I stood in the middle of 5th Avenue as the city’s nightlife and all its thugs awakened. The intersection lights changed, and cars passed me on both sides. Spotlights lit up the sky on my right, where luxury cars were parked along the curb in front of Kendra’s thriving nightclub. The crowd in line shuffled forward. If she had been here, my client would have been happy, and Silver Securities would have had no problems. The problem was, she wasn’t here.

On my left, the charred ruins of Club Forever lent a burned stench to the air. Obviously, nothing lasted forever. We’d intended for the abandoned property to solve our problems; instead, the purchase magnified them. A flashlight beam cut through the darkness in a broken window, and my focus shifted to the front door of an adjacent hotel, where a girl stepped out onto the sidewalk. A john followed her. The couple slipped into a black SUV, and my insides twisted. If it hadn’t been for the failed bust and the fire, we would have shut down the cartel. But we didn’t. Hartley had his security change names and locations. On top of that, they had kidnapped our client.

The flashlight shone again on the lower floor. I waited for a clearing on the road and hurried across the street. I pushed open the side door and stepped into the shadows. Inside, a distant echo of noises carried through. I followed the sound down the stairs to the basement, where the fire hadn’t damaged the building.

I reached the lowest step. I followed a shared stairwell to the basement, which connected to the hotel. The voices became clearer, except they weren’t really talking. The deep moans, heavy sighs, and uncontrolled breathing could only mean one thing around here: an orgy. I moved from beyond the shadows. The handful of naked people in the middle of a candlelit room completed a jigsaw puzzle I had no intention of solving.

What the fuck?