“Jacob! Jacob, come on! Open the fucking door. What the hell is wrong with you?” I ball a fist and pound on puke-colored metal. Nada.
Cars whizz by both exits of the alley. New York springs are damn near as cold as winter. The last few days have been brutal. Wishing I had taken the extra thirty seconds to grab a jacket from Ares’ closet I raise a fist and pound again. Above me hangs a single bulb encased in a metal cage and does little to chase away the crawling shadows of the back alley.
“What the hell, man? Open up!” I’d go around front if they hadn’t already locked up for the night which is weird on its own. Friday nights are usually the busiest for a guy who sells beer and whiskey to the local blue-collar workers. Given the customers only cared about not seeing the bottom of their drink no one paid a lot of attention to the random chick or dude ducking into the back room or hacker misfit who used a stack of crates as a desk seven days a week. There’s a lot of money to be made in the underground economy if you have the right connections and clients willing to see the value in what you have to offer. Lucky for me I have a good source who has a knack for pulling in the high rollers in need of my special skill set. Enough to put my sister into college, feed us and make our two-bedroom apartment not look like shit though the location could be better.
The last time I stood out here I was being shuffled inside a van by a masked asshole. Albeit it was in the front parking lot and not the back entrance to El Diablo, but not much difference. The thudding of my heart and the hair on the back of my neck drive home a feeling of urgency to get inside.
My body grudgingly reminds me of the fear locking my knees and sending my heart into a stammering rhythm by repeating the same reactions now.
Had it only been a few days ago I’d stood here, knocked a couple of times and the door would swing open? Jacob is a paranoid type and never left a door unguarded. Not finding someone there to immediately let me in is odd, but whatever. I’m here for one thing only.
Another round of pounding gives me a head with dark hair popping out the door.
“Finally.”
Accusatory eyes turn surprised when they land on my face.
“Nova?” Jacob pulls back. Eyes narrow on me but that’s nothing new. The man considers everyone like they want to either beat the shit out of him or rob him. I consider the personality flaws remnants of his childhood growing up poor and always on the wrong side of the law until he pulled his shit together in his late teens. We met half a decade ago when I saved his ass from a guy who thought his head would look good rolling on the floor. Some smooth talking in the middle of this very pub landed me a backroom to operate, my first client and Jacob as a decent friend. Just don’t ask him for money.
I step over the threshold and have to work myself in through the small slant of an opening.
“What’s with you? Didn’t you get my message?”
He ignores my question and comes at me with his own. Looking a little pale he asks, “What are you doing here?” The fugly door clicks behind him with a solid thud closing us in. My heart rate drops to a respectable thud knowing I’m safer in here than out there.
“Nowhere have you beenfor the last three or four days,Nov? No askinghey, you doing okay? And don’t look so shocked to see me. It gives a girl a complex.”
He doesn’t say anything, just moves to the other side of the back room, peeks out, and then slams the door. That should have been my first clue of how the evening is about to go, but I can be a little narrow-minded when I get hyper-focused.
“You can’t be here?” He looks at me exasperated but then again, that’s Jacob for you.
I lift a brow and close my arms over my chest. “And why is that?” I make my way to the door he just slammed and pop it open. “I don’t need long.”
I move through the hallway toward the front of the bar and notice the shades drawn over the front windows and all the tables taken up by burly dudes with more beard than face.
I come up short, realizing he might be right about me needing to leave. But Polaris needs me to be here right now so I swallow my surprise and their less than welcoming glares at my intrusion. I silently curse my narrow-sighted tendencies and push on. Hopefully, Jacob doesn’t catch my split-second hesitance.
None of my business anyway.
Jacob is hot on my ass. “Look, you need to know some assholes are using your bar as hunting grounds.”
I make a right down another hallway. This one is less welcoming than the last with its nonexistent light and stale air.
“Slow the hell up, Nov. Where are you going?”
A heavy hand lands on my shoulder and pulls me back. I stumble, losing my momentum forward.
“Where are you going? You need to leave the same way you came in. Now.”
Jacob’s already whiny voice kicks up a few notches. Hissing really isn’t a good sound on any day. The way it comes out of his mouth mixes with the creepy vibes from just being here again and my arms break out in goosebumps.
“Are you listening? I just need to see your security tape from Tuesday night and then I’m out. Promise.”
“What? No. You need to leave.” That hand is back on my shoulder.
I shove it away and let myself into the security room. Inside the small ten by ten room, I aim straight for the CCTV and pop out a thumb drive from the drawer. My motions are fluid and come from a solid year of doing this every night. I leave no traces of my dealings. An understanding between the man currently breathing down my neck and myself for a twenty percent cut of my profits.
Pricey but it’s not like I can work out of my house with my sister there. Like I’ve said, I keep her and my shady friends as far apart as possible. Only thing she needs to focus on is getting her degree in psychology. Not getting killed in the middle of the night from a deal gone wrong or an unsatisfied customer. Although hindsight might have helped us fight off our attackers instead of taking all three of us by surprise.