Dominated by My Dad's Boss novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The List

Billie Doyle ran the Carbarn from an office the size of a phone booth, behind the water bar.

She wore a red armband and had a bleached crop of hair and a key tattooed inside her wrist.

Her laugh could be heard over a flogging.

She wasn't laughing now.

"I don't get the list from the members," she said. "I get it from the Chapter in a sealed envelope, every month."

Torin stood just behind my shoulder, in jeans and a black shirt, with his arms folded.

Billie slid a single typed sheet across the desk.

Eleven names.

The sixth one had a line of print after it.

B. RENWICK. Ember's daughter. New Domme. Introduced by Mr. T.

I read it three times.

"I didn't introduce her," Torin said.

"I know you didn't, Sutcliffe. You haven't introduced anybody in nine years."

"Who typed it?"

"There's no name. The Chapter doesn't sign anything."

"What's the Chapter?" I asked.

"Fifteen people who've run the Lantern since before I started at the door," Billie said. "A couple of them are the type who'd be on the news. The rule is they pick, we host, nobody asks."

"I'm not on any list I wrote myself."

"No, hon. That's what bothers me."

She tapped the paper.

"Somebody wants it known you're coming. Ember's daughter. And somebody wants it known Mr. T is your sponsor."

Torin said nothing.

I looked at him.

A muscle ticked in his cheek.

"Who knows we met?" he said at last. "Who has seen us together in one place?"

"A room full of people. That's the point of a party."

"Who knew I'd be at the rail that night?"

"Anyone. You've stood at that rail every first Friday for years."

Torin stood very still for a second.

Then he said, "Excuse me," in a voice I didn't like, and walked out.

I found him in the dark at the far end of the barn, by the old inspection pits.

He was standing with one hand flat against an iron column and his head down.

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