His mind raced in rewind over the last twenty-four hours—her worries about being followed, the men in the suits, the pilot and the trouble with the plane, his own sense of being watched last night, and most of all—Charlie. Angry, pissed-off, mad-as-hell Charlie.
The dread in Clay grew roots, clawing through his organs, tearing up his insides like twisting, deadly weeds.
He prayed for that simple answer, the I-had-to-take-an-unexpected-call-from-my-sister-and-I’m-so-sorry-it-worried-you answer. But deep down, he knew something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong.
Grabbing his phone, he started to dial Brent to ask to be put in touch with hotel security when Julia’s name flashed across his screen.
He released ten thousand breaths and answered in a nanosecond.
“Are you okay? Where are you?” he asked, not bothering to mask the worry.
But it wasn’t Julia who was calling.
* * *
“How long have you been hustling here on my turf, Julia Bell? Just this weekend? Or have you been here longer?”
She sneered at him. “I’m not hustling.”
He smacked her shoulder. Not too hard, more like the swat a kid brother gave his sister, but still, she didn’t like it. Not one bit. They were in a small office behind the fancy VIP room, but it felt more like an interrogation cell given the circumstances.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” she snarled, calling on her best poker skills because she didn’t want this man to smell her fear. That was all she had—faking it. Inside, she was quivering, but she’d been trained—unintentionally—by the best of them. Being Charlie Stravinsky’s pawn had taught her to show no fear. Even if her entire being was coated in terror right now.
“Don’t scream,” he warned. “If you scream . . .”
She didn’t know what he’d do, or what else he had at his disposal in this tiny room. He had cuffs though, because once he’d slammed the door, the smooth-talking man pushed her down hard on a chair, and locked one hand to the slats of it. With her other hand free, she wasn’t at the terrified level yet. But she sure as hell wasn’t a fan of his bully cop routine. Who was he, though? Who did he work for? He’d said he was the floor manager, but was that a ruse? All she knew was he was a loose cannon, so she didn’t scream.
Yet.
“I’ll take my hands off you when you get the hell out of town,” he added.
“Don’t you worry. I don’t have any interest in staying,” she hissed. “And if you keep me here any longer I will scream. Let me go.”
He raised a hand, stopping sharply in the air, but making it clear he’d hit. She flinched deep inside, but on the outside she barely showed a twitch.
“I run the games in this town. Not him. And I want you out of the games.”
She furrowed her brow, and pointed with her free hand to the door. “The casino games out there?”
“No,” he said crisply, punctuating the word. “And put that hand down,” he said, pointing to her rebel left hand. She listened. For now. “The ones where we get the real money.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know who you are. You were Charlie’s girl. You took down his guys.”
Her body tightened. She said nothing. She wasn’t going to admit to anything, and not because of that dumb morality clause from Tad. She was admitting to nothing because that had been her policy when it came to her past—it was hers and hers alone. She owned it, and she kept her trap shut about it.
“And Michael had a deal with him. This is Michael’s town, and Michael runs the games, and when you show up it pisses him off.”
She drew a sharp breath and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t acting when she said, “I have no clue who you’re talking about. I don’t know a Michael.”
He scoffed at her, spittle flying dangerously near her face. Wincing, she raised her free hand to wipe her cheek. The irony, the absolute irony of her being cuffed twice in twenty-four hours was not lost on her, but she wasn’t laughing over it. Nope, even though she was only bound by one hand as he peppered her with questions, she was quaking in her bones. She didn’t know how the hell she was going to claw her way out of this heap of trouble, or if he simply planned to let her go after he shook her down. She cycled through her options. The door was several feet away. If she just freed her hand, she could make a run for it, grab the handle and run like hell out of here. She tried to slide her wrist from the cuff somehow, twisting and turning her hand. Maybe she could find the ideal angle to slip out.
“Michael is the Charlie Stravinsky of this town. That clear things up for you, sugar?”