Second Time Lucky (Club Decadence Book 5)

by Maddie Taylor

  “Never mind that,” Megan urged, shaking her head in warning at her cousin.

  “Oh no! I’ve gotta hear this.” Cap grinned at his wife.

  Angie eyed her cousin who hung her head over the side of the chair in defeat. “Meg, if I don’t tell, you know he’ll hear it eventually, at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the 4th of July picnic at your parents.”

  “Go ahead. I’m too tired to care.” Her exaggerated eye roll made Angie grin, knowing her cousin well enough to tell she wasn’t really upset.

  “You might not know it, Cap, but Aunt Marion is one of those blessed with a great set of pipes, and Regan’s no slouch either. So when Megan came home from church one day, her five feet nothingness bouncing with glee—”

  “Hey,” Megan cried foul. “I okayed the humiliating story, not short jokes.”

  “Sorry,” Angie replied, her big smile making it clear she was anything but. “Well, it seems Meg told her mom that she’d decided to sing in the church choir. It broke my sweet aunt’s heart to have to say it, but she couldn’t do that to the congregation. What was it she said exactly, Meg?”

  Megan groaned before repeating in a perfect imitation of her mother, “Honey, you’ve got a lot of gifts to give to the Lord, but singing ain’t one of them.”

  Angie snickered as she tacked on, “She then had her sign up for youth ministry instead.”

  Tony’s rumbling laugh delighted both babies, the precious sounds they made infectious, especially when they started batting their arms and kicking happily while grinning up at their dad.

  “See! Look at that. I could stand on my head and spin around like a top. I get nothing.” She sounded offended, but Meg’s eyes on her husband and beautiful twin sons were warm and gleaming. Angie couldn’t remember ever seeing her so happy.

  “You’re tense, angel. Babies can sense that, besides, we’ve got the father-son connection going on here.”

  Meg snorted, softly. “I’ll remember that connection the next time Caleb’s chewing on my nipple and let you take over.”

  “Mine are merely for show. Yours, thank goodness, are multipurpose of both beauty and function.” He looked at her, eyes dipping to her bounteous breasts with a grin. “Sorry, baby, but them’s the breaks.”

  “Hmph… at least Connor loves me,” Megan returned with a pretend pout.

  “They both love their mama,” Tony replied, turning gentle eyes on his wife, “and would love her more if she got enough sleep. Which reminds me, did you line up those interviews with the nannies?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure abdicating my motherly responsibilities when they’re four months old is a good idea.”

  “Maybe I should come back,” Angie suggested.

  “Stay,” Cap urged, shaking his head, the one word an obvious command. “You can help convince her that there’s nothing wrong with getting help. Or have you decided to sell the bakery?”

  The last was directed at Megan, but it was Angie’s jaw that dropped in disbelief. The bakery was Megan’s pride and joy, second only to the twins. “Are you seriously considering it, Meg?”

  “Heaven’s no,” she replied without a moment’s pause.

  “Are you planning on divorcing me then?” This came point blank from Cap.

  Angie sucked in a shocked breath at the idea. Meg and Cap were perfect. If they couldn’t make it, no one had a shot.

  “Captain,” Megan scowled, “will you be serious?”

  “I am completely serious, angel. With the bakery, a demanding husband and being a full-time mother times two, something’s gotta give. So if it’s not the bakery and it’s not me, that only leaves getting help with the boys. It’s not as if you’re renouncing them as your children. You’re merely getting much needed help so you can get some rest and feel energized when you are caring for them. You’ll then have time to keep your eye on your bakery—part-time as we agreed—and still have time to attend to your loving, though feeling slightly neglected, husband.”

  “Um, on that note, I really should go…”

  “No, Ang, don’t,” Megan insisted. “You’re here for a meeting and I’m being hormonal. Tony’s right as usual, on all counts.”

  “Of course, I am,” he stated, at his most arrogant, before making a funny face as he cooed to the boys in a singsong voice. “Daddy always knows best, doesn’t he my handsome boys?” As if in on the joke, Caleb and Conner chortled and wriggled, highly entertained.

  A pang of envy wedged like a dull blade in Angie’s heart. At thirty, she wondered if such a man, a family, love and happiness were in the cards for her. Sadly, the glimmer of hope to fulfill any of those dreams wasn’t even a speck on the distant horizon.

  Cap addressed their business as he crossed the spacious office to the sofa along the far wall, a cooing, happy twin cradled in each arm. “You wanted to meet, Angie. Come in and tell me what’s on your mind.” As he settled on the couch, he crossed an ankle over the opposite knee and laid one of the boys in the bend. He then raised his free arm invitingly to his wife. “Join us, won’t you, angel?”

  Posed as a request, it clearly wasn’t. However, his tone warm with affection and when said in such a way, Angie didn’t wonder for a second why her cousin instantly obeyed. She watched as Megan padded to the couch on bare feet. As he wrapped a solid arm around her shoulders, she melted against her husband’s side.

  The ache of envy gripped her chest.

  “I’m sorry,” Cap stated suddenly. “I didn’t ask… Do we need privacy for this discussion?”

  “No, Meg staying is fine. It’s going to be front page headlines soon anyway.”

  Megan’s head came up. “Poor Moon,” she sympathized softly.

  Cap’s arm gave his wife a supportive squeeze as he addressed Angie. “Did you get to see her? Ask her any questions?”

  Angie took the chair adjacent to the couch. “I did, but only briefly. Another detective was assigned to the case and he isn’t sharing details due to the high profile names involved, so he says. I spoke to the chief about helping out, but got a line of bull about being too close to the situation. It didn’t make a difference when I was investigating the cartel after Meg and Regan were abducted. Bottom line, I’ve got nothing, especially with the chief ordering no visitors, so our visit got cut really short.” As she remembered the disturbing encounter, her anger rekindled. “For some reason, the chief restricted all visitors, even family. Her parents were turned away and are fit to be tied.” Her concerned gaze rose to her cousin. “She’s not in a good place, Meg.”

  “Blackmail. I’m stunned. Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Megan whispered.

  “Honey,” Angie replied, not wanting her cousin implicated either, but unable to dispute the evidence. “We got an anonymous tip and found copies of the notes in her apartment along with some pretty incriminating photos. Before the crackdown due to VIP’s, I heard she was shaking down a senator and a state judge. This is not good. I was hoping to ask her why, to try to find a motive, but didn’t have time. Do you have you any idea what would have driven her to do this?”

  “It’s that bastard ex of hers, I guarantee it,” Megan fumed.

  Angie hadn’t been expecting that. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t anything to do with a boyfriend Moon had broken up with almost two years prior. “I don’t understand.”

  “We were going to disclose the intel in the meeting,” Cap said, “but now is fine. Jonas pulled her medical records. Her ex was abusive.”

  “Ohmigod!”

  “Yeah.” Meg breathed, also appalled. “I had no idea, but it makes sense. She had accidents while she was with him. In the hospital twice with concussion, and I’m sure he was the one who broke her arm summer before last. She claimed she fell, but obviously, she was covering for him. Thinking back, Moon hasn’t been right since well before their separation. His leaving was the best thing he ever did for her, but she’s messed up. The only thing I can figure is that in her warped mind she thought what we do at th
e club is the same as what he did to her, abuse.”

  “She obviously needs professional help,” Angie replied, her heart heavy with concern for Moon.

  “The whole Domme thing was out of character and should have really clued us in that something was wrong,” Cap murmured with a frown.

  “Don’t feel bad, Captain. Me, Reg and Angie, we’re her family and didn’t have a clue anything was wrong.” Megan glanced at Angie with a shake of her head. “I can’t believe she sent those hate filled emails.”

  “Maybe we should talk after the meeting. I obviously don’t have all the particulars.” She pushed to her feet, then suddenly turned and stared at them. “What Domme thing?”

  Cap and Megan looked at each other. Megan frowned and Cap nodded.

  “Moon was taking classes to become a Domme.”

  “You are kidding me!”

  “No,” Cap replied, “and that is our fault as well. She’d been a fixture in the lounge for several months, attending open sub nights when Elena was performing.”

  “Yeah, that’s when I’ve attended too.”

  “Yes, but you are an infrequent guest, Angie, which is typical. Curious and wannabe subs come to get a feel for things on open nights, no pressure. It’s done as an opportunity to meet potential Doms and increase our membership. Several connected with Doms or Masters; others became full time club submissives. Whatever the outcome, it seems to work. Usually a guest comes once, twice at the most. More than that and we expect them to apply for membership, we are exclusive in that way. With Moon, however, a few visits turned into weekly attendance and before long, months had passed. Some members took note and went to Dex. She had to make a choice; get serious about BDSM or move on.”

  “There are no spectator passes allowed at Club Decadence,” Megan threw in. “Us girls all thought she’d move on, never having expressed an interest and leaning more against it than anything. Then she threw down as a Domme. We were stunned.” She looked up at Tony. “You’re right, we really should have clued in then.”

  “As I said, baby,” Cap replied. “Hindsight. That’s why Moon was at the club yesterday during daytime hours. She was taking a beginner’s class. She waited until it was over to try to retrieve the flash drive.” He paused, his brown eyes gleaming with intensity as they zoned in on her. “We haven’t shared what we found with the police, Angie.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I trust your boss about as far as Megan could throw him.”

  His wife looked up in question at his odd turn of phrase.

  He shrugged. “You’ve seen him, angel. I could chuck that pipsqueak a fair distance. You, not so much.”

  “Why not turn it over?” Angie persisted.

  “Because there’s a connection. We need more proof before we can move on it, however. Jonas and Rick are working it already.”

  “Working what? What’s the connection?”

  “We’ve got to clue her in, Cap.”

  Angie paused midstride, glancing at Sean, who had spoken from the doorway. “Clue me in to what?”

  Glancing at Tony and Meg, before coming back to Sean, Angie went on immediate alert seeing another man had joined them, his long, broad totally ripped body leaning casually against the doorjamb. Antonio “Lil T” Minelli. Not for the first time, Angie noticed he could be Cap’s twin. Of Italian decent, same impressive height and muscular build, same dark hair and eyes, and even with over a decade between them, T younger at thirty, so she’d been told (okay, she’d asked), both were drop dead gorgeous. T was also as intimidating and the only Rossi man that Angie avoided like the plague. She did so now, deliberately looking away.

  Working with Cap’s team as part of the drug task force in the Mendoza investigation and on numerous local cases, Angie was a frequent visitor in their downtown offices for meetings like today. Seeing him therefore was a common occurrence, but she did everything possible to prevent being alone with him, especially after the last time. He’d wrongly assumed she was a submissive and proposed they play together sometime. She’d bristled and promptly set him straight.

  She’d been sorely tempted, and since then, couldn’t keep images of being bound to T’s bed while he did sinfully delicious things to her body from running through her head. He wanted a playmate, making it a widely known fact that he did not do long term—a few days, a week, two at the most—and that marriage or setting up house like his buddies, was not for him. Conversely, Angie was seeking a life mate not a romp in the sack. Anything between them would be time limited and leave her unsatisfied. All right, maybe not in all ways, but his appeal was too strong and she’d likely end up broken hearted. No. She wasn’t about to set herself up for that. For her, Lil T would remain off limits.

  Megan’s vehement response jarred her back into the conversation. “I agree, Tony. After what he did, we owe him nothing. Screw his confidentiality.”

  “After what who did?” Angie asked, realizing that while her thoughts drifted her gaze had as well, returning to T who still lounged against the door. Unable to stop herself, she scanned from his striking face, down his body and back, well, almost back, getting derailed somewhere around his magnificent chest. The man embodied masculine beauty and strength, the mere sight of him setting off sparks of desire low in her belly. No wonder he starred in every one of her erotic fantasies.

  A clearing throat had her tipping her head. Her face suffused with heat as she found his dark mocha eyes with the little gold flecks twinkling back at her, an all too knowing grin on his wickedly handsome face.

  Sean, who noticed the interplay, turned an odd, almost stern look on T, before glancing at Angie. “Can we stay focused here people? I agree with Megan. This bullshit cloak and dagger crap has gone on entirely too long. If Angie can help…”

  Angie saw him look at Cap in some kind of silent communication. They were all very good at that and it was making her a little crazy.

  “Will someone please tell me what’s going on,” she demanded.

  “Your chief was a club member until recently,” Sean disclosed.

  Stunned by this revelation, a deluge of images featuring Richard Stapleton in leather flooded her head. Angie grimaced. He was the most unlikely Dom she could imagine. Arrogant, yes. Domineering, sure. He was also a first class, grade A, prime piece of misogynistic good ‘ole boy crap. Oddly, he dressed as if he’d stepped out of the pages of GQ: designer clothes, flashy jewelry, expensive manicures once a week without fail, all of which clashed with his thick blue-collar accent. He’d come from the Northeast, but his dialect contained shades of Baltimore, or Philly, more than the affluent suburbs of Long Island or Boston as he’d wanted everyone to believe. He’d always been a perplexity, now this hidden BDSM side made it more of a puzzle.

  She shook her head. “I can’t imagine. What woman in her right mind would put up with his contempt unless they enjoy insults and abject humiliation?”

  Silence pervaded the office. As she watched them glance at each other, she realized her vanilla naiveté was showing.

  “That’s a thing, huh?”

  Lil T answered first. “Some Doms and subs enjoy that. Then again, some supposed Doms are really assholes who get off on abuse. Further, some subs come seeking more than we feel comfortable providing at the club. We try to screen out the posers, abusers and those with mental health issues up front, but we’re not always successful, case in point, Richard Stapleton.”

  “And Moon,” Angie interjected.

  “Yes, and Moon. Often people don’t show their true selves until after they get past our dungeon door.”

  “He had references,” Sean muttered, clearly upset that Stapleton had slipped under their radar. “He also followed the rules to the letter at first, but he tended to play in private so it was hard to tell what he was really looking for.”

  “I never liked the man,” Cap put in. “The way he cruised the main floor gawking like a horny teenager should have been a clue.”

  “Come to think of it, he never
scened in public as far as I know.” Sean paused, seeming to consider the matter a moment. “Even with Cecily they did it in the parking lot, out of sight.”

  “Who’s Cecily?” Angie asked.

  “First, I should clarify that the chief was an ex-member. His membership was revoked when we found him in a compromising situation with Cecily, one of the submissives.”

  “Sean’s being polite, Ang,” Megan remarked, she then proceeded to be far less tactful. “Richard, or as we subs nicknamed him ‘dastardly Dick’, was found getting blown in the back seat of his car by a collared submissive that wasn’t his, which is frowned upon.”

  Cap shook his head as he aimed a put upon look at the ceiling. “When I first met you, darn was the harshest thing that came out of your mouth. I know I’m mostly to blame for your colorful new vocabulary, but let’s try to dial it back in consideration of our two little ones here.”

  There were some muffled laughs since Cap was known to pepper his speech with a variety of adjectives from a much more extensive and vivid vocabulary than his wife. Wide-eyed, Megan looked at Mara, then rephrased. “He was having his manly parts serviced orally. Is that better, Captain?” She peeped innocently up at her husband, but the smile playing around her lips gave her away.

  “Hardly, brat,” Cap murmured.

  “Again, people,” Sean interrupted. “Focus.”

  Megan had the grace to blush.

  “I’m not seeing how this is relevant,” Angie interjected.

  Sean explained. “The locker Mara found Moon searching belonged to Cecily.”

  Understanding slammed into her like a Mack truck. “Holy shit. Let me see if I have this. Stapleton was personally involved with Cecily, who had incriminating blackmail pics stashed in her locker. They both were kicked out. Enter Moon who they tagged with retrieving the drive from Cecily’s locker. Not expecting anyone to be around, she tried during the day, but was interrupted by Mara. I’m guessing after that, she panicked and ran. Mara located the drive and handed it over to Sean, which was the same as turning it over to Rossi Security. You sat on it and left Stapleton to wonder. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall to witness the freak-out Stapleton is undoubtedly having. Then, out of the blue, an anonymous tip was called into the station. Based on the tip, Rachel Monihan’s apartment was searched and lo and behold, she was arrested for extortion. Now under Stapleton’s control, she is isolated while his most trusted toadies, um, I mean SAPD’s finest, initiate a bogus investigation and no doubt perpetrate a cover up of epic proportions, all while setting up poor Moon to take the fall for it all.” Without needing any corroboration of her theory, Angie sat on the sofa with a plop.