Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(22)
I peered through the crack between the open door and the wall. Porter was still staring in this direction, his middle-aged face pinched into a frown, but he didn’t start across the ballroom to come investigate. He must not have spotted me after all—
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” a snide voice asked.
I turned around to find a man standing behind me, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing an expensive but subdued navy suit that was tailored to his tall, skinny frame. Everything about him was perfect, from the way his dark brown hair curled over his forehead, to his square gold cuff links, to the small gold acorn glinting in the exact center of his light blue tie. A gold name badge glimmered on his jacket: Marco, Club Manager.
Marco’s dark brown gaze drifted over my black fleece jacket, jeans, and boots, and his lips curled with disgust. “I’m sorry,” he said in an arrogant tone that indicated that he was not sorry at all. “This is a private club. We are not open to the public.”
He said the word public as though it were some sort of horrendous plague upon all mankind. Or at least upon those with money.
“Good thing I’m not the mere public, then,” I said, giving him a razor-thin smile.
Marco blinked, as if he weren’t used to having his authority challenged, but I ignored his confusion, pulled out my phone, and showed him Elissa’s photo.
“This girl was here at the charity dinner that the club hosted last night. Do you remember seeing her?”
Marco let out a delicate huff, as though I’d greatly offended him by daring to ask a question. “We do not give out information to commoners who just wander in off the street. If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call the police.”
I laughed. “Oh, sugar. You go right ahead and call the cops. Unless you’ve got a couple of them on your payroll, I can’t imagine that they’ll be too eager to rush all the way up here just to remove some commoner like me from the premises.”
Marco’s lips curled again at my easy dismissal of his empty threat. “Well, then, it’s a good thing that the club employs its own private security force to deal with -certain . . . problems.”
He looked down the hallway, raised his hand, and snapped his fingers a couple of times. Footsteps scuffed on the carpet, and three giants wearing navy suits stepped up and flanked me. Ah, reinforcements. The men weren’t carrying guns, but they didn’t need them, given their solid seven-foot frames and massive fists. Besides, it wasn’t like we were in Southtown. The most dangerous things these guys faced down on a regular basis were drunken businessmen and tipsy debutantes.
Marco gave me a triumphant sneer. “Please escort this woman off the property. And don’t be gentle about it.”
I could have stopped this before it got started. I could have pulled my spider rune pendant out from under my jacket, flashed it at Marco and the giants, and told them exactly who I was. My being the Spider would have been enough to get them to back off.
Probably.
Maybe.
Okay, okay, so probably not.
Folks had a very peculiar—and bad—habit of not believing me when I claimed to be an assassin, and that one mistake almost always led to their deaths. Their disbelief killed them, right along with my knives.
Two of the giants stepped forward and clamped their hands on my arms, deliberately, painfully digging their fingers into my skin, but I still didn’t reach for my spider rune. If Marco and his minions wanted to play rough, then I would be happy to oblige them.
I liked playing rough too.
I looked at Marco. “What’s the matter? Not manager enough to throw me out yourself?”
His dark eyes narrowed at my mockery. “You know what, guys? Let’s take her to the security office for a more . . . private conversation.”
The three giants grinned at their boss. This was probably the most excitement they’d had in ages, and they were all looking forward to the pleasure of beating me—or worse.
Oh, it was going to be worse, all right—for them.
Marco led the way, and the two giants strong-armed me down the hallway, with the third man following along behind us, just in case I decided to make a break for it. But I didn’t protest or try to wrench away or even dig my heels into the carpet to slow our progress.
After all, they were taking me exactly where I wanted to go.
We wound through a couple of different hallways, heading away from the crowd in the ballroom toward the far side of the building. We passed a few staff members, mostly janitors and housekeepers mopping, dusting, and making sure that the inside of the club was spick-and-span. At the sight of Marco and the giants, they all stopped what they were doing and snapped to attention. The second Marco’s back was to them, they all relaxed again, and a few folks even winced, shook their heads, and gave me sympathetic looks. Some of them must have taken this same forced walk to the security office.
I wondered what their infractions had been. Forgetting to put enough toilet paper in the restrooms? Not getting the last speck of dust off the gilded mirrors on the walls? Or perhaps it was something even more serious, like not bowing down to Marco in what he considered to be his own little fiefdom.
A minute later, we reached the end of this hallway, and Marco used a key card to open a door marked Security Personnel Only. He held out his hand, and the two giants shoved me through the doorway. I stumbled forward and hit a table, pretending to be far more off balance than I really was. All the while, my gaze flicked around the room, taking in the security monitors that lined the opposite wall, the poker cards on the table in front of me, and the half-full coffee cups that littered the messy desk in the corner. Three cups, to be exact, which meant that these three giants were probably the full extent of the club’s security force.