AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Keep your mouth shut anddon’t ask questions.
Everyone knew who he was, and he was instantly recognizable by his sheer presence alone. With his height and build, coupled with the dark tribal tattoos snaking around his arms and neck, there was no hiding. So, why did he wear the sunglasses? What purpose did they serve?
He was an unreadable force, a blank slate which radiated power and danger and nothing more, no hint of personality or weakness beyond his extremely intimidating aura. Perhaps that was part of what allured him to wearing sunglasses. What I could see of his expression around the dark frames was blank. Emrick simply sat in that red chair on the balcony, his chin resting on his fingertips, watching, like it was his job to watch.
I was forced to turn away from staring at Emrick when one of the bouncers shoved past me, knocking into my shoulder and not slowing down when I stumbled.
Whatever.
Emrick wasn’t my concern. I was here to make cash.
I had my own internal demons to deal with. I didn’t need to know his too.
“Does he always do that?”
A week since my first night, and every night I was there, so was Emrick on the balcony, watching over the crowd, barely moving and sipping vodka. Sometimes he’d have visitors, business I assumed, but he wouldn’t acknowledge them more than he needed to, leaving most of the talking to the tall blond man who moved around the club a lot more than Emrick did. His righthand man, I guessed.
Maddie followed my gaze to the balcony, clicking her tongue to gain my attention when I kept staring. “Stay away from him,” she said.
“I was just wondering—”
“This is not the place to be wondering about anyone, Cara. You know that as well as I. We both grew up in this city, we know the score.”
“But—”
“Drop it.”
When I glanced at the balcony again, Emrick’s head was turned, and I’d swear he was looking right at me, but it was impossible to tell for sure. Maddie made a hissing sound between her teeth, and I faced her again.
“Stay away from him,” she whispered. “If he comes near you, run.”
“Why?”
“Fuck, girl, how did you survive in The Palace? You can’t possibly be that naïve.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t have to worry much at The Palace. I had Carl.” A smile crept on my face at the memory of him—intimidating to look at, but one of the sweetest men you could ever meet. He looked out for all the girls there. Being a bouncer was more than a job to him—we were his second family.
Maddie was loading glasses and a bottle of rum onto a tray for me, and she rolled her eyes, followed by an understanding nod. “There are no big bouncers here with a heart of gold who will protect you, girl. These men work for Emrick and Emrick alone. This is a dangerous place, I told you all this before you started.”
“I’m just curious.”
“God, how can you be so blasé about the threat he poses? Don’t becurious…” She punctuated the word with air quotes. “Don’t ask. Don’t look. Fuck. Men like him deserve to be…” Maddie shook her head, sliding the tray across the bar and snatching at my wrist when I went to lift it. “The only thing you need to know is this. Since I’ve been here, several of the bar staff have been invited to have a drink with Emrick, and every single one of them quit the next day.”
Something dropped in the pit of my stomach, and desperately I worked against the desire to turn around and see if Emrick was still looking at me. I felt as though he was, as if he knew we were talking about him, and the gaze behind those glasses was still boring into the back of my neck. Part of me wished he’d stop, and the other part wanted to stare him down to see who would look away first. If I took up the battle of wills with him, if it came to his darkness versus mine, I wondered who would come out on top?
I remembered the shape of his arms.
I wouldn’t mind if he were on top of me, though.
Internally, I groaned. That sounded lame, even in my head.
“What did he do to them?” I whispered. My curiosity was mingled with an inkling of fear, and I knew the fear should be winning, that I should be scared enough of Emrick and the threat he posed to look away and keep my head down indefinitely. It was fun to imagine the darkness behind someone’s eyes, to write a tale in your mind about who they might be beyond the rumors. But faced with the reality of who this man was, my stomach churned.
Was that because I was afraid? Or because I wasn’t and knew I should be?
Emrick had embraced his darkness, made a life out of it, but no light was left in him. I may have had darkness of my own, but it was nothing compared to the man on that balcony.
“I don’t know what he did,” Maddie said, letting go of my wrist and helping me balance the tray, “But maybe we shouldn’t be too curious to find out, don’t you think?”
