
“Yes,” he answers as people start nodding their heads at him. Of course it is. He walks me straight to the bar, and instantly a bartender is standing in front of us. Though the Hayes crew operates most of the bars and clubs, since they’re known for running drugs through the city, other crews have clubs just like this to hold as a front. “What do you want to drink?” he asks over the music. I glance over my shoulder to see a throng of people dancing and drinking on the dance floor, in beat with the pounding music.
“Water…” I start to say, then pause and look back at the bartender. Fuck it; the music does sound good. “Give me your best cocktail.” Silas nods and turns to look at me, leaning downso we are face-to-face. I try my hardest not to breathe him in. I’m so out of my comfort zone here. To be honest, I prefer sitting at the strip club. “Drink, and wait here. I will be back.” The bartender hands Silas a silver glass. I can’t see what’s inside, but Silas nods to him as he accepts it, then hands it to me. “If she wants another, make it.” The bartender nods before he looks back at me. I take a sip of the drink, and instantly I can taste how strong it is. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wince. “Good?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “But I will drink it.”
Leaning forward, Silas bends down so his mouth is near my ear. “Don’t drink too many. I want you to remember how much I can make you beg for it.”
“Don’t you mean how much I can make you beg?” I throw back at him.
“That too.” He winks, then pulls away and disappears into the crowd. It’s quite attractive watching him walk as everyone moves when he gets close. Some probably don’t even know who he is, but the aura he emits is impossible to deny. He’s magnetizing, no doubt about that. Trying to finish the drink, I stay near the bar and also try not to vomit in my mouth after every sip. It’s definitely vodka.
Revolting.
“Another?” the bartender asks.
“Sure,” I say. Kill me now. But it does begin to loosen the muscles in my neck, and my hips begin to sway to the music.
“Ohhh, Doc, what a pleasure it is to see you, though I would have expected you to at least change clothes first,” Cian says as I finish the last of the drink, rolling my shoulders at the sight of him. When I place it on the counter, the bartender slides me another. I take it and hope it tastes better than the last.
It doesn’t.
“You working tonight?” he asks when I ignore him.
“No.” His eyes flick over my scrubs.
“You sure?” he says with a laugh. I hold up the drink, and he nods. “Fair enough, sometimes you have to let loose, right?” He leans in a little too close and I try to step away, but my back hits the bar. “You know whose club this is, right?” he whispers.
“I do,” I say to him.
“You know who he is?”
“I do…” I wasn’t born yesterday. I know all these things, yet, I dove into the deep end headfirst, and now I can’t seem to swim out.
30
SILAS
Istare at the documents in front of me. My mind is trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. Mikhail Sokolov did me a favor through his network to get me what I couldn’t unearth myself from her cleverly put-together file.
The woman on the driver’s license doesn’t look remotely familiar. She has a pixie cut as black as night, and it makes her facial features easy to see. Her eyes are wide apart. Her lips thin. And I can irrefutably say that the woman in the driver’s license is absolutely not the Leonore Graves I know.
I stare at the two licenses in front of me. Same license number. Different woman.
The woman in the original license is a bank teller in San Diego, California. Well, she was, until she went missing six years ago. Around about the same time Leonore appeared on the East Coast and began working for a funeral director.
Mikhail’s tech analyst wasn’t able to get a hit on Leonore’s face. But this much is useful to me.
I know what Leonore has done. She stole this woman’s identity.
I don’t need to know how.
What I want to know is why.
I look out the window that oversees the dance floor, my eyes naturally gravitating to the bar where I watch Leonore pulling a face as she tastes the cocktail she is holding. The corner of my lips tilt slightly, knowing it’s probably too sweet for her. So if you’re not Leonore Graves, who are you really?
