“Come.”
Charles stepped in from the hallway, his beefy face appropriately serious. Good that their last meeting had retained the desired effect. “Evening check-in. Sir,” the miscreant added, as if the address would win him any favor.
Julian considered it. Still, best to keep Charles in his place, where he belonged. “You seem to be healing rather well, Charles,” he said, allowing his eyes to rest on the man’s left arm. Truly, the bandage didn’t even show beneath his shirt sleeves. Yet Julian knew from the sudden sheen beading over Charles’s forehead that he certainly still required one.
Satisfaction mingled with power, forming a potent cocktail in his veins. “And how are things progressing with my new acquisitions?”
“Good, sir.” Charles cleared his throat, his hulking body at rigid attention as he delivered the report. “All three girls are at the new facility with Franco. They should be ready by next Friday night.”
“If Franco is training them, I should hope so.” The man was abhorrent, giving in to every base urge under the sun. Unfortunately, that made him a prime candidate for effectively breaking in Julian’s merchandise, and thus he was necessary. Lord knew Julian wasn’t going to subject himself to such disgusting depths. The girls were even more unclean than Franco himself. “And the preparations for tonight’s gathering?”
Charles jerked his head in a nod, the movement awkward considering his distinct lack of a neck. “The private rooms are set. Everything is in place for your guests, and the girls are ready to serve them.”
“Excellent,” Julian said. His thoughts turned to his weekly party, of how his guests would shamelessly suck and fuck and shoot up and share until they were sated, of how the girls they used would take all that was given to them like the dirty little whores they were, and how he himself would watch every move, overseeing it all.
And everyone in attendance would get exactly what they deserved.
* * *
Kellan took in the sun-weathered and timeworn pier off the North Point River, keeping his eyes wide open and his body on full alert. At twenty-three hundred hours, the strip surrounding the docks was just starting to buzz to life, an undertone of bad intentions and even worse actions pulsing through the night air. He turned to give Moreno’s car one last look over his shoulder, hoping like hell the thing would be there when they were done with this heart to heart, even if it was a Ford. She didn’t seem to have any reservations, though, not even hesitating as she aimed herself in the direction of the long stretch of sketchy bars, tattoo parlors, and seedy convenience stores lining the boardwalk adjacent to the pier, proper.
They fell into step together, her shoulder brushing the outside of his biceps just once before she shifted to give him a wider berth. “This part of Remington gets rough at this time of night. Keep your eyes open.”
Kellan had to put his best effort into not laughing. Half the time he still slept with his eyes open. The other half of the time, he didn’t sleep at all. “I’ll do my best.”
Her brown eyes narrowed on him as they began to move side by side over the slim ribbon of concrete leading to the worst section of town, but she didn’t say anything other than, “Okay. Just follow my lead with Carmen, and for the love of all that’s good, please don’t piss her off.”
“I told you.” Kellan’s feet kept time with hers around the corner leading to the main drag, and he sent another wide-net gaze around them to take in their surroundings from the ground-level up. Focus. Assess the facts. “I’m all charm.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
They walked for a minute without talking, although Kellan had zero doubt that Moreno was far from aimlessly wandering. Her eyes moved keenly over the storefronts to their right, while his took ownership of the real estate to their left, cataloguing the people standing off in the shadows, leaning on the wooden railing overlooking the glassy black water in the distance. The boardwalk was wide and sparsely lit, with nook-like lookout points off the main drag that allowed for all sorts of semi-privacy among groups of people who chose not to ask or tell. Kellan had counted six couples—no, make that seven—who had been participating in various states of exactly that before the red and white sign boasting “Three Brothers Pizza” flashed in the near distance above Isabella’s shoulder.
“I don’t suppose you’ve had a change of heart and want to let me do this chat solo?” she asked, firming her shoulders around her spine as she reached for the door handle next to the promise of “we deliver!” stenciled over the glass in bright red letters.