as always. The blue-white lighting that illuminates the room casts the girls making love to the golden bars on stage in a silvery glow, tinting the smoke that clouds the room a ghostly blue. With no windows on the ground floor, you’d never know it’s daylight. Dee’s girls continue to serve drinks even in the early morning. Like most establishments in Vegas, we never close. The whole club is designed to throw off customers’ internal clocks, tricking the mind into thinking it’s still night, prime time to ogle a pair of tits and ass.
Looking at the front room, you’d never know anything is wrong. At least not until Dee comes storming from the back hall and across the room to me.
“What’s going on, Dee?”
“Shit. Fucking traitor.” She rakes her hands through her dark hair. “This whole shitshow’s got my girls all shaken up. Dragon’s fit to be tied. He’s back there waiting for you.” She jerks her thumb toward the hall that leads to the private rooms the Outlaws use for meetings.
Traitor? Shit. What the fuck happened here?
On my way to the back rooms, Monica gives me a nod from behind the bar. She looks a little nervous.
I find Dragon, Snake, and Rat waiting in the same room I’d taken Emma to the first night I’d met her, after she’d stolen that tip jar. Striker and Snake are standing in a corner talking while Snake puffs on a smoke. Dragon’s at the table talking animatedly to Rat. Rat’s holding his laptop under his arm. Dragon’s every second word is a curse.
“Spider,” Dragon says, stomping over when he sees me. “Finally got your dick out of the thief’s ass, did you? Took you long enough.”
Headed for Rat, I ignore Prez’s comments about Emma and tamp down the twinge of possessive anger they induce. The Wildcat has gotten too fucking far under my skin.
“What’s the hell’s the deal, Rat?” I demand.
“This.” He transfers his laptop to his other arm and holds up a small device, all metal and wires, about the size of a penny.
I take it slowly, studying it, and anger roils in my gut. “A bug?”
He gives a nod.
“Who the fuck did this?” I snap. “Where’d you find it?”
“You won’t believe this. It was Tony. I caught him on one of my hidden surveillance cameras planting it under a table in here.” When I raise my brows at the listening device, he adds, “It’s off. I blocked it as soon as we got here.”
“Tony? The fucking bouncer? Christ, that son of a bitch!” I clench my fist around the bug until it crunches in my grip. “Where is he?”
“In the shed. Pips’s guarding him. Prez has had words with him, but he needs you to work your magic.”
He means Dragon’s left it to me to make the traitor talk. This is the darker aspect of my job, the part the monster in me feeds off of. As SAA, it’s my responsibility to protect the club, and that includes dealing with traitorous little fuckers who do anything that threatens to expose our business.
“Who was he working for? Did he say anything?”
Rat shakes his head. “Whoever put him up to this has him terrified out of his fucking gourd. He won’t say shit.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts when I get started on him.”
Truth is, I’ve been looking for a good beatdown since that whole shitshow with Gary.
“And you’re sure he didn’t have a chance to put any more of these fucking things around here?” I ask.
“What is this, amateur hour?” He shrugs. “I swept the whole damned place. It’s clean, Spidy.”
I clap him on the back for a job well done. On my way out, I pass Dragon talking to Striker and Snake by the door. Snake looks ready to put his fist through a wall. I don’t blame him. He was responsible for hiring Tony.
“Spider.”
I turn, resisting the urge to give Prez a bored look, having a feeling I know what’s coming.
“Let’s see if you’re still as ruthless as you were before you dipped your wick in that thief’s snatch. That fucker betrayed us. I want to know who he was working for and why. And then I want some serious fucking payback or I’ll rip that patch off your cut myself and put you back to prospect with Pip.”
“I’ll handle it, Prez.”
I step out of the room and shut the door before I end up putting my fucking fist through his face.