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Within forty-five minutes, I was abandoning my car at the front entrance to Ewen McGowan’s club.
‘You can’t park there,’ a bouncer said to me, stilling when he saw the glare on my face.
‘Watch me.’ Within a handful of strides, I was at the door, where the two bouncers puffed up their chests and barred my entrance. The fuckers.
‘Get out of the way.’
‘We know who you are, and you aren’t welcome here.’ The smaller of the two spoke with a quiver in his voice. If they knew who I was, then they knew they were fucked if they stood in my way.
‘If you know who I am, then I’d stand aside. What will it take for entry? A broken nose? A slit throat? Coming after your family members and mailing them to you piece by piece?’ I gave them a grin that I hoped looked manic. I preferred not to incite unnecessary violence. It was messy and punching people hurt my fists, but using the threats usually got the job done.
‘Ewen will fuck us up if we let you in,’ one of them said in a low voice.
‘And I’ll fuck you up if you don’t. My sister is in there and in trouble, and so is my wife. Ewen doesn’t seem to give a fuck about them, so I’m here to take them home.’
‘You’re just retrieving them?’
I nodded. Their shoulders sagged with relief. If I was quick, Ewen might not even know I had been there.
‘Fine, go.’ He stood aside, and I patted him on the shoulder.
‘Good choice.’
The club was awash with a sea of bodies, most people pretty drunk as it neared two in the morning. Thumping beats crashed into my head and through my chest, so loud it left me feeling a little breathless. Where were they? The dance floor was rammed, and after twenty minutes of searching through sweaty, stumbling bodies, I still hadn’t found them.
Chaos engulfed the bar, and I didn’t have time to wait, so I let myself into the door by the side, eyeing the bar men to figure out which one could be the ‘cute’ one. I discounted the female bar staff, knowing that Katie didn’t swing that way, and settled on a younger guy. He was the only one I think could be considered cute, the other’s were older, more rugged. Not cute. I hoped.
‘Hey, what are you doing back here?’ He asked as I approached.
‘Not looking for trouble,’ I said, pulling out my phone. ‘I’m looking for two women, my sister and wife. They called me in a state and I’m here to pick them up.’
He glanced at the photo of Katie and me I pulled up on the screen and his face softened. ‘Yes, she’s over there.’
I followed his finger and looked in the direction he showed. Eventually through the bodies I saw Katie, sat heavily against the wall looking like shit. Alone.
‘Thanks,’ I said to the kid-barman. ‘If you ever serve them to the point of being like this again, I’ll be back to teach you a lesson in when to stop.’
He paled and nodded vigorously. ‘I’m sorry. She was really persuasive.’
‘I know.’
I let myself back out and swerved through the dance floor until I reached Katie, who promptly burst into tears.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said through a drunken sob.
‘It’s okay.’ I texted Benny to get his ass to the door immediately. I’d deal with him and the other two later. ‘Come on.’
I half lifted Katie when she stumbled as memories of all the previous times I’d had to hold her like that stormed through my mind. It was usually after a beating, or after being forced to watch Father torture someone to send us a point. I’d spent my life trying to protect her from the world. And now I had a second woman I burned to keep safe.
‘Where’s Maeve?’ I said in her ear, half shouting over the music.
‘She went to pee. She’d been a while, though. I wanted to go get her, but my head is spinning so fast.’
‘It’s okay, I’ll get her.’
Benny waited at the door, shifting nervously from foot to foot.
‘Sorry boss,’ he said when he saw the state Katie was in. I wasn’t sure the guys being in the club would have persuaded them to imbibe any less. It was Mac and Ewen I was furious with. Mac must have said something to Maeve which provoked her to drinking too much, whatever it was would have had to get her pretty riled up.
