Nolan by Lane Hart, D.B. West
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nolan
Bribing a dancer with hundred-dollar bills when we caught her in the parking lot on her way inside the club was all it took to confirm what I was afraid of. Now it’s time to make some bastards pay.
“Sorry, man,” Abel says, looking a little pale after our question-and-answer session with the stripper. “I take back every shitty thing I ever said about Rita.”
“Me too,” Hugo admits. “I had no clue women were treated so awful at these places…”
“Not all strip clubs, but I’m guessing most,” I grumble as I slip on a pair of black leather gloves and the other men do the same. “Let’s get inside before more employees show up or the Rebel Henchman show up to run security.”
“I’m kind of surprised there aren’t any bikes out here,” Hugo remarks.
“Me too,” I agree. “Maybe we got lucky coming this early.”
We also gave the woman a grand to leave the back door cracked open with a rock so we could sneak in. If she knew what we intended to do, she probably wouldn’t have done it. I told her I was just going to kick her manager’s ass for how he runs the place.
Once we all pull black ski masks over our faces in case there are cameras, we make our way to the back door.
“You don’t think she’ll snitch, do you?” Abel asks as we move closer.
“Hell no,” Hugo answers before I can. “If she does, she’ll only implicate herself.”
“Yeah, I think she’ll keep her mouth shut,” I agree. Reaching for my gun at the back of my waistband, the silencer already screwed onto the front, I pull open the door and slip inside first.
It opens into the back storage area of the kitchen, so it takes a minute to get to the front of the place and bust right into the manager’s office. The man with his brown hair slicked back looks up from behind the desk where he’s counting his money.
When his hand disappears, there’s no doubt what he’s going for. “Nuh-uh! Hands in the air now, or we’ll blow your head off!”
Once he sees it’s the three of us, all with guns pointed and aimed at him, he lifts both of his palms in defeat. Guess it was a good thing Abel and Hugo insisted on coming inside the club with me. If not, well, I probably could have taken him out before he managed to get a bullet in me too; but on the other hand, he could be one hell of a marksman.
“Take the money and get the fuck out of my club!” he grits out, jerking his chin toward the stack of bills laid out in neat piles in front of him.
“We’re not here for the cash,” I explain.
“Then what do you want? Coke? Meth? I can get you boys both.”
“We don’t want any of that nasty shit,” Hugo responds with a scoff as he shuts the door softly behind him and turns the lock.
“Where’s your cell phone?” I ask the manager.
“Right there,” he says, glancing at it on top of the desk, a little over to his right side.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” I say as I go around the desk, placing the front of the silencer against the side of his head. “I’m going to call your contact at the Rebel Henchman, whoever is in charge, and put him on speaker. You’re going to tell him to send all their men here because the place is getting robbed and that they need to move their asses. Got that? Say anything else and I’ll pull the trigger.”
“O-okay,” he agrees. “In my contact…look for the name Dubois. He’s the president.”
“All right then,” I say as I pick up the phone and hold it in front of the man’s face to unlock it. I scroll through his recent calls, not having to go far to find Dubois, which I’m guessing is a last name.
I tap the contact, and it starts ringing softly before I select the speaker option so I can sit it down and hold the gun in a two-handed grip.
“The person you’re trying to reach is not available,” the robotic voice comes over the speaker. “Please leave a message after the tone.”
There’s a beep, and I press the gun tighter to the manager’s head to get him speaking. “Du-Dubois, it’s Brian. I’m getting robbed! Send your men, all of them!”
I nod, and then end the call before glancing at my boys.
“Now what?” Abel asks, knowing my plan hinged on the asshole answering and coming over before customers.
“I’ll call him again. You better hope he fucking answers this time,” I warn the asshole.
The call rings and rings before switching over to the same voicemail message. I end it instead of having Brian leave another message.
“Well?” Hugo asks with a sigh.
Fuck! Of course these bastards couldn’t make this easy.
“Call our prez. Ask him to send a group to their clubhouse and see if anyone’s there.”
“On it,” Hugo agrees, keeping his gun steady while using the phone with one hand. “We’ve hit a snag,” he says. “Need you to send a crew to check out the MC’s home base. Their president didn’t answer the phone, which is what our man was counting on,” he says, being careful to not use any names. Not that I plan on letting the manager live. No, he’s going to die one way or another for knowing what the MC assholes were doing and not stopping them. In fact, the stripper told us he got a discount on his cut for protection when he agreed to let the club fuck any of his employees they wanted.
Now I want nothing more than to slam his fucking face into the desk and then take my time torturing him, drawing it out slowly and painfully. But I can’t risk it. The plan was to set this up like a partnership gone bad. When the MC busted into the office, the guys and I were going to gun them down, then shoot the manager behind the desk, to make it look like they killed each other. Now, well, I’m not so sure what the fuck we’ll do.