Over by the stairs are Lor and another of the Nine I’ve not seen before, tall, dark, cut as hell, and hot in a Jason Statham way, with a full dark shadow beard and intense eyes. I smile faintly when Lor’s gaze repeatedly sweeps the many clubs, to linger on Jo. His mouth changes when he watches her. I know that look. He’s thinking about fucking.
Barrons. God. I need that man to come back.
Fade is patrolling, watching everything, ready for the slightest disturbance.
I slip down the stairs and head across the club, walk slowly and carefully between Lor and the Jason Statham bouncer so as not to create the slightest breeze, and hurry up the chrome staircase to the private floors.
I’m not leaving tonight without snooping a bit. If I set off an alarm, so be it. I’m restless, bored, and invisible. A dangerous thing for any woman to be.
I ponder what I most want to see: the mysterious sex club the Nine are rumored to have? Nope. It would just get my already twisted, neglected panties in a worse twist. Try to find their private residences? Hmmm. That might be interesting. Steal Ryodan’s dark blade so I could control Papa Roach?
Wow. I’m stilled by the marvelous thought.
If he’s in there, I’ll just pretend I was looking for him to ask if he’d seen Barrons yet.
Ditto, if one of the others is in there.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before! All weapons, good.
I head straight for his office, peer up and down the hallway to make sure no one’s looking, press my hand to the panel and slip inside.
It’s empty.
Just me and Ryodan’s high-tech, two-way glass headquarters lined with gadgets, and high at the perimeter those countless hi-def cameras upon which he watches the sordid and varied details of his club. The arrogance of the man, thinking his bouncers at the bottom of the stairs guarantee sufficient security.
I head straight for his desk. The knife is no longer there. Like the office, it too is empty. I stand, looking around, trying to spot it, then fiddle with the bottom of his desk to open the hidden panel where he’d stored Jada’s contract, deciding he probably put it away for safekeeping.
When the panel slides out, I’m disappointed to find it empty. I move around to the other side of his desk and drop down into his chair, trying to think like him, decide where I would put it if I were Ryodan.
I consider the hidden panel. If I were him, I’d have a panel on this side of the desk, too. I reach beneath the drawer, groping for anomalies in the smooth wood.
There are none. I press gingerly, walking my fingers gently around on the bottom of the desk, down the legs, around the many carvings.
Got it!
A tiny notch in the center of an ornate scroll.
When the second panel slides out, I’m once again disappointed. No knife. Just rows and rows of square black buttons like those on a computer keyboard. None of them are labeled. Just smooth black buttons. I have no clue what they’re for.
I poise a finger above one of them, debating. Knowing Ryodan, I could inadvertently blow the whole club if I push the wrong one.
I sigh. Surely not. Surely he’d make it red if it was the destruct button, right?
Holding my breath, I poke the first one on the left.
Nothing happens.
I glance around the office quickly to see if some other hidden panel suddenly slid silently out. As far as I see, nothing has changed. I punch the one next to it.
Again nothing.
I punch four more in quick succession.
Not a damn thing. What the hell are these buttons for?
I blow out an exasperated breath, lean back in his chair, prop my feet on the desk, fold my arms behind my head and close my eyes, imagining I’m him, trying to fathom what he might want so close at hand.
I pretend I’m Ryodan, sitting in his office, where he watches the world on his monitors, where he receives reconnaissance, where he controls and nudges the fine details of his kingdom.
Still stymied, I open my eyes and stare around the room.
The monitors. Holy cow. There must be places in his club he likes to keep tabs on that he prefers no one else see.
I kick my boots off the desk and sit up straight. This time when I begin punching buttons, I keep a close eye on the screens on the wall directly in front of me.
Aha! Just as I thought, these control his private cameras! The ones that monitor places visitors don’t get to see.
The first one on the left makes the image of the main stairs speckle out on the seventh screen from the right and reveals their kitchens.
Oops, guess he knows I was regularly raiding them while I stayed here.
A white-haired man with burning eyes stands at the counter, eating … oh, no. I didn’t want to see that. I punch it off hastily.
The second button wipes out a shot of the kiddie subclub (apparently he liked to keep an eye on Jo) to reveal a dark, shadowy room, ornately paneled with a lovely transom ceiling. It’s empty.
I keep my eyes trained on the cameras at the ceiling in front of his desk. The third button causes the live feed of the Sinatra subclub to vanish, replacing it with an overhead shot of a state-of-the-art gym, paneled with mirrors.
Kasteo is stretched out on a weight bench, pumping iron, massive muscles rippling as he does deep, wide flies. He’s bare-chested and as heavily scarred as the others.
To his left, nearly lost in shadow, a woman lies, similarly supine, mimicking his movements with smaller dumbbells.
I gasp, and push slowly to my feet. I don’t believe my eyes. I hurry around the desk and stand directly beneath the monitor a few feet above my head. “Kat?” I exclaim softly. “Kat is working out with Kasteo? What the hell?” Is she here of her own choice? Did Kasteo abduct her? Did Ryodan lock her away with him? He’d pretended not to have any idea where the missing headmistress had gone!