Asylum

Chapter 14: A Convincing Part of My Cover

Leave last, the text read.

So I was very slowly quadruple-checking my figures for the night and still coming up $10 short. I had stuffed the missing tenner in my tip jar earlier just in case someone had offered to help me with my frustratingly short count.

"Fuck this," I cursed loudly and pulled the money out of my tip jar to make up the shortfall from my till. I handed the stack of cash and my few credit card receipts to Stefano, who had just stepped over from Sterling's station to see what was keeping me.

"You don't have to do that," he insisted. "It's just ten bucks, and you've never been off before."

"I don't like being short," I complained. "And that's probably the missing money anyway – I must've gotten distracted and threw a payment in the jar instead of the till, or I made the wrong change or something. Anyway, it's done; now we can all go home." Now that Sterling – usually the last of the main bartenders to balance out – had finished and was tipping out the barbacks, I didn't want to keep Stefano, the backs, the last bouncers, or Ivan waiting any longer than than they absolutely had to.

Stefano quickly counted my till himself while I totaled up my tips and mentally calculated the share for the barbacks. I divided their share into four equal parts and stacked the smaller stacks at angles to each other before handing the whole wad to Colin; he was used to me doing this for him now and no longer bothered to recount the stacks. He and the other backs all waved or called out their goodbyes as they pocketed their money and headed for the back door.

"All good," the manager confirmed as he zipped the bills into a deposit pouch with some portion of the night's take. I still reeled at the amount of money Asylum pulled in every night. Of course quite a bit went out again later in rent and operating costs and payroll, but a good deal of it – along with a whole lot of dirty money from the Santiago cartel's drug trade – went straight to the bank.

How much of that money stayed with Ivan, and how much made its way back to accounts in Mexico, to fund more drugs and dealers and killings and police payoffs and whatever else the cartel had its hand in? I cringed inside as I tucked my tips into my backpack, assuring myself that that handful of bills, at least, was clean and earned honestly. I almost believed it.

Stefano walked with me into the back hall and stopped to unlock his office. He was very careful, I found myself thinking. It made me wonder what the young manager did before running an upscale Manhattan club.

"See you Wednesday," I smiled as I continued to the alley door.

"Have a good night," he returned as he slipped through the door. I looked back at Mateo, standing silently outside Ivan's office. He hadn't acknowledged either of us as we'd walked past, but he was watching me now. I smiled at him as though we were lifelong friends and opened the back door with my ass.

Ivan's limo was parked in the alley; undoubtedly Marshall was behind the wheel, but Mateo's presence in the hallway told me that their boss was still inside. I hesitated, unsure if I should hop into the big town car or wait in the cold.

The club's door swung open again, but it wasn't Ivan, but Stefano. My heart started pounding, queasy as how close he came to catching me climbing into the back seat of our boss's car.

"Hey, do you need a ride somewhere?" he offered. "My car is in the garage a few blocks away."

Probably the one where I'd met DiMarco a few nights ago, I thought. I made a mental note to suggest eliminating that as a meeting point in my next report.

"Thanks, but someone's coming for me," I declined. "He should be here any minute," I added for good measure, glancing at my watch to complete the illusion.

Stefano looked around the alley. "Do you want me to wait with you?"

Hell, no. "No, but thank you. I think I'll be pretty safe with this thing parked here." I nudged my hand through the fabric of my coat pocket to indicate the hulking black limo in front of us.

"Okay, then. Good night, and nice work again on catching those IDs tonight."

I smiled. "No problem. Good night." Now please get out of here. Please, please, please.

I watched Stefano squeeze between the town car's gleaming flank and the club's dumpster and trudge toward the mouth of the alley, his breath trailing him in a glowing sulfurous cloud. Just a little faster, I willed him. He had almost reached the street when the door opened again behind me.

Still watching Stefano, I snapped my closed fist into the air next to my head, signaling Ivan and Mateo to hold their position. A few more steps and Asylum's manager turned the corner and was out of sight.

I dropped my fist and turned with a grin to see my new lover and his grim-faced bodyguard staring at me strangely.

"What?" I asked indignantly. "Stefano was still in the alley. I didn't want him to see us together."

Ivan's eyes were narrowed, but his gorgeous lips were turned up in a half-smile. "I appreciate the abundance of caution," he complimented me. "It was the hand signal that surprised us. Stint in the military we didn't know about?"

I could feel myself blush, the warming sensation welcome for once in the wintry pre-dawn air. "I watch too many movies," I explained lamely. "I guess you already knew that."

Ivan opened the back door of the car for me. "Your costumes often have a certain cinematic quality to them, yes," he conceded as I climbed into the backseat. He slid in smoothly next to me, and Mateo closed the door before getting into the front with Marshall. "Not that I'm complaining." He ran his hand up the inside of my thigh to stroke the bare flesh above my stocking.

I gasped softly at the shock that ran through me. "I must say, you certainly make waiting for you worth the humiliation of consistently closing out last."

"Humiliation?" he prompted, running his other hand up the outside of my other leg and slipping his fingers under the black briefs of my vinyl bikini.

I was starting to find it hard to think. "Stefano must think I have the mathematical abilities of a first-grader, to have such a hard time counting money every night."

Ivan's lips were at my throat. "Don't think of it as humiliating," he advised. "Think of it as a convincing part of your cover."

His words washed over me, almost slipping away before my floating brain made a frantic grab for their trailing ends. "My cover?" I repeated, frozen, half-reclined, on the back seat. What the fuck?

His tongue traced a searing line along the edge of my jaw. "Yes, your cover," he agreed. "You seem determined to have everyone believe that you're nothing but a simple girl who works in a bar."

I swallowed silently. "Then what am I, if not a simple girl who works in a bar?" I inquired with a desperately forced lightness.

Ivan was pushing aside my coat, baring my shoulder and upper arm.

"You're intelligent, and educated." He kissed my exposed collarbone, and I shivered. "Cultured, funny, creative." I felt his hand slide up my spine to deftly unhook the back of the bra top. "Resourceful, with an amazing memory for faces you've only seen in the newspaper, and very, very quick to read a situation and act in it." His warm fingers slid around to close around my breast, his thumb flicking across my nipple, eliciting an involuntary gasp.

Now his lips hovered over mine. I could just make out the dark pools of his eyes in the dimmed lights of the passing city as they shone through the town car's tinted windows. "You're one of the most extraordinary people I've ever met, and I'm astonished that everyone doesn't know how incredible you are," he murmured. Then he kissed me.

My heart clenched in my chest. I reached up to cup Ivan's face in my hands, pulling him on top of me, returning his kiss with a force that made my whole body shake. His mouth was tenderly bruising on mine, his weight comfortably crushing me into the seat. He brushed my hair from my face, his fingertips grazing my temples, and he broke off the kiss in surprise, rubbing the wetness of my tears against his thumb.

"Моя нежная девочка (my tender girl)," he whispered. "What ...?"

"Shhh," I stopped him. And, pulling his lips back to mine, I made him forget the question he was going to ask.