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I doubt I could eat anything with how intensely my stomach is knotted. But I murmur a thanks.
Vinny’s eyes cast toward Leon and Mishka. “Keep an eye on my bride?” He makes it sound like they’re just here to keep me safe—not ensure I can’t run away.
A half-hour later, Vinny’s dressed in one of his finely tailored suits. And we’re climbing back into the Lincoln we drove here in. The driver seems perfectly at ease with having waited in the car this entire time.
Our ride back into town is completely silent. With Leon in the passenger seat, I get a little more personal space as I sit between Mishka and Vinny. Only Vinny’s hand finds my thigh a few minutes into the drive, and it slowly creeps up my leg.
My heart skips a beat as we pull up outside of Pearl’s, and the familiar old lounge brings me a sense of dread it never has before. It’s too early for the club to be open, but I know Mr. Kelly holds a good number of meetings in the burlesque lounge during regular business hours.
Fear spikes in my chest at the thought of facing Keoghan again. We only spoke on a few rare occasions in the past, and I didn’t exactly leave on the best terms when I fled Boston for New York.
Though I don’t have a specific reason why, since the day I met him, I’ve always found Keoghan frightening. He’s shown me nothing but respect and reason. And still, I find him intimidating.
But today, I’m downright terrified as Vinny takes my hand and leads me inside.
28
MEL
Pearl’s front room is empty, the overheads bright, casting an eerie atmosphere around the room. The space almost feels haunted in this quiet, utilitarian light. Like the people are gone, but their souls remain. Watching. Waiting.
Leon and Mishka flank us as Vinny drags me across the room, past the empty dinner tables and open seating. It feels strange to be back in this space, a club I called home for nearly three years. Yet now, it seems so foreign. Hostile even.
I don’t belong here anymore.
Vinny leads me back to Keoghan’s office—the one I was taken to the night Gleb reentered my life like a hurricane. That night, Keoghan called me into his den to get my side of the story. To tell him why Vinny and Gleb ended up in a knock-down-drag-out fistfight on the floor of the burlesque lounge in the middle of my performance.
Today, the mood feels very different.
Like the very walls are holding their breath.
And if I thought I was scared to face my boss that night, right now, it’s so much worse.
Leon and Mishka swing the doors wide, opening them to a horrifying sight.
Keoghan stands in the middle of the room, his face a mask of stone-cold fury. I can feel the hatred radiating from him, like heat waves billowing from the very sun. The intensity of it steals my breath away. I never want to be on the receiving end of that wrath.
A sobbing man kneels at his feet.
While Keoghan presses the barrel of a gun to the man’s forehead.
“Please, please, have mercy. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” the man blubbers, clasping his hands in front of himself as if in prayer. “I swear, I’ll never do it again.”
“No. You won’t,” Keoghan states flatly.
And he pulls the trigger.
The boom is deafening, jolting through my system like an earthquake. Blood and gore spray from the back of the man’s head, filling the air with a fine red mist, and the pleading man’s body slumps heavily to the floor. Dead.
Keoghan just killed a man in cold blood.
And I’m a witness.
I stop short, freezing as a sharp gasp rushes from me.
The sound draws the Irish boss’s gaze, and he looks our way with such severity that it stops my heart in its tracks. Those intense blue eyes slice through the air, opening each of us up so he can see all our secrets.
But what’s most terrifying is that no one seems to find the scene out of the ordinary. This must happen all the time for how nonchalantly Leon and Mishka examine the body. Panic rises inside me, tightening around my throat as I face my new reality with eyes wide open for the first time.
