by Nicole Fox
“I admit there’s a lot of strange things going on,” he said, “but why would Farrah Michaels—r Honi, if that is her real name—lie about who she is? The Minghellis are obviously interested in her. Why would she want to pretend to be somebody the mob was after?”
I came within a millimeter of shouting out, “Thank you!”
Connor scowled. Joey had made a good point. I could practically see the gears clicking away in his mind. “That’s true, Joey,” he said. “Unless being Farrah Michaels was somehow less dangerous than being the real Honi. What do you think, Princess?”
I could not meet his gaze. Stay as close to the truth as possible, I thought. That’s the only way to fool them. Finally, I said, “Who knows what she could be thinking? Desperate women tend to make desperate choices, and after the death of her aunt, I bet she would be desperate.”
Connor growled. I could feel his rage and frustration welling up in him. He tensed in his seat, and I realized that he was pretty close to lunging across the table at me.
Joey must have sensed this too, for he put a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Chill, dude,” he whispered. “We don’t want to cause a scene.”
Connor nodded to him and relaxed. I wondered what was making him so upset. Obviously, no one liked being lied to, but he seemed to be taking it personally, as if my unwillingness to talk was a direct insult to him. Maybe it’s because he actually likes you, I thought, and he wants you to trust him.
I gazed at his hard, scowling face, then at his rippling, tensed muscles, visible even through the leather of his jacket, and told myself, Don’t be ridiculous. This is not a man who cares what a whore like me thinks.
“Shit,” Joey interrupted suddenly. “That’s him, right? That’s him? Calvin Minghelli?”
I whirled. There, just muscling his way in through door, was Tom Minghelli’s nephew, determined, savage, and mad.
“Heaven help me,” I whimpered, as a terrible fear washed over me, pinning me to my seat.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Connor
I had to act fast. Calvin obviously sensed that we were in here, but I did not think he saw us from the door.
There was no time to hesitate.
I grabbed Princess by the hair and shoved her roughly beneath the table, right out of sight. I heard her gasp as part of her struck something, but other than that she did not complain. That was good.
“Just relax,” I whispered to Joey. “I don’t think they saw her. We just have to stay here until he gets bored and leaves.”
“Uh, Connor?” Joey whispered nervously. “What if they’re not just after Princess? What if they want, you know, revenge?”
“Revenge?”
“Yeah. Revenge. You know, for breaking into their estate, stealing their captive, I don’t know, scaring the fucking cat? There could be a million things.”
I frowned. He was right. And Calvin was getting closer.
What to do?
I glanced around. There were a number of exits. The bathrooms. The kitchen. A doorway to a little patio where people could smoke without upsetting the dancers. All of these were perfectly fine, but I also thought they were obvious. As soon as Calvin saw people dashing for any one of those exits, he would get suspicious.
There had to be another option.
Some giggling, and the sound of a man’s hand slapping a woman’s ass, gave me the idea.
The back rooms. VIP lounges. They always had multiple entrances and exits so that people could leave discreetly. Plus, who would find it weird to see two men entering one of those rooms with a woman as obviously stunning as Princess?
“Follow me!” I ordered, and yanked Princess out from under the table. Without warning her, I reached down to her waist, grabbed the bottom of her shirt, and ripped it clear over her head, revealing a sexy purple lace bra she had stolen from Montengo.
“What?” she gasped, more out of surprise than anger. A second later I think she would have been angry, except that I pointed back to the VIP rooms. In a flash, I saw understanding bloom in her eyes, and she sashayed with me and Joey over to the door like a practiced casino stripper. Would the bouncers give us a hard time? Nope. They took one look at Princess, smiled, and stayed where they were. I doubted they even took the time to look at her face to realize that she wasn’t a worker there. They were too busy looking at her tits.
We slipped inside, revealing a pretty standard VIP stripper room. Couches, built right into the wall, lined the entire perimeter, covered with fluffy pink cushions and adorned with golden lace. The lighting was bright enough to see all the necessary details, but dim enough that our eyes had to adjust. I peered across the room. My prediction had been correct. In a far corner was a small, unobtrusive door laced with a pink bow that I knew would lead to different exits. Proud of my clear thinking, I marched up to it and pushed.
It was locked.
“Damn!” I exclaimed. “Joey, do you think you can pick it?”
He trudged over, squinting in the dim light. “Yeah, I think so,” he said. “But it will take a few minutes.”
“We don’t have that long,” Princess cut in. “Minghelli could check this room any second!”
“I have an idea,” I said. “Princess, come here,”
She obeyed, walking over to me as I sat down on the pink cushioned couch, opposite from where Joey was working on the door. “Take your pants off,” I ordered.
“What?”
“Just do it. The trust me.”
Biting her lip, Princess complied, slipping out of her bottoms and folding them neatly on the chair beside me. She was wearing a pretty purple thong, to match the bra.
“Now dance on me,” I ordered.
“Connor, I really don’t think this is the time—”
“Do it!”
She sighed, and began flexing her hips seductively. I grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her down so that her tits were right up against me as her hair fell over her face. At the sight of her, I immediately felt a hardness growing in my pants, but I forced myself to ignore it. Princess was right about that at least. Now was not the time.
She bent and flexed, showing off her incredible thigh and ass muscles. I even caught Joey glancing over, before shaking his head and focusing again on his work. After a minute or so, I began to feel slightly silly, as if all this charade had been for nothing.
That waswhen Calvin Minghelli opened the door.
“Farrah?” he growled. “Farrah Michaels?”
His gaze went right to us—or, to be specific, to Princess’s ass. A dim look of glee twisted his features, and he gaped, open-mouthed, at that little purple thong, no thicker than a shoelace.
“Hey, man, you mind?” I grunted, doing my best to sound like a drunk and horny idiot. It wasn’t hard, really. Not with Princess moving the way she was, right above my dick.
Princess, too, wrenched her neck around to glare at him. She was careful to conceal her face in the shadows, behind her gleaming hair. “Yeah, man, what the fuck are you doing? You’re interfering with my client.”
I was proud of how harsh and standoffish she managed to make her voice sound. Just like a real working girl. It also struck me in that moment how little she sounded like a hooker when she spoke regularly.
Calvin’s eyes shifted from her ass up to her tits.
“Yeah, all right,” he murmured, groping blindly behind him for the doorknob. He left like a man under a spell, his eyes affixed the whole time to Princess’s body.
All three of us let out a gasp of relief as the door shut behind him. Princess immediately slid back into her clothes, ready to run when needed.
“Thank Christ,” Joey muttered. I heard the faint clicking of the pin inside the lock, and then, “Yes!”
The back door popped open.
“Right, everybody,” I said, leaping to my feet and leading the way towards the door. “Let’s get out of—”
Just then, the first door opened.
It was the barkeep.
He saw the three of us, and Princess’s face, clearly illuminated now that she was standing. Then his gaze shifted to the open door we were just about to go through. A look of confusion settled over his brow, followed by anger.
“Security! Security!” he cried. “People are sneaking around back here. Get them!”
In an instant, three more guys blew in through the door. I saw a flash of Calvin’s face behind them. There, too, I saw understanding and rage.
“Run!” I roared, and we were off.
That back door led to darkness, a long hallway with only the faint gleam of linoleum to guide our path. Doors lined this hallway, but any light that sneaked under them was muted pinks and purples from other VIP lounges. Dimly, I could hear the sound of people giggling and the grunting exertions of sex through the doors.
Princess slammed the door we had just come through behind us and turned the lock, buying us at least a little time. “Which way?” she demanded. Although there was adrenaline in her voice, I didn’t hear any panic. I knew I wouldn’t, by now. Princess was tough.
The trouble was, I only had about as much of an idea of where we should go as she did.
The security guards began pounding on the other side of the door.
“Right!” I cried at random, and we bolted down the hall. It was crazy, running full pelt in the darkness, but what choice did we have? Actually, as we rounded a corner and nearly brained ourselves against an opposing wall, I began to feel giddy.
“Hold on!” I hollered, seizing Princess by the hand and swinging her around another turn. Joey, too, was getting caught up in the excitement of it. I could hear him laughing behind me.
Boom!
One of the doors before us burst open, and three burly security guards burst in. We skidded to a halt and turned tail, losing ourselves deeper and deeper in the underbelly of the casino. The guards were at an advantage. They worked here and knew the labyrinth, while the public was not allowed down here. And it was enormous. Joey and I could get lost down here for hours.
We needed a plan.
“Any ideas?” I panted, twisting my way down another side hall.
“We need to get back into the casino,” Joey huffed back. “Lose ourselves in the crowd.”
“Right. So which way?”
“There!” Princess yelped. There, in the far distance, was a definite, bluish glow.
We made for it. Nobody knew what that blue light was, but we didn’t care. What choice did we have?
By the time we reached it, I felt a thrill of fear surging through me. It turned out to be a dead end, which was the first bad thing about it. The ceiling was way too high. It went from a regular hallway to a cavern at least three stories in height. White lamps glowed from metal brackets that put me, for some reason, in the mind of ships and submarines. A great mess of metal tubes and machinery were sunk into the wall, and the whole place emitted a deep, unrelenting, and menacing rumble.
And to top it off, there was only one door.
It wasn’t a regular door, either, set on ground level and leading into another room or hallway. No, this door was atop a fucking ladder, perched on a small metal platform, barely big enough for the three of us to stand on. The jumble of machinery waited beneath it, letting off a long, low roar.
“Where do you think it goes?” Joey muttered.
I opened my mouth, about to speak. I had an inkling, a suspicion of where that door might go—
“Hey, you! Freeze!”
The security guards! They had us cornered.
“Looks like it doesn’t matter,” I grunted. “Up!”
I sent Princess first, so I could catch her in case she fell. Me next, and then Joey, scrambling up the metal ladder like a trio of monkeys. The security guards reached us but held back, staying on the ground. There were three people on the platform already. Who knew how many it could hold?
A cold brass knob awaited us at the top. From here, the rumbling was even louder. It was like being on a plane in a windstorm, or beneath the deck of a ship.
I knew for certain what was on the other side of that door.
“Ready?” I said, and then, without waiting for a response, I wrenched the door open.
Roooarrrr!
I knew it! It was the sound of water, thousands upon thousands of gallons being filtered and pumped up to the top of the Casino’s incredible fountain. A waterfall tumbled down a full twenty feet into the faux mountain pool below. A plastic cliff, complete with fake trees and scruff, completed the look of an actual forest waterfall tumbling down to the earth. A cool mist touched our faces, and the smell of chlorine was strong.
The door was directly behind the flow of water. We could not be seen by any of the crowd mingling by the fountain below.
There was also nowhere left to go, and nowhere else for us to hide.
I heard one of the guards call from behind us, “I don’t care if it’s cramped! Get them!”
Two men started trundling up the ladder.
I glanced at Joey and nodded. He looked confused at first, and then he smiled, rolling his eyes.
Then I looked at Princess. She was grinning, and in an instant nodded back to me.
I held out my hands. Princess took one. Joey took the other.
“Ready ...” I muttered. I could hear the security guards panting as they made their way up the ladder. They were right up to the door.
“One … two … three!”
We leapt!
Whoosh!
We struck the waterfall! A white stream of bubbles and foam swept over our ears and eyes, blinding and deafening us. The water pummeled me so hard it hurt, and it took all of my concentration to keep clinging to Princess’s and Joey’s hands.
Down … down … down… .
Pa-loooshhhh!
We struck! I felt the wind knocked out of me, and the weight of the falling water pounding me deeper into the pool. I spasmed, kicking my legs to drive me not upward but to the side, away from the water’s terrible assault. I felt Joey and Princess dragging along with me and silently urged them to help out. My lungs ached. My outfit and boots hung heavy on my body. At last, we escaped the bubbling assault, and with a swift kick from the coin-laden bottom of the pool, we surfaced.
People were staring. A large crowd had gathered right on the railing to the pool, pointing and looking shocked or excited.
“Ha ha!” Princess laughed, pumping her fist in the air. Joey was gasping and wrestling the water from his eyes. I was looking for a way to escape. It wouldn’t be long before the guards backtracked and met us here. I doubted they’d jump, at least.
There! A small safety ladder, in case someone fell in. Well, they had. In a flash, I was swimming my way over, ordering Joey and Princess to follow. Still trembling with adrenaline, we pulled ourselves up the ladder and collapsed, panting and grinning, onto firm, dry, linoleum.
People gathered around us. “You okay?” a concerned woman asked.
Another, a big, burly man, scowled at us, muttering, “Stupid fucking kids.”
And then one more, some teenager, shouting, “Hey, look! There’s security!”
“Fuck.” All three of us swore in unison, leaping to our feet even as we slid around in our sopping wet outfits.
The door was less than fifty feet away. Security was opposite from it, one hundred feet away. Could we make it?
“Run!” I bellowed, seizing the pair of them in making for the door. Run … run … run … yes!
We burst through just as a fresh bus of eager gamblers arrived. They clung to the doorway, blocking security as we flitted into the building’s shadow, keeping out of sight. Our bikes weren’t far. We just had to be careful.
Trying not to laugh at the stupid guards standing lost and confused by the door, we tiptoed our way to our motorcycles. I saw one pull a walkie-talkie from his belt and shout something i
nto it. I hadno time to ponder what he it said, for we were now blazing towards the exit of the parking lot, our rides screaming with speed.
That was when two police cars pulled up, blocking the length of the exit between two towering stone posts.
I grinned and gunned my engine even faster. You see, when I said, ‘Blocked’, I meant for regular cars. You know, what normal people drive. But it was going to take a lot more than two poorly parked police cars to block a pair of Devil’s Wings, mobile as wasps on our bikes.
