Christ, if anyone has touched her, I’ll rip them to—
I catch the barest glimpse of green through the swinging doors marked private next to the bar and sprint toward it, slapping it open so hard it bangs against the wall.
Barry the bartender, and proud owner of Barry’s Bar, this unimaginatively named dump, yells, “Hey! You’re not allowed back there!”
The fuck I’m not.
I can buy this place a thousand times over or I can have it razed to the ground before the night is over.
I’m deciding which option suits me when I enter a darkened hallway and look around.
There are two doors marked private and a set of double doors open at the end of the narrow corridor.
There are voices coming from back there so I head that way, then slow when I hear a giggle and realize my girl is not in immediate danger.
Jesus.
Her raspy voice is like warm silk stroking my dick.
Before I can enter the room, I hear footsteps behind me. I sigh and reach for my wallet.
“Hey dude, you deaf?”
My lips tighten. No one has called me “dude” since…ever.
I remind myself I’m not in New York. Or even in LA or Vegas where my new business interests have taken me these past few months.
I remind myself this sack of shit doesn’t know any better.
I also remind myself that Aria is a couple of dozen steps away so I can’t break this asshole’s neck.
“Yo! I said—”
I turn, hold up three crisp hundred-dollar bills and the bartender’s belligerent tone fizzles to nothing.
He eyes the cash and I feel the stench of his sleazy greed on my skin.
That look never changes, either in corporate boardrooms or backstreet dive bars.
Fuck, I’ll need to take a shower later.
“This is yours if you let me talk to the girl for five minutes,” I say, keeping my voice low.
His gaze stays glued to the money as he licks his lips. “Just talk? Because anything more will cost extra. Maybe an extra…five hundred? There’s a room at back if you need it?”
It takes monumental effort not to slam my fist into his face.
Yeah, it’s a good thing I’m getting Aria the fuck out of there tonight. Picking up a murder charge will throw a spanner in the works for my plans with my girl.
“Yeah, just talk,” I bite out.
He looks a little disappointed but he snatches the money out of my hand and taps it against the invisible watch on his bony wrist. “Five minutes. If not you’re out, I’m coming back. And you’ll have to pay more. She’s a valuable member of my staff.”
I stifle an evil grin at what my baby brother would think if he heard how I was letting thisstronzotalk to me. He’d probably piss himself laughing before dying in shock.
Maybe I’ve gone soft in my grand old age of thirty-six, but right now, my need to see Aria, make sure she’s safe, trumps everything else.
I ignore the bartender and carry on down the hall.