Chapter 191: Monica Unhinged
Chapter 191: Monica Unhinged
"Yeah." Caesar hit the answer key.
On the other end came Monica's voice—rough, a little hoarse, with an edge of something wrecked and worn down.
"Can you come out and meet me?"
In the background, Caesar could hear the deafening pound of heavy-metal bass rattling the line.
"Where."
The soft hiss of Monica exhaling a ring of smoke. "The Mirage Club."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
And just like that, she hung up. Clean, abrupt.
Caesar pocketed the phone and turned to Elizabeth. "Elizabeth, I've got to head out for a bit."
A flicker of concern crossed her eyes. "Something urgent?"
He didn't hide it from her. "You remember the woman in the red dress? The one we ran into on the cross-state train."
Elizabeth thought for a second. "Monica?"
Of course she remembered. When they'd been jumped by those hijackers on the train, if Monica hadn't stepped in, that kidnapped kid very likely wouldn't have made it out alive.
Caesar scooped the car keys off the desk. "She wants to meet. She didn't sound right on the phone."
Elizabeth didn't press. She just said quietly, "Be careful. Come back soon."
"Mm."
Caesar guided the armored Humvee out of the factory grounds, his mind already turning it over fast.
There was no way Monica reached out at a moment like this without a reason. That woman was buried under too many secrets.
...
The Mirage Club sat right in the heart of Nevada's busiest red-light district.
It was the most notorious nightlife shrine in the entire city. The old sharks and gangbangers who ran these streets had given it a blunter name—the Hunting Ground.
Every night, the beautiful people came pouring in from all directions like blood-scenting predators.
The women wore flawless, dangerous makeup and designer scraps that barely qualified as clothing, putting perfect bodies fully on display under the neon. Every last one of them had the same ambition burning in her eyes—land a Wall Street up-and-comer or a Silicon Valley trust-fund kid tonight.
The men tossed their Porsche or Ferrari keys carelessly onto the marble bar, never going three sentences without dropping a nine-figure hedge fund play. Their only real thought was which knockout they'd be taking back to the penthouse before sunrise.
Caesar pushed through the club's heavy soundproof door.
The instant he stepped inside, deafening electronic metal slammed through his eardrums and rattled all the way up to the top of his skull.
The crowd packed around the stage was drowning in surplus hormones, bodies writhing wildly under the strobing lights.
Caesar's cold gaze swept the floor and locked onto the center of the stage in a heartbeat.
Monica wore a flame-red couture silk slip.
The hem was obscenely short, the back cut so low it was almost bare, just two thin straps tracing the perfect line of her shoulder blades.
When Caesar spotted her, she had both hands wrapped around the pole at center stage.
Her whole body hung upside down in midair, two long, straight legs clamped tight around the steel. Her slim waist arched backward at an angle that looked almost impossible.
Then she let go.
She spun through the air in one heart-stopping rotation and landed dead-square on the stage.
The screams, the whistles, the roars from the men below nearly blew the roof off the place.
But directly in front of the stage stood four gangbangers with faces that promised nothing good.
Every one of them cleared six-three, all thick corded muscle. The one out front was pushing six-seven—shaved head, a heavy neck wrapped in a ring of Crips ink.
Their eyes clung to Monica's exposed skin like starving wolves.
Monica wasn't the least bit scared of the vicious-looking crew. Instead she flicked them a wink dripping with invitation.
She came down off the pole with that serpentine sway in her hips—and walked right up and pressed herself against the bald leader.
The two of them ground into a close, filthy dance at the edge of the stage, wrapped in the thunder of the music.
Caesar watched the whole thing from across the manic crowd, one hand rising to his forehead as he shook his head, helpless.
"This crazy woman. What game is she playing now?"
He drew a slow breath, coiled his legs, and launched himself straight up.
Like an agile black panther he cleared the crowd and dropped onto the stage, dead steady.
He crossed to Monica in a few long strides and clamped a hand around her slim wrist, his voice ice. "You're coming with me."
Monica's eyes flashed with surprise when Caesar materialized in front of her—like she hadn't actually expected him to show.
Then she wrenched her hand out of his grip, hard.
She cocked her head at him, eyes glazed and drunk, a lazy half-smile curling across her face.
Then she turned to the bald gangbanger beside her, the one whose whole mood she'd just killed, whose face was now dark with fury.
Monica's voice came out with a lethal little pout. "Who's this? I don't know him~"
The bald man's temper shot straight through his skull.
He and his boys had been camped in this joint all night, all for the chance to peel this five-star knockout off the stage and walk her out. And now some pretty-boy nobody popped up out of nowhere and had the nerve to grab her by the wrist?
He took one heavy step forward.
Nearly six-seven, close to three hundred pounds—the pressure rolling off him was immense.
He laid one hand the size of a palm-leaf fan flat on Caesar's shoulder, the warning in it unmistakable.
"Listen up, boy. The lady just told you—she doesn't know you."
The bald man loomed over him, flashing a mouthful of gold teeth. "So unless you want us to rework that pretty face till your own mama can't ID you... get the fuck out."
The three men behind him closed in fast, sealing off every direction of retreat.
One of them studied Caesar for a beat—then jabbed a finger at him and shouted, face twisting into something savage.
"Boss! It's him!"
"Back on that California beach—this is the bastard who torched our laundry-powder operation!"
At his man's tip, the bald leader's eyes turned instantly cruel.
He let out a low, guttural chuckle from deep in his throat.
"So it's you. Little man, I finally caught up with you. You're a dead man."
Caesar didn't so much as glance at the pack of clowns.
His deep-set eyes stayed fixed on Monica, and the last of his patience was gone from his voice.
"Monica. Are you done playing?"
"If you dragged me out here just to watch you run some boring little game with these pieces of trash... then I'm out."
He turned and moved to jump off the stage.
Monica's voice drifted after him, threaded through with something coaxing.
"Whichever one of you puts him on the floor..."
She ran her tongue slowly over her red lips. "Gets to have me. All night."
Four sets of gangbanger eyes lit up green at once.
The bald boss cracked his knuckles, a wet string of pops rippling across them.
"Boy, don't say I didn't warn—"
He never finished the threat.
Caesar's fist was already there.
No wind-up, no tell—one telegraph-free Speed Limit straight.
The punch came up at a wicked rising angle, exploding out of him like a shell out of a cannon and slamming clean into the bald boss's jaw.
CRACK.
A dull, teeth-grinding thud. The three-hundred-pound giant didn't even grunt. His feet left the floor and he toppled backward, rigid as a plank, crashing down onto the wooden stage.
Out cold. Deep.
The remaining three froze for a full half-second before it registered.
"Fuck! All of you, get him!"
Roaring, the three of them rushed Caesar from three sides at once.
The one on the left swung a fist the size of a sandbag straight at his temple.
The one on the right lifted a heavy combat boot into a vicious low sweep aimed at his legs.
The one in the middle came straight in like a bear, arms wide to lock up around his waist.
A three-way pincer, brutally in sync. The kind of finishing move you only drilled through years of street war.
But in Caesar's eyes, every motion crawled like slow-motion replay.
In under a fraction of a second, his body executed three impossible evasions and counters.
He tilted his head a hair, slipping the fist from the left with ease. At the same instant his right hand shot out, snatched the man's fist mid-flight, and wrenched it savagely in the wrong direction.
CRUNCH.
The bone snapped louder than the metal blaring overhead. The man's wrist bent to a grotesque ninety-degree angle on the spot, a jagged spur of white bone punching through the skin.
"AAAAAHHH—!" The shriek tore out of him.
At the same moment, Caesar's right foot snapped up, cleanly clearing the low sweep on his right, and his tactical boot came down with the force of a hammer on the man's planted ankle.
CRACK.
The ankle shattered instantly. The gangbanger went down screaming, dropping to his knees.
And in the exact instant both of those hit, Caesar torqued hard from the waist.
Riding the centrifugal snap of the rotation, his knee drove up like a heavy battering ram straight into the liver of the man charging him head-on.
"Guhhk—"
The guy vomited straight bile and curled up on the stage in agony, folded over like a boiled shrimp.
Under three seconds.
Four murderous gangbangers, all four flat on the stage, howling, every one of them out of the fight.
The wild bodies out on the dance floor hadn't even registered what had happened.
Monica leaned lazily against the pole, her fox-slit eyes narrowed, savoring every second of the one-sided slaughter.
She clapped her hands together lightly, then sauntered over to Caesar.
She extended one long finger tipped in red polish and pressed it softly to the solid plane of his chest.
"You beat every one of them."
Monica rose onto her toes, her breath warm at his ear. "Which means tonight... I'm yours."
Caesar lifted his cold eyes to her, face blank. There was nothing extra in his gaze—only a deep, bone-tired boredom.
"Enjoy your little game. I'm not sticking around."
He knocked her hand aside and turned again to leave.
He had to be out of his damn mind to have come here at all. He could've been back at the penthouse right now, sharing a glass of red with Elizabeth. Wasn't that a hell of a lot better than this?
And just as Caesar was about to jump down off the stage—
Monica dropped the wanton act completely. Her voice went dead cold, cutting straight through the roar of the music.
"Don't you want to know...
"the truth about why they hunted your mother, all those years ago?"