Page 20 of Direct Action

Aiden snickered. My gaze slid to him, and I shook my head. “No, brother, she literally fell asleep while I was talking. Sitting on her couch full of laundry she hadn’t gotten around to folding because she’s been too busy. The woman was dead on her feet. Not the kind of tired from slinging drinks all night, rolling in at four in the morning. The kind of tired that settles in your bones. She mentioned cleaning office buildings and dog walking. After she fell asleep, I snooped. Fridge is empty except for condiments. Kitchen spotless. Nothing in her trash. She’s not eating there. Clean clothes on the couch, dirty laundry piling up in the hamper, her bathroom was a mess. It looked like she goes home, crashes, wakes up, does her business, and leaves. She doesn’t spend time there, likely because, as she said, she’s too busy. She’s working two, maybe three jobs, and we all know how much our employees make because we cash them out. She’s not getting rich working at the Plank, but—”

“But she’s pulling in a good living,” Gavin interjected.

“Did you get anything from her this morning?” Pete asked.

“I snooped. I folded her clothes. Laid down on the couch to catch a few hours of sleep so I’d be ready for her this morning. But she had a call from her mom that seemed urgent, so I didn’t stick around and make her later than she already was.”

“I’ll run her,” Fallon offered.

I checked my watch and nodded. I needed to get back to the beach for my shift at the bar.

“I talked to Shep this morning,” Pete started. “There’s no electronic footprint for the Vault. I think it’s safe to say, they’re running the club old school—Rolodexes and ledgers. The card Muriel gave me last night confirms this theory. I have a phone number for Mr. Mercer. No email, no website. The club is by invitation only, from membership requests to nonmember nights. Dorian Whitmore is willing to sponsor us, but that’s committing roughly half a million in fees.”

Christ.

Pete zeroed in on me, and I knew that look. It was the same expression I’d seen when shit was fucked and he had a plan to get us unfucked but none of us were going to like the plan. Typically, these tactics included bloodshed, pain, and destruction. Further, they included us taking heavy fire while we got our asses out of whatever clusterfuck we’d found ourselves in.

Needless to say, I wasn’t fond of the look. Being on the receiving end of it during this particular discussion, I was less so.

“Or we can talk to Chloe. Explain to her what’s going on and coach her to get us the intel we need.”

There it was.

Every cell in my body protested. My ears revolted, desperately wanting to unhear Pete’s suggestion. My gut churned and my throat clogged with something that tasted a lot like over my dead body.

“If she doesn’t feel like she can do it, or simply doesn’t want to be involved, we’ll pay the half a million and get us in. But that means the long game.”

My vote was for the long game. It would take time for us to get in and get the lay of the land. More time to earn trust. Even more to find our way into the inner circle. It wasn’t like we could go in and start asking around if anyone knew where we could order up a woman.

“Or we can skip talking to Chloe altogether and pay the fees,” I suggested.

Though my proposal was less of a suggestion and more of demand.

I already wasn’t a fan of the look on Pete’s face. I was less so when he leaned back in his chair and frowned. “Shep found two missing women connected to the Vault.”

His announcement was an unwelcomed punch to the gut. So the long game talk was bullshit. We needed an in, and we needed it quickly.

“Connected how?” Gavin inquired.

“A bartender, Lucy Macmillan, went missing two years ago. A coat check girl, Amber Sadler’s been gone thirteen months.”

Fuck.

“Missing? So, no bodies have been found?” Cat queried.

“No bodies,” Pete confirmed.

The cold hard reality was, no body didn’t mean alive. The flip side to that was those women could right now be living a nightmare, wishing they were dead.

So, yeah, fuck me, there was no long game.

I was contemplating kidnapping Chloe and taking her to Pete’s bugout location deep in the Alaskan wilderness—no cell service, no easy way in or out, when Gavin kicked my leg under the table.

“Jesus, I know that look,” Gavin groused. “Kidnapping is illegal.”

I didn’t know what my expression telegraphed, but I’d never considered kidnapping a woman before. So he was guessing, albeit his presumption was correct.

“I hate to pull the woman card here, but she does get a say whether or not she wants to be involved,” Catarina reasoned.