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They were nowhere to be seen.
“I got it. You know I can handle myself with those types. Send Gemma down here to take over my section and I’ll get started upstairs.”
“Thank you,” he said, giving me a grateful smile.
I mixed a few more drinks until Gemma got downstairs, keeping my eye out for the two people I hoped to see. Still not here. Were they avoiding me, or had they been moved off this case? A goodbye would have been nice, especially from Caspian. “Oswald, you’re summoned,” I mumbled under my breath.
My familiar appeared on the back counter of the bar below rows of alcohol bottles, head tilted to the side.“What do you need?”
“Mattie needs me to work VIP while he deals with some people who frequent Bloodshed Brewing. I just… want some backup.”
“Aren’t Cas and Shan here?”
“Still haven’t seen them.”
Ozzy had been dealing with my wildly erratic emotions in the days since I’d kicked Shan unceremoniously out of my apartment. He’d suggested, more than once, that I go out to find them instead of waiting for them to come back. I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. I was not going to be the needy Omega who hunted men who didn’t want her. They could come to me.
“Those guys must be terrible, huh?” Gemma said, sliding through the swinging door that separated us from the masses. “I’m a little embarrassed that Mattie thinks I’m not good enough to serve them. I know he keeps me up there because I can’t handle serving the crowds down at the main bar, but…”
She pouted while Loretta and I exchanged a knowing look. Gemma was clueless. It was adorable, if a little sad. “He just wants someone with a take no shit attitude,” I reassured her. “You’re too polite to tell them to fuck off if they’re flirting with you. If they try anything handsy with me, they might find that they no longer have hands.”
Gemma snorted, the sound delicate coming from her. “Everyone’s so polite up in VIP. I’m not sure what I would do if someone was rude, so I guess you have a point.”
Everyone was polite in VIP because if they so much as looked sideways at Gemma, they would be out on their ass and banned from the club. It had happened enough times. I couldn’t imagine how many people would be banned tonight while she was in the main area. With Mattie in a meeting, I was sure he’d tasked a bouncer or two with hanging around the bar.
Sure enough, as I slipped out from behind the bar and into the crowd, Trevor was hovering by the edge of the counter. “You’ve got a tough job tonight,” I said with a laugh, clapping him on the shoulder as I walked past. “Good luck.”
He looked a little scared. Fear was a reasonable response — if anything happened to Gemma, Mattie would fire him. Maybe murder him. Our boss wasn’t often one for violence unless it came to protecting his mates. By now, Gemma was equivalent to a mate in his mind, not that he ever planned to tellherthat.
I got up to VIP and reacquainted myself with the layout, greeting tables with a fake, plastered on smile. The pace was relaxed up here, though all the VIPs wanted to chat with me. Gemma always served them, and when she was off Melissa did. I rarely worked with the other bartender since she only worked when Gemma wasn’t. A new face was a luxury to these people.
With brusque responses and snarky, passive aggressive comments, I made it clear to the VIPs that I was not a luxury. Nor was I very friendly. If he wanted to, I would let Mattie ream me out about it later. He knew what I was like, which was why I was up here for this. And why Iwasn’tup here under normal circumstances.
The arrival of the strangers was punctuated by a sudden drop off in the chatter up in the VIP loft. All eyes were on two men ascending the stairs, wearing all black with feral grins curling their lips. They were predators and had no remorse about it. Some of the high-class businessmen up here no doubt recognized them for who they were, while others simply recognized the danger they presented. The bouncer led them to the semi-private room Mattie kept for meetings such as this, and I braced myself to go in there.
Oswald had sat himself on the counter of the small bar on this floor, glaring at anyone who looked at him curiously. His presence grounded me, even as I panicked from the knowledge that Cas and Shan weren’t in the building this time around. If I was attacked, I would have to hold my own and show all my cards to stay alive. I couldn’t count on them saving me.
I’d never cared for people saving me, but I felt more alone than I ever had before after being abandoned by the two people I thought I’d started to learn to trust.
Stepping through the open French doors into the private lounge, I put on my best smile. “What can I grab you gentlemen to drink? Mattie should be right with you.”
He could have been here waiting, but this tactic was smart of him. Act like he was busy and hadn’t been preparing the staff for this for the past half an hour. Both men looked up at me, nostrils flaring as they took a deep breath of my scent. When their eyes lit up, I knew that they’d caught on. The underlying hints that told anyone who was paying attention that my scent was different. Faked. Men who worked alongside Jitara would know that he was hunting an Omega from Club Chaos.
“I would love a taste of you,” one said, flashing his fangs at me.
My smile hardened to a glare. “Not on the menu. We have bagged blood. I can mix it into a Caesar for you, or a different drink if you prefer. If you want, you can even drink it straight from the bag like the animal that you are.”
“You’re rude for a waitress,” the other one said.
He was calmer, his hair gelled into a crisp comb over and his suit unwrinkled and immaculately tailored. Physically I couldn’t tell if he was older, but his attitude screamed of decades of experience. “I’ve been told to treat you with the same respect you treat me with. What can I get you to drink?”
“Top shelf scotch on the rocks. He’ll have a bloody Caesar. You’re correct about him needing to calm down his animal instincts. A little snack might help.”
The other vamp glared at me when his superior said that, like it was my fault that he’d immediately objectified me. I gave the polite one a small smile. “Coming right up.”
When I got to the bar and started mixing the drinks, Mattie came up behind me. “Older, posh one is polite but scheming. The younger one is volatile and rude, I’m assuming he’s here more as a bodyguard or possibly a potential protégé because he doesn’t seem the type to be good at business dealings,” I said.
“Your first impressions of people are always spot on. I don’t know how you do it,” he said. “Give me one of whatever the older one ordered.”
