Arran’s Obsession (Body Count, #1)

Fists clenched, I strode through the club’s busy corridors, managing an acknowledgement for the people who greeted me.

In my office, Shade already waited, reclining against the red-brick wall. My friend frowned at his phone, his fingers curled around the tattoos that crawled up his throat. On the back of his hand was the lower half of a skull. The other had a Scottish flag, a homage to his heritage.

“Problem?” I dropped into my leather chair, the manager’s seat for both Divine and Divide.

He lifted his gaze to me. “Intense police activity in North Town. A murder, rumour has it. Naw us, for once.”

I stiffened. North Town was the part of the city I’d visited earlier this evening. The place Genevieve lived. It wasn’t all that nice but it was outside of the gang territories and above the worst of the city’s dangers.

Yet someone had driven by her house and scared her. Targeted her, perhaps. The memory chilled me.

“Anything known about the dead person?”

Shade gave a single headshake no. “Hit up your contact?”

I grunted and texted a query out into the ether, a bad feeling taking host in my gut. There was no way it could be her. I’d been at her flat just an hour ago. Then again, only the night before that, the woman had nearly killed herself by walking out in front of my car.

The reply took fucking forever.

DetD: A hooker. Not one of yours.

DetD was Detective Dickhead, the name I’d once heard for my police contact and which had stuck in my head. He was Chief Constable Kenney to everyone else and a callous bastard. I didn’t share his disregard for the dead woman.

Disgust warred with my instant regret for the loss of life.

Arran: Description?

DetD: Pink hair, roll of condoms, a lot of blood on her naked body. You getting off on this?

Shade listened as I relayed the details, his gaze distancing for a beat. I knew his mind had gone to another place, of dark streets, the competition and the chase, of red blood spilled in our shared pastime of cleaning up after shite like this.

“We need to find out who did it,” he snapped.

“Agreed. How the fuck did that woman skip our radar?”

Shade’s expression shifted, his focus returning from the pull of the night to settle on me. “No fucking clue. We’ll work this out, aye? We’ll work out who, and he’ll pay.”

We would, but it was too late for the deceased.

“Ye can’t save everyone,” my friend added.

I didn’t accept that.

As a minimum, I could try. Tonight, I’d failed.

I also couldn’t leave the office right now, as much as I wanted to. The clubs were busy, a line outside of both. The women working the tables, poles, and beds would be happy. I would have to make do with the fact the cops would be all over North Town for at least a day, therefore keeping the residents safer than average in a city of sin.

Didn’t stop me from wanting to drive back over. Nor could I explain the urge to stop in on the maniac jaywalker again. At least she still had her life intact.

My brain abruptly took me back to her flat. To the shape of her thigh when I’d knelt to check her over. The dip and curve of her waist. When she’d touched me, it sent shockwaves.

The fuck was up with that?

“What’s on my table tonight?” I grouched.

Shade pocketed his phone. “An employee wants to see ye then we’ve got an applicant for the game.”

“Late notice.” The game was tomorrow night, and every other player had been booked in for weeks.

“We had a dropout. She’s next in line.”

A knock rattled the door, and Shade answered it. He jerked his head for the person to enter. Dixie, one of the strippers, sauntered past him. She was in her club uniform of sky-high heels and a see-through underwear set with her tits pushed high and forwards. Normally if one of the women needed to talk to me, they threw on a robe first.

I gestured to the vacant seat on the other side of my dark-wood desk. “How can I help?”

Dixie slanted a disdainful look at the chair, then rounded the desk to perch on the corner nearest me. She posed, like she would onstage, tipping her body forward, presenting her big tits and narrow waist at the best angle. Then she threw a less indulgent glance at Shade. “Could we have a little privacy?”

Shade tilted his head in bemusement, and I hid a groan.

Every now and again, one of the workers got the wrong idea about me. A seduction routine would play out, and I’d be in the middle of it.

“Shade stays.”

Dixie arched her laminated eyebrows then gave an easy shrug. “If that’s what you guys are into. I’m down for anything. In fact, I’ve been thinking how lonely it must be for you alone in here, Mr Daniels. All that responsibility and no one to share it with.” She inched forwards. “I know you have your crew, but that’s not the same as someone taking care of you. Someone here for your every need.”

My brain shifted gear and left the woman in the middle of her seduction and jumped right back to Genevieve. Who’d let me in. Who’d tended to my bruise like an injury to my flesh mattered.

I’d sat there while she’d done it, my dick hard and every fucking sense gone.

Abruptly, Dixie dropped her bony ass into my lap, curling her arm around my neck. “I’ve been watching you. You’re lonely, I can tell. It takes a woman to know, and obviously none of the other chicks in this henhouse are doing it for you. Let me show you how different I am. Let me be the one to make you feel good.”

Across the room, Shade pressed his hand to his mouth, stifling a laugh.

Dixie unclipped her bra. With impressive speed, she swivelled to straddle me, grinding down on my very uninterested dick. I didn’t budge, making no attempt to steady her or cup her ass. This happened with a regularity like clockwork. One of the newer women would see the opportunity of being my girl and make every move to chase it.

Rolling her hips, Dixie gave up a moan of pleasure, making sure her tits grazed my chest, pushing them to my face. But sweat beaded at her brow. This wasn’t working for her, and she was realising it.

“Fucking hell.” Shade gave up and belly laughed.

Dixie’s gaze flew to him, her lips pouting. Then her chin lifted in triumph as if she’d had a brilliant idea. “Hey, laughing boy, come and join in? Kiss me while I fuck the boss? You can both have me. I’ll unzip you, and you can fuck my mouth right next to him. We can share. Or you can both fuck me at the same time. I’ve been training.”

Shade sighed and tapped on his phone. “I’ll get Alisha.”

Dixie’s eyes brightened. “Yes! Girl on girl. We’ll do whatever you want. I’ll lie on your desk, and she can eat me out right where you can see us.”

Then she made a mistake. Her red-tipped nails dug into my shoulder, straight into the bruise that Genevieve had treated. It wasn’t the pain, but something else that had me shooting to my feet.

Dixie dropped from my lap to the floor.

I stepped back, arms folded, and Shade beside me. At the same second, Alisha swept in, long platinum curls draping elegantly over her purple robe. The older woman raised her eyebrows expectantly at us then spotted her employee on the floor.

Her mouth twisted in frustration. “Not another one. I’m so sorry, Arran. Honey, get the fuck up.”

She advanced on Dixie who was climbing to her heels, shock turning to red-faced humiliation.

“What kind of sex club owner doesn’t like sex?” Dixie whined. “Doesn’t your dick work? Is there something wrong with it?”

If she thought to embarrass me, she was failing. My tolerance was pretty much all out, though.

I gestured to Alisha, my operations manager, though she hated the title and wouldn’t use it. “Get her out of here. But come back after, I need you for something else.”

Dixie shrugged Alisha off, struggling to clip her bra back in place over her rigid fake tits. “Is he yours, then? Why didn’t you say?”

“Yes, he’s mine, and I’m an evil fucking bitch when anyone touches my man.” Alisha gave me a quick wink behind Dixie’s back.

“I didn’t know! I thought he was available. Please don’t fire me.”

On the other side of the door, a guard took hold of Dixie’s arm, bending to hear Alisha’s order, possibly to see the woman off the premises or maybe to give her another chance if she promised to only chase the dick she was paid to. That wasn’t my territory.

I closed the door on them.

“There’s nothing wrong with my dick,” I said into the quiet of the office.

Shade burst out laughing. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it. Get your mind out of my jeans.”

“Sure thing, brother.” He went to a cabinet, sliding open the top metal drawer. From inside, he took two bandannas. Skeleton masks, the pattern a lower half of a skull like the tattoo on his hand. The mark of my crew.

Tossing one to me, he pulled on the other so it covered him nose to jaw, leaving only his piercing blue eyes under a thatch of dark hair. Automatically, I did the same. For anyone who already worked for us, we didn’t bother masking up, but the next on the list was a newcomer.

Outsiders needed to fear us.

At my father’s knee, I’d learned that terrorising the people around you guaranteed results. I hated everything he’d taught me, but that tactic had proved useful when it came to the world I lived in. The one I’d carved out for myself and bled for.

Alisha returned and took a seat at the side of the room, not bothering with a bandanna. The door opened again, and Convict entered, another member of my crew. He took a position behind me, face already covered.

Shade opened the door to admit a slender blonde woman.

For a split second, I froze up.

The applicant for the game appeared so much like Genevieve it gave me pause, but it was only the dim room. The shade of her hair. Another second and she was in the light, and the similarity was gone.

I was fucked up if I was seeing my little maniac in others.

Not-Genevieve peeked at each of us, gripping the back of the guest chair with obvious nerves.

“Sit,” I ordered.

Quickly, she dropped into the seat, then took a breath, regaining her composure.

Shade stepped forward and addressed her. “Natasha Reid, twenty-four, a New York debutante then a socialite. What’s a woman like ye doing entering our game?”

My mask hid my smile. Most of the women who entered were like her.

Natasha swallowed. “I… I want to be claimed.”

He gave a dark laugh. “Interesting choice of word, but accurate. Your paperwork is good, and you’ve signed the disclaimer and said ye understand, but are ye really prepared for what goes down there? Twenty men, five lasses. You’ll be chased, stripped, pinned down, fought over, then fucked. Ye don’t get to choose. Ye don’t get to say no once you’re in. There will be blood. Whichever man wins takes ye home, and you’ll have no say over that. From the second ye walk through that door, and the lock turns at your back, until the time is up, you’ll belong to him. Your owner. Is that clear?”

The woman’s chest rose and fell, her pulse at her throat thrumming. Natasha was picking up what Shade was laying down. It was the reason the game worked. The compelling nature of the contest.

It got the blood rushing like nothing else. It did exactly what the contestants wanted it to do. Or so I was told.

She gave a swift nod.

Alisha took over. “You understand the commitments the men make as well?”

Natasha jerked her head more readily now. “It’s what I want. A woman from my sorority was in it a year ago, and she’s so…satisfied. I want everything she’s got. I’m ready.”

“You understand the time constraint, too?” Alisha added.

“Yes. I don’t work and I’ve just finished my degree. It’s all in the forms I filled out. Please?”

Alisha clucked her tongue then took the waiting contract from my desk along with a pen. She tapped the pen, drawing out the moment, then passed it to Natasha who scribbled a signature with obvious relief.

Another one bit the dust. I wondered if she’d be so sunny when smashed to the cold stone floor by a pack of hungry men tomorrow night.

The new applicant was shown out.

“Alisha,” I said, a warning in my tone.

She’d forgotten something.

Alisha hurried after Natasha, picking up the photo of a child from the shelf on the way. Down the corridor, she raised it and asked my question. Natasha squinted.

Like every time, I held my breath.

As always happened, the newcomer shrugged and my disappointment cut deep.

I sank in my chair, letting the wave of frustration pass over me.

“One day, someone will say yes,” Shade offered. He’d shifted back to his usual position at the back.

I didn’t answer. That child would be eleven or twelve years old now. A decade older than the sole picture I had. With every year that passed, my hope grew slimmer.

“She was a fucking knockout,” Convict commented from my other side. “The fights she’s going to cause. Someone’s going to split her in two.”

I rolled an unimpressed but tolerant look his way. “That isn’t what it’s about.”

Even though my thoughts had gone the same way.

“I know, but it’ll be a fucking riot to watch.”

My crew were never, ever allowed to participate, but we always had watchers. They acted as judges, and couldn’t help if they got off on what they saw. They were needed as arbitrators after, too, should the need arise. I rarely monitored the game myself. Other matters occupied my time.

Alisha returned. “We’ve got two walk-ins. Both showed up in the last few minutes.”

“What’s the ask?” I queried.

“The first wants in on the game as well. The second said she wants a job. As anything.”

I didn’t like that anything comment. It smacked of desperation. The women, and fewer men, who worked here generally came in knowing exactly what their limits were. Some only wanted to strip. Others never danced and worked the level above, earning their living on their backs. Or fronts. Or knees. Upside down. Whatever the cash they took demanded.

I sighed, and Alisha opened the door. The applicant stepped inside with a confidence the last woman had been lacking. Curvy as hell, and in a sparkling silver dress that wouldn’t be out of place at an award ceremony, she touched her gaze on each of us masked men in turn, not in fear, like the person before her, but as if seeking out something.

“I’m here for the game,” she announced.

“No,” an answer came from behind.

Shade had spoken, low, dark, and deadly certain. It wasn’t usual for him to offer a judgement like that. We all had our roles, and I led the way, but if he was cutting her off, I’d back him.

I cleared my throat. “Not this time. We’re booked up.”

The woman swept her long, brunette hair over her shoulder. “From what I heard, you’re always needing women. There are more than enough men. You can take me as well. I filled out all your forms.”

Shade made a sound almost like a growl.

“Sorry, but the answer is no,” I stated, completely flat.

“Then I’ll come back next time.”

The woman pursed her lips in annoyance, but Alisha took her arms and towed her away.

“Stamp your little foot and run back to daddy,” Shade groused under his breath.

She was shown out, Alisha taking a moment to show the picture, and my disappointment inevitably following.

“Last one, then we can get out of here,” Convict announced. “Shade, did you know that girl?”

Shade didn’t reply, slinking back into the shadows of the office. He clearly had, but he was entitled to his secrets.

Alisha beckoned in the last person of the evening.

I adjusted my skeleton mask, ready to leave. Sitting behind a desk wasn’t my style. I was down to patrol the building, watching for trouble with the punters. Hit up the police for more details on the murdered woman.

After that, Shade and I were free to take on the city and let loose the darkness inside us. Start a hunt of our own.

But my thoughts ground to a halt.

Under the bright spotlight we shone on visitors, Genevieve walked into my space.