The VIP Room(36)

She looked at me and I shrugged helplessly. “I know you’re going to say I can’t tell you what to do. But every man in that pool hall is going to be all over you, even with me there. Axel specifically said it wasn’t the kind of place I’d want to take you.”

“You already told me that,” she said, shifting her weight as she opened her small purse and began to look through it. “I’m still going.”

“I know.” Unfortunately, Axel said that the place wasn’t Tsepov’s as I’d thought it would be and I’d lost the upper hand on insisting we give it a pass. “I wish I still had your other suit.”

She looked up from her purse and met my eyes in confusion. “You said it was ugly.”

“It was. I wish you could wear it tonight.”

She shook her head at me as if I was a silly child and went back to looking through her purse.

“Clo,” I said, “have you ever been to a pool hall before?”

“No,” she answered absently. “We had a pool table at home when I was growing up so I always played there.”

This time I shook my head at her. She had no idea what we were getting into. I’d never been to Balls and Sticks, but I recognized the neighborhood. This wouldn’t be an upscale club with spotless felt on heavy wooden tables. This was going to be cracked neon signs and crappy bottled beer. I’d dressed down too, in the jeans and boots I wore on site, an old t-shirt, and my nine millimeter at my back. Thanks to Axel I’d gotten a license to carry concealed, and I’d never been happier about it.

Finally finished with whatever she was doing with her purse, she slid her ID and a small red tube into the front pocket of her jeans and looked up at me. “Are we going?”

“I guess we are,” I said, positive I was going to regret it.





Chapter 11





Chloe





Sam drove us to the pool hall in silence, the whole time looking like he’d swallowed a toad. I didn’t get what the big deal was. For one thing, I wasn’t dressed to attract guys. I was wearing a knit top and jeans. Okay, the heels were sexy, and the top showed a little cleavage, but only a little. It was tasteful cleavage, not prowling-for-a-man cleavage. Same for the shoes. They were awesome, but I could have worn them to work with the right suit. Sam was either trying to flatter me, or he had a warped sense of what other men would find hot.

As we traveled through the streets of Vegas, we left the areas I knew and ventured into a darker side of town. Literally. Here every third streetlight was out, and more than a few of the stores were closed down. What had Nolan been doing on this side of the city? This was Vegas. If he’d wanted to play pool there were plenty of places closer to our apartment.

Finally, we pulled into a strip mall and parked in front of a building with a flickering neon sign over the door reading “Balls a d St cks”. This must be it. I couldn’t get an impression of what the place was like because the street facing windows had been covered with dark plastic from the inside. I was suddenly very glad I didn’t have to open the door and go in by myself.

Sam did the job for me, wrapping his arm tightly around my shoulders as he ushered me inside. Subtly, so no one would notice, he whispered in my ear, “Do not leave my side, Chloe. Understand me?”

I nodded. I’d been fighting with him all day, but now that we were here, I had no intention of arguing. We went to the bar where Sam ordered us two domestic beers in bottles, exchanging a few words with the bartender. I hated domestic beer, but it didn’t look like there was any other option. I knew better than to ask for wine.

The pool hall didn’t look anything like I’d imagined. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I’d had a picture in my head of the pool table we’d had growing up, with its dark green felt and polished wooden frame. More of those and maybe someplace for people to sit, some couches and chairs.

Balls and Sticks was nothing like that. A dank, acrid haze of smoke hung in the air. The tables were made of plastic and metal, the felt damaged and uneven. The cues looked ancient and warped. The floor was concrete, cracked in places, and far from clean. Light years from clean.

A few people were sitting at the bar, and here and there along the far wall there were stools pulled up to ledges for bottles of beer and ash trays. But mostly, men were standing, playing pool or watching others play pool. There were a few women, but none of them looked like me. I saw one who had bleached blond hair with inches of dark roots, a cigarette handing out of her mouth and an orangey spray tan. In the back, a woman was wrapped around a man, whispering in his ear while he slipped his hand up her shirt. I looked away.

Balls and Sticks was definitely a guy’s pool hall. And a lot of them were staring at me. I still didn’t get it. The other women here were showing a lot more skin. Nervous, and inwardly cursing my brother for getting me into this in the first place, I turned to lean into Sam, tucking my head into his shoulder.

“Now what?” I asked. He wrapped his free arm tightly around me and said in a low voice,

“What do you mean? I thought you had a plan, honey.”

“Sam,” I said, willing to admit I was in over my head. “Seriously, how do we find Feliks?”

I knew he was laughing at me after the way I’d insisted we come here and now was hiding in his chest, asking for help. But I wasn’t the most outgoing woman, and while the idea of coming in here and demanding to see Feliks had seemed like a good plan in my head, now that I was faced with a room full of strange men who all seemed to be staring at my breasts, I was terrified. Shit.