by Nicole Banks
“With the way you were just dancing on that stage?” He scoffed. “I would have believed that more if you had been dancing like when you thought Otto was the only one watching you.” He winked before he let go of her and leaned back up against her vanity.“Besides, if you really want fast money, you’re going to have to take those clothes off, and you’re one of the handful of women here who don’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her like he was pissed he just caught her in some lie. “Let’s try this again. Why are you here?”
“What does it matter to you? I didn’t know your name was Gia or Otto that I had to answer to you,” she snapped at him, wondering if he was the one who did her background check and had stumbled on some inconsistencies.
“Why won’t you answer the question?” he asked with a smirk teasing his lips.
Because I don’t know what you know and don’t want to overplay my hand.
Ivy wasn’t a hundred percent sure how far Smoke—or whoever it was—had dug into her background. She knew what the information she had given them would yield when they did their quick search, but she also knew there were ways around shit. She tried to stick to as much of the truth as she could so no one would question anything, but had she somehow fucked up? If she couldn’t keep this job, she’d never be able to get her and her sister out of here.
She went to speak, to tell him something that would hopefully appease him, when the door to the locker room opened and a few of her coworkers strolled in. One of them caught sight of Smoke and screeched his name before launching herself at him. He caught her quickly and kissed her neck. “Hey, sweetheart,” he purred and the woman—whose name Ivy seemed to have forgotten—melted into him.
Ivy rolled her eyes, even though she was grateful for the distraction. She could finally escape and call her sister. She went to grab her bag when Smoke grabbed her wrist, stopping her. He pushed the woman off of him. “Give me two seconds and I’m all yours darlin’.”
He smacked her on her ass, sending her on her merry way and Ivy laughed. “I thought there was a no fraternizing rule here?”
Smoke shrugged. “I do whatever I want. Besides, I think the boss is going to break that rule soon enough.” His grip on her arm tightened. “You’re not off the hook, spitfire.” He pulled at her arm, and she fell into his body. He brought his lips to her ear and kept his voice low. “I find out you’re not who you say you are and hurt the people in this club, I’ll make your worst fear seem like a dream come true. Understood?”
Ivy heard the truth in his threat and fear licked the base of her spine. She nodded and felt an uneasy feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. If she and her sister managed to escape, she’d still have to look over her shoulders. She didn’t think Smoke was the type to forgive or forget.
Smoke let go of her arm and pushed off her vanity. “Nice chatting with you, Ivy.” He turned and sauntered over to the woman who’d thrown herself at him early, and Ivy quickly grabbed her bag and headed to the bathroom.
As soon as the bathroom door clicked behind her, she locked it. She wasn’t sure if Smoke would barge in after her, but if he did, she was going to pretend like the flimsy lock was going to hold up against his weight.
She shifted through her bag and pulled out her burner phone. It was preprogrammed with only two numbers. One number was for her to pick up any time it rang, no matter what, and the other was for her sister. It was her only direct line to her sister. She wasn’t allowed to see her, but she was grateful that she still had access to her.
She hit the dial button, hoping her little sister would be able to pick up. She was past her normal time and knew if she missed it, there was a chance Ivy wouldn’t get to talk to her today.
The phone rang three times and Ivy almost hung up knowing her sister should have picked up on the second ring. She went to hang up when she heard Eve’s bratty tone come through the speaker. “This is late, even for you, Ivy.”
She felt herself relax, and a smile stretched across her face. “This coming from the girl who was always late for anything she set up?” Ivy chuckled. “I miss you, Eve.”
And Ivy did. She hated that she put Eve through any of this. If she hadn’t ignored all those red flags from her ex, they would still be in California and Eve would be well on her way to finishing her degree. Instead, she’d been used to keep Ivy in line to do whatever had been asked of her.
“I miss you too, Ivy. You’re worried, aren’t you?”
Ivy had tried to keep the concern out of her voice when she spoke to her sister, but she should have known she couldn’t hide anything from her. They weren’t twins, Ivy was five years older than Eve, but they had a connection that ran deeper than a normal sister bond. Ivy couldn’t keep her feelings from Eve, no matter how hard she tried. It was why Eve had stopped talking to her about the things she had gone through when Ivy wasn’t around.
In the beginning of their captivity, their captors used to make Ivy watch, bound and helpless, as they raped her sister repeatedly. They wanted to break them both, and they had succeeded in part. It wasn’t until much later that,Ivy realized she was the collateral. Eve had taken the brunt of their abuse to keep them from killing Ivy. They had always wanted Eve because she was of fair skin with no marks on her body. Ivy had just been an unnecessary bonus.
“It’ll be okay. You have a gift of getting what you want. This time will be no different.” Eve sounded confident in Ivy’s abilities, but this was different. She had been able to talk her captors into using her so her sister stayed safe and unharmed. They made her run petty scams, and it had been easy.
The stakes were higher for this, and there was more of a risk. If she fucked up, she’d lose her sister and possibly her own life. If she was able to pull this off, she’d still might lose her sister and her life. It was a lose-lose situation when she got down to it.
Ivy shook her head knowing if she kept worrying about what was to come, she’d never be able to focus. This would be easy; it had to be. She’d get whatever information she could and get out. There was nothing here that could make her second-guess herself or lose focus of what’s at stake.
What about Otto?
The question floated around in her head like a devil trying to tempt a saint. Otto was her boss—nothing more, nothing less. She would not worry about what her actions would mean for him. Her first and only concern was to save her sister.
“Hey, Ivy. I’m going to have to cut this call short. I’m not in the house.”
“Where are you?” Ivy couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice.
Had they lied to her and moved her without warning?
Was this their way of telling her she needed to work quickly?
“A restaurant in the city. They wanted to show me off to some Russian guy who skeeved me out.” Eve let out a shaky breath, and it was on the tip of Ivy’s tongue to ask if they touched her, but she knew even if they did, her sister would lie to her.
“We’re getting ready to move soon. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Ivy. I love you.” Eve quickly hung up the phone before Ivy could respond and she cursed.
Ivy threw the phone back in her bag. Her resolve in what needed to happen turned her blood to iron. She needed to get her sister as far away from this life as possible and at any cost. If it meant she would end up trading her life for her sister’s, then so be it. At least one of them would get a chance at freedom.
OTTO PULLED UP TO TRES, exhausted. They decided to stop at Wolf’s casino instead of calling to see how the renovations were going. The fact that Wolf’s was almost up and fully operational after the shoot-out a month ago impressed Otto. He knew Sofia had money, but he didn’t realize it was enough to get the results she wanted in a timely manner. They’d be ready for a grand reopening by the end of the month if things kept up this way.
As soon as Otto stepped out of the car, he saw Ivy standing by the door of Tres. The club had closed a little less than an hour ago, and her shift should have ended an hour before that.<
br />
Had she stuck around for me?
The thought filtered through his head and left him with a deep male satisfaction until he realized how egotistical and illogical that thought was. They met briefly for maybe ten minutes. They would be working in the same club for the foreseeable future; she had no reason to wait around for him.
Unless she wanted to see him as much as he hoped she would still be here when he got back.
Otto scrubbed a hand down his face trying to silence his own thoughts. He went years without letting a woman get under his skin; he wasn’t about to break now, even if he could feel his body humming in anticipation of being close to her again.
Sofia and Dom stepped out of the car and headed for Tres with Otto not far behind. The door to the club swung open, startling Ivy. She let out a gasp as she sidestepped to avoid being hit, and the small sound wrapped around Otto’s rapid heartbeat.
He found himself growing annoyed with each step he took. He hated that he was having these reactions towards her. He’d been violently turned on watching her dance earlier tonight, and he almost chased down a woman he thought was her just so he could look at her again. He wasn’t one for love at first sight, and even before he got burned by his ex, he didn’t put too much stock in the notion of love and that there was a counterpart to you somewhere floating around in the world.
His sisters had been the romantics. He was a little more cynical, even more so after he’d gotten burned by his ex. But that couldn’t stop his body from responding to the temptation that Ivy was becoming. He enjoyed the way her eyes watched him—sizing him up like she was hungry for a taste of him.
Otto stopped in front of Ivy and had to ball his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her. “You’re still here?” he questioned, his eyes taking her in from head to toe. She’d thrown on sweatpants and an oversized hoodie that seemed to dwarf her already small frame. He could smell a faint hint of coconut oil, and it made him think of summer and his mouth watered. The need to find out if she tasted as good as she smelled and looked overwhelmed him as much as it pissed him off.
“Yeah, I was waiting—” her words were cut off by a feminine giggle. Otto turned to see Smoke walking out of Tres with his arms wrapped around Desiree, one of the girls who worked at the club.
Otto shook his head. This asshole never knew how to follow rules. “Smoke.” Otto practically snarled, and the shithead didn’t even bother to look like he was in the wrong.
“What up, O?” His gaze bounced between Otto and Ivy before his smile widened. “I’d save your holier-than-thou bullshit tonight. You about to dive down that rabbit hole yourself. You know that saying about glass houses and shit.” He kissed Desiree on her neck.
“Smoke.” Sofia said his name in warning, but Otto could see the smile teasing her lips. For reasons that Otto couldn’t understand, Sofia found Smoke’s antics endearing and entertaining.
“Don’t start, boss lady.” He blew her a kiss. “You won’t give me a chance, so I need to keep myself busy somehow.”
Sofia laughed as Dom stepped closer to her with a scowl on his face. “Stop being a dick, Smoke,” Dom growled, and it made Otto chuckle. As much as Sofia didn’t mind the Unhinged Brothers hanging around, he didn’t think Smoke was going to make it much longer if he didn’t keep himself in check around Dom and Sofia.
Otto focused his attention back to Ivy who was watching the interaction with avid attention. “He is…”
“A schmuck.” Otto finished for her, and she laughed with a shake of her head. “You waiting for a ride?”
“I was, but she’s late and my phone is dead, so I can’t call a cab.”
“I can take you home.” Otto’s mouth moved faster than he could get his brain to send the signal to tell him it was a bad idea.
He could lie to himself and think that he was offering her a ride to be polite, but that wasn’t the case. He wanted to spend time alone with her, away from Smoke’s knowing gaze, which he felt hot on the back of his neck. He wanted to be away from the fancy lights and sounds of the club that were put in place to trick the mind and body to think about sex. He wanted her alone, away from all the noise and the props to see if she still had the power to pull those same reactions out of him that happened when she walked across that stage in Tres.
“You don’t have to. I can just borrow a phone and call a cab. My apartment is all the way in Queens.”
“Queens? That’s going to cost you an arm and a leg. It’s no trouble.” He grabbed the bag she’d been holding and wrapped his hand around her arm and paused a second waiting to see if he felt anything similar to what he felt when he watched her dance.
When nothing happened, he felt himself relax, thinking his reaction to her earlier had just been a by-product of his surroundings. “Come on. You’ll get home a lot faster and cheaper.”
She nodded, and he was walking her toward his car when Sofia called his name. He turned around, but Sofia didn’t say anything. Her gaze was on Ivy, and he knew what she saw. It was the same face they ran into at Bocca Felice. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” Sofia murmured, never taking her eyes off of Ivy, who fidgeted under her weighted stare.
Otto nodded, making a mental note to ask Ivy if she had any siblings, because the more he thought about that woman at Bocca Felice, the heavier the pit in his stomach sat. A sense of foreboding crept its way up his spine and permeated the air around him. He tried to brush it off as him just being on guard for the war that was coming with Bruno and Boris, but that didn’t feel right. The worry he felt didn’t seem to be coming from the impending doom of his and the Council’s enemies.
Otto helped Ivy into his car and looked down at her for a second before closing the door behind her. Maybe what he was feeling was coming from her. His mind understood the dangers of getting involved with someone again, especially someone he employed. Maybe this was his mind’s way of keeping his dick in check.
He rounded the car, and before he got in he heard Smoke’s loud voice boom through the night sky. “Make sure you use a condom and wrap that shit tight, O. It won’t stop all of your problems, but it can prevent a few.”
Otto flipped Smoke the bird before he got in the car, wondering if paying Dom a hefty amount would make Smoke disappear. He really hated the bastard.
Sofia watched Otto’s interaction with the woman who looked eerily similar to the one they had run into for the sit down. Sofia was both intrigued and worried by his response to her. They couldn’t afford the distraction Sofia knew the woman would cause, and yet she wondered if this woman was going to be the one who brought Otto to his knees.
“Smoke, tell your lady friend to go wait by your bike. We have business to discuss.” Sofia’s tone brooked no argument as she caught a glimpse of the way Otto watched his passenger. There was possession there, just like it had been at Bocca Felice. Except, at the restaurant there had also been concern etched in his eyes.
Otto quickly pulled out of his parking spot, and Sofia watched until his taillights disappeared into the darkness. The longer she stared off into the night, the stronger the feeling that something wasn’t right became. Sofia could almost feel the rug getting ready to be pulled out from under her feet, and she couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from.
“She’s a new hire. Her name is Ivy Barone, and she lives near the pink houses in Queens.” Smoke rattled off fact after fact about Miss Ivy Barone. He had one of his guys run a background check on her. It was the same one they ran on all of the employees working at Tres and Wolf’s casino when Sofia took over. She wanted to make sure there were no snakes hiding in her garden.
“Pink houses?” Sofia murmured. The area had been one of the worst neighborhoods in Queens and the five boroughs when she was growing up; even her father knew never to conduct business there.
“Is that neighborhood still the same, or did gentrification remodel over there too?” she asked Dom, wondering about Ivy’s history and why she landed at Tres Bellas of all places. The club was popular for
Brooklyn, but there had been other high-end clubs in Queens she could have worked at.
“It’s gotten better but not by much, at least not enough for her to be going home alone this late,” Dom spoke as his fingertips brushed up against hers. His touch always ignited and calmed her at the same time. She looked down at their hands, wondering briefly if they’d ever have a chance at being a normal couple—or what normal would look like for them. She hadn’t come back here to rekindle what they once had, but that spark had started as soon as she got off the plane, and it wasn’t something that could be ignored.
Sofia remembered what it was like when she first saw Dom in a way other than a childhood friend. She remembered the need that consumed her and the way they danced around one another before finally stepping over that line. Sofia had seen relationships start and die painful deaths in Columbia, and she wondered how one of her best soldiers was going to fare against the pint-sized woman.
“She’s clean, but something’s not right about the background check we ran,” Smoke said.
Sofia turned to face Smoke. “How so?”
“It’s clean. There’s no indication as to why she ended up in New York—she’s not from here, even though her records state otherwise. Plus, no family contacts. So either her last name is a fake, her entire family is dead, or she’s adopted. I already pressed her in the locker room, and she kind of danced around my questions before giving me easy answers. I could keep an eye on her.”
Smoke smiled, always eager to help Sofia. She appreciated the help of the Unhinged Brothers, they gave her the leg up that she needed, but she knew Carter was going to need his club back and operating for themselves soon.
Sofia shook her head. “Your presence isn’t as inconspicuous as you like to believe. You’re hard to miss. We’ll get somebody on it. I don’t want to keep using you guys.” Smoke waved her off, silently letting her know it wasn’t a problem. She nodded in the direction of Smoke’s bike. “Word of advice; Gia isn’t going to give you the time of day if you keep fucking anything on legs in front of her.”
