Assumption (Underground Kings 1)

“I’ll do what I can.” My main concern is Autumn and keeping her safe. I don’t care about any of the other shit.

“Follow me.”

We walk down a long hall and into a dark office, where there is a large desk in the center of the room and large computer monitors lining one wall.

“We didn’t get the guy on tape. He avoided all the cameras in the building and the two outside.” He starts up the tapes from the night of the shooting.

There are no shots of the man in question, but there are images of Autumn running through the club, and even through the grainy images, I can see the terror on her face. “Where were the bouncers?”

“Two were out front and one was at the door,” Sid answers.

“Did they see the shooter?” I ask, looking at the different screens to p

inpoint the security on duty.

“No.” He shakes his head then looks at the screen paused on a picture of Autumn.

“How did he get the drinks that were being delivered to the private party?”

“That’s something we haven’t been able to figure out. The bar registered and filled the drink orders but never had them delivered.”

“So someone who works for you was in on it?” I ask, trying to get him to see that he can’t trust anyone right now.

“I’m not sure,” he says, running a hand down his face. “I want to say I trust everyone who works for me, but unfortunately, I can’t.”

“I’m gonna need to talk to the other bouncers,” I state.

“Both the guys who worked that night are on now. You can use my office,” he offers.

“Thanks,” I tell him before he heads out of the room to bring the guys back.

“What are you thinking?” Link asks.

“How well do you know the guys who were on that night?” I ask instead.

“We’re friendly, but not friends,” Link says as I lean against the side of the desk, looking at the still image of Autumn.

I hate that she’s involved in this shit. I don’t like the idea of someone on the inside being involved in what went down. That means that they know who she is—and possibly where she is.

“My guess is that one of them has something to do with the shooter being a ghost. Have you told anyone where Autumn is?”

“Hell no.” Link shakes his head, his eyes coming back to me. “I haven’t even told Sid that information. He told me he e-mailed her and she wrote back, but she didn’t let him know where she was.”

That makes me feel marginally better, but I still don’t like the idea of her being in contact with the guy. “When the guys come in, we’re going to play it cool. I’m going to ask some questions about what went down and see if they have any leads for me. Most of the time, when someone is involved in something like this, they try to make up for their sins by overly playing the good guy.”

“I’ll follow your lead,” Link says, and he does just that. He’s the guys’ source of familiarity and comfort.

It doesn’t take long for me to figure out that Mick is hiding something. After about twenty minutes, I thank them for their time and let them know that I will be around if they remember anything else. As soon as the office door closes, I look at Link, who shakes his head and closes his eyes.

“I’m gonna let Sid know we’re out.”

“I’ll meet you outside.” I head out the front of the club and pull out my phone to send a quick text to Justin to let him know what’s going on. With this new development, I’m going to need his skills to pull up some info on Mick.

About an hour later, Link and I are in his home office, sorting through the information we obtained at the club, when I receive Justin’s email.

“What does it say?” Link asks, looking over my shoulder at the report Justin sent me on Mick.

“From what Justin was able to find, old Mickey-boy has been having money problems. He was three months behind on his rent, had about ten thousand dollars worth of credit card debt, and took a title loan out on his car in the amount of two thousand bucks. Two weeks before things went down at the club, he deposited thirty thousand dollars cash into his account. Did he say anything about hitting the lotto or winning at the casino?” I spin the chair around and lean back.

“Nah, he never said anything like that,” he mumbles.

“If he had, would he brag about it?”

“Mick?” He nods. “Hell yes, he would brag about it.”

“Looks like we need to have another talk with him.” I shake my head and look up at the ceiling. After letting out a long sigh, I stand and we head out to Link’s SUV.

We park across the street from Mick’s place and wait for him to show up. About two hours after we arrive, he pulls into the driveway, and Mick and a stumbling blonde get out of his car and start heading inside. I get out of the truck and slam the door closed, and when Mick turns in my direction, even in the dark I can see his eyes widen when he spots me and Link walking across the street.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, taking a step back towards his closed door.

“Darlin’, you’re gonna need to call a cab,” I tell the blonde.

She nods, pulls her phone out of her purse, and starts walking away without saying a word.

“What are you doing here?” Mick repeats, watching his date walk to the end of his driveway.

“Open the door. We need to talk.”