Page 17 of Dirty Beasts: Chance

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” She rolls her head back to stare up at the ceiling again. “What is it about you, though, for real? I can’t seem to shut up about shit Inevertalk about. I just met you and here I am dumping my darkest secrets on you.”

“It’s the psychology degree, probably,” I joke, and this gets a snicker from her. “You wanna know how I lost them?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “Honestly, no. Not because I don’t want to know, I just think I need a break from the heavy.”

“Fair enough,” I say. I grab the remotes and hand them to her. “Entertain us.”

* * *

Two a.m. Night’salmost over. It’s been largely uneventful, only a few too-drunk patrons causing the usual ruckus—those kinds of things are almost always solved quickly and quietly, with one look at Rev or me.

Then my earpiece crackles. “Chance, you are needed in Hel, please. There is quite a major disturbance occurring.” Anjalee, monitoring the security camera feeds.

“Headed down,” I say, turning away from my view of the club from the second-level railing.

I head for the nearest door to the service corridors and then jog to the secure, private stairs leading down to Hel, accessible from both levels. The stairs let out at a hidden door in an intentionally shadowed corner—you’d have to know it was there to know it’s there.

Immediately, I see and hear the disturbance. Voices, raised and shouting, a woman screaming. I round the corner into the hallway where the girls have their rooms. A patron has Brie front of him, fist in her hair, a knife to her throat. He’s huge, sweaty, overweight, and visibly wigged out on some drug or other.

He’s shouting incoherently in a language I don’t recognize, threatening Brie with the knife, threatening the small crowd gathered around him. The crowd includes Danni the bartender, topless as always, wearing knee-high platform lace-up boots and skin-tight denim Daisy Dukes, glitter sprinkled on her bare, massive rack. She’s closest to him, trying to talk him down in a soothing voice, while others—Candi, Abby, and Tamra—are just being loud and panicky. Toro is there, calm and silent, watching, edging along the wall, hand in his pocket. I catch his eye and give him a hold sign.

He nods, an almost imperceptible lift of his chin, and holds where he is.

I slip my hand in my pocket and grab the roll of quarters I keep there—gripping it in my fist adds weight and solidity to my punch, making my already prodigious punching power damn near deadly. I carry the quarters but rarely need to use them. My mere size is intimidating enough for most people, and if it’s not, my unaided punch tends to do the job. But when some asshole has a knife to one of my girls, I’m not taking any chances.

“Girls,” I say, “let me handle it. Go entertain the clients.”

Tamra, Candi, and Abby vanish, leaving Toro and Danni.

“Dan, I got it.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll handle it.”

She looks up at me, lifts her chin, and clomps away without a word.

Toro, me, the patron, and Brie. A new girl. Just signed her contract a couple months ago, but already a favorite, especially among the younger guys. She’s got a girl next door vibe, with blond hair, blue eyes, big tits on a small frame, and a soft voice. She’s a sweet girl, too sweet for the work she’s doing, I sometimes think. Inez does the vetting and says Brie can handle it. I got no choice but to trust Inez, but I do worry about Brie.

Seems I was right.

She’s keeping it together, but barely. Tears shine in her eyes, but don’t fall. She’s wearing a white silk kimono with pink flowers on it, mostly opened, revealing a three-inch wide slice of her naked body beneath it. Her left eye is already bruising, and she’s got a nasty-looking cut on her cheek opposite her blackening eye.

Rage boils through me.

“Brie, talk to me, babe. What’s going on?”

She swallows. “I don’t know. I don’t know. He paid for an hour, cash. He wanted oral, so I started giving it to him. I didn’t—I swear, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t bite him, nothing. He just went nuts.”

The man screams something, gesturing at me, jabbering. The language is European, I think, Slavic or something. He’s naked, and red-faced with rage, spittle on his lips, thinning hair sticking to his forehead.

“Hey, man,” I murmur, one empty hand out. “Just calm down. English?”

“Fuckyou, American.”

Clear enough, I suppose. “Let her go.”

More shouted babbling.

“I don’t understand you,” I say. “You gotta calm down and speak English. We can’t solve this if you’re screaming like that, man.”

I edge closer.