“I did.”
I’m horrified. If I were Caleb, I’d rip him a new one and rattle off all sorts of rules he’d just broken.
But I’m not Caleb.
“And?” I spin to face him.
He grins, that lazy, mysterious grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Fuck off.” I thud him in the shoulder with a fist. “Tell me what you found.”
“Oww,” he says, rubbing his shoulder. “Damn, why should I tell you now?”
“Z.”
“All right, all right.” He finally gives in with another lazy pull on the joint. “He’s definitely grifting Helen.”
My stomach sinks, and the weed smoke that smelled sweet a moment ago is suddenly making me nauseated.
“How do you know?”
“Because that club of theirs? It’s not just some country club…”
I wait on his every word. No doubt, just how he wants.
“Well…?” I prompt impatiently.
“Weeeellll, it’s a sex club,” he says like he just let a mic drop.
I feel my forehead scrunch. “Like a strip club?”
He shakes his head.
“Asexclub. Like a BDSM dungeon. Where people have sex. And that’s just the front. I mean, he’s probably at least running a prostitution ring, and that’s the least of the shady shit he’s doing there if you’re lucky.”
“How the fuck do you know?”
“I found it on some invoices and then dug deeper into their filing cabinet to find out more. It’s calledCarnal.”
The fuck?
I yank out my phone and get to googling. Holy fuck, there it is. Carnal BDSM Club.For consenting adults to come play.
“Do you think Helen knows?” I ask, aghast as I do animage search and flip through pictures of all sorts of eye-opening leather bondage equipment and neon lights. It looks…cleanat least.
Z laughs again, deep in his chest. “Oh, she knows, judging by the outfits I found in the closet in that room. Homemaker Helen’s got a dominatrix streak in her based on the height of those leather thigh-highs.”
“Don’t be gross.” I smack him again, eyes still wide from flipping through my phone.
“Mmm,” he makes a mock noise of pleasure. “Maybe dominatrixing runs in the step-family.”
I glare up from my phone at him, deadpan. “You will be murdered. There will be blood.”
Immediately, my eyes drop back down, unable to look away for long. “So wait, I don’t get it. If the club—dungeon—whatever is making money, what’s the grift?”
Z shrugs again. “Could be anything. Sex ring running through the club. Money laundering for the old MC your Dad used to run with. Human trafficking?—”
“Okay. Okay.” I hold up a hand. “How do we get more information? Find out what he’s really up to?”