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And way too damn innocent. Like a lamb thrown into a shark tank at feeding time, she was just begging to be devoured. And if the hungry looks from the men all around her were any indicator, the feeding frenzy was about to begin.
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the wall next to Onyx’s office door. I was armed; I could just shoot the fuckers. Problem solved.
“Having a good time, Deo?” Gabe Costa shouted over the music as he came toward me. He had a drink in his hand and looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.Luckybastard.
“I’d be having a better time if your younger brother wasn’t eye-fucking women on the dance floor,” I said, not missing the way Caio Costa hadn’t taken his eyes off Heidi once in the past ten minutes.
Gabe smiled, his green eyes relaxed and way too happy. “Heterosexual men do tend to spend a great deal of time ‘eye-fucking’ women here, but I have a feeling you might be referring to one woman in particular?” he asked as he spotted Caio at the table next to the dance floor and followed his gaze to where Heidi, Raven, Greta, and the rest of the devil’s girl brigade were dancing.
Really, when this particular group of women got together, they were evil. Nothing but trouble.
“Ah,” he said as he correctly picked out which woman Caio had been ogling.
His gaze moved on, finding his fiancée, Cait, and lingering there for a moment. She was a pretty woman, with dark hair a little shorter than Heidi’s, and she had the most intricate tattoos I’d ever seen. Flames covered the entire left side of her body, reaching all the way to her temple, flames that covered a mass of scarring from a real fire.
“So, one of them finally caught you, did they?” Gabe asked, grinning as he turned his attention back to me.
“Caught? No.” I shook my head. But so long as I was fucking her, I wasn’t about to share her with a room full of sharks.
Gabe was grinning like an asshole, but there was an understanding in his eyes. If I had to guess, I’d say he wasn’t particularly fond of men eye-fucking Cait either.
“I’ll be sure to mention to Caio that he’d best do his eye-fucking elsewhere,” he said, then turned to look at the girls once more.
“Your woman seems to fit right in,” he said, nodding in the general direction of the group. “That’s a good sign,amico.”
I nodded. On the surface, it did look that way, but Heidi wasn’t fitting in, not really. I could see it in the tautness of her shoulders and the way her teeth kept toying with her bottom lip even if nothing else about her countenance gave her away.
And it only got worse when the latest song ended and the girl brigade left the dance floor for their seats at a table across the room.
One of the Costas’ bouncers followed close behind them, keeping any of the eye-fuckers from trying to trail along after them. A girls’ night out with no one to bother them—that’s why Greta and the other women didn’t mind if we tagged along. And we were damn good at making sure no one bothered them.
Heidi took a seat, and Greta and Raven sat down on either side of her. When Ella—Leo Luca’s girlfriend—sat down across from Heidi, it blocked my view until Fallon—Dominic Luca’s wife—gave her a shove and sat down. Fallon was shorter than the other women, leaving my view wide open.
The bartender brought them a round of drinks, and I watched as Heidi’s head moved as they drank, glancing from one woman to the next and back again. It looked exhausting, and maybe that was why, after a while, her movements started to slow until eventually, they stopped altogether.
But even from across the room, I could see something wasn’t right. Her breathing was coming faster, making her chest move at a more rapid pace, and her teeth were burrowing so deep into her lip, it was a wonder she hadn’t drawn blood.
She stood up abruptly, said something to Raven, then left the table, headed toward the hallway at the back where the washrooms were tucked away from the main floor.
I stayed put as she disappeared into the hall, and I waited. The Costas had eyes all over the place; she’d be safe here.
But a minute passed, and then three, and then five, and still, she hadn’t returned.
I pushed off from the wall and rounded the dance floor, heading toward the hallway. Aldo, another one of the Costas’ bouncers, was standing guard at the door that led to the basement, in plain view of the hallway.
“The new girl with the group, did she go in there?” I asked him.
“Si, Signor,” he said, nodding. “Third door from the left.”
I hovered outside it. I was pretty sure barging into the women’s bathroom would be an act Greta counted as ‘raining on their parade’, but my gut told me something was wrong here, and when I heard a loud thud from inside the room, that was it.
“Key,” I said, holding out my hand to Aldo.
The man looked at me, not sure what to do.
“The girl’s mine, Aldo. Give me the key,per favore.If Nico has a problem with it, you send him to me.”
He didn’t look thrilled, but he handed it over, and I shoved it into the lock and pushed the door open.
