The ballroom served as the country club’s restaurant, offering gourmet brunch, lunch, dinner, and drinks to its wealthy members and their guests. Given the cold outside, everyone wanted to be warm and comfortable inside, and people had flocked to the club to eat, drink, socialize, and scheme against their frenemies.
Being a Five Oaks member was a status symbol that told everyone exactly how obscenely wealthy you were, and I recognized more than a few faces in the crowd: the mayor, the police chief, a couple of local congressmen, and, of course, several underworld bosses, all dressed in their best business suits. My gaze roamed over them all in turn, men and women, seeing who was sitting with whom, who was pointedly ignoring their companions, and who had more martini glasses on their tables than plates of food. Despite their nice clothes, understated jewels, and benign smiles, more than one killer lurked in this crowd. I wondered if Elissa had had the misfortune to find that out for herself.
A particularly loud guffaw caught my attention, and my gaze flicked to a table in the center of the ballroom where a man with wavy black hair was using a large glass of wine to gesture at his companions.
Damian Rivera.
I blinked, wondering if it was really him, but yes sirree, the Circle member was here and holding court, like he was the king of the country club. Several women were sitting at his table, all leaning forward and hanging on to his every word. Rivera might be a notorious drunk, but he was an extremely rich notorious drunk, and the society sharks, as Finn called them, would be eager to make themselves available to a man like him to try to pry some of his money loose for themselves.
I scanned the crowd again, but I didn’t see Hugh Tucker or any of the other Circle members in the ballroom. Perhaps they knew better than to draw such attention to themselves.
But Rivera wasn’t alone. Bruce Porter stood against the wall, looking bored and texting on his phone, knowing that his boss was in absolutely no danger from anything other than gold diggers. Still, Porter was a professional, and he glanced up from his phone every few seconds, scanning the ballroom and making sure that his boss was still secure. The dwarf must have sensed my stare because he looked in my direction.
I ducked my head, pivoted away, and stepped back into the corridor, out of Porter’s line of sight. I couldn’t afford to let him know that I was onto his boss. Not until I was ready to make my move against Rivera and the rest of the Circle.
I peered through the crack between the open door and the wall. Porter was still staring in this direction, his middle-aged face pinched into a frown, but he didn’t start across the ballroom to come investigate. He must not have spotted me after all—
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” a snide voice asked.
I turned around to find a man standing behind me, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing an expensive but subdued navy suit that was tailored to his tall, skinny frame. Everything about him was perfect, from the way his dark brown hair curled over his forehead, to his square gold cuff links, to the small gold acorn glinting in the exact center of his light blue tie. A gold name badge glimmered on his jacket: Marco, Club Manager.
Marco’s dark brown gaze drifted over my black fleece jacket, jeans, and boots, and his lips curled with disgust. “I’m sorry,” he said in an arrogant tone that indicated that he was not sorry at all. “This is a private club. We are not open to the public.”
He said the word public as though it were some sort of horrendous plague upon all mankind. Or at least upon those with money.
“Good thing I’m not the mere public, then,” I said, giving him a razor-thin smile.
Marco blinked, as if he weren’t used to having his authority challenged, but I ignored his confusion, pulled out my phone, and showed him Elissa’s photo.
“This girl was here at the charity dinner that the club hosted last night. Do you remember seeing her?”
Marco let out a delicate huff, as though I’d greatly offended him by daring to ask a question. “We do not give out information to commoners who just wander in off the street. If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call the police.”
I laughed. “Oh, sugar. You go right ahead and call the cops. Unless you’ve got a couple of them on your payroll, I can’t imagine that they’ll be too eager to rush all the way up here just to remove some commoner like me from the premises.”
Marco’s lips curled again at my easy dismissal of his empty threat. “Well, then, it’s a good thing that the club employs its own private security force to deal with -certain . . . problems.”
He looked down the hallway, raised his hand, and snapped his fingers a couple of times. Footsteps scuffed on the carpet, and three giants wearing navy suits stepped up and flanked me. Ah, reinforcements. The men weren’t carrying guns, but they didn’t need them, given their solid seven-foot frames and massive fists. Besides, it wasn’t like we were in Southtown. The most dangerous things these guys faced down on a regular basis were drunken businessmen and tipsy debutantes.
Marco gave me a triumphant sneer. “Please escort this woman off the property. And don’t be gentle about it.”
I could have stopped this before it got started. I could have pulled my spider rune pendant out from under my jacket, flashed it at Marco and the giants, and told them exactly who I was. My being the Spider would have been enough to get them to back off.
Probably.
Maybe.
Okay, okay, so probably not.
Folks had a very peculiar—and bad—habit of not believing me when I claimed to be an assassin, and that one mistake almost always led to their deaths. Their disbelief killed them, right along with my knives.
Two of the giants stepped forward and clamped their hands on my arms, deliberately, painfully digging their fingers into my skin, but I still didn’t reach for my spider rune. If Marco and his minions wanted to play rough, then I would be happy to oblige them.
I liked playing rough too.
I looked at Marco. “What’s the matter? Not manager enough to throw me out yourself?”
His dark eyes narrowed at my mockery. “You know what, guys? Let’s take her to the security office for a more . . . private conversation.”
The three giants grinned at their boss. This was probably the most excitement they’d had in ages, and they were all looking forward to the pleasure of beating me—or worse.
Oh, it was going to be worse, all right—for them.
Marco led the way, and the two giants strong-armed me down the hallway, with the third man following along behind us, just in case I decided to make a break for it. But I didn’t protest or try to wrench away or even dig my heels into the carpet to slow our progress.