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“Good.”
We head to the car and then hit the road, Malice driving and Vic up front as usual. We make it to the club without incident, and all three men cluster around me like a phalanx of bodyguards as we head inside, surrounding me and keeping their eyes peeled for trouble.
It’s getting to be late evening by now, and the club looks pretty much the same as it did the last time we were here. The dance floor is packed with people, a sweaty mass of bodies that grope and grind against each other. The atmosphere is thick with smoke and the scent of sweat, but we ignore all of that.
We’re not here for fun tonight, so we head right up to the bar.
There’s no sign of the men we met before, so Ransom flashes his charming smile at the bartender. He leans in over the bar to speak to her, having to get close to be heard over the music.
She shakes her head at first, seeming to brush him off, but then Ransom’s face goes serious and he says something else. The bartender’s eyes widen, and she nods, holding up a hand in the universal sign to wait.
She slips through a door that must lead to the back of the club, and it’s only a couple minutes before she comes back.
“Okay,” she says, raising her voice so we can all hear her. “You can come on back to the office.”
We go around the bar and then through the same door, and once it closes behind us, the sounds from the club are muffled. The bass still thumps through the walls, but it feels more distant than being out in the mix of it. It’s easier to hear myself think.
We walk down a short hallway and then knock on a closed door.
“Come in,” someone calls from inside.
Malice opens the door, and we all file into the office.
I recognize one of the men inside from the last time we were here. He’s got glasses, laughing amber eyes, and model good looks, and he gives us a curious look as we enter the small space. The other two are more serious looking, one with icy blue eyes and harsh features, and the other with green eyes that seem to pierce through us as he looks us over.
There’s a scar on his upper lip, and he looks relaxed and at ease as he sits behind the desk on one side of the office, but it’s pretty obvious that if we made a wrong move, he’d be ready to put a bullet through our heads in a heartbeat.
Ransom takes over the introductions, the most personable of the brothers as always.
“Willow, I think you met Ash before, right?” He nods to the man with the glasses.
“Right,” I answer. “Nice to see you again.”
Ash grins and gives me a little salute.
“And this is Priest and Gage,” Ransom continues. “This is Willow. She’s with us.”
The three of them look me over, but it’s not the same way other men do it. There’s nothing predatory or lecherous in it, and I remember that they have their own partner, a woman that all of them apparently love. They’re just looking at me to get the measure of me, and I have to wonder what they see.
“What can we do for you?” Gage asks. He looks at Malice, and I can tell that they’re both the leaders of their respective groups. They both have that air of carrying the burden of making the tough calls and expecting their orders to be followed.
“What do you know about the Enigma gang?” Malice asks.
Gage raises an eyebrow. “I can’t answer that until you tell me why you want to know.”
“We need a way to get in touch with their leader.”
There’s a beat of silence while Gage sizes Malice up, and Malice doesn’t flinch away from that perceptive gaze for a second. He lets Gage look, but the impatience is there in his posture, the way he folds his arms.
“Why should we get involved with whatever shit you’ve got going on?” Gage asks. “I can tell you have some kind of problem, but that has nothing to do with us.”
“Oh, come on, Gage,” Ash says. He lounges on the couch off to the side, spinning a pen idly between his fingers. “Where’s your sense of community?”
Gage makes a face. “We’re not in a community. And we’re not running a charity.”
“It’s not charity. Consider it… payback. They’ve helped us out a lot, remember?” Ash gives him a significant look.
“There’s no debt there,” Gage argues. “They got something out of that too. It was an equal exchange.”
