Page 2 of Cold Foot Revenge (Wreck’s Mountains #7)

Dylan Hoffman used to run this town.

He squinted up at the sign above the bar.

Rabbit Hole. Huh. This was the place where his brother, Garret, had been Turned into a grizzly shifter.

This was the bar where he’d found his brother in an alleyway with a split across his forehead that he’d watched heal up in minutes.

It was the place where he’d first heard the grizzly growl and known without the shadow of a doubt that his brother would never be the same again.

This had been the Rusty Nail years ago when that had happened, back before he’d had to take Garret to Montana and away from people so his grizzly wouldn’t do something unforgiveable.

Now? The Rabbit Hole looked vastly different from the Rusty Nail.

Sure, the bones of the building were the same, but the loud, heavy beat of rock music sounded from inside, and the windows were all covered in black paper preventing him from seeing inside.

Years ago, they had avoided involving the cops in Garret’s Turn, because Dylan hadn’t wanted him to register, in case his Maker had bad intentions for him. He’d asked around a little, but he must’ve missed something. Someone had to know something. They just had to.

He pulled the door open and a barrel-chested bouncer stood from a chair near the front entry. He looked him up and down, then nodded. “No touching the girls.”

“Okay, no problem. Do you know what happened to the Rusty Nail?” he asked.

The guy crossed his arms. “Who’s asking?”

“A guy who enjoyed a drink or forty here back in the day. I’ve been out of town for a while and was looking for a familiar bar. It’s a simple question, man.”

The guy cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “The Rusty Nail closed a few years ago. You can still get the same drinks though. Some of the same people work here. The menu is still the same too.”

Huh. Okay. At least he would have a starting point if he could recognize anyone who still worked here from that night.

“I’m serious, bro. No touching the girls. You have to pay for that.”

A sick feeling filled his stomach. Did this place have problems with guys groping the servers or something? Dylan made his way past the guy, then froze in the mouth of the cavernous room.

The music was louder here, and there were strobe lights going off, lighting up the three stages where topless women were dancing on poles.

What the hell?

He scanned the room just to make sure this was the right place.

The bar was the same on the left-hand side, and there were a few tables to eat at near it, but the main dining area had been converted to the three-part stage.

All around it, chairs were lined up at a lower portion where guys could eat while they looked up at the dancers.

Dylan was no shifter like Garret, but to him, it smelled like desperation, sadness, cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and greasy food in here.

He’d been in strip clubs before back when he was in his twenties, and this one was a higher end one, but they all kind of felt the same—dark.

Two of the ladies dancing on poles on the foremost stages wore silver thongs that hugged their curves.

They worked the sky-high clear heels, and both of their faces were covered mostly by animal masks.

One had a bejeweled Toucan mask on with a plume of feathers arching over her head.

The other wore a raven mask, covered in black feathers.

His attention landed on the third dancer and held though.

She was different. She was lean, and short, even in her black heels.

She wore black cut-off booty shorts with rips up her ass cheeks that exposed her skin.

She had on fishnet stockings that only went up to the middle of her thighs, and she wore a top.

Kind of. It was silver jeweled triangle top that left little to nothing to the imagination.

She had red hair, but in the front, her long bangs were platinum blond.

The mask she wore was a crystal embellished wolf mask.

He could only see her eyes and the bottom half of her face.

It was her eyes that held him.

They were an unnatural blue that glowed from within, and when they landed on him, the dancer halted, like she’d been startled. She stood there, staring at him, completely frozen.

It was just a couple of loaded seconds, and then she cast a quick glance over at the bar and lowered her eyes and began to dance again.

She looked distracted and missed the beat of the heavy hitting song a couple of times as he made his way to the bar to get a drink.

The bartender was busy with a few guys at the end of the bar top, so he took a seat at the other end and twisted to look at the dancer again.

Guys were gathered around the curvy ones, but only one guy was in front of her.

He tossed a couple of one-dollar bills onto the stage and took his drink and made his way toward a set of casino machines on the wall.

The pit of his stomach dropped out as Dylan watched the woman lower herself to pick up those two dollars. Her bright blue eyes ghosted up to him and back down.

He didn’t know why, but he didn’t like her being here. There was something about her that grated at some instinct inside of him that he didn’t understand.

He ripped his attention away from her and ordered a beer. He wasn’t here to stare at dancers. He was here to find answers.

There was a room behind the bar, and he checked the door.

It was an office, and because the door was open a few inches, he could see someone moving in there.

Dylan took a drink and scanned the main room, paying more attention now.

There were a few men sitting at a table on the other side of the room.

One of them was staring at him. He nodded a can-I-help-you-motherfucker twitch of his head.

The guy cocked his head, like he had a problem, but Dylan didn’t recognize him.

“Hey,” he asked the bartender, who had stopped just on the other side of the bar top to wash a glass. “Did you work here a few years ago?”

The guy’s eyes darted to him, and they were too bright too. This place was crawling with shifters. The hair stood up on his neck as the bartender glanced over at the table of men behind him, and then back to the glass. “Why do you want to know?”

“I just have some questions about something that happened here back then. I can make it fast.”

“Are you the one who asked for the lap dance?” a feminine voice said from behind him.

When he turned around, Wolf Mask was standing there with a flirty smile.

Working him, huh?

He shook his head and parted his lips to tell her he wasn’t here for that, but a warning flashed in her eyes. “I’m sure you said you wanted a lap dance. It’s two hundred dollars for a private one,” she told him, “but you’re cute. I’ll charge half, just this one time.”

Dylan narrowed his eyes at the second warning that flashed in her eyes. Did he know her?

“Uuuh,” he looked to the bartender, and back at her. “Do you want a drink first?”

Her smile looked relieved. “Absolutely. I only shoot tequila with clients though. Tequila loosens me up for you but doesn’t let me get sloppy. You don’t deserve sloppy. You deserve something special tonight.”

This was fuckin’ weird. She was trying to tell him something with her eyes and twitched her head toward the hallway.

He ordered a pair of shots, one top shelf tequila for her, and one top shelf whiskey for him.

She blurred closer, so fast she startled Dylan, and grabbed the shots, and handed him the whiskey. Her eyes darted to the bartender, and then to Dylan. Her smile trembled.

“Are you okay?” he murmured low. The music was deafening in here, but she was a shifter. She would hear him just fine.

“Drink up.” Fast , she mouthed.

He didn’t like being told what to do in general, but this woman was acting so strangely. Maybe she was in trouble or something.

He tossed his shot back and pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet, paid the bartender, and stood.

Wolf Mask wrapped her hand around his and pulled him toward the hallway.

“No touching!” one of the guys at the table barked out over the noise of the music.

“He’s paying!” Wolf Mask yelled back without hesitation. The grit in her voice said she could handle herself just fine.

There were numbers above the doors, one through four, but she didn’t pull him into one of them. Instead, she pulled him right past them and to a door at the end of the hallway with a glowing exit sign over it.

“Wait, what are you doing?” he asked, pulling his hand from hers.

Wolf Mask rounded on him. “You can’t be here,” she hissed at him.

“Um, disagree. I can be wherever the fuck I wa—”

“I know who you are,” she said, and he noted her chest rising and falling like she was out of breath.

“You know my brother too?” he asked, straightening his spine.

Her refusal to answer was answer enough.

“Please,” she pleaded. “Just go and don’t come back here.”

“What’s going on?” he murmured, stepping closer to her.

“They’re going to kill you,” she whispered, desperation in her bright blue eyes as she checked the hallway. “Please. I’m not big enough to stop anything. Please just go.”

“If you know me, what’s my name?”

“Dylan Hoffman,” she said without a moment of hesitation.

He reached for her mask, but she flinched back and grabbed his wrist, her fake blood-red nails digging into his skin there. “Don’t.” There was a feral snarl in her voice, and he raised his hands in surrender. “I need to find out what happened.”

“It doesn’t matter what happened,” she said, shoving him toward the door. “Hurry!”

“I need to talk to anyone who used to work here a few years ago—”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

“Lady—,”

“I’m begging you.” She shocked him to his bones as she fell to her knees and clasped her hands in front of her. Her too-bright eyes beseeched him in desperation as she stared right into his soul from her knees. “Please leave. I want you to live.”

He didn’t know her. Wolf Mask’s eyes were completely unfamiliar to him. Her physique? Unfamiliar. The half-sleeve of tattoos down her right calf? Unfamiliar.

He was here for answers, but she was begging. She knew something.

“Can I see you again?” he asked.

“No,” she gritted out fast, checking behind her.

“You’ll get me killed.” She shoved him bodily out the exit door.

“There’s cameras there and there,” she whispered, pointing.

“Walk straight down the alley and stick close to the wall. Stay in the shadows. The light’s out.

Go that way.” She pointed. “Go the long way to get to your car. Never come back here.”

She searched his eyes for a moment more and then flinched back inside and slammed the door closed after her. The click of the lock sounded loud above the murmur of the song playing inside.

Huh.

He stood there for a few seconds more and then hopped off the right side of the stairs into the shadows. He stopped when he came to the dumpster, and a memory assaulted him. He’d found Garret here, foaming at the mouth, seizing.

He cast one more glance behind him, but Wolf Mask was probably back on her stage, shaking her tits for strangers by now.

Something dark was happening here.

Something felt off in this town now.

This was not the place he remembered.

Dylan would do what she had begged, and leave…for tonight.

That dancer knew something about the night Garret had been Turned. He knew she did. How else did she know him by name?

Who was going to kill him if they knew he was here? Garret’s Maker?

Dylan stepped around the dumpster and slunk into the shadows to avoid the cameras, like Wolf Mask had instructed.

He would leave for the time being, but now he had a starting point.

He just needed to track down Wolf Mask when she wasn’t working.