The Wild Charge (Dartmoor Book 9)

Nine

The first thing Fox noted wase that security was much higher inside than it was outside. The lone bouncer out front hadn't even looked at their IDs before handing them back and unclipping the rope. But inside, Fox spotted two large, tough-looking guys stationed at each exit – most of which weren't marked, and wouldn't have stood out if not for the bouncers flanking them. They were dressed all in black, wearing forbidding expressions, far more serious than the bouncer out front.

So, it's okay to come in, but nobody gets to leave without permission.

Interesting.

He let the crowd move him, shifting with their energy rather than against it, so as not to draw any attention. A trio of loud girls hip-checked him through a tangle of couples grinding against one another on the dance floor, and he slipped sideways between two arguing frat boys – "Dude, you knew I was into Mackenzie, what the fuck?" – to land at the foot of the staircase he'd spotted the moment he entered the club. It was metal, industrial, and led up to a catwalk, not unlike the one at Tastes Like Candy in Amarillo. Except, unlike Michelle's bar, this catwalk was totally vacant. And there was a white plastic chain roping off the staircase, marked with a sign that read STAFF ONLY.

Fox hopped lightly over the chain and went up to the catwalk. It was plain, dark, poorly-lit, but it fed past the main body of the club into a narrow hallway – at the mouth of which he was met by two hulking bouncers.

"You can't be up here," one of them said.

The other added, "Guests have to stay on the main level."

"Oh." Fox ducked his head, hiding his face beneath the bill of his hat. "Sure, man. That's cool. Got lost looking for the bathroom."

"It's down there," the bouncer said, pointing below. Over his shoulder, Fox glimpsed a door opening down the hall, a wedge of light skimming across the floor. Probably an office, or a security headquarters. Locker room, break room.

"Oh yeah, sure thing, man," Fox said, tossed up a wave and a dopey smile, and turned back the way he'd come.

As he descended the stairs, he searched for his tagalongs, and didn't have to look hard. His erstwhile assassins stood squared off from one another in the center of the teeming dance floor. Reese had his arms folded, mouth tweaked by a small frown. Even from behind, Fox could see the stiffness in the set of Tenny's shoulders.

He spared the briefest thought that his youngest brother was simultaneously the most useful, and biggest pain in the ass of his siblings; Reese truly did deserve better.

Then he hopped over the chain and melted back into the crowd as he slipped out his phone.

~*~

Tenny was acting strangely. It had started back at the hotel, when Reese stepped out of the bathroom wearing this useless outfit, and only gotten stranger from there.

He'd ridden in the front in the rental car, beside Fox, which was fine; Reese didn't care about driving, and the tinted windows in back offered him a better vantage point from which to scope out their destination when they arrived. Fox had twisted around once they were parked, and delivered a few last-minute instructions, all of it repetitions of what they'd decided back at the hotel. Tenny had grumbled to himself about not being an idiot, or a child, to which Fox had smirked.

Then in the vestibule, Fox had twisted over a shoulder and smirked again, right at Tenny, and repeated the door bouncer's line about girls. That in and of itself hadn't been remarkable; Fox sniped at people, it was just his way, especially with his brothers. His smiles were never warm and kind, his words never gentle. He didn't rib Reese, for the most part, because Reese never, as Fox would have put it, "started shit." They hadn't seen eye to eye at first, but, now, after the op in Texas, Reese felt like they'd arrived at a place where they could communicate effectively; at least, he felt like Fox thought him capable and worth investing time in.