Other than hurting my bank balance, which was used to taking a battering, I didn’t think my form of self-care was going to harm me in any way.
Until tonight.
When a very serious and scary looking man grabbed my upper arm and murmured in my ear to come with him. The murmur was not sexual. Not at all. It was authoritative. Dangerous.
The music was too loud for me to reply to him, and he was too strong for me to struggle against. Even if I’d screamed, I doubt anyone would’ve heard me, doubt anyone would’ve even noticed. This was not a place where some hero would swoop in to save me from ... from whatever was happening.
I had no choice but to let myself be led out of the main room of the club then through a side door to a hallway. A door closed behind us, and the lack of noise was deafening. The floor was covered in sleek black carpet, the walls the same. There were lights overhead and on walls close to the floor, dim and soft. Everything was luxurious but not comforting.
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” I said to the man leading me down the hall.
He didn’t reply.
“I’m not on drugs. I didn’t buy drinks here because the prices are nothing short of insane,” I continued, my heart rate increasing with every step I was forced to take.
Still no response.
“Where are you taking me?” I demanded. That should’ve been my first question. I shouldn’t have let myself get ferreted away behind some door in a club by a man with such a strong grip. That was how people got raped and murdered.
I’d always considered myself smarter than that.
Yet here I was.
“To see Mr. Helmick.” His voice was flat. Deep. Emotionless. He didn’t look at me when we spoke, nor did he let go of my arm. He was handsome, this man. In a sharp, muscled and dangerous kind of way. His piercing blue eyes were flat and cold just like his voice.
We were walking toward the end of the hallway. Toward an elevator. Something told me I really, really did not want to get in that elevator.
“Who is Mr. Helmick?” I asked, voice shaking. That embarrassed me. I was crumbling already. That wasn’t how I was supposed to act in such a situation. I needed agency, an authoritative voice.
“He’s the owner of this club,” the man answered as we approached the elevator. He leaned forward to press the button, and the doors opened immediately.
He nodded forward, as if to urge me inside, but I stayed rooted to the spot. The space was small yet tastefully and expensively appointed, if such a thing were possible for an elevator. Nonetheless, the thought of stepping inside was terrifying.
“You can’t force me to go in there,” I informed him, tilting my chin upward.
Now he looked at me. The full power of his attention was nothing more than suffocating, like he’d landed a weight on my shoulders that was going to dislodge my kneecaps if he didn’t take it off me.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. He was communicating with his eyes how easy it would be to force me in there. How humiliating it would be for me.
“What does Mr. Helmick want from me?” I demanded.
No answer.
Just the look.
Fuck.
It was stupid, but I moved into the elevator, if only to get a respite from this man’s gaze. The doors closed quickly, leaving me alone.
“What in the ever-loving fuck have you gotten yourself into, Stella?” I muttered to myself.
The ride was quick but long enough to have me wondering about Mr. Helmick. Who apparently was the owner of this club. I thought about the stories I’d heard that I’d been certain were rumors. That the club owner was involved in the mafia. That he was a crime boss with ties to all sorts of nefarious things.
A man with ties to the mafia—potentially, at least—had for whatever reason summoned me with the help of some goon that was seriously scary.
None of those things were good.
Like at all.
By the time the elevator doors opened, I’d convinced myself that I was being sent up here to be killed. Even though I hadn’t witnessed a murder, stumbled upon a drug deal or gotten myself involved in anything even remotely illegal. The most illegal thing I’d done was snort some lines of coke at parties. And in L.A., in my circles, coke was considered a fucking vitamin.
Not to mention that I’d gotten nervous and convinced myself I was having a heart attack the last few times I did it. Maybe I was getting too old to be doing cocaine in bathrooms at parties.
I was definitely not too old to die.
No, I had a life to live.
There were many, many things I had left to do.
Fuck.
There was no running since scary guy was downstairs, likely waiting for me to try and come back down.