The Last in Line

Chapter 1

One

Freya Cortez bounced on her heels outside The Ruby Room’s double doors; her sleeveless, sunny yellow dress, with its nipped-in waistline, doing a piss-poor job of keeping her warm. Late summer in Melbourne, Australia, could be fickle, and lately, the nights held a constant chill.

“How’d things go with the rep?” Crystal loomed to her right, tall, dark, and slender, dwarfing Freya’s significantly shorter and rounder physique—probably a good thing, since she’d hired the woman as the bar’s bouncer.

“Well enough.”

Wednesday nights at the burlesque club weren’t usually all that busy, but business had picked up. Freya looked over the small huddle of people still trying to get into her venue, despite the time nearing midnight.

“Just well?” Crystal’s voice somehow still held a bored, dull edge, as if very little ever impressed her.

After years of being knocked back, followed by six-months of planning now that they were in, the bar’s inclusion in the Live Wire Festival was reason for excitement. And that inclusion was what brought Freya to the club on her night off tonight. More planning. More prep.

“Okay, better than well.” She shrugged, still downplaying things.

The festival rep she’d met earlier had been impressed with the weeknight atmosphere and the flow of patrons.

Now, four people waited in line, and she whispered for Crystal to admit these last patrons, then lock the doors to anyone new. Her voice held a subtle croakiness from much yelling over bawdy music while talking to that rep. Though with any luck, last drinks would be called in the next hour or so, and then it would be time to go home. She’d rest her voice soon.

A young woman in front of Crystal dug around in her purse for ID, only to drop the hot pink clutch.

Crystal’s bored tone returned. “I’m not getting that.”

To be fair, Crystal’s skin-tight leather pants and five-eleven frame meant Freya was closer to the ground, and therefore the better person to help.

She crouched and began collecting stuff off the pavement, sparing Crystal the long, tight-panted journey down. That said, Freya had her limits too, like collecting the loose tissues floating about; though the rolling pink tube of lipstick and blue pen she could do.

Someone huddled down beside her, the warmth from their hand crossing hers in the cool night and drawing her gaze to a set of soft blue eyes. Varying shades of stone and sky held her attention for a beat too long; for some reason, she imagined gentle waves atop a wintery sea within those pupils. An irrationally dreamy thought, especially for her.

Her eyes narrowed of their own accord. She knew this guy. One of her regulars. Knew those shaggy, surfer curls kissing his brow, and those broad shoulders paired with his tall physique, a tad on the slender side.

Yes, she knew. Some sort of tech millionaire, or maybe that was his brother, or something along those lines… Unlike his queue of admirers at The Ruby—mostly her own staff—she pretended not to notice.

She gave him a small nod and extracted a case of mints from his long fingers. “First drink’s on me. Just tell the bar staff the door woman sent you.”

A smile pulled at his lips and sent a small thrill of electricity through her tummy.

Small, yes, but still enough to compel her back to standing.

She turned away from him, offloading the breath mints on to the bag dropper, catching the jittery movement of her own hand as she did so. Screw that. Surfer guy might have had an unintended effect on her, but she wasn’t above flirting out of pure retaliation.

She turned back around, intent on delivering some witty one-liner, only to find someone else standing in his place. Someone who stank of sweat and cigarettes and had a dirty blond buzz cut. Not the surfer guy at all. This guy’s blue eyes didn’t conjure the ocean, unless she counted the turbulent sinking sensation dragging at her belly. No, all she got from this guy was a flat, leering stare.

She offered him a weak smile anyway, and then turned to go back inside the bar, pausing at the low grumble she thought she heard, one that sounded something like, “Where’s my free drink, b***h?”

A distant whisper in the back of her brain warned her, a whisper that had saved her life once before. She’d owned The Ruby Room for years now, had worked other bars for years before that. She knew a creeper when she met one. The Leerer had positioned himself up against her on purpose. He’d wanted to touch her. Expected she’d shrink away.

Well, he wouldn’t get what he wanted. Not from her.

She spun around, ready to ask him to repeat those words, partly so Crystal would hear and keep him out of the bar. But he spared her that trouble, already marching down the street, past the closed stores with their blackened windows, fists clenched at his sides, taking with him his downright off energy.

Or at least, so she thought.

She pushed past Crystal and back into the bar. This night was turning out too long and weird for her liking. Time to go home. She crossed the darkened space, with its red-tinged lighting and boisterous patrons, only to catch sight of one of her bar staff clutching his hand.

Blood poured from his enclosed fingers, a glass having shattered in his grasp. She picked up her pace and came at him with a clean wad of paper towels from the counter, ordering him and the bar manager to the back where the first aid kit lived. No way would that employee be returning for his shifts any time soon, so she tended bar till the manager returned, then stayed back even longer to rejig the week’s roster.

By the time two a.m. rolled around, and like an i***t who didn’t know better, she exited The Ruby Room alone, her attention buried on the stack of fresh messages on her phone. She’d already ambled a few meters from The Ruby’s doors, when a sick sensation surged through her tummy, urging her to stop.

No.

The feeling was less sick, more off.

The feeling offered a premonition, or maybe a warning; she jerked up her chin, but too late. The Creeper from earlier stared at her from across the sidewalk, his back against a banged-up blue van. The super wide pavement meant she stood closer to him than the bar, too far to double back inside, with zero chance of anyone in The Ruby spotting her.

She could scream.

Would anyone inside hear her over the music?

That only left running forward, toward him. Sure as s**t not an enticing option, nor was running to her car since she didn’t have one. The Creeper didn’t even bother to give her a typical, sleazy scowl or an uptick of his lip to spell out his ill intentions. What he offered was worse—a flat stare, soulless and as dead as a long-departed snake.

His hand rested over his crotch, its placement by no means an accident. She darted her gaze to the rusted blue van behind him, his foot pressed against the open door’s edge. An aching silence made a coldness rush her body. The sharp night air cut down to her bones.

He would grab her. He would shove her into that van, and no one would see.

A sob broke from her lips. Any second now, the terrified tears would start—a big feat since she pretty much never cried. The Creeper pushed away from the van and took a step toward her, not even giving her the credit of being quick with this attempted k********g.

His slow and snake-like movements gave the impression he’d done this before. Gotten away with this before. He tipped his head to one side, and the wrinkles over his cheek bones settled, as if he savored the expression on her face. Her open fear.

A loud crash sent more ice through her veins, and she startled as The Ruby Room’s doors burst open. The Creeper’s expression turned hard, and his stare flicked off her to a point in the background. Modern jazz fused with dance, The Ruby’s door always slow to draw shut. Next came the c***k of laughter and a jovial male voice calling goodbye to his friends.

Her heart sprung to a wild and racing gallop, the sudden ray of hope twisting another sob through her chest.

Fuck this guy.

He wouldn’t get her tears.

She spun around to whoever had just left The Ruby. The millionaire surfer!

The guy already powered away from her, his hands jammed in his pants pockets, his rapid and fading footsteps like claws digging into her heart.

Well, f**k him too.

“Hey, Marcus!” Her voice wobbled, but rang true enough; whether surfer guy liked it or not, she’d make him part of this showdown. “Where are you going?”

Her entire twenties had been spent yelling at people from across noisy bars, so she had friendly yelling down to an art form. Of course, surfer guy’s name probably wasn’t Marcus, so he didn’t turn around, though for the literal life of her, she couldn’t remember what his real name was.

“Hey, asshole!” She took a risk and ran after him. “Marcus, are you f*****g drunk again?”

This time he did stop, and he spun around, a single brow raised, as if to say, Who you calling an asshole?

She caught up to him, plastering on her biggest fake smile and looping her arm through his. “You weren’t just about to leave without me, were you?”

She fluttered her eyelashes, hoping the over-dramatic approach would tip him off enough to play along; though her frothy blond curls, Betty Boop dress, and their earlier eyeballing probably only worked to make her look like some kind of psycho-clinger, hoping to nab herself a millionaire pretty-boy.

Maybe when this whole thing was over, and if she got out alive, she would find a moment to puke at that idea.

Surfer guy frowned down at her arm on his. “Who’s Marcus? My name’s Max. What’s wrong with you?”

His cool British accent caught her momentarily off guard, since she’d seen him so many times and never once swapped a single word. But now, she narrowed her eyes, a voice inside her head screaming, f*****g catch on, you sun-affected doofus!

But she held onto the charade, because her life depended on it, and gave a bright, air-headed giggle.

“Oh, shut up, you big dope.” She gave Max’s arm a playful smack, though the space between her shoulders burned with The Creeper’s stare.

If Max dropped her, The Creeper would swoop in.

Her leg muscles felt weak, and a pain dug into her gut. Maybe it was time to lose the bimbo act. The man she clung to didn’t seem all that quick on the uptake.

So, she rested her head to his bicep, making it seem from the outside that she might be his girlfriend, all while dispensing her situation’s harsher truth.

“Please. Just play along, okay?”