Page 30

Not at dust.

But at systems.

Where would a club like this keep the real book?

Not on a reception iPad. Not in a folder labeled Private. Somewhere Steven can reach and the boys on the floor cannot.

An office. A locked cabinet. A computer that never leaves a room with no windows.

“Okay, let’s fucking do this,” I whisper to myself.

I try a small room down the corridor and just round the corner first.

It’s empty. Inside I find a small desk. A lamp. A drawer that opens and gives me paperclips and a spare charger and nothing that would get Zane paid.

I close it without a sound.

“Fuck. Next.”

The next room has a cabinet. Locked, of course. I do not force it. Not yet. Not with my first hour barely started and Jacque covering a bar that will fill.

I stand there with the cloth in my hand and the paddle’s ghost on my ass and feel the split down the middle of me.

One half wants the door Dmitri opened. Money. Danger. A master who already put his hands on me and sent me home with a rule.

The other half is the boy who survives by owing the right people and paying before they decide the debt is flesh.

Zane got me in here. Zane will not forget that.

If I ignore him, he can burn the trial, the job, the introduction. He can tell Steven I am a thief before I even find the book.

If I do what Zane asked, I become exactly what Dmitri punishes: a rat with a pretty face.

I step out of the room with the tray and the cloth and the face of a boy doing a once-over.

A waiter nods as he passes. I nod back.

Nothing to see here... keep walking.

I finish the visible work because the visible work is the alibi. Then I go back down toward the bar, phone heavy in my pocket, message already sent, and the rest of the shift waiting like a loaded gun.

I told Zane I would have the intel by close.

And that is precisely what I am going to do…

7

DMITRI

The SUV sits in the dark like it belongs to the run down factories, storage units, and water.

Dockland. Concrete. The kind of quiet that is never empty, only waiting.

I do not look at the cranes. Instead, I look at my phone…

The tracker is a small point on a map. Keller’s Club. The paddle is inside. Which means Elias is inside.

Perfect.