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Aiden’s breath explodes out on a strangled cry. “Smalls. I’m coming for you, baby. You don’t have to worry, okay? Where are you?”
“You can tell them,” Olly says. “We can’t start until they arrive anyway, so…”
“We’re at Scotch’s club,” she whimpers. “And they’ve got a–”
“That’s enough.” Evie is silenced with a cry, and Olly’s footsteps scuff against the floor as he walks away. “You know where we are. Send me the children of the club. No one else.”
“Why?” Libby’s voice echoes through our call and almost strangles me. Her single word is scratchy and garbled. “Why us? What did we do?”
“Because we need to finish something that was started.”
The line cuts out, and silence hangs for just a beat before our room explodes into noise.
“Club 188!” Alex shouts. He looks to Soph. “Do that thing you do, find us the best way in.”
“We know that club inside and out,” Ben says. “We know it. We don’t need computer stuff.”
“Wait.” Aiden’s brows furrow as he holds onto the boy’s tank before he races away. He looks to Alex, then to Kane. “She saidScotch’sclub.” He turns to me and Soph. “She said Scotch’s club.”
“She means 188, right?”
“Right, she means 188, but that’s not Scotch’s club. It’s ours. It’s hers.”
“Why mention Scotch?” Kane stops beside us with glittery black eyes exactly like those his father wore when he asked an eleven-year-old boy his name. “Scotch has nothing to do with this.”
“Who is Scotch?” I ask. “Who is that?”
“Scotch is one of the band members,” Ben says. “He’s Alex’s brother, and the lead singer in the band that always plays at the club.”
“She means the stage,” Aiden says slowly, as though it’s a question instead of a statement. “She’s near the stage?”
“You had a new stage installed earlier last year,” Ben answers. “Scotch was always bitching, complaining what you had was like an afterthought.” He turns to Kane. “That’s what Scotch kept saying; that the club wasn’t built for a band, so the stage was an afterthought. An add-on. The Rollers finally had a new stage installed last year, and now the club layout has changed a bit.”
“She’s by the stage,” Aiden repeats. “She’s telling us where she is. Bottom level, to the left when you come in the main doors.”
“She’s speaking, and she’s lucid enough to tip us off.” Kane slaps a hand onto Aiden’s shoulder. “She’s unharmed, and she’s ready to tear him apart. Let’s move.”
“There’s an entrance beneath the stage.” Ben stops every man in his steps when he turns to Aiden. “The stage has storage beneath for the band’s equipment, but the bottom doors only open so far. There’s a tiny crawl space that leads straight into the club. It’s separate from the other storage doors.”
Aiden’s nostrils flare. “I will kill you, Conner. I will murder you if you snuck my baby into that club.”
“I didn’t!” he stammers. “I stopped her from going in. I locked it up from the outside and never gave her the key. We fought about it.” His eyes wheel from one set of eyes to the next. “We fought, because she thought she was clever for making that space, but I padlocked it up and refused to give her the key. She keeps trying to challenge me for it. She’ll make bets or whatever. If she wins, I pay her. If she loses, she pays me. She was super mad when I locked the space, so I said if she can win enough to save five grand, I would give her the key.”
“This is why you refuse to let her win her circuits,” Aiden murmurs. “You refuse to let her win.”
“No,” he snarls. “I refuse to let her party in a club that started as a drug cartel. She’s only sixteen. When she’s old enough to party,I’lltake her,I’llkeep her safe. But she won’t be going a day sooner. And she especially won’t be doing it while crawling on the damn floor to sneak in.”
“Where’s the door?”
Ben turns to Kane. “South side of the building. About halfway along, it’s just the crawl space dudes use to check for pests and stuff. The tunnel splits off from there and straight into the club. It ends under the stage.”
“Is it locked inside the club?”
“Nope. Just outside. If she got in there, she could crawl to the door, but she’d be stuck under the club, because it’s locked from the outside.”
“We’re gonna talk about this.” Aiden smacks Ben’s shoulder, but then he pulls him along and begins the stampede of us all piling out of the building and into cars.
My hand flexes and tingles with need. I’m supposed to be holding Libby’s hand. She’s supposed to be right here with me, but instead I’m running with Soph and hoping our brains are enough. The woman I thought was a bimbo so long ago is my intellectual match, while Jay stays with Kane and rounds out our party as they watch our backs. As a group, the four of us jump into one car and speed out of the lot behind Alex’s cruiser and Aiden’s truck.
