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~Dealer~
JOHNNY’S.
Some hole-in-the-wall dive bar.
Seems Charlotte’s speed. Exactly the kind of place she’d choose to meet a contact of hers.
The place is deserted. No patrons. No bartender behind the bar.
But it’s open. The lights are on. A TV sounds in the background, some football game playing out on the low-def, fuzzy screen.
“Where the fuck is she?” I demand, spinning around to Runner behind me.
He was meant to stay back once he got the location, stay safe and all that, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet Kingmaker in all her legendary glory. Don’t look like that’s gonna happen though.
“She was here,” he tells me. “You saw for yourself on the security camera outside the bar.”
Once he got the lead, he had Ax work his magic and tap into it. It was definitely her. We thought she was still here, because she walked in, but didn’t walk out, according to the footage.
The sound of a door closing in the distance somewhere inside the building has the both of us spinning around and drawing our guns lightning-fast.
A guy I don’t recognize staggers onto the bar floor, shirtless, a wad of paper towels pressed to a wound in his right side, the thing bleeding through several layers of the towels. He’s also got a tea towel wrapped around his wrist, another wound bleeding through.
“Who are you?” I demand.
“You don’t know me,” he rasps. “And you don’t need to. But I know you.” He looks me up and down decked out in my leathers. “That get-up gives it away.”
My eyes narrow.
“Cal “Dealer” Austin. Charlotte’s man.”
“What? What do you know about her?”
“I know she brought trouble to my door and got me stabbed and shot tonight.”
Yeah, that’s definitely her M.O.
Trouble.
Chaos.
Destruction.
Pain.
“She shot and stabbed you?”
Both is overkill and not efficient, which ain’t like Char.
He shakes his head, grunting as he lowers himself onto a stool by the bar. “The shot came from the Gatekeepers.”
Adrenaline spikes white-hot, thrumming through my veins.
And something else I ain’t good with feeling. Fear.
Fear for her.
I start toward the guy. “They were here? With her?”
