Has Blaine come into the club? It’s so stifling in here, crowded and dim, that I’m surprised Cormac saw anything at all. In any other place, the crowd would’ve noticed the sudden disturbance, but it seems as if we’re the only ones aware that anything at all is wrong.
But just as Cormac reaches his brother, someone calls my name.
“Aileen! Help!”
The sound of a high-pitched feminine voice in distress makes my pulse spike. I freeze and spin around, trying to find the source of the voice. Who called me?
I swing my gaze wildly around me, and at first I see nothing amiss, when red hair catches my attention. She’s dressed in black but being dragged to an exit by two strong men. I can’t see the men, but when she sees me looking her way, she screams again.
“Aileen!”
I turn back toward Cormac, and gasp when I see someone pull a knife. I look to him, and then back to her. I can’t help both of them. Tully and Boner and another man I don’t know show up beside Nolan and Cormac. Those men can hold their own. My decision’s an easy one.
He’s going to throttle me for running away, but I hope he understands why I did. I race toward the exit where they took the woman.
It’s impossibly darker down this corridor. I don’t know what to expect, so come short when I find door after door, lit only by one dim lightbulb overhead. Which room did they go into? I try first one knob, then the next, but they’re all locked, like I’m in some sort of fucked-up labyrinth. I wring my hands, and try to think of another plan, when I hear a high-pitched scream come from the door at the furthest end of the corridor. I run to it, yank the doorknob, and it opens.
I shove the door open. I don’t have a plan except to help her. She’s the one that told me to come here tonight, the very one they’ve taken. I can’t let anything happen to her.
The room’s cloaked in darkness save one eerie greenish-yellow light at the furthest end. Her screams grow louder. I’ve come to the right place, but now that I have I feel as if my feet are made of lead.
“Stop!” I shout. “Leave her alone!”
I step into the room, and the door slams behind me. I look wildly about me, but no one is there. Someone shut this door from the other side. I yank the doorknob but it’s locked.
We’re in a small bedroom that looks as if it’s a hotel room straight out of a porn flick. I stand in the small, narrow entrance, a bathroom to my left with a sink and mirror, but I can only see narrowly in front of me because of the passage. One bed sits in the center of the room, complete with rings and chains, a mirror at the head. My redheaded visitor’s tied fast to the chains, stark naked. Tears stream down her face.
Panic floods me.
“I’m sorry,” she says. Dark black mascara trails down her cheeks, as she quietly sobs. I stand still, taking everything in. The bed, made up in gray bedding, the blanket neatly folded and pillows plumped, as if prepped by a maid for tonight’s events. The cold metal cuffs around her wrists. A whip coiled on a nearby table, a hideous-looking mask, a vicious knife, a thick metal bar that makes my skin crawl.
“Why are you sorry?” I ask. I don’t move toward her. We’ve been set up here, and I don’t know why or how.
She sniffs. “They told me to find you. They told me to lure you here tonight. They told me if I didn’t they’d kill my mother.”
Icy cold fear trickles down my spine. I swallow hard. I have to keep my senses about me. I was set up, but I’m not alone. My husband and his men are right here in this club. They can help me if I need them. Hell. I’m going to need them.
“Who?”
“They were sent by your brother, but it isn’t him,” she begins. Her face contorts in pain and she writhes in her restraints, her eyes flitting to a wall I can’t see yet from my narrow vantage point. I blink in surprise. How are they causing her pain when we’re the only ones in the room? I take a step toward her.
“Don’t!” she screams. “Don’t! If you come any closer, they’ll—”
Her words drown in screams once more. Someone’s punishing her for warning me. How?
I freeze. I look back toward the door that’s locked. There’s no escape there. She’s warned me not to come closer. If I do, someone’s liable to do something terrible, I know it.
“Go on.” A cold voice comes from inside the room. She’s not alone.