“John Abbot?” I asked.

“I used to be John Abbot Junior,” Steven said. “I changed my name to Steven Graham a long time ago.”

Oh. Now this made sense. John Abbot was his father.

“What’s the deal with the strip club?” Jim said.

“My old man was a lawyer,” Steven said. “I worked for his firm. Most people would’ve made me a partner, but no, my old man made me into a junior associate. When Chad Toole got indicted, he was low on money, so he turned the strip club over to my dad. In its heyday owning that place was like printing money. Magic wiped out the Internet. All online porn was gone. Video was gone. Live girls were the only option. I wanted that club. I’ve always wanted one. I like women. Owning a strip club like Dirty Martini is like a fucking paradise. All that pussy and it’s all yours. No strings, no guilt, just go for it and indulge.”

Okay, there was something more disgusting than chopped-off toes.

“The old bastard wouldn’t give it to me. Said he wasn’t in the titty-bar business. I fucking hated my father. All my life he’s been screwing me over. He treated me like slave labor. I worked for him and that damn law firm for almost nothing, then he’d complain I was billing too many hours.

“Then, money went missing from an escrow account. Turns out my father, the famous John Abbot, had been stealing money from his clients. Suddenly he needed someone to take the rap for him. Suddenly it was all ‘son’ and ‘my boy’ and ‘will you go to prison for me.’ I told him I’d take the blame for his stealing, but he had to sign the club over to me. I got it in writing. I confessed to taking the money, got disbarred, and served two years in prison.”

Steven leaned forward. “I was soft. Weak. You have no idea what that place did to me. What it was like. It was hell. I sat in that damn cage for two years, beaten, raped, abused, and I kept thinking: When I get out, I’ll have my club. It kept me going. I’d live like a king once I was out. All the booze, women, and money I wanted waiting for me.”

Steven gave a harsh laugh. “I come out of prison and find out my father remodeled the place and sold it off one chunk at a time. See, there was a loophole in the paperwork he signed. He couldn’t sell the place completely, because I owned a chunk of it, but he could divide it into parts and sell those as long as I got one. One office. The fucker. I gave him two years of my life. I ruined my career for him and he screwed me over again.”

His eyes glinted in the light. He looked deranged. He must’ve sat for two years behind bars and thought every day about that stupid club. It was supposed to be his big reward when he got out, and his father betrayed him. All of his hatred for his father had somehow tied into that club. Now I understood. Steven had to have it. He would do anything to own Dirty Martini. He would hurt anyone, kill anyone, just so he could walk through its doors.

“I couldn’t wait for my father to die,” Steven said. “I would’ve killed him years ago, except he had a provision in the will that if he died a violent death, I’d get nothing. So I had to go on and put my life together. I changed my name. I got this dinky little business. All the while, he was still breathing. It was torture, that’s what that was. I killed him every day in my head.”

Okay, he was insane. Clinically insane.

Steven pointed at the walls with a sweep of his hand. “He finally died, the bastard. I’ve got his ‘palace.’ I’ve sold everything he owned. There is not a trace of him left.”

“I get all that,” Jim said. “I don’t get why you’re chopping off your toes.”

“They’ve got a new policy now,” Steven ground out. “Use it or lose it. As of this year, only active establishments that pass inspection will get a liquor license. For years I’ve been giving them money and they had no issue with it and suddenly now they want to inspect the club. I had to get the people out or I’d miss my window. The permits and license never lapsed, the ownership of the building was never interrupted, since I still own a part of it, and I’ve got enough seed money to open doors in a couple of months. When it came time to renew, I’d be golden. Except those fuckers wouldn’t sell to me. I offered them a fortune for their crummy little spaces and they said no.”

“You’re killing people to start a strip club,” I said. “Doesn’t that seem extreme to you?”

He looked at me. Like looking into the eyes of a chicken. There was no intelligent life there. He’d become so focused on that club, it consumed him.

“You know what your problem is?” he asked. “You don’t know what your mouth is for. After I’m done with your boyfriend here, I’ll fix that.”

Great. “Is that how you talk to your daughter, too?”

“I would, if I had one,” he said.

So he lied about that, too.

Steven struck a match and sat the toe on the plate on fire. “Let’s see what the two of you are afraid of. The way this works, the one with the strongest fear wins. Good luck, lovebirds.”

A darkness spun in a tight knot against the opposite wall, a twisted chaotic mess, shot through with streaks of violent red, and spat out a shapeshifter in a warrior form. He stood eight feet tall. Monstrous muscle bulged all over his frame, some of it sheathed in gold fur with black rosettes and the rest covered with dark human skin. He looked like he could rip a person in half with his hands. His shoulders were huge. His legs were like tree trunks. Claws thrust from his oversize hands. His jaws, studded with razor-sharp teeth longer than my fingers, didn’t quite fit together. Long streaks of drool stretched from the gaps between his teeth, dripping to the floor.

A hot, furious scent sliced across my senses like a knife, familiar, but revolting. It was like stuffing your mouth full of copper pennies. It was the scent of rape, murder, and terror, the horrible stench of human and animal gone catastrophically wrong. My nose said, “Jim,” and then it screamed, “Run!” This is what madness smelled like.

The beast opened his mouth, staring at us with glowing green eyes, and snapped his nightmarish teeth.

“Oh, this is just wonderful,” Steven said. “You cost me five toes. I’ll enjoy this and after it’s over, I’ll go get my strip club. I bet they’ll sell now.”

“Jim,” I said. “I’m afraid of rejection. What exactly are you afraid of?”