Back Rooms Novels & Stories

I've never really cared to know about his age, or anything more than the little business we've once had. “Evening, Mr. DeWitt.” “Nathaniel,” I say, closing the door gently behind me. He flicks a quick look toward the empty showroom, then nods toward a plain door at the back. “We’re clear. This way.” I follow him through. The back room is stripped down, with no retail polish. Just workstations, three big monitors, neatly run cables, big walls that probably eat sound. He shuts the door with a soft click. “What exactly are we looking at tonight?” he asks in a quiet, professional tone.

It lets hazy and colorful light into the buzzing space. We push through the unmarked wood door at the back, ignoring the curious glances of the patrons around us. The back room is lit by iron lamps and features a single plush booth in the center of the room. It’s low-lit and primal. Jaden is already there, lean like a lion, but more relaxed. He smiles and claps us each on the back. “How was the trip?” Jonathan asks. He’s more talkative than usual today, probably because he senses my black mood.

Since he decided to go back to fighting monsters, he's opening his weapon room where he keeps all his equipments from when he was in the special squad. "I wonder where I placed the room key, it might be just in my drawers I think."

I opened a secure drive, typing an access code I thought I had forgotten. It unlocked instantly. Contacts. Accounts. Networks. Every name, every favor, every uncollected debt. The world called it the underworld. For me, it was simply home. Marcus walked in quietly, placing a glass of scotch beside me. “So that’s it. You’re going back.” I stared at the screen. “I never really left.”

At two in the morning, my sister, Paige Boyce, paid men to smash up my barbecue stand. I fought to make them stop, ignoring the embers that scorched blisters into my skin as they landed. It was the first time in my life I'd ever raised my voice at her. "After Mom and Dad died in that plane crash, this stand paid for four years of your college education and helped you become a flight attendant for Golden Crest Airlines," I said. "Are you really going to destroy the only thing keeping us alive?" Something flickered in her eyes, a flash of reluctance, but she steeled herself and scoffed. "I've told you a hundred times to get rid of this dump of a stand, and you never listen. Do you want m

The day the university released the family placement positions for doctoral graduates, I went straight to the Human Resources Office to register. But the staff member barely looked up before rolling their eyes. "Mr. Slater, everyone at this university knows you cheated on your wife and are about to leave the marriage with nothing. How do you still have the nerve to ask about the placement position?" I thought there had been some kind of misunderstanding. I rushed home, hoping to explain everything to my wife, only for my mother to slap me across the face. "I don't have a shameless son like you. Get out of Natalie's house!" I was driven back to the rural school where I had spent the past

Surely the rest of the cult had heard about how I'd killed one of their numbers and maimed another. "There must be somewhere else we can go. Hacienda is just as bad, if not worse, than our apartments." "Mike has a back entrance that he can sneak us through. Only employees know about it. There is a back room that he uses to store booze and whatnot, and it would be prefect for us." I rolled it around in my mind, not really comfortable with the concept of returning to such a dangerous place. "You're sure it's safe? Mike is on our side, no doubt?" I asked.

I added. The penthouse greeted us with warm lighting and absolute silence. I kicked off my heels by the entryway. Adrian loosened his tie, tossing it on the console. He moved towards the kitchen island. I followed him, reaching for a glass of water. **** That evening, I waited until Adrian was deep in his study, attending to business mails and messages, then I slipped into the private server room off the master bedroom. My fingers flew across the keyboard, bypassing the main security layer with the backdoor access Adrian had given me three years ago. He said it was for emergency use only, in case something happens to me.

"You think you can just walk away from twenty-plus years of living it up with the Lloyds? You think you can ever make up for all that?" I just kept my eyes on the ground. I just did not get these people. They could not stand me, and I was not even a Lloyd anymore. So why weren't they happy I was gone? However, somehow, I was still there, stuck with the Lloyds for the time being. My old room, the one that was once mine, was then Walter's. Me? I was downgraded to the nanny's room, a place I never thought I would sleep in.

The old penthouse at the edge of the docks was nothing like Jaxon’s usual haunts. It had no polished marble floors or expensive leather furnishings. It smelled faintly of rust and salt, the walls scarred from a time when it had served as a discreet safehouse for fleeing clients and dying secrets. But now, it would become something else, something colder. Strategic. A war room.