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Rumor was the guy had ended up in pieces, and there hadn’t been enough blood left to so much as stain the ground.
It was probably bullshit. Probably. But it was enough to keep the path clear for anyone coming or going from Bloodbath who wore the sign.
Still, she checked her pocket, as she always did, for her ministunner and panic button.
An ounce of prevention was worth a lot of peace of mind.
She headed out, and as was usual at shift changes, she left the club with a group of other employees. Safety in numbers. There wasn’t much chatter, there rarely was, so she could huddle inside her own thoughts as they wound through the stink and the shadows, through the pounding music and wailing screams.
She’d thought she could handle it, the money was too good to pass up. With salary and tips, if she was frugal, she could move out of the city, plunk down a down payment on a nice little house.
A yard for her kid, a day job.
It seemed like the perfect plan, and she knew how to take care of herself. But it was too much, she had to face that now. The club, the tunnels, the boss himself. It was all too much, and she was going to have to go back to working street level, pulling doubles just to put a few extra aside every week. The house in Queens, the yard, the dog, would all just have to wait a few more years.
She’d walked out of Bloodbath for the last time.
She’d send in written notice, that’s what she’d do, Allesseria decided as she finally came out to the sidewalk. She’d use her son as an excuse. Dorian knew she had joint custody, but she could use the night work as too strenuous, too difficult.
Nothing he could do about it, she assured herself as she pulled off the glowing cards and stuffed them in her pocket. Nothing, that she could think of, that he’d want to do. At the salary he offered, he’d replace her in one crook of the finger.
Let somebody else mix pig’s blood—God, she hoped it was just pig’s blood—in gin to make Bloody Martinis, or handle dry ice to make a Graveyard. She was done.
The cops had been the last straw. She couldn’t take any more.
He’d made her lie for him, so there was a reason he needed the lie.
As Allesseria went underground again, this time to catch the subway home, she admitted she’d lied before he’d asked. Something had warned her she’d be better off playing dumb.
Never seen that face before.
Tiara Kent, who’d knocked back a half-dozen Bloodies on her first visit to the club—and had spent a hell of a lot of time up in Dorian’s private office.
Okay, she hadn’t seen them leave together, but in fact, she hadn’t seen either of them leave when Tiara had come to the club. Which meant they might have slipped out through Dorian’s office.
And Allesseria hadn’t seen Dorian from sometime before midnight last shift. He hadn’t come down to work the floor as she’d told the cop he had. He hadn’t worked the floor, not once that she’d noticed, after Tiara Kent had gone up those stairs with him.
And she always noticed him because of the way her skin started to crawl.
He could’ve killed Tiara Kent. He could’ve done it.
With her arms protectively crossed over her torso, Allesseria sat on the train, struggling with what she should do, could do. A dozen times she told herself just walking away was enough. It wasn’t her responsibility, and she’d be smarter to just mind her own business. Quitting was enough. More than enough.
But when she got off at her stop, she thought of her son, how she tried to teach him to do the right thing, to stand up for what he knew was right. To be a good man one day.
So she pulled out the card the cop had left on the bar and her pocket ’link as she walked the dark street home.
Nerves prickled at the base of her spine, crawled up to the back of her throat. Even though she told herself it was foolish, she shot anxious glances over her shoulder. Nothing to worry about now, nothing. She was blocks from the club, and back on street level. As far as Dorian knew she’d backed him up, 100 percent.
She was nearly home. She was safe.
Still, she stayed in the streetlights where she could as she recited Eve’s office code. When she reached voice mail, she took a long breath.
“Lieutenant Dallas, this is Allesseria Carter, the bartender at Bloodbath.”
She paused, looking over her shoulder again as those nerves dug in like claws. Had she heard something? Footsteps, a rustle in the breeze?
But she saw nothing but light and shadow, the black, blank windows in the buildings.
