Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

Cherry Noir stepped out on stage again as stagehands dressed in black began to pull the captured mannequins off the stage.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, especially, you gentlemen. Protect your loins because our next act is not for the faint of heart. I give you our guiding light ... A woman of vast power and prestige ... Our protector of the valiant ... She will only take you if you are worthy ...”

  Cherry really needed to just get to the point.

  “I give you ... Midnight Starr.” Cherry bowed and stepped backward just as the curtains jerked to the sides.

  The stagehands cleared the stage just as Starr stepped into the center light accompanied by the strings and brass opening of Ride of the Valkyries. Placing her hands on her hips, she cocked her head and let the crowd take her in.

  Fuck him—she was a sight.

  Her hair cascaded down her shoulders, half in braids laced with gold and silver threads, and the other half in loose waves. Breastplates covered in crystals, along with armbands, leg guards, and a cape with yards of fabric trailing behind her completed the outfit. Two men stepped out on either side of her wearing black lycra bodysuits and horse head masks. As Starr glided forward, drenched in so much light it made his eyes hurt, the horse people waved the hooves on their hands and clomped their hoof-like shoes alongside her.

  “That's my girl.” A guy had sidled up to him, way too close for comfort.

  “Huh?” Nathan stared at the guy.

  Watery blue eyes peered up at him. “My daughter.”

  His belly curled tight. So, this was Robert O'Malley, Starr’s deadbeat dad. With lines across his face, sallow skin, and shaky hands, the ravages of alcohol abuse were evident. Knowing what he’d done to those girls, Nathan wanted to pummel the shit out of him.

  Instead, he held out his hand. “Nathan Baldwin.” He represented Shakedown, so he’d at least feign manners.

  The skin on the man’s hand was thin as paper. “Starr's boyfriend.”

  Someone had filled him in—and it wasn’t Starr. That meant one of the other girls might have, like Luna. Shit, this man didn’t deserve any of the sisters.

  He held on to the man’s hand longer than he should have and stared without blinking. “Yes. I’m a lucky man. I get to look after her.”

  Robert huffed a bit. “Guess she filled you in.”

  “She did.” Only then did Nathan let go of the man’s hand. “I’m always watching over her.” The message had been sent—and by the look of the guy’s face, he understood “watching over” meant protecting her from him.

  Nathan returned to watching Starr prance through thin clouds of dry-ice smoke snaking across the stage, giving her the illusion of walking on clouds. She struck a strong, centered, and inhumanly beautiful figure. She always did when on stage, but tonight she was in rare form. His girl really did love the spotlight, and it loved her back.

  Robert clapped his hands together and lowered himself to his seat. A sick chill climbed up the back of Nathan’s neck at the clear admiration emanating from Starr’s father’s face. Supporting her, sure, but this guy’s eyes roamed Starr a little too intently.

  Starr raised her arm, and a lightning bolt shot straight from her arm—a trick of the lights, one he'd seen at Shakedown, but it was still damned impressive. She’d been stressing about this new dance she'd put together for tonight, but hadn't told him a damned thing about it.

  As she sashayed with both power and grace across the stage, more lightning bolts emanated from her fingers. He grew so enamored at the special effect, he almost lost track of her costume. Her movements, liquid and fluid, made the glitter move across her ass cheeks and appear to be water sheeting on her skin. Holy shit. No panties. Sparkles dusted those glorious cheeks—naked cheeks.

  His brain inventoried her costume, or rather the glitter and body paint that replaced a costume. The armbands and the guard on her thighs looked like fabric. The rest? Sparkles and crystals stuck to bare fucking skin. He grew dizzy yet strangely stiff, and if those men in the front row didn’t stop jeering … Fuck. A guy standing a few feet over adjusted his pants, and he nearly lost his shit. It wouldn't be his finest moment to clock a patron during Starr’s show.

  When Starr finally drifted back behind the curtain, Cherry urged the crowd to acknowledge the act even more, as if they required any more encouragement.

  He tamped down his Neanderthal desire to run backstage and throw a blanket over her. She was a burlesque dancer, for Christ's sake. She stripped down to pasties and a G-string sometimes. Since they'd been together, she hadn't done that, and he'd like to think he had something to do with that. So, he stayed put.

  He crossed his arms and focused on the stage and other acts—a dragon-slaying number, a mild striptease to an old-time Burlesque song, and a bizarre piece where the woman came out dressed like a burrito. Only when the finale was announced, when all the performers took the stage, did Starr emerge once more. She still wore her nothing-costume, earning a resounding roar from the crowd.

  Robert slumped in his seat, but his gaze was trained on Starr. A sick feeling settled in Nathan’s stomach. He debated whether he should look for Starr or stay and watch the man. Starr won.

  He ambled over to Trick, who stood in the back, arms folded across his chest. “I'm taking a break.”

  “Yeah, go and see your woman. You've been chomping at the bit ever since she stepped out in all her Valkyrie glory.”

  Yeah, he owned it. He was being the jealous boyfriend. “She looked good.”

  Trick eyed him. “She did. Just make sure you're not wearing that face when you go back to see her, okay? She probably worked hard on this thing, and your jaw looks like it might shatter any minute.”

  He scraped his hand through his hair. “I'm proud of her.”

  “Make sure she knows it.”

  He was proud of Starr. It's just ... fuck, he didn't like the way all those men watched her. He didn't like the way her own father looked at her. Of course, he didn’t get three feet toward his destination when Max signaled him. He raised a flask. Great. Somebody had snuck in alcohol. At least he got to help throw someone out.

  35

  Starr's whole body buzzed with the adrenaline rush of a good performance. Her muscles sang. She hummed the Ride of the Valkyries. Maybe that'd be her new theme song. She hopped a little on her standing leg as she yanked off her boot. A dusting of gold glitter drifted to the carpeting. Oh, well. For once, she wouldn't need to sweep it up since any minute, the hotel staff would be hustling them out.

  Next to her, two dancers hugged with promises to keep in touch. Others stuffed costumes into duffel bags and chattered away. She'd really missed working with other dancers. Her mind began to spin about how she could convince Declan to hire more acts to give her and her sisters some breaks.

  Slow clapping sounded to her right. She straightened and turned. Not now. She'd been in such a good mood, too.

  Her father’s hands, clasped together, shook. Nerves or nerve damage? “Well done. You girls certainly are pros. Beautiful. I mean, really—”

  “What are you doing here?” She turned back to folding up her boots, stuffing them into a fabric bag. “You promised to give us some space.”

  He cleared his throat. “I know. It’s just … I thought I’d come to support you.” His hands trembled even more, and a sliver of something like pity managed to sneak inside her.

  Starr glanced up, searching for Phoenix, hoping she wasn’t in the room. She saw her idly chatting away with the flamenco dancers, and thankfully, had her back to them.

  She turned to her father, using her body to shield him from Phee’s view. “You need to leave, now. Please.”

  He simply nodded and backed away.

  She angrily finished stuffing her things into her bags—her high vanished, which pissed her off—it was because of him. She yanked on a skirt and threw on a T-shirt.

  “Did you see Dad?” Luna’s voice startled her.

  “I did. Did you know he was coming?” She fluffed
out her hair.

  “No, he didn’t mention it. Don’t worry. He's headed back to Sunset Home. I just saw him in the hallway.”

  Smart man. “That's for the best. Remember our deal.” She’d finally convinced Luna to just lay off this Dad thing already.

  Luna nodded slowly and glanced across the room at Phoenix. “Thanks for doing this. I know it was awkward.”

  Labeling it awkward was weighing his sudden appearance far too lightly. They'd found him. They'd helped pay part of his rehab. Forgiveness and reconciliation could wait—for an eternity if needed.

  “Uh, I don’t know if you caught it, but I noticed Nathan talking to Dad.”

  What? Where was Nathan anyway? She couldn’t see him in the room. She turned to go search for him in the ballroom and plowed straight into a hotel employee.

  “Miss Starr?” A man held out a bouquet of red roses arranged into a bucket that obscured half of the man’s upper torso and all of his head. “These came for you.”

  “Bet they're from Nathan.” Luna waggled her eyebrows.

  Starr grasped the bucket, and the man scurried away. She lowered her nose into one of the multitudes of rosebuds. A sweet scent wafted upward—strong, oddly tangy, too.

  “I don't see a note.” She turned them around, and her fingers grew sticky. A prick lanced her finger. “Ow.” She laid the bouquet down on a nearby table, sucked on her scratched fingertip, and blinked. A gummy, red substance colored her hand, and a metallic rust and salt scent, mixed with something rotten threatened to choke her.

  “Oh, my God, you're bleeding.” Luna scanned Starr’s hands, up her torso, and to her face.

  Starr’s mind blanked as a long, wet, red drip trailed from her knee to her bare foot. A smear of crimson marred the body paint across her arms. “Bleeding? No. I'm ...”

  “It came from the flowers.” Luna moved some of the stems in the large bouquet. She gasped and stepped backward.

  “What is that?” Luna pointed to the hunk of meat inside the bouquet.

  A glob of flesh shone under the harsh light. Bile rose up in Starr's throat. She swallowed, afraid to move, or she might get sick.

  One of the other dancers swept over in a rush of swishing crystal beading. “Oh, my God. Starr? Are you all right?”

  Starr shook her head, and air passed her lips but didn't reach her lungs fast enough. Wrong, this was all wrong. She patted her belly, which only smeared more of the icky substance into the glitter and gold paint.

  “A pig's heart.” Amber's voice—that was the woman's name—sounded so far away.

  “A-a what?” The metallic scent sickened her stomach and dried her mouth. She couldn't stop looking at the mass of rotting flesh, striped blue in places.

  “I worked in a lab once.” Amber moved a stem of greenery over with a fingertip. “It's got something in it.”

  Steely gray spikes peppered the disgusting thing. Nails. Her blood-soaked hand flew up to her mouth, the stickiness meeting her lips. She couldn't swallow anymore. She doubled over, and her stomach contracted, as hands—so many hands—grabbed her arms, her back. The floor spun as she hit the rough carpet. Someone had to make the whirling stop.

  36

  Nathan had enough of this do-nothing talk. “You're saying this isn't a crime?”

  “I understand this is upsetting.” The cop scratched the side of his cheek with a finger. “No laws have been broken. You can get a pig's heart from any butcher—”

  “But not put them in fucking flowers.” Jesus, he was pushing it, but the dirty stench of the city with its mix of asphalt, dumpster, and car fumes, only exacerbated his irritation.

  The officer's eyes narrowed. “And who are you again?”

  Cherry appeared, her height blocking the parking lot light, putting the cop into shadow. “Oh, he's the boyfriend. You have to understand.” The uniform looked up at her, given she dwarfed him by a good ten inches. “He's protective,” she whispered.

  Protective, his ass. Someone got to Starr in a crowded hotel room, and Nathan had spent the last thirty minutes trying to unclench his jaw. Now the place crawled with cops, enough to raise Nathan's blood pressure to artery busting. He wanted them here, and gone, at the same time, and Jesus, his heart began to punch at his ribcage in double time. He had no idea why Cherry still hung around, except she hovered like a mother lion over her cubs.

  The cop eyed Nathan, his eyebrows furrowing. “So, who do you think did this ... uh, Mr. Baldwin, right?”

  “Ruark MacKenna.”

  “Why do you think it's him?” The guy at least wrote the name down.

  “He's been harassing my employees, Mr. Baldwin and one of our dancers, Miss O’Malley,” Declan's voice rumbled between them. “Thanks for coming out, Jake. Appreciate it.”

  The cop shook Declan's hand.

  So, turns out, Declan did have friends on the force, though that wasn't going to matter in this mess. The MacKennas likely had more friends—cops, attorneys, and judges.

  “Evidence, Declan?”

  “Sightings. Threats. Showing up at my club, which I have on camera.”

  The cop's face showed real interest for the first time. “Threats on video?”

  Nathan ground his teeth. “No. Of course not.”

  “Ruark couched his words well enough.” Declan glared at Nathan—the stand-down message transmitted loud and clear. “Bit of a mouth, but nothing incriminating to my knowledge.”

  The cop jiggled the baggie holding the small card, smudged with pig's blood, they'd found tucked inside the bouquet. Nathan had snapped a picture of the card for evidence, a gift for his parole officer who he now had to call. Fuck me, very much. “Well, whoever it is, we've got a handwriting sample. We'll run it through, and we'll go see this MacKenna.” The cop looked down at his notebook.

  “He won't be hard to find.” Declan reached into his suit jacket and drew out his cell phone.

  The cop rocked back on his heels a bit. “You know this guy well, Declan?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. The MacKennas are well known. Here’s a number.”

  It made no sense that Declan would keep Ruark’s number.

  A long minute of silence filled the space between the two men as they held each other's stare. The cop finally wrote down the number displayed on Declan’s phone. He slapped his notebook closed. “Got to tell you, this is a hard one. I'll let you know if we find anything.”

  They wouldn't find squat. Ruark was too smart to leave evidence. The handwriting probably wasn't even his.

  Jake, the cop, stared directly at Nathan. “Oh, and don't take matters into your own hands. Let us handle it. If MacKennas have got it out for you and Miss O'Malley, it's trouble. This shows psychotic stalkerish tendencies.”

  Nathan swallowed the “ya think” and just nodded.

  Nathan helped fill the back of Cherry's car with props, plastic bins of costumes, and a suitcase containing make-up, then slammed the hatchback shut. Doing something, while waiting for Starr and Luna to get cleaned up, helped burn off some of the adrenaline.

  The girls finally came out to the parking lot, their faces lax and white as if shell shocked. Starr wore a skirt and a simple green t-shirt, and her hands were scrubbed clean. Despite the lines across her forehead and her fingers twisting around each other at her belly, she still looked like a goddess.

  She lowered herself to the front seat of Luna's car. Declan leaned down. Murmurs came from their direction. Nathan should be over there, comforting Starr, saying things that mattered, making things better. Instead, the full weight of the unjust situation sat like an anvil in his gut. She didn't deserve this crap he'd brought into her life.

  He could get in his car, hit I-95, and head south. Perhaps disappear somewhere out West. Of course that meant he'd be a fugitive. He’d miss his goddamned 9:00 a.m. meeting with his parole officer, scheduled thanks to the text he’d sent Erin tonight at Declan's urging. Nathan was shocked she’d answered. He’d thought she'd see the message tomorrow, he’d go in,
and they'd figure it out together. Instead, her message was typical Erin.

  <>

  In just under ten hours, he'd sit in that metal chair before her desk and listen to all the things he should not be doing, like finding Ruark MacKenna and beating the truth out of him. Yeah, fugitive life was looking real good.

  Starr’s eyes met his, and the pain living there could have sliced his heart out of his chest. It was pain Ruark had put there. She'd had a fantastic night until he had to ruin it all. He was so fucking tired of that family’s hold on him and the people in his life.

  His feet finally moved him to where she sat in the passenger seat, her sneakers on the pavement. Her blue eyes focused on him like a laser beam. All those light-filled flecks he'd memorized had stilled, her eyes now red-rimmed and quiet.

  He scrubbed his chin. “Starr, I—”

  “You don't need to say anything, Nathan. I'm fine.”

  She wasn't fine. God, he wanted to grab her, crush her to him, but she sat so rigid she might shatter under his hands.

  Luna touched his arm, cocked her head a little. “I'll be over there. Let me know when you want to leave.”

  The lie he needed to tell rose up quickly. “Max is going to go home with you all. Declan and I need to talk.” He just needed a little time to process, maybe talk himself out of doing something royally stupid, like hit I-95 headed south.

  Starr dropped her gaze to her hands. Her knuckles turning white from twisting her fingers as if trying to wring out her hands. “I'll wait for you.”

  He crouched down to her, placed his hand on hers, stilling them. “You need to go home. Rest. You killed it on stage. You've gotta be tired.”

  Her eyebrows rose in hope. “You'll come to our place when you're done here?”

  “I don't think that's a good idea. Max will.”

  Those little lines around her eyes deepened as her eyes sparked. Her head cocked. “I need you.”

  Yeah, that indignation in her voice? He knew she wouldn't understand. She didn't realize how evil and fucked up the world could be, how someone might use her to get to him. No matter what Declan had said the other day, he was a fucking liability. It was time to turn his status around, starting with a new plan—one he’d yet to form. Every time he thought about it, he came up with only one solution. Ruark needed to forget Starr existed.