Liz smiled. “Confidence is a turn-on.”
The cocktail waitress returned with five drinks before Blane could respond. They both took one and Blane slid a hand up Liz’s thigh. Her skin was smooth and warm and she didn’t seem to mind.
“To what happens in Vegas,” she said, clinking her glass against his.
Blane relaxed a bit. The “customer” of Kade’s seemed pleased and it looked like the deal was done. Maybe he’d been worried for nothing. “Sounds like the start to a great night,” he replied, a slow smile curving his lips.
Tipping up the shot glasses, they both emptied them. Kade and Brandy were doing the same. And that was the last thing Blane remembered.
Chapter Two
Blane woke slowly, the pounding in his head worse than he’d felt in a decade. His mouth tasted like he’d been chewing sawdust, it was so dry. Sunlight burned his eyelids and his jaw ached.
His jaw ached? That was odd.
Forcing open his eyes, he struggled to remember where he was. At the moment, he was face down on a couch.
Pushing himself up, he saw he was back in the hotel room. Vegas. That was right. He was in Vegas with Kade—
Kade.
Now he sat fully upright, ignoring the nausea and wave of pain through his head. Where was Kade?
He got to his feet, taking stock of his own condition. His knuckles were raw, like he’d been in a fight. His shirt was half-tucked in, both cuffs missing their buttons, but that wasn’t what caught his attention the most. No, that was the mountain of poker chips on the glass coffee table.
“Holy shit,” Blane breathed. Glancing at the pile and denominations, a rough guess would be there had to be at least two hundred, maybe three hundred, grand sitting right there.
How the hell…?
A groan came from one of the bedrooms, jerking Blane’s attention away from the money. He hurried to the door, relieved to see Kade lying in a mound of blankets and pillows.
“Oh God, what the fuck happened to my head?” Kade slowly sat up and Blane saw he was in worse shape than himself. Kade’s shirt was torn and his face sported a bruise on his cheek and dried blood on his lip.
“I have no idea, but there’s a pile of—” Blane stopped as the mound of covers moved. He watched in disbelief as a kid threw off the covers.
Wait, not a kid. He had a full beard. Was it…? No, no way. It couldn’t be. But it was.
A midget was in bed with his brother.
Kade saw him at the same time and leapt from the bed. Well, he would’ve if he hadn’t been caught up short by the handcuff on his wrist, leaving him lying half on and half off the bed.
“Who the hell are you?” Kade burst out, yanking on his arm. Unfortunately, the other end was locked around the midget’s wrist. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Ow! Knock it off,” the guy growled, his voice an octave lower than it looked like it should be. He pulled back on his arm. “That hurts.”
It was one of the few times in his life that Blane was left speechless. His first reaction to an unexpected stranger in the room was to reach for his Glock. Unfortunately, he didn’t have it. He hadn’t thought he needed to bring a gun on a weekend trip to Vegas with Kade, though those last two words should’ve warned him.
“Who are you?” Blane asked. “How did you get in here?”
“You brought me here,” the guy said, looking back and forth between them as though it were obvious. “We made a deal.”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Kade retorted. “Why would I make a deal with you?”
“Because at the time, you didn’t have a lot of choices.”
“Wait, stop, just hold on,” Blane interrupted them. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Just, start at the beginning, okay?” He was struggling to remember what had happened last night, but everything after that drink with Liz was a complete and utter blank.
“I work at Cirque de Soleil,” the guy said. “And my name is Maniak, if you don’t recall.”
“Maniac?” Kade asked, his expression incredulous disdain.
“My dad had a sense of humor,” Maniak said, his tone defensive. “Call me Manny.”
Kade rolled his eyes and Manny looked like he was heading right into a hissy fit.
“Great. Manny,” Blane interjected, wanting to head off an impending temper tantrum. “Keep going.”
Manny’s petulant gaze shifted to Blane. “You guys came running backstage, wanting a back way out of the place. Said you had someone following you. I agreed to show you where the employee exit was if you’d do something for me.” He glanced back at Kade. “This one made the deal, but I didn’t trust him. So once we were out, I slapped on the cuffs so I’d be sure he held up his end of the bargain.”
“What bargain?” Kade asked. “Did I offer you money or something? And get this damn cuff off.”
“Screw you,” Manny snarled. “I don’t want your money. You promised me an audition.”