This was the man responsible for that. How could I kiss him like this knowing he was capable of such a thing? That I could be next on his list if he knew the truth about me?
I abruptly pulled away, ducking under his arm to move deeper into the room. I looked around and saw we were in a large, beautiful living room that flowed into the kitchen and dining room. I noticed that it was well decorated, too—probably a professional. There were lovely paintings on the walls, some of them familiar. Expensive reprints of famous art. There were vases, small statuettes, and other impersonal but beautiful works of art. The furniture was expensive, leather and chrome, everything matching perfectly. Only the kitchen hinted that someone actually lived here, a small clutter of things on the counter that spoiled the perfect organization of the rest of the area.
“This is your place?” I asked again.
“Yes.”
I glanced toward the stairs that led up to a deep loft space, the hint of a bed just barely visible from where I stood. My belly did something funny at the sight of it, begging for something I was so tempted to offer. But then I turned around and focused on a painting hanging above the fireplace.
“You don’t have any personal photos?”
“I have a few upstairs. I prefer to keep this area neutral. I entertain business guests down here from time to time.”
“Is that right?”
“I do have more business interests than just the club.”
I turned to look at him, curious about that statement. The background Joss had provided me hadn’t mentioned other business interests.
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “I offer financial counseling to a few businessmen in the area. I was on Wall Street for quite a few years, so…”
“What else?”
“I own some real estate. I’m looking into building on some of it, looking for partners to go in on it with me.”
“Sounds interesting.”
He shrugged. “My life doesn’t revolve around The Red Door.”
“Could have surprised me.”
He came toward me, and I moved and crossed to the kitchen. I picked up the bag of bagels he must have left on the counter after his breakfast that morning. I was amused to see they were cinnamon raisin. If we were at my place, he’d find the same thing on my counter.
“How did you know where I was?”
“I told you, Rahul has someone following you.”
“And they just told you where I was?”
He was quiet. I looked up and caught him studying me. “I overheard them talking. Rahul was annoyed you were spending so much time in the coffee shop.”
“Did you come to rescue me from him again?”
“Maybe.”
I smiled, wondering if that was really true. It was sweet if it was.
“He’s dangerous. I don’t like that he knows where you are all the time.”
“Why don’t you do something about it? He works for you, doesn’t he?”
“It’s complicated.”
I walked over to him and, without thinking, ran my hand over his chest before moving around him. He grabbed me, caught me around the waist, and lifted me onto the counter in front of him in a few swift movements. I thought he’d kiss me again, but, instead, he lifted the sleeve of my blouse, revealing the angry bruises Rahul left on my arm.
“I have makeup. I’ll cover them before I dance tomorrow night.”
“I’m not worried about the damn customers!”
There was a growl in his tone, but his eyes were gentle, his lips even more gentle when he moved to kiss the marks. I buried my fingers in his hair, unable to keep my hands to myself, drawing him up to my lips. We kissed for a long moment, our lips lingering before he pulled back again.
“What is it?” he asked softly as he pressed his forehead to mine. “I know absolutely nothing about you, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”
I sighed. The feeling was completely mutual. My attraction to him was inexplicable—wrong, passionate, and exciting.
“What do you want to know?” I asked softly.
He studied my eyes for a moment. “Everything.”
“No one can truly know everything about another person.”
He groaned, his hands slipping around my waist so that he could pull me closer against him. I wrapped my legs loosely around his legs, my hands sliding down the soft linen of his shirt. He kissed me, a soft, gentle kiss that spoke volumes to my body.
“Why did you have to walk into my life now? This has got to be the worst time for me to find someone like you.”
“Why?”
“Because of Rahul and The Red Door and this mess that is my life.”
“What mess?”
He pulled back, his eyes searching my face. “There’s so much going on there that you would never understand. And I’m trying—”
A chime sounded, sending a spark of tension through his body. He pulled my legs off of him, stepping away to pick up a phone that hung on the wall. He barked a single word into it, listened a moment, then sighed heavily, his eyes moving over me.
“Send him up.”
When he hung up, he came over and lifted me off the counter. “Go upstairs. There’s a small office off the bedroom. Go in there and lock the door.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, okay?” He kissed my forehead lightly before turning me and shoving me toward the stairs. “Stay up there until I tell you it’s okay. Understand?”
I nodded, feeling uneasy. I could feel his eyes on me as I climbed the stairs, could feel the tension that had settled in his shoulders. I glanced back at him as I reached the top, and he made an impatient gesture telling me to hurry. I did as he told me, but only for a brief moment.
I pulled the box with the earrings out of my pocket, wondering which one held the teeny camera Joss’s tech had imbedded in them. To be on the safe side, I put on both earrings, then texted Joss in the code she’d taught me before sending me into the field. Those cute shoes I told you about are on sale. Can you spare a fifty? I hoped I’d picked the right words, hoping she was paying attention and understood what I was saying. Xavier’s behavior told me something big was about to happen downstairs. I was praying the camera was turned on and someone was monitoring it.
The earrings on, I stepped out of the office and moved as close to the stairs as I felt safe. Xavier was standing in the middle of the living room, with Rahul and a couple of men I didn’t recognize facing him. They were speaking loud and clear, their voices carrying perfectly up to the loft.
“The package arrives Friday night. We’ll deliver it to the port around midnight.”
Xavier crossed his arms over his chest. “This is the last time.”
Rahul shrugged. “Depends. They liked the last shipment. Paid top dollar. Why would we turn away from that?”
“Because we don’t have Jack Mahoney covering our asses anymore. We could end up right where he is if we keep doing this.”
“Jack isn’t the only one who can pay off officials.” He slapped Xavier’s shoulder. “I know what I’m doing, brother.”
Rahul turned to leave, but hesitated when he reached the door. “What happened the other night at the club? You calling me down in front of the girls?” He turned and studied Xavier. “That doesn’t happen again.”
I thought for a moment that Xavier would just stand there and take what Rahul was handing him. He didn’t react immediately, but then he suddenly crossed over to Rahul and shoved a finger into his shoulder, pushing him back against the door.
“It’s my club, my girls. I do whatever the fuck I want to do.”
Rahul’s hands folded into fists at his sides. He stepped into Xavier, but Xavier didn’t back down. He stood his ground, his eyes never leaving Rahul’s. They stood there, toe to toe, the tension so high that one of Rahul’s men slid his hand under his jacket, reaching toward the small of his back for something—probably a gun hidden in his waistband. I thought for sure this wasn’t goi
ng to end well. I wanted to back up into to the safety of the small office, but I was too scared to move. After a silent moment, Rahul backed down.
“Okay, jefe,” Rahul said, slapping Xavier on the shoulder again. “Whatever you say, man.”
Rahul gestured to his men and they walked out without another word. Xavier shut the door, slamming the lock into place. Then he turned and looked up at the loft. I was already backing up, slipping into the office where he found me a moment later.
I moved into his arms and he slipped his hands along the small of my back.
“You need to go home.”
“Xavier, what—”
He touched a finger to my lips. “The less you know, the better. I shouldn’t have brought you here in the first place.”
My phone buzzed against my hip as he drove me back downtown, his intention to leave me at the same bus stop where he’d picked me up. It was a message from Joss.
No problem. I’ll have it for you in the morning.
She must have gotten the transmission.
“Everything okay?” Xavier asked, gesturing to the phone.
I nodded. “Perfect.”
I hoped it was.
Chapter 10
Joss
I stood just inside the door and watched the transmission that was being displayed on the flat screen hanging on the wall. We couldn’t see Audra’s face, but we could see what she was seeing. At the moment, it consisted of a crowded club full of overeager men, some of them trying too desperately to get close to her. She was on stage dancing, strands of her hair falling down over the camera from time to time as she swung around the pole. Watching it made me dizzy.
“Anything interesting tonight?”
“Just a statement on the lesser side of the male members of our species,” Tyler, our tech, said with a shake of his head.
“You’re one of those, aren’t you?”
“Not proud of it tonight.”
I patted him on the head. “Sorry.” I turned to leave, reminding him to let me know if anything important happened tonight.
I headed down the corridor to the conference room where the good stuff was happening. A tactical team that consisted of five operatives from my office, three from Ash’s, and six from the Santa Monica Police Department were checking their equipment, preparing to raid the package Rahul Rush was due to deliver to the port tonight. We had an idea of what we might find when we got there, but there was no reason to take any chances.
We were armed to the teeth, each man walking in with a semi-automatic rifle and a side arm, shock grenades on their belts. Each was wearing a bulletproof vest, each hooked into our communications system. Ash and I would be accompanying the men along with Emily Warren, our LAPD liaison.
We weren’t leaving anything to chance. Every contingency had been prepared for. It should be an easy in and out.
But things were rarely easy in this line of work.
“Listen up!” Ash called from his place at the front of the room. “We leave in fifteen. Each of you know what your role is, you know what is expected of you. Do your job and we’ll walk away from this mission victorious.”
A cheer, almost like the Marine grunt, engulfed the room. Ash looked around, that excitement I recognized from my days as his operative filling his eyes.
“Don’t get shot.”
***
The port was dead quiet this late at night. I watched as the men moved into position, their number moving in perfect silence despite the weight of the weapons and ammunition they carried. When they’d disappeared from my line of vision, I moved forward, sliding behind a large cargo container, sitting back to wait.
“Everyone in position?”
Numbers in a dozen different voices whispered in my ear, each team announcing they were where they’d been instructed. Now all we could do was wait.
We didn’t have to wait long.
The cars pulled up, a line of three sedans with a large cargo van following behind. They came to a stop not more than a dozen feet from where I crouched, men pouring out the doors. I recognized Rahul Rush from the file Ash had given me. He emerged from the lead car, strutting around in a sleek suit like he was the Godfather reincarnated. For a moment, he walked around, seemingly randomly. But then he pointed as he called out to one of his men.
“Jorge! Over there. Number J113098878.”
One of the other men gestured to the others, pointing to the same space Rahul was pointing to. The men strolled over as though they had all day to just sit there and do whatever they wanted to do. Like they were there on legitimate business rather than something illegal.
I hated confident criminals.
Ash waited until all the men were close to the container before giving the signal. The doors of the shipping container burst open and our men rushed out, guns raised.
“LAPD!” Emily roared. “Surrender your weapons!”
I don’t know who fired first, probably Rahul or one of his lieutenants, but gunfire erupted almost immediately. Rahul’s group began to back up, moving away from our people. Ash and I came out from where we’d been waiting along with four men we’d held back, surrounding them. Rahul jumped back the moment he spotted us, moving behind one of his own men. I lost sight of him as I yelled for the men to get down. The firing stopped a moment later and the sound of zip ties ripping over their teeth as they were placed on the wrists of the criminals filled the air.
It was chaotic for a few minutes. I moved through the crowd, looking for Rahul.
“Where is he? Where did he go?”
“Don’t worry,” Ash said, sliding up beside me. “We’ll find him.”
“If he goes back to that club and figures this out—”
“We’ll find him.”
Police cars arrived then, their lights illuminating the night. I followed Emily to the back of the cargo van and stood beside her as she instructed two uniformed cops to pull the doors open. A dozen girls, most of them Asian or Latina, stared out at us, their eyes wide with fear.
It was exactly what I’d assumed. They were illegals, stolen right off the street. Girls who had no options, girls no one would miss. They were being shipped to the Middle East, girls familiar with the pleasures of the western world sold off to hypocritical terrorists willing to pay for them.
The source had been right once again.
Chapter 11
Audra
I felt cut off.
I was on the main stage, giving one of the weakest performances of my life, and Joss was out there running a raid on Rahul and his goons. I’d much rather be out there with her, but I couldn’t because it was Friday night and it would be suspicious if I didn’t come to work. But wasn’t that why I joined Gray Wolf in the first place? Wasn’t it to be a part of these raids? Wasn’t it to help save the damn world? I didn’t want to be dancing around half naked. I wanted to have a gun in my hand and the bad guys in my sights.
I stepped off the stage after my final performance of the night and watched as Mercedes took my place. I’d never watched her dance before. I stood just off stage and wondered why she was working in a place like this. Poor girl was a horrible dancer. But the customers didn’t seem to mind.
“They don’t come for the talent,” someone said close to my ear.
I turned and smiled up at Ali. “And here I thought they hired me because of my pirouettes.”
“No, baby, they hired you because you have big tits.”
I laughed, my mood lifted instantly by Ali’s easy honesty. He smiled as he pushed past me, a case of whiskey in his capable hands. I watched him go and saw a guy pat his ass as he walked by. It surprised me a little, though I wasn’t sure why. Some of these guys swung any way they had to in order to get a little attention. And Ali was quite a draw all on his own.
I went into the dressing room and grabbed my bag, ducking into the bathroom to slip into the jeans and tee I’d worn into work this afternoon. I was anxious to get home and find out what had happened at the port. Jo
ss promised to get word to me somehow, though she was no longer sure we should reach out to each other as regularly as before. She was afraid that this raid on the port would tip someone off to the fact that there was a mole in the club. She promised Rahul would disappear from my life, but she couldn’t make promises about people who weren’t going to be at the port.
She was worried about Xavier. I was, too, but for reasons she didn’t know.
I’d been careful to remove the earrings before Xavier came to get me in that little office. He hadn’t approached me in the club since that afternoon, so Joss was none the wiser about what was happening between him and me. If she did know, she likely wouldn’t like it. I didn’t like it. I didn’t know what was happening, but this man was capable of things that gave me nightmares.
He’d made it clear that he was the boss. That little standoff with Rahul… Xavier was clearly in control here. There was blood on his hands. But there was something about him, something intoxicating when I was with him, able to feel his body heat against mine. It was hard to think about anything but the handsome man who was so clearly attracted to me, too.
I grabbed my bag and headed out, pausing only to drop my earrings in a drawer at my station. It was unrealistic, but it felt like an invasion of my privacy to take them back to the apartment with me. I waved to some of the girls as I made my way through the busy dressing room. The club would be open for another hour, but I was done. Exhaustion burned in my bones. I was never going to get used to the constant movement required by my work here. How had I done it so easily when I was younger?
I was younger, that’s how.
I intended to slip out the backdoor and walk down the alley toward the main street. However, Xavier was standing at the foot of the stairs that led up to his office, clearly waiting for something. Or someone.
“Audra,” he said as I passed. “Sneaking out?”
“My shift’s over.”
“I thought I told you to take a guard with you whenever you walked home.”
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