by Ali Parker
I hadn’t been able to say no, and there was nowhere else for me to go.
That was a month and a half ago.
I clicked on another job opening at a cigar lounge not far from Penny’s apartment as she came out of the bathroom. She padded down the hall and plopped down on the couch across from me. She was wearing booty shorts and a loose tank top, and her blond hair was tied up in her floral-patterned towel. Penny was a hopeless romantic and the definition of femininity. If it was pink or had flowers on it, she needed it. Simple as that.
“Any luck?” Penny asked, cocking her head to the side.
I glanced up at her over the top of my laptop and shook my head. “Nothing yet. Although this one sounds more promising than all the others. It’s a cigar lounge. The Stokes. Have you heard of it?”
Penny nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty classy. I bet you’d make killer tips with that body of yours.”
I bit my lip. “I don’t think that’s the direction I want to go.”
“Oh, please.” Penny rolled her eyes. “Just send an application. The worst that can happen is you go down there and don’t like it. So what? You can walk away at any time. You don’t owe employers anything. You’re interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you. You gotta change your mindset, girl.”
As with everything, Penny was right. “All right. I’ll apply. I have a couple others I’m going to shoot my resumé to as well.”
“Awesome.” Penny grinned, hopping off the couch. “I’m going to finish getting ready for work. Good luck!”
Penny left for the bank at nine o’clock. After two hours passed, I was still sending in applications. I’d applied to the cigar lounge, two coffee shops, three restaurants, and a couple of retail stores. The pay was minimum, but I had to start somewhere. I’d been unemployed for too long, and my emergency fund I’d started putting money in while I lived in Honolulu was beginning to dwindle.
Later that afternoon, as I sat down to dig into a tuna sandwich, my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I answered the phone cheerfully, hoping it was one of the employers calling back about an application. “Hello?”
A male voice answered. “Hi there, is this Evelyn East?”
“Speaking.”
“Evelyn. Hi. My name is Bruce, and I’m a comanager at The Stokes. I just received your resumé, and we’re looking to fill the position pretty quickly. Is there any chance I could get you in here tomorrow for an interview?”
My heart started hammering, and my palms grew sweaty. “Yes, tomorrow works perfectly. I live close by and can be there at whatever time works best for you, Bruce.”
“Great. How about three o’clock?”
“I’ll be there,” I said, grinning like a fool by myself in Penny’s living room. “Would you like me to bring a copy of my resumé along for reference?”
“Nah, it’s all right. We have the electronic file. And I have a good feeling about you.”
My smile stretched my face even more, and my cheeks started aching. “I can’t wait to come in and chat with you. Thank you for calling back so quickly.”
“Thanks, Evelyn. Have a good rest of your day.”
I hung up the phone feeling giddy. I had a good feeling about Bruce too. I slapped my laptop closed, hopped up off the couch, and then proceeded to clean Penny’s entire apartment. -I’d been keeping it spick-and-span since I moved in, feeling like it was my duty to go above and beyond to show her how grateful I was for having a free place to stay while I sorted my life out.
I did the dishes and scrubbed the floors. I vacuumed while blasting music and dancing like an idiot and dusted every surface in the place.
Then around four o’clock, I started dinner.
Penny got home from work at exactly six o’clock. She came in through the front door as I pulled the lasagna out of the oven. She stopped, beamed at me, and inhaled deeply. “That smells heavenly.”
“It’s celebration lasagna,” I said as I put it down on top of the oven.
Penny shrugged her purse off her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at me. “Are we celebrating a potential new job opportunity?”
I grinned and nodded. “Yes. The cigar lounge called me in for an interview tomorrow afternoon. He said he had a good feeling about me. And to be honest, I felt pretty good about him too. He seems nice and professional.”
Penny clapped her hands together. “Fantastic! What are you going to wear?”
I blinked at her. “Uh. I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t really have any interview appropriate clothing with me.” I glanced at the three giant suitcases lined up behind her sofa. I was living out of those. It had gotten old after the first week.
“That doesn’t matter.” Penny waved her hand at me. “We can raid my closet. I have plenty of business casual and sexy items.”
“Sexy?”
Penny nodded and walked over to the lasagna. She smelled it again and sighed contently. “Yeah. It’s a cigar lounge, Evie. They’re going to want you to show a little leg. Or boob. Or both.”
I winced.
Penny rubbed my shoulder. “Don’t worry. It can be done tastefully. Trust me. Let’s eat the shit out of this lasagna, and then I’ll help you throw an outfit together. I already have a couple ideas.”
“Oh, dear,” I mumbled.
“I’ll take care of you. Trust me.” Penny grabbed plates from the cupboard and cut into the lasagna. Then, we both sat down at the kitchen table and pigged out. I wasn’t the sort of girl to toot her own horn, but I was gifted in the kitchen. Penny seemed to think so too. She closed her eyes as she chewed and pointed at the pasta on her plate with her fork. “There is no one in the world who makes lasagna as good as you do.”
“Thank you.” I grinned.
After dinner, Penny raided her closet and made me strip down to my bra and panties. We went through countless outfits, and each time, she said it needed “just a little bit more.” I had no clue what that meant, so I let her keep going, pulling more skirts and tops and shoes from the depths of her closet.
Everything she had me try on was out of my comfort zone. I was the sort of girl who liked flat shoes, preferably sandals, loose tops, and jeans. I favored comfort over fashion and practicality over sexy. Penny was the opposite. The outfits she wore to the bank were always far too tight for my tastes and finished off with a heel made for stabbing someone in the throat. She looked like a goddess, though, and she assured me that combining my more laid-back style with a bit of her sexy tastes would be perfect for this job.
At the end of the process, I found myself standing in front of the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door admiring myself. She’d put me in a skintight black skirt that cut off at the middle of my thighs. My legs looked long and lean with the heels she had paired with it. They were black and strappy and not something I would have ever picked up off a shelf to try on, let alone buy. But they weren’t as uncomfortable as I thought, and I liked the effect they had on my legs. The shirt was black and tight too. The collar went up to my jaw, but it was see-through lace, revealing skin in a more tasteful way.
I ran my hands down my thighs. “I really like this, Penny. Thank you.”
Penny was sitting on her bed, leaning back on her hands. “You look hot as fuck, girl. Seriously. If he doesn’t hire you, he’s going to want to fuck you.”
“Penny,” I said, scowling at her. “That’s not going to make me any less nervous. I don’t want that sort of attention when I’m trying to get a job.”
“Don’t worry about it. You said he sounded professional. Chances are it will be fine. But you’ll definitely make an impression. A good one.”
“Awesome,” I said, smiling again.
“There’s only one thing missing.” Penny pushed herself up and went to the shelving unit in her attached bathroom. She came back with a basket full of nail polishes. “If your toes are showing, we’re going to have to do something about that old polish. It’s ghastly.”
“Hey
,” I said defensively as I looked down at my toes. I hadn’t had a pedicure since I was still in law school, and even then, it hadn’t been all that recent. Four months or so, probably. All my toes were naked except for my big toe, which was sporting a stripe of dark blue at the halfway mark. I looked up at Penny. “You’re right.”
“Of course, I am. Come on, let’s throw on a movie, have some wine, and paint our toes. I think you should go with a Ferrari red. What do you think?”
I groaned. If left up to me, I would go with something a little more unassuming. Like a soft pink or another shade of blue. Penny was always trying to stand out where I wanted to blend in. But this was her rodeo, and she was already shaking the red polish in one hand as we walked down the hall.
The decision, it seemed, was already made.
Chapter 3
Derek
The air conditioning in my truck hadn’t been enough to cool me down on the drive home from the gym early Wednesday morning. I was still sweating like a mule when I grabbed my gym bag from the back seat and headed inside, where I stood in the kitchen to drink two full glasses of water.
I went to my bedroom to find my bed still occupied by the sexy brunette I’d hit up on the patio the day before on my way to Ryder’s. She’d been, as I suspected, wild between the sheets. Her girlfriends hadn’t been all that bad either. But I’d kicked the blonde and the redhead out after midnight and invited the brunette to stay.
I might have been mistaken, but I was pretty sure her name was Emily. Or Julie. Or something along those lines.
She was tangled up under my gray sheets and had one bare leg and hip exposed. The curve of her body was delicious, and I grinned to myself as I passed by and went to shower.
When I came back out to the bedroom, she was just starting to wake up. Her hair was a chaotic mess from fucking straight through until morning, and her lips were swollen. She looked cute as hell, but I didn’t dare tell her that. This was a one time, hit it and quit it kind of situation. I wasn’t looking for anything long-term, especially not right now. The Lost Breed MC was knee deep in shit, and women had a way of fucking with my head and jumbling my priorities. I had to maintain focus and discipline. Ryder was counting on me.
Emily—or Julie—propped herself up on her elbows and watched me dress with a sleepy smile. “Where did you go off to so early this morning?”
“The gym,” I said as I stepped into my jeans and buttoned them up. “I didn’t want to wake you. Hope you don’t mind.”
She shrugged. “Nope. I was surprised to wake up and find you gone. Pretty trusting to leave a strange girl alone in your place with so much shit lying around.” She pointed her chin at my nightstand where one of my watches sat on a tray. She looked back at me. “A Montblanc, no less.”
“A girl who knows her watches,” I said, one of my eyebrows arching with approval.
Emily—or Julie—swung her legs over the bed and stood. She was a sight to behold with strong thighs and the poise of a ballerina. She brushed her fingers over my bare chest as she passed to gather her clothes from the floor behind me. She pulled her shirt over her head without bothering to put her bra on. “My dad was a collector. I can spot a luxury watch a mile away. You have good taste.” She glanced at the rest of my collection on top of my dresser.
My work before joining the Lost Breed had afforded me a lifestyle that did not match my rugged reputation. I was a collector of fine things, including women, and I enjoyed pieces of art like watches. I was also guilty for spending what some might consider a little too much money on suits, shoes, and cologne.
Sue me.
Once Emily—or Julie—was dressed, she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “This was fun. You have my number should you ever want to, you know, fool around. I’m not looking for anything more than that right now.”
“You’re speaking my language, kitten,” I said, giving her perky ass a nice little pat. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”
I said goodbye to her at the front door and watched her hips sway as she went out to her car. I might call her. I might not. I probably should have double-checked what her name was.
I was in the middle of washing my bike in the driveway when a familiar name flashed across my phone screen as a call came in. I dried my hands on my pants and picked up the call. “Warren,” I said.
Warren was my old boss. He ran an underground enforcement crew that worked for a particularly dangerous mafia family in New York City. Had it not been for Ryder, I would still be in that life. Or I’d be dead and six feet under. Warren’s voice was as crackly and dry as I remembered. He was probably still smoking a pack a day to deal with his stress. “Derek,” he drawled. “I was surprised to catch wind that you were putting feelers out there about a certain prisoner eligible for early release.”
“It’s good to hear from you too.”
Warren chuckled. At least, that’s what I interpreted the breathless wheezing through the speaker to be. “Meet me at the old hand-off spot. I have information for you. Come alone.”
“See you in twenty.”
When I approached the old bench in the park I used to meet Warren, I had flashbacks of being a lot younger and a lot dumber. I used to saunter up to this bench on a weekly basis, where Warren would hand me a manila envelope with my cash and the information for that week’s job. Sometimes it was theft or blackmail or a show of force assignment. It was always illegal.
This time felt strange. Warren looked a little worse for wear. He was probably close to his fifties now, and wrinkles were starting to appear on his face. He was dressed in a light gray suit with a blue tie and pointed black shoes. His blond hairline was receding, and his jaw was looking a little softer when he turned to look up at me with a cigarette hanging out of one side of his mouth.
The first thing I did as I sat down was look to see if he had an envelope. Nope.
“You’re looking fit,” Warren observed.
“You’re looking like you have a bad case of smoker’s lung.”
Warren’s green eyes twinkled, and he chuckled. He put the cigarette out on the bench beside him and tossed the butt in the grass at his feet. “I’ve missed that. All my boys do now is kiss my ass and try to win my favor. It’s a damn shame I lost you. That mouth of yours was annoying at the time, but money can’t buy an honest man these days.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure one will come along one of these days.”
“One of these days could always be today, and one could always be you,” Warren offered.
“Thanks, but no. I’ve got a soft spot to land, and I’m not fucking that up.”
“Still running with Moretti, hey?”
I nodded. “Until I die, Warren.”
Warren held up his hands to admit defeat. “I hear you. I hear you. But should the tables ever turn, you know you have a spot as my right-hand man. Any time you want it. It’s yours.”
“Thank you, Warren,” I said, knowing I just had to make him feel heard in order to move on. “So, what did you call me here for? You know about this bastard, The Devil's Hand?”
Warren nodded slowly. “Anyone who’s anyone knows who he is. A damn plague upon this earth, if you ask me. He’s cost me many men and my associates’ men. I hope you’re not treading too close to him, Derek. I’d hate to read your obituary in the paper one morning while having my cigarette on the balcony.”
“Your cigarettes will kill you before he kills me.”
Warren chuckled. “You do not know him as well as I do, then. You are aware that he’s insane, right? No remorse. No shame. No honor code. He is a merciless killer who abides by no rules. He does as he wants when he wants.”
“He killed one of my brothers.”
“Only one?” Warren asked.
I clenched my jaw. “That’s all he’s going to get. We’re going to bring him down.”
“You and Moretti?”
“Me and whoever else has the balls to go after him.”
Warren nodded, but it wasn’t ge
nuine. Then, he blew out a long sigh and reached in his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. He sparked another one up. “I have inside information that he will be released early, Derek. All he’s getting is a slap on the wrist. He has connections. People pulling strings for him.”
“When are they releasing him?”
“Don’t overreact. I don’t want to draw any attention to us. And I know this will piss you off. He’ll be out Friday afternoon.”
“Fuck,” I growled.
Warren nodded. “Fuck. Yes. If you’re hoping to catch up with him, I also have been told that he’ll be at Kadia nightclub on Saturday with some of his boys to celebrate his freedom. If I were you, I’d find someone who has exceptional aim, and I’d kill him from a distance. It’s the only way to ensure you don’t incur any more fatalities.”
I rolled my shoulders. Out on Friday? That was fucking bullshit. He’d killed a man. My fellow Lost Breed brother. Damn the system for its corruption. A gang member was less a life than another citizen, and the law used that to their advantage to let him off easy.
I got to my feet. “Thank you for meeting me.”
“You keep this shit between us, Derek. I don’t want my name on your tongue until you’re clear of this, you hear me? I could get myself killed talking to you about this shit.”
“I hear you. I won’t say a word.”
“Good,” Warren said, taking a long draw from his smoke. “Now get the fuck out of here. I’m meeting someone else in five.”
I left without saying anything else. At first, I wasn’t sure where I should go, and then I decided I needed to find Caleb and give him the head’s up. Caleb was a bouncer at Kadia, the trendiest club in New York City that played host to partygoers of all levels between wild and tame.
If The Devil's Hand walked into the club on Saturday and caught Caleb off guard, shit could get bad real fast.
