Someone screams, and I look at the entrance just in time to see the doors being slammed open.
One man in a SWAT uniform steps inside and throws a smoke grenade straight into the middle of the crowd. Immediately after, what looks like the entire fucking NYPD rushes into the club.
Like they’re storming the building in a fucking war.
Fuck.
This can’t be good for business.
14
Destiny
Fuck!
I should've taken Lester’s threats more seriously.
I should have been ready.
But, no, I let myself go and get lost in some imaginary future, thinking that everything would work out happily in the end.
Lester would do nothing, and he would give up on this Python charade once he saw there was nothing shady going on in there.
But, of course, this was nothing more than a fantasy.
This isn’t a fucking novel, hun.
There is no Happily Ever After.
I don’t care what it says in the blurb. Just because HEA is guaranteed, how is it going to happen when Lester and the entire fucking NYPD are shutting down my club?
Just as Austin got a phone call and stepped outside to take it, my own cellphone started to buzz. I picked it up, unlocked it, and now here I am, standing in the middle of my office while big bold letters, all in caps, seem to scream out me.
TIME’S UP, Lester's message reads, and I feel his dark and ominous shadow cast over my club.
He’s coming for me, and once he comes …
A loud bang drowns out the music. It's an explosion, a loud one, coming from the club’s main room. My feet carry me out of my office and into the balcony that overlooks the stage.
Everyone is screaming and running around aimlessly, empty space forming around a can in the middle of the room. Then that small can starts to spit out a white cloud of smoke and I realize with a sinking feeling that I really underestimated Lester.
He isn’t coming for me with a notice for me to close the place for inspection.
No, he’s coming for me with guns blazing, blood in his eyes.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lux screams at me, appearing at my side from God knows where.
“Lester,” I simply whisper, and her eyes become as wide as golden coins. She grabs the balcony railings to steady herself and then looks at me with a worried expression her face.
“You don’t mean to say that--”
“Yeah, I do,” I tell her, cutting her off. “He’s going to raid us, and make sure we close down for good,” I say gravely.
That’s when a small army of men in NYPD tactical uniforms storm through the place.
They’re all wearing gas masks to protect them from the smoke grenade, and they’re all holding rifles, not regular service pistols.
Lester is hitting me with a fucking SWAT team. Up until now, I thought that Lester was one of these guys, brimming with threats but never having the balls to act on them.