I watch all of this from an alleyway across the street, hidden by shadow, the effects of Ivy’s needle beginning to burn my ribs. But nothing I can’t handle, nothing that will stop me.
Now that she’s inside, I stride forward, card in hand. Just as she promised, it’s a simple wave to the bouncer and he’s unfastening the rope.
The music rattles in my brain as I push through a red velvet curtain, my senses on overdrive. I’ve been trained to block out unimportant distractions and to focus on the important—the target I need to take out, the code exchange I need to catch. But eighteen months of listening to bombs blowing up buildings, gunfire raining down on insurgents, and the screams of anguish when human beings don’t die instantly from their injuries doesn’t simply vanish when you get on that plane for home. That shit tends to follow you wherever you go and manifests itself in everyday life—cars backfiring, people shouting, plates shattering—pulling you back thousands of miles and years in the past in a single heartbeat. Places like this . . . they’re my nightmare.
Forcing that all down, I quickly zero in on the closest set of stairs. I take them up, two at a time, passing several waitresses dressed in sparkly short dresses and garter belts, navigating the dark and the steep steps in their gold heels while they balance cigar trays in their hands.
In my jeans and T-shirt, I’m sorely underdressed, but so is everyone else. Everyone except Ivy, maybe.
My tension eases up a bit when I reach the VIP section on the second floor and see that there’s actually space between bodies, and a soft breeze coming from the fans above. And two exits by conventional means—stairs—plus six more by necessity—the windows lining the walls. A large opening in the center, lined by a glass rail, allows people a view to the main dance floor below and the chance to drop a beer bottle onto someone’s head.
Ivy is impossible to miss. She’s the woman standing at the rail, drink in hand, observing the mass of gyrating bodies below like a queen. An ice queen, who dismisses the line of lackluster candidates for her attention with nothing more than a glare when they attempt to strike up a conversation about her tattoos. I know I should go in and save her from them, but instead I watch from my corner for fifteen minutes as she deftly rejects them two . . . three . . . four times, sneering at one who has the audacity to touch her arm.
I smile, feeling triumphant, because she hasn’t rejected me. Yet.
Her eyes are glued to the crowd below, as if she’s not waiting for anyone. But I notice the two covert glances at her phone as well as the single glance at the stairwell closest to the front entrance, which I took to get up here. She’s almost finished her drink, and by the irritated drum of her fingertips against the glass rail, I know that she’s about to ditch me, even though she made a point of making it sound like she had plans to come here anyway.
It’s time to move in.
Her body, already tense, goes rigid as my hands find her hips from behind. I use the loud music as an excuse to lean in and get my mouth nice and close to her ear. “Anything interesting from up here?”
She relaxes against me for a moment, but then snaps, “I thought soldiers knew how to tell time.”
“I’m not a soldier anymore.” Not the kind that she thinks I am, anyway.
She turns to peer into my eyes, her face inches from mine. “Did they kick you out for tardiness?”
It’s an innocent dig, but it drills me right where it hurts all the same. “No, not for that.” That would have been more palatable than how I got discharged.
She eyes me, curious to know more but not about to ask—that’s what I like about her, she can tell when I’m not willing to talk about something and she doesn’t prod.
“Actually, I’m never late. I was standing right over there for the last fifteen minutes, watching you get hit on.” I point to my hiding spot.
Her brow spikes. “You like watching me?”