Page 63 of A Dirty Business
The club was busier than normal, and after the thirtieth girl was almost crushed against my bar, I’d had enough.
I headed over to Justin. “Can you cover me for a minute?”
“Yeah.” He was distracted, finishing a drink, but glanced over his shoulder. He did a double take. “What happened to your face?”
Kelly must not have gotten to him yet, which wasn’t surprising. I’d yet to see her for the first hour, which meant she was swallowed up by the crowd, working.
“It’s nothing. Work thing.”
“Here work thing?”
“PO work thing.”
Understanding dawned, and he nodded. “Gotcha. Yeah. I’ll keep an eye on your section. Where are you going?”
“A word with Anthony. This place is violating too many fire codes for me to ignore it.”
“Good luck.”
Yeah, yeah. I was noting his sarcasm, but this place was justaskingfor a fire marshal visit. I pushed through the crowd, seeing two of the bouncers outside of Anthony’s office. “He in?”
They exchanged a look before one shifted forward, but he didn’t seem too sure he wanted to do that. “Uh, boss is with the boss. He doesn’t want to be interrupted.”
Lovely. I was being sarcastic. “How long have they been in there?”
The two shared another look.
I didn’t wait for them to figure out which would respond to me. I jerked a thumb behind me. “I don’t have time for this. You see what’s happening out there? Let me in there to talk to Anthony, or this place is going to get an official visit. It’s out of control out there.”
They did another look thing, and I was out of patience.
I shoved between them, opened the door, and pushed inside.
I didn’t give a look at who else was in the office before twisting and locking it. Not that the two guys were going to try and fight me. They knew me. The charade was more for them so Anthony wouldn’t be too pissed at how easy they let me in.
I looked around, and Anthony had an eyebrow raised; he was sitting behind his desk. “Really? I bet they just let you walk right past them.”
Okay. So the show had been for nothing. I shrugged. “I have that kind of demeanor.” I’d been preparing myself to see Trace in Anthony’s office and was trying to avoid the pull to look at him, but it wasn’t Trace. It was the other one, Ashton Walden, and he was eerily studying me.
I frowned. “What?”
Ashton’s eyes narrowed. He pointed at me. “You got something on your face.”
I started to reach up, thinking it was a bug or glitter, but realized he was referring to my bruise. “It’s nothing.”
His eyes cooled. “Right.”
His head swung toward Anthony, who was watching our exchange with both of his eyebrows raised, and he was leaning as far back in his seat as he could get.
Ashton said, “You do what you feel is fit.”
Then he started past me for the door.
I shifted aside, but when Ashton didn’t open the door, I looked back at him.
He was staring smack at me, his eyes flat, his mouth in a line. “He’s going to want to see that for himself.”
The door opened, and he was gone after that.
