by Max Monroe
Fuck. That hurts.
Sadness bounced around inside my heart like a pinball, and it took nearly every ounce of strength I had to quickly rein in my wayward thoughts and grab a firm hold on emotional control.
“It’s easy to understand why,” the man with the gray stubble responded as he stood to his feet and held his hand out toward me. “Come with me, sweetheart,” he added and then looked toward Marco. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I take good care of her.”
Marco’s fingers stiffened on my shoulders for a brief moment, but eventually, they relaxed.
Even though I wanted to be a million miles away from here, from these vile fucking men, from this undercover life I’d had to live over the past several months, I forced myself to concentrate on the enormity of this situation.
Right now, I was Trixie.
And Trixie wouldn’t decline this customer’s request.
I smiled up at the man as I put my hand in his and stood to my feet, and just before I led him toward the back of the club, Marco gripped the man’s arm and stopped our progress.
He didn’t say anything right away. Instead, he looked up at him with a hard stare.
“Enjoy yourself,” Marco said, and his voice held a warning. “But not too much.”
Unease crawled up my skin.
He had become far too possessive over Trixie.
Sure, I wanted Marco to like Trixie. I didn’t even really mind when he called her one of his favorite girls. But this, the behavior and words he’d just unleashed, well, it felt like a whole other situation.
One I wasn’t so sure I was prepared to handle. One that necessitated Sergeant Miller’s guidance and wisdom.
But I didn’t have time to ponder it.
God, I’m really starting to hate this. So much.
“What’s your name, honey?” I asked the man as he sat down on one of the black leather couches in the partially enclosed VIP area we had.
“Jackson,” he said with a wolflike grin. “But everyone calls me Jack.”
“Any special requests, Jack?” I asked, and his grin only grew wider. “I’d love to see—” he started to say, but loud, muffled shouts coming from the front of the club pulled both of our attention around.
The indiscernible yells grew louder, and a few seconds later, the music stopped with an abrupt screech through the speakers.
What the hell?
Chastity and I locked eyes with each other from across the room.
“What’s happening?” I mouthed, and she shrugged with wide eyes.
“I have no idea,” she mouthed back.
I glanced back toward the VIP entryway and noticed that, this time, the normal security guard that manned the door was completely MIA.
The mood immediately shifted, and I knew something wasn’t right.
Instantly, adrenaline spilled into my veins, sparking a hyperactive focus, and urged me to take action.
“Give me just one minute, Jack. I’ll be right back,” I told my current customer as I walked toward the front of the club.
The moment I made it out into the main room, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Several Hoboken police officers and SWAT personnel had burst into the club and made their presence known.
“Hoboken PD! Everyone stay where they are!” Officer Waller shouted toward the crowd. “Put your hands in the air and do not move!”
What the fuck is happening?
Most of the crowd followed his instructions, including me. Sergeant Miller had never given me any sort of heads-up about a raid tonight, and if this wasn’t our main move, any special action from me indicating I was anything other than a stripper named Trixie would definitely fuck our chances of making one in the future.
When I looked across the room, toward that spot where Marco Sabella had been, I saw my cousin Steve, dressed head-to-toe in his uniform, taking our target into custody. He kept the club’s owner pinned to the ground with a knee to his back and slid a pair of shiny silver handcuffs around his wrists.
The sight was beautiful, sure, but I didn’t understand. Not even one fucking bit.
Yesterday, the only update Sergeant Miller had provided was that we were going to keep surveillance on the two informant prospects until we gathered the evidence we needed.
That was literally the last I’d heard.
Had they interrogated the informants?
Had we found the leads and evidence we’d needed?
A million questions rolled through my mind, but now wasn’t the time.
I stayed frozen in my spot and did my best to appear scared—I didn’t have to act much to seem confused—all the while listening to the instructions given by the officers calling the shots.
One by one, I watched the SWAT and PD guys take key players from the Sabella team into custody.
Some of the strippers.
The security guys.
Pauly Sabella.
The entire table of men I’d been introduced to by Marco just twenty or so minutes before. Even Jack had been procured from the VIP space behind me.
Now, it was apparently my turn. Officer Deluva stepped toward me. “Hands behind your back,” he said and pulled his handcuffs out of his belt.
I didn’t hesitate to follow his demand. Dutifully, I eased my arms down to my sides and moved them around my back.
He clicked the cuffs into place and stepped forward to meet my gaze.
“Sorry to do this to ya, Simone,” he whispered, and my throat convulsed.
Son of a bitch. He shouldn’t have done that. He should have known to keep up the act until we were safely out of the club. And he sure as fuck shouldn’t have muttered my real last name.
Even if we had finished this case and Sabella and his team were behind bars, my name and undercover involvement with this operation should have continued to stay under wraps. Hell, five, ten, fifteen years from now, my identity should still be kept locked tight in the vault.
“But you know how it goes. Just stay put, and we’ll get you all squared away.”
I glanced discreetly around the room, praying we were far enough away that no one else had heard.
But I spotted Chastity quickly, standing a few feet away, her hands secured behind her back, and her usually friendly green eyes looked a lot less affable.
Goose bumps rolled up my spine in strong, ominous waves.
Oh fuck.
The early morning sun shimmered off the windshield of my Tahoe, and a yawn escaped my throat as I turned out of my subdivision and onto the main road.
I’d planned on running a few errands—the bank, the dry cleaners, that sort of thing, but it only took five minutes into my drive to realize I needed coffee before I could even attempt to conquer productivity.
I pulled into Wawa, the mecca of gas stations turned convenience stores, and parked a few spaces down from the entrance.
The instant I stepped through the doors, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee assaulted my nostrils, and I knew I’d made the right call.
A man on a caffeine mission, I headed toward the self-serve coffee station, filled an extra large cup with Wawa’s special breakfast brew, and stirred in two packets of sugar and a dash of whole milk.
“Cam Mitchell? Is that you?” someone called from behind me just as I popped a lid over my cup, and I turned on my heels to find a young guy with ginger hair sporting a T-shirt with our Mavericks logo emblazoned across his chest.
The instant we locked eyes, he grinned like a loon.
“Holy shit! It is you!” he practically shouted as he strode toward me.
Luckily, the store had only four customers milling about inside, and his excitement didn’t manage to draw any sort of crowd.
It wasn’t that I disliked meeting fans. Quite the contrary, in fact.
I just preferred to be noticed outside of an establishment. The last thing I wanted to do was screw up the normal flow of someone’s business.
“Hey, man,” I said and offered a welcoming smile. �
��How’s it hangin’?”
“Dude! I can’t fucking believe it!” he exclaimed as he bobbled his phone out of his pocket and into his hands. “My buddies are going to lose their shit when they find out I met Cam Mitchell!”
His enthusiasm pulled a chuckle from my throat.
“I’m such a huge fan, dude. You have no idea. Mind if I get a picture with you?” he asked, and I nodded without hesitation.
“Of course.” In the spirit of getting a good shot, I wrapped my free hand around his shoulders.
He held his phone out in front of us, and we both grinned into the camera as he snapped a photo.
“Holy shit,” he muttered as he stared down at the permanent evidence of our impromptu meet-and-greet on the screen of his phone. “This is fucking nuts. Thank you so much, dude. You just made my whole year.”
“Anytime,” I said and patted him on the shoulder. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Fucking Cam Mitchell in Wawa,” he said with a grin. “What a start to my morning.”
“The feeling is mutual, man. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
“You too,” he said, and just as he exited the main doors, he shouted, “Go Mavericks!” over his shoulder.
I grinned. No doubt about it, Mavericks fans are the best fucking fans.
With my coffee in one hand, I snagged a fresh banana from a small produce basket and headed toward the checkout line.
My stomach growled, and I decided to peel into the sweet fruit while I waited for the cashier to ring up the two customers in front of me.
I took a bite, moved my gaze toward the long rows of magazines and newspapers displayed on racks near the front door, and stopped when an article in the New Jersey News stared at me from across the store. The bold capital letters of the headline jumped tauntingly from the page.
With the banana already halfway in my mouth, I froze.
The picture on the front, well, it might as well have hopped right off the page and smacked me across the face.
Lana.
My breath got tangled up inside my lungs as the shock of seeing her again, even in a photograph, rolled through my body.
It’d been two weeks. Two long fucking weeks since she’d ended things and left me no choice but to walk away for good.
And ever since then, time had felt like it passed by at the pace of a fucking sloth.
I’d forced all of my focus onto football and conditioning my body into tip-top shape for the start of the season. Extra practices with our offensive coordinator, hours of cardio, and nearly double the amount of weight-lifting sessions of the rest of the team, I’d been doing everything in my power to think about anything else but her.
But she always seemed to be there, sitting in the back of my mind, thoughts of her ready to pounce during the quiet moments of my day.
And, now, she was here. Her face staring back at me from a photo in a newspaper.
What the fuck?
“Excuse me?” the clerk called from behind the register, startling me out of my trance and making me half choke on a huge bite of banana as it broke off in my mouth.
“Sorry,” I mumbled around the food, pushing myself forward to present my coffee and half-eaten fruit for payment. Another quick glance at the offending paper and I spoke without thinking. “And a New Jersey News, please.”
She glanced briefly over at the rack of papers before ringing it up and then hit the button to complete the transaction.
“Five forty-six.”
I dug mindlessly in my pocket for cash, pulled a ten from the stack and handed it to her, and then held out a hand for the change. I didn’t look as she placed it there, instead staring at the paper with the picture of Lana front and center.
All the mysteries of our relationship, solved.
Just like that.
I moved from the register toward the door and grabbed the paper on the way out. The ink bled onto my fingertips, but something a lot more painful bled into my heart.
The truth.
Detective Lana Simone Brings Down Ring of Prostitution and Drugs
The truth, I feared, was that I’d never known Lana at all.
“And then it says that she’s been undercover, working the inside of the operation for six months. Her life, her identity, all of it changed for the greater good of the Hudson Valley.”
I scoffed as Lucky licked at his snout.
Errands completely forgotten, I’d arrived home a good thirty minutes ago with only a coffee and a New Jersey News. Thanks to my queasy stomach, the rest of the banana hadn’t made it out of the parking spot.
And now, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fucking article in my hands. I couldn’t stop pacing the floor of my living room and rereading it over and over again.
“Of course, it’s impressive. But what was I? What were you? Just collateral damage?”
Lucky woofed, and I nodded at his keen sense of observation. “Yeah. It fucking stings, buddy.”
I plopped down onto my sofa, and my meatball of a canine took that opportunity to pounce. He hopped his big ass up onto the cushions and made himself comfortable beside me.
I sighed as he nuzzled deeper into my lap, and I tossed the paper to the side. It hit the hardwood floor with a soft whoosh.
That fucking article had gone on and on about Marco and his underground operation, but for as much as it talked about him, it talked about Lana more.
Her well-decorated time with the force.
Her family’s dedication to service.
How police work was a passion she’d been living for pretty much her entire life, and how her smart moves and superior instincts had made all the difference in cracking this case wide open.
It painted a beautiful picture of her, one she deserved without a doubt. Unfortunately, my view of the colors, the strokes, the lines—every aspect of it—was tainted by an ugly cloud of deceit.
If only she’d been willing to give me just a glimpse of it herself.
Just a hint of the real her.
I thought I’d gotten a piece of her, if only for a short time, but boy, did this article prove me wrong.
I felt like I’d spent days and nights in my bed with an imposter.
And I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever seen the real Lana at all.
“It’s safe to say Sabella won’t be an issue for us anymore,” Sergeant Miller said from behind his desk, and I nodded.
It’d been nearly three weeks since we’d put the kibosh on Marco Sabella, and today, I sat inside my sergeant’s office for one final discussion of the case.
“I’m just glad six-plus months of wearing stilettos and getting money shoved in my underwear paid off.”
“I’m sure you are.” He chuckled softly and leaned back casually in his chair. “I’m happy we ended up closing the door on Sabella sooner than I’d expected.”
To be honest, I was too.
I’d been surprised when our team had raided Skins and taken Marco and his associates into custody.
It hadn’t been the initial plan.
But as I’d later discovered, out of what was most likely concern for me, Steve had stepped in and not only urged Sergeant Miller to make our move a lot sooner, but he’d also managed to bring two of our possible informants into custody on his last patrol shift before the raid.
With serious drug charges hanging over their heads, they’d thrown Marco under the bus and given us all of the information we’d needed to tie up our loose ends.
Even though Steve could be a real pain in my ass some days, he always had my back, and for that, I was grateful.
If only the case could have ended before I broke things off with Cam…
“You did good, Simone,” Sergeant Miller said, and it felt like irony at its finest. “I think it’s safe to say we can officially lock this case in the vault.”
Sure, I’d done good. With one of the hardest undercover assignments that had ever been executed within the Hoboken Police Department, I’d managed to put an end t
o one of the biggest drug and prostitution rings the East Coast had witnessed in the past thirty years.
Not only had I helped put an end to Marco Sabella, not only had I helped make our little Hoboken community safer, I’d also helped provide the DEA with the much-needed information about his South American source, the Cortalona Cartel in Venezuela.
Yes, I had done good.
But that word felt wrong in comparison to how I truly felt.
Fucking lousy.
“Thanks, Sarge,” I responded and pushed a small smile to my lips.
It’d been twenty days since we’d finished the case, and still, I couldn’t seem to muster the satisfaction and happiness I would’ve expected to feel with Marco Sabella behind bars.
Sergeant Miller stared at me from behind his desk, and instantly, I felt the mood shift.
“Well,” he started, and my stomach dropped to my feet at the lack of lightheartedness in his tone. “I guess it’s on to the difficult shit.”
“Difficult shit?” I asked, equal parts perplexed and concerned.
“Now that the media has connected your name and undercover work to the arrest of Marco Sabella, we need to take extra precautions.”
Fucking hell. I had a feeling I knew where this was going, but that didn’t mean I had to admit it.
“Extra precautions?”
Fucking Deluva and his big fat fucking mouth. Had he kept his cool and not said my last name during the raid on Skins, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
But instead, he’d gone against protocol, and Chastity, one of the strippers, had overheard just enough to figure out I’d been undercover the whole time.
Everything had gone tits up after that.
Chastity had taken it upon herself to break the exclusive on my undercover role and involvement with the Skins raid, and I was outed to the public within a matter of days of Marco Sabella being put behind bars.
As her sights always had been set on saving up enough money to move to Hollywood and become an actress someday, I had a feeling her need to provide the media with classified information was more about achieving her fifteen minutes of fame than anything else.
