Page 74 of Love Me Darkly
She gave him a wry smile and settled her glasses back on her nose. “Oh, no better or worse than usual. Same shit, different day. Doesn’t matter how many of these deranged psychos I track down and help put behind bars. Seems like three more pop up when one goes down.”
“Tell me about it,” he muttered. Then, giving in to curiosity, he asked, “What’s it like? You’re privy to a lot of people’s private information. Their secrets, their dirt, their skeletons. I imagine that doesn’t instill a lot of faith in humanity.”
She snorted and shook her head. “That’s exactly what it’s like. A dark cave filled with glowing screens that remind you every day of the depravity of mankind. Still, if a bitch gotta lurk in the digital underworld, she might as well slay some demons while she’s in there.”
“Fuck yeah,” Mateo replied with a smile. “Go home, Darcy. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough for you to start working on Jones’s cover. We need it airtight—background and documentation. Throw in a criminal record while you’re at it. Make him look like the kind of scumbag they’d want to let into their little club.”
“Throw some dirt on the kid’s name,” she muttered, unfolding her legs and standing with a groan. “Got it. See you in the morning.”
He offered her a fist as she passed him on the way out. “Good night, Hatter.”
“Tootles, Rabbit,” she replied, giving him a bump before leaving him alone.
Mateo slouched in his chair and slipped his personal cell out of his pocket. It was past nine now, which meant Melody had arrived for her shift at Solstice. Early tomorrow, Roman Korenic would return to New Orleans on a private flight. This afternoon, tactical surveillance had sent a team posing as a cleaning crew into Korenic’s penthouse in the South Market District. The wiretap had been successfully placed and was hot, which meant that once Mateo arrived home, would be able to listen to everything said within the range of the living room. Phone calls, private conversations, all of it would be admissible in court once Korenic was brought up on charges.
Tomorrow night, he and Donovan would attend Glow Night at the club while Darcy, Smith, and Williams manned the surveillance van. If any backroom dealings went down, everything would be caught on tape. With the rest of Carlisle’s court orders in the hands of various judges, there wasn’t much left for Mateo to do but wait. Once approval for the undercover operation went through, it would be time to prepare Jones for deep cover.
While he gathered his things and clicked off the lights, making his way out of the office, he mentally reviewed the steps that would need to be taken. He and Smith would need to drill Jones on typical cult protocols, dissemblance techniques, and manipulation tactics, as well as intel extraction, protecting his cover, exit strategies and emergency signals. If he was going to risk the life of his youngest and most inexperienced agent, he was damn well going to make sure the kid was prepared.
Sliding behind the wheel of his rental, he debated over his destination for the night. He could go to Solstice, even if just to lay eyes on Melody for an hour and assure himself she was all right. She had texted him that morning, but he hadn’t heard from her since—though he knew she was busy. She’d been tasked with dressing the other waitresses in the matching ensembles for Glow Night, and apparently, some of the girls had been giving her a hard time over the choices of certain pieces. Melody had her hands full, and would need to rest between tonight’s shift and tomorrow’s. As badly as he wanted to see her, he had also promised to keep his distance publicly with Korenic’s return imminent. He was already going to have to make an appearance at the event tomorrow night, so it was best that he not show up there now.
Still, he couldn’t resist taking up his phone again and sending her a quick text.
Miss you, baby girl.
He decided to head back to his hotel and find some way to occupy himself until he settled down enough to sleep. If it weren’t so late, he might try to call Valentina and check in on Angelica, but his mother-in-law was known for her early bedtime, and he had no idea what time zone they were in. Mateo made a note to set aside time for the call first thing in the morning and then set off.
By the time he arrived at his room, his phone pinged with a returned text from Melody.
Miss u too, stalker.
He chuckled, and texted back, If you feel eyes on you tomorrow night, you know your stalker’s in the building. Be seein’ u soon.
A few seconds later, her reply came: Can’t wait.
Melody slipped her phone back into her purse and shoved it into the locker where she stored her things during her shift. Her break had ended two minutes ago, but she wasn’t going to leave Mateo hanging after she’d been waiting to hear back from him all day. She wasted another thirty seconds staring at Mateo’s text and grinning like an idiot before being forced to delete them all. She didn’t even have his number saved, having it memorized. There could be no evidence of their conversations. Hell, after tomorrow, it probably wouldn’t be wise to text him at all.
Leaving the breakroom, she muttered to herself under her breath. “Get it together, Mel.”
If she didn’t stop daydreaming about Mateo, she was going to give herself away. It was going to be hard enough to control her instinctive reactions to his nearness with Roman hovering nearby. The man was perceptive, especially concerning the people under his control. He would notice if something was off with her.
As she sidled back to the bar to check in with Rudy, Melody tried to mentally prepare herself for what the following days and weeks might bring. She had no way of knowing how long Korenic would be in town, how much time he would spend at Solstice, or how he would respond to the raids. She didn’t know if he was aware that he and his entire organization were under federal investigation. One thing she did know for certain, once Roman learned all the details of the aftermath—that Suede, Wilson, and Morrison had, apparently, all started talking to save their own asses—Roman was going to be furious. There would be consequences, retaliation. Blood. He would be even more suspicious of the people in his inner circle, watching them all like a hawk. Melody would be under a microscope.
The familiar anxiety began welling up in her again, and she took a few deep breaths to settle herself. She had to pull herself together by tomorrow. She had to push aside memories of The Copper Rose and that little motel off the highway. She had to stop imagining other nights like that in her future, more moments in which a man she did not deserve opened a previously foreign world to her. A world of dates and pet names and whispered conversations in the dark. A world of dizzying kisses and soul-stirring lovemaking and feelings that were too new and fragile to name. Because the truth was, there was no future with Mateo, nothing they could have beyond that one perfect night. He might not know it yet—he would never want to admit it—but whatever was happening between them was now ending before it really even started. It had to. For the sake of both her life and his, it had to.
“Hey, cher,” Rudy yelled to be heard over the music, waving his hand to catch her attention. “Bottle service, VIP 3.”
Melody accepted the ice-filled champagne bucket and tray holding three bottles and a scattering of flutes. She moved by rote, lifting the tray to her shoulder and holding the bucket in her other hand as she weaved her way through the second-floor tables toward VIP. The club was nearly full already, the excitement for tomorrow night’s event drawing a lot of regulars. Melody acknowledged familiar faces as she moved through the crowd, noticing several pairs of eyes following her. Roman’s spies.
She found four men in VIP booth 3, where the remnants of a previous bottle service sat scattered on the table in front of them. They mostly ignored her as she cleared the empty bottles and dirty glasses to replace them with the fresh ones. A hand fell on the back of one thigh from behind, sliding up to cup an ass cheek. Melody gritted her teeth and choked down the flash of anger burning in her throat. She’d been groped and pinched more times than she could count, and not just at Solstice. In the past, she might not have reacted, so used to being treated like a piece of meat or a toy. That was before Mateo. Before he had shown her what it felt like to be cherished and desired. To be loved.
A champagne flute fell from her grasp, her fingers suddenly growing numb. She stumbled, and one of the men caught her by the arm, putting her upright.
“You all right, doll face?”
Melody blinked and shook her head, trying to regain hold of her equilibrium. All four of the men were watching her, mildly curious but mostly leering. She recognized two of them as guys Roman had entertained at the club on multiple occasions.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’ll clean it up.”
