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The Inner Sanctum is located in an old brick warehouse downtown. It’s covered in graffiti, as are most buildings in the area, and from the outside, despite the bumping beat of music, you would think it was just a decrepit old warehouse.
Everything is dark in this area of LA. Bleak. Trash lines the sides of the road and some people sleep in the dark corners of businesses closed for the day. I want to help them because I know the charities Mom started are supposed to be helping people like this, but like most things government, it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Unfortunately, I have a job to do.
And I need answers.
“Doesn’t look like a club,” I murmur while Mason pays to park across the street and pulls the truck into a spot in the dimly lit parking garage.
Now that we’re here, my stomach is in knots. I don’t want to go in, but I know I have to if I ever want a clue regarding my sister’s whereabouts.
Why did she have to be so damned difficult? Why couldn’t she enjoy cupcake parties? I’ve never heard of one, but I think it would be a hell of a lot more enjoyable than a bunch of sweaty bodies belonging to God only knows who.
I mean, think of the possible STDs.
Mason puts the truck in park and I notice the way his hand clenches around the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white.
He doesn’t want to be here, either.
“Maybe we should just go home.”
Mason eyes me with that damned bored look I wish I could slap off his face.
“You won’t get answers that way.”
“I don’t have any idea that anyone here knows anything.”
“Only one way to find out.”
“And then . . . he’s gone,” I grumble when he climbs out, coming around to open my door before I can even extract myself from the seat belt. “A gentleman, even at fetish clubs.”
His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t respond. He starts toward the exit, but when I don’t budge, he reaches back and intertwines our fingers. It’s the most intimate, non-intimate thing that’s ever happened to me.
“I don’t know about this, Mason,” I whisper when a car door down the line opens and a girl gets out, wearing only a pair of sky-high heels and a thin strap of material that looks like the female version of a banana hammock, covered by a fishnet dress. “I don’t look like I belong here.”
The muscles in his jaw feather and his eyes flare with a dangerous heat. Slowly, he steps toward me, his big chest backing me into the truck. He leans in and I think he’s going to kiss me, but before his lips touch mine, he slips lower to murmur in my ear.
“You’re the sexiest woman here, little doe.” The scratch of his stubble against my jaw sends a shiver down my spine and for just a moment, I forget where we are. At least long enough to restmy hand on the muscles of his abs, which, might I add, are hard as hell underneath his button-up.
He pulls back enough to look at me, his gaze traveling from my eyes, down to my lips, and back. To anyone else, we’d look like any other couple. Really, I’m trying not to have a panic attack at the prospect of what we might find out inside.
“What if someone . . . I don’t know. Touches me?” I feel selfish asking about myself, but the thought of someone else’s hands on me makes my skin crawl.
I’ll do damn near anything for my sister. I won’t do that, though.
In the darkness of the parking garage, Mason looks like a romance novel mob boss. Tattoos, the dark glint in his eyes . . . the way that stare threatens to eat me alive.
“No one will be touching you.”
He’s so sure of it, I almost believe him.
“And you?”
He chuckles darkly, reaching up and brushing a loose strand of hair from my cheek. “I can assure you, little doe. Only one person here has anything I want.”
My mouth clamps shut.
“Now. Let’s get this shit over with.”
