ONE
POUNCING ONTO HER elbows, Sersha awoke suddenly.
Bed low to the floor, black satin sheets, stag heads embroidered in the corner of the pillowcases. Stag. Ire McDade’s nightclub. His private bedroom. Their deal. Sex for silence.
Except she was alone.
“McDade,” she whispered, touching her lips.
What happened? She’d done as told, stripped off and slipped into his bed, then waited and waited… Apparently, he’d never arrived.
Casting the sheet aside, she got up to check the closet. No one. Her hand brushed along the hanging clothes until she snagged a shirt to button it over her bare body.
In the bathroom… Still no one. And no steam or water droplets to suggest recent use.
Leaving by the second door, she rounded into the long living space. A large segmented semi-circular window at the other end let in daylight.
Passing between the seating area and stocked bar, she skirted the dining table to peek outside. No one was out there either. The kitchen by the window tempted her closer. Drinks in the fridge, coffee, nothing to eat. Padded stools, better suited for a bar than a kitchen island, suggested they used the space for entertaining rather than as a full-time residence.
What kind of home would a man like Ire McDade live in?
And where had he gone? Last night she’d assumed he would come to her in bed and hadn’t asked for further instructions. Whatever he expected, he hadn’t been explicit, and there was no way she’d hang around all day waiting and wondering.
Real or not, she took a shower and put her dress back on, pairing it with one of Ire’s suit jackets. For warmth. And to hide the morning-after shame. Not that there had been a night-before. Wasn’t sex what he wanted? Why demand complete sexual submission only to pass up the chance to exploit it?
He didn’t seem like the type to flake on someone. Or the type to sleep next to a sexually accessible woman and keep his hands off. Unless he’d changed his mind about their deal. Shit. What would that mean for their sex tape? Could it already be out there?
Dread became more real in the vacant office. From the internal windows there, she checked out the club below. Empty too.
Being alone was eerie. Everything looked different bathed in the sun streaming through the glazed roof panels. She hadn’t even known they existed. With the club lights and the night always above, she’d never given the ceiling much thought.
The office wasn’t locked. Good. At least she wasn’t a prisoner. No one stood on the stairs, or even at the bottom of them. Where was security? Off-duty? Had she slept through the apocalypse?
The club entrance was closed. No big deal, except how did she open such massive doors? They folded back, maybe, hinges in the middle—a smaller section opened in from the outside before she got that far. What the hell? Another thing she’d never noticed. A door within a door.
Stepping outside, past the guy who’d opened the door, her focus stuck on her McDade protector, Daly, waiting by the Bentley at the curb.
“Going to work?” he asked, opening the back door.
“Home first,” she said, frowning when he held the takeout coffee cup toward her. “What is that?”
“Venti hazelnut latte, skinny, extra shot.”
She laughed, taking the cup from him to sniff the steam. “How do you know my coffee?”
“Normal day is breaking kneecaps and noses collecting cash,” he said. “Getting a guy to spill on your coffee order is cake.”
Uh… “Okay.”
Ducking into the car, the door closed behind her, and she sipped the coffee. Nothing was as she expected. No sex but protection, a driver, and the perfect coffee. What game was McDade playing?
***
WORK HAD A WAY of focusing her. After too many hours in The Chronicler basement archives, she needed to get out of the building. If she didn’t breathe fresh air at regular intervals, she got pretty myopic.
Outside, the Bentley was waiting. Just… waiting. Daly got out as she approached.
“I don’t need the car. I’m going to a deli down the block,” she said, looking up and down the street. “Are you allowed to park there all day?”
“Think some beat cop’s gonna challenge us?” Maybe. Maybe not. “Need me to come with you?”
“No,” she said, smiling as she retreated. “You want anything?”
He shook his head, so she turned to lose herself in the bustle of people. They didn’t matter. She was too in her own head. Facts and possibilities whizzed around in her mind.
McDade and Manzani. Maybe it wasn’t wise to squeeze herself in between two families like theirs.
Her boss, Steeple, wanted her to build on the exposé piece she’d written about the Manzani family. Then her friend and source, Strat, tantalized her with a decades old McDade mystery. As an investigative reporter, she couldn’t ignore the intrigue.
A McDade was missing. A McDade woman… and they were rare.
Connel’s cousin. Did he know her? Remember her? She’d been gone a long time. Maybe they’d never met. Maybe she was long dead. And that was the mystery. What happened to Dorsey McDade?
In the deli, she ordered and sat at a table, all the while texting. Her brother. Strat. Steeple.
“Which one is it?”
The male voice drew her attention up, but the speaker was already sinking into the perpendicular chair.
“Evander,” she said, every muscle tensing.
Evander “Vex” Manzani. Her not-so-secret admirer. Son of Don Silvio Manzani who ran most any part of the city Ire didn’t.
“You get my flowers?” he asked, sliding a hand over hers. “You and your games, baby.”
Why was he smiling?
Shit, that never led to anything good. “I’m not playing games.” She withdrew from his touch. “How many times do I have to say it, Evander?”
“I love this play,” he said, picking up her hand. “Shit, you love stirring it up. Staying all night at McDade’s club…? Fuck, I thought you’d lost your mind, screwing that bastard. I’d fight that war for my princess, but talk about going nuclear.”
“I’m not your princess,” she said, dragging her hand from his again. “We’ve talked about this. This is not a game.”
“That Irish scum…” he said like she hadn’t spoken at all. “It’s gotta be one of his guys… You want me to take them out one by one ‘til I hit the one you fucked last night? I’ll spill their blood for you. I’ll play this out, right to the end.”
His palm skimmed her arm; disgust prickled beneath it.
“Evander,” she said, pacing a slow breath. “I don’t want any blood spilled. What I was doing last night is none of your business. Are your people still following me?”
There was no other way he could know she’d spent the night at Stag.
“They expected you to come out. Every night you do… until last night. That fuck McDade is beneath you, beneath us, but his people… why the fuck…? Why degrade yourself? Is it blackmail? Have they got something on you? Why fuck with his guys?”